Trust Building: Focusing on Your Needs and Not Your Partner’s

Trust building  in relationships is very tricky to do especially when something wrong has been done in the relationship by either of the partners. When this happens,  what do you do to earn trust back and make it stronger than before?

Do not be afraid to let your needs be known. This is especially true in situations where one person in the relationship feels the other backing or pulling away from him. Most of the  time, in cases like this, the person who doesn’t feel like his partner is paying attention to him or the marriage goes on an all out crusade to win his partner back.

He does everything he can, everything he thinks his partner wants from him, providing her every need, all in the hopes that she will come back to him. But what usually happens is that she starts to feel smothered by all the attention, or even resentful that he is only doing this now that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, and his efforts to try to win her back backfires. It doesn’t work. Because his motive, whether consciously done or not, of meeting her every need in the hopes that she will return the favor and meet his, doesn’t work. At the end of the day, this kind of tactic is still manipulation. And manipulation is not how you go about in trust building.

The thing is, she avoids or prevents herself from confronting him about this because he is being so nice and caring. And all this avoiding and pretending destroys the trust in the relationship.

So rather than focusing all the attention on your partner, focus on you instead and assess what your needs are that you want your partner to meet. This is one of the ways you can start re-developing the trust you lost in your marriage. Let your needs be known clearly and directly, but always be open to hear out your partner’s needs as well. Be self-centered, but not selfish.

Details of the Affair: Why You Need to Know

What specific details of the affair do you need to move on from your partner’s infidelity? Do you really need to know everything? Or would it be better to leave his infidelity behind and move forward?

There are plenty of ways that people deal with infidelity, but one of the most common is by asking to know the details of the affair. Asking you partner to tell you what happened and where, when it happened and how often, or even if your partner enjoyed it and how the other person compared to you.

Wanting to know these things is common for individuals who are going through a situation like this. Here are some of the reasons why you feel the need to know the details of the affair. Go over them and reflect on which one applies to your situation.

1. One of the main reasons why you might want your partner to give you the details of the affair is because you want to know if the affair was your fault or if you caused it. You ask because you want to know if it happened because you didn’t do enough or if you too much, and drove your partner into having an affair. But you should always remember that it is not your fault. Nothing you did or didn’t do justifies your partner’s affair.

2. Another reason is because you want to know what you are up against. You ask your partner to divulge details of the affair and other person because you want to know how you measure up. It can also give you an indication on how much this other relationship means to your partner – is he too deeply involved already or will he be able to let it go easily? Or it can go the other way around, and give you an indication of whether or not you can be able to forgive your partner’s actions once you learn of them.

3. For some couples, knowing about the details of the other relationship, especially details of the sexual encounters, boosts their own sex life. It creates kind of an opening for the couple to explore their hidden sexual desires and fantasies with the objective of proving to your partner that you are just as good or are better than the other person.

Charging Neutral to Develop Trust After Infidelity

Trust after infidelity is very difficult to achieve, but what can you do to make things a little better?

Marriages that have been affected by extramarital affairs will always have a difficult time rebuilding the trust in that’s lost in the relationship. An important aspect that you will have to concentrate on fixing is the way you communicate with each other, especially when there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved which is most likely.

A great way to start rebuilding trust after infidelity this is to charge neutral. The act of charging neutral means that you become aware of how you communicate with your partner, and control it in a way where you will be able to convey what you want to say in a direct, honest and calm manner.

A lot of people have a hard time controlling what they say, especially in the heat of the moment. You can find a lot of different kinds of exercises that you can try to keep this from happening from books or even on other relationship blogs on the internet.

Charging neutral means that you keep yourself from reacting to whatever it is that your partner is saying or doing to you. To develop trust after infidelity, instead of yelling back, being defensive or sarcastic, making snide or rude comments, you remain calm in both your tone and attitude, and you say what it is that you have to say without creating more problems than you already have.

When you remain calm in addressing your problems, you will be able to bring up even your biggest problems out in the open for you to work on without causing a lot of drama. And the best part is, your partner will be able to see the control and the personal power that you have. He or she will be able to rely on this control and trust that you will be able to get through any issues you might have because of it. He or she will know that you will be able to stay calm no matter what, and that you will remain honest and truthful.