Having a trusting relationship means you and your partner never let each other down ever, right? WDMP Podcast listeners know the answer to that one…no way! So what does it mean when we talk about trust in a partnership? Today’s listener question leads us right down that path, unpacking the many different kinds of trust there can be, making explicit agreements and setting expectations, and what to do when your partner goes into defensive mode.

If you haven’t already, make sure to listen to the other episode that we mention in the show, Why Do I Feel So Bad When My Partner Gets Disappointed or Mad at Me?

Quotes:

"most of us, in most of our relationships, we're having ruptures daily. And if we're doing relationship well, we're catching some of those...and we're making repair."

"there's no breach of trust or betrayal without an actual agreement that we both said yes to."

"Projection is when I take a feeling that I know very intimately and put that on you."

This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."

Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.

Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact

If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events

Welcome to the Why Does My Partner podcast.

I'm Jules.

I'm Vicki.

And I'm Rebecca.

We're your hosts.

We're also couples therapists and messy humans bumbling through our own relationships every day.

We

met at a training, and our secret sauce is that we, and our partners, became fast friends.

Between us, we have more than 40 years of experience holding hard relational questions with our clients.

We're going to bring those questions here.

And together,

we're going to take a stab at answering those questions.

This podcast is not a substitute for couples therapy.

If something you hear in this podcast stirs something deep within you about your relationship, reach out to a

couples therapist in your area.

We also love to hear your questions.

So don't forget to go over to whydoesmypartner.

com to leave a question of your own.

Here's today's question.

Welcome back.

This is Jules.

This is Vicki.

And this is Rebecca.

And today's question is my partner broke trust.

So why does my partner say that they don't trust me?

Ooh,

sweet one.

This one's Molly.

I have a theory.

Go ahead.

Okay, go for it.

I think their own, bad grammar, their own breaking up the trust showed their mind that it's possible, like opened them up to that.

So now they understand that you could be untrustworthy as well because they were untrustworthy.

That was the first thing that came to my mind

when I read this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's definitely a possibility that that's part of what's going on.

I

see a defensive strategy in here for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For sure.

Well, sometimes we don't, we don't look for things until we know it's a possibility.

If you've never seen an apple before, you wouldn't keep an eye out for apples,

right?

It's like when you buy a car, every other car that is the same as yours, that kind of thing.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So it's a salience neural network thing.

So this is a neural network that helps you filter out which information you don't need to be paying attention to and which information you do need to be paying attention to.

So certainly, if you now all of a sudden your salience neural network is wearing, uh, breaking trust colored glasses, you might see that lots of places.

I could buy that.

I could buy that as a possibility.

And um, that doesn't mean you actually are breaking trust.

So, you know, that's one of the questions that I have.

I'm thinking about, um, somebody I was working with recently, a couple, and there was a partner who had broken trust.

And then two days later, the other partner also broke trust.

And so actually both of them had, so I always wanted to like, do we turn on this one?

And was there any other breaking trust that was also happening?

Maybe it is happening on both sides.

Can we slow

down there for a minute?

Because I think when we think about things like breaking trust.

Often, a lot of folks go right to like the big breaking, the breaking big T trust, right?

Like betraying each other, like with having an affair or something along those lines.

But I think we're also not paying attention to like the little T trusts.

Um, you said you were going to be home at 7 o'clock and you didn't get home till midnight.

Or you know, you, you were going to, um.

Vic thinks that's a big tea truss, by the way.

That was

just cool.

Vic thought that was a lot bigger.

No, it was more than that.

I don't

think it was big tea.

Thank you, Jules.

It was more than that.

I wasn't expecting that time frame.

Like, I thought Rebecca would go from 7 to 8.

Sure, she can do that too, right?

But also, like, you said you were going to take care of the bills, and you didn't do that.

Or, you know, you haven't been getting up.

We, we had kids together.

I thought we were going to be in this together, and you haven't been pulling your weight on, I don't know, I'm making dinner every night, and I'm putting the kids to bed every night, and, right?

Like, trust is broken in a million different ways, and probably, for most of us, in most of our relationships, we're having ruptures daily.

Oh, yeah,

for

sure.

And if we're doing relationship well, we're catching some of those and we're talking about them.

Yes.

And we're making repair.

Right?

For sure.

We might not catch them all, but we're going to catch a good chunk of them.

Like, oh.

Yeah.

You know, it's even like smaller than anything I've named.

It's like, oh, you were talking and I talked over you and I didn't really catch that I did that.

Yeah.

And I missed the thing you were talking about.

That's a, that's a betrayal

of trust.

It could be.

It depends on the partnership.

You could do that to me.

Oh, sure.

As long as it wouldn't betray my trust in one bit.

But I like being interrupted.

Right.

Like, I, it feels, I don't mean that silly.

Right, but, but, but

seriously, I cracked Vicki

up right now.

So, let's, let's just say, and like, let's just say, like, I spend a lot of time with you and I get really used to that.

And then I go back to my partner and it's not actually okay with him, right?

And I behave, right.

And so then if I behave with him in the same way and I'm not adapting and resilient to like which relationship am I inside of right now, right, then I'm going to be causing some betrayal there.

Mm hmm.

Well,

could I get like super nuanced on this one, though?

Um, so, there's something sticky.

No, there's something, like, I'm noticing my emotions are going, wow, wow, a little bit.

And I think what's happening as I'm paying attention to that signal inside is that betrayal and trust breaking, I save for when there's been an overt agreement.

And if there has not been an overt

agreement, you may feel

betrayed.

You may feel betrayed.

I'm not telling you're not going to feel betrayed.

Maybe that's the appropriate name for the feeling you're having.

But there's not an overt.

But there wasn't actually a breach of trust or betrayal because there wasn't.

an actual agreement that we both said yes to.

Well,

can I slow us down there again?

Yeah.

Because I think there are some things that, like, folks, let's say, in open or non monogamous relationships do really good about being really explicit and contractual about, that a lot

of folks in heteronormative, monogamous relationships Don't even ever think about, yes,

and take for granted, we're making assumptions all over the place.

And then, so it could be to caller that what's happening is your partner saying, well, you're breaking trust, but they're leaning into

an assumption that they're having about what trust you're breaking.

And we don't actually have a clear agreement or understood what we're expecting to be happening.

Um, so.

So it could be helpful to really dig in there.

I'm like, breaking your trust in what way?

I don't understand, right?

So I think there, I think we could separate out a rupture moment from a breach of trust moment, from a betrayal moment.

I'm having this aha because I'm also realizing, even as I read the question, this is me, this is my own stuff.

I read the question and I hear defensiveness in it, but that could just be me.

And Jules, even hearing you say like the conversation around betrayal, I heard more curiosity in how you turned it.

So let's say it's.

Gabe and him saying, why don't you trust me?

I can get defensive and say, well, you did this too.

And, or you did it first.

Why are you saying that about me?

Or I can turn around and like you said, Jules have this conversation of what are, what are we even talking about with trust?

What happened?

There's a difference in the tone that I think opens up the conversation very differently.

, it opens it up.

Period, I guess I should say.

Like the defensiveness is gonna kind of shut it down.

Yeah.

And the curiosity would open it back up.

Yeah.

Right.

Because the defensive is, is it's like, it's avoiding something.

It's, it's a What about Mm-Hmm.

It's turning things around.

Mm-Hmm.

. It's, it's not Mm-Hmm.

there, there's like, there's, there's a missing.

Um, oh, it's coming to me.

It's like there's a missing settling of like your partner saying like, you broke my trust.

Mm-Hmm.

. And you're turning it around with.

But wait, you first.

Mm-Hmm.

. Or you too, right?

And like, yeah.

What if we just pause with the partner saying like, they don't trust you.

Like what happens?

Mm-Hmm.

. If we just start with, oh, my partner doesn't trust me.

Mm-Hmm.

. What's that mean?

What's that about?

Be and about what?

That's big.

Yeah.

So I also put, what's that about?

Trust on a spectrum.

We're in different categories, if you will.

Mm-Hmm.

. So you can absolutely trust me to not cheat on Adam a hundred percent.

Never gonna happen.

You could sure not trust me, ever, not to interrupt him.

I

like it.

I like the bantery.

I try really hard not to because he hates

it, but he should never trust me to be successful in that.

I really do attempt it.

And I am better than I used to be, I hope.

I'll ask him later.

But, but he should not, so like, what can you trust somebody on and what can't you?

And sometimes I think we use it in this way that's like all or nothing.

Black and white.

Either you trust me or you don't.

Wait a second.

Oh yeah.

You can trust somebody about one thing and not about another thing.

Yeah, and by the way, could

we all be honest with ourselves?

We are not always trustworthy.

Not in all ways, all the time.

Not in all ways, all the time.

I mean,

come on.

How many times have I said, yes, I'll do that thing, and then I forgot?

Oh my God,

totally.

I ran into that just yesterday.

I ended up, this email in my box, I was like.

Thank you for following up, True.

I totally did not remember that I promised to do that.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, totally.

It happens all the time.

All the time.

So, so let's do talk though about the defensiveness because I think that probably is what's going on here.

So your partner had some sort of betrayal trust.

And as part of deflection, as part of getting away from their shame, as part of not wanting to talk about it, of wanting you to get over it, they've

moved into a, in psychology land, it's a fancy word called projection.

Right.

Um, meaning I'm taking a feeling that I know very intimately and then putting that off on you.

Right.

So, yeah, here we are going down the highway looking at some Possible defensiveness that you're dealing with.

And whataboutisms are classic.

It's a really great deflection, isn't it?

We know what I mean, right?

Totally.

Like, well, you broke trust.

Well, what about the times you broke trust?

That's a whataboutism.

Yeah.

Yeah, there is

a

way sometimes though.

It's like, sometimes both are true.

I'm thinking of folks that have come into my office where one really broke trust in like, uh, talking to somebody else in a way that didn't feel okay.

Kind of way.

And the other one broke trust by talking Uh, I told you you could talk to me about everything, but when you talk to me about this, I fall apart and shut down and you can't

really, I'm not actually a safe person for you to even may try to make repair with.

Right.

And so it's like two different kinds of ways of breaking trust.

And both are true.

But one of the issues is that they're trying to tend to them both at the same time.

Totally.

Mm hmm.

We gotta take them one at a time.

I mean, gotta.

I hate to put it in that way, but gosh, it goes better.

Yeah.

That, yeah, that's a good way for

it.

It goes better.

Like, it doesn't land for either of you if it keeps going, Yeah, you did this, and you did this.

You know, or I did this and you did this, and like, nothing's landing.

Give, give one thing a chance to like, Yeah.

Yeah.

Give it, give it a day.

There's something about that settling.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd give it a whole day before you turn to the other side, at least.

And if it's a huge thing, Give it a lot longer than that.

Yeah,

I think one way to do it is to like actually even name that that's what we're going to do like, you know what, sweetie, you're right.

I'm hearing that.

Um, I'm saying that you don't trust me and you're saying that I don't trust you.

And both of those things might be true.

Why don't we start with what you're feeling?

And then in a day or two, we can circle back to this and I can write.

But so we're making that even an explicit contract.

And if we're actually asking for a contract, it's okay for them to say no, and then we can enter into negotiations.

Yeah.

You can really help yourself out if you've got a partner who's doing whataboutisms.

Now let's talk about how.

This is an advanced skill.

It is an advanced skill,

but it is very effective and it works with teens and it works with whataboutisms.

in partnerships and it works with what about it for our therapists and it works with toddlers who are it does it works with toddlers for our therapists and coaches who

are listening it works great with clients as well so the trick with the what about ism is to stay on target so you just keep going with the one thing you've asked the one

thing you're wanting to pay attention to so let's say in this example this partner who wrote in is really wanting to talk about, um, the, the betrayal they're experiencing.

So we bring up, Hey, is this an okay time?

I really am having some big feelings about this thing that happened.

I really need some repair.

Can I share with you the hurt that's going on inside?

Well,

sure.

But you know, you have to realize that I'm also hurt.

You did this thing to me and that's also really hurtful.

I hear you, and you're not wrong, and right now, I really want to talk about what's happening in me.

If you're unavailable for that, I'd love to know when you

will

be.

I always have to listen to what's right for you.

Sure.

Go ahead.

But, you know, when are we ever going to talk about what's hurting me?

Yeah, not right now.

I'd really love to talk about what's happening for me.

And I notice sometimes we divert off of that when I bring it up.

In fact, I don't think we've actually made it through this conversation yet, babe.

So right now I'm really going to hold the line.

I'm going to stay with what's happening in me.

Are you willing to do this?

I'm noticing in me that I have a choice point in terms of how to respond to you and role playing this.

The choice point is either like meet you where you just asked me to meet you

or explode and get even bigger.

Yeah, and you might get exploded and get in there.

And if it's too much for me, I might say, okay, I'll swing back tomorrow and ask again.

Right?

Because I don't want somebody yelling at me necessarily.

So I might actually go ahead and set a bigger boundary around taking some space.

I could just stay on target, stay on target, stay on target.

Yeah,

Jules, tell us how you're doing that because.

Right.

I'm ignoring all other input.

I'm, I'm acknowledging that it happened, but I'm not getting into a conversation

about it.

But there's another piece you're doing in there, right?

You're using your, we're calling, I'm calling it your PBI, right?

Your psychological boundary image.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Talk to us a little bit about that.

Yes.

So I, for, for listeners who know about the psychological boundary image, that's that, um, for me, a wall of jello with pink sparkles in it.

That's mine.

I chuckle

because I literally imagine a pink wall of jello around you or me and it's gross to me because I could just feel it on my skin.

Well, no,

there's space between it.

It sits out in front of me.

It doesn't touch my skin.

I'm so glad

I finally said this to you.

Is that an interesting nuance?

Yes.

It doesn't.

It's just like in a big ball of Jell O that you're in.

Right around her.

Yeah, I thought she was like in it.

Like a big, no.

That's not how it feels for me.

It's more like I'm in a bubble inside the big wall of Jell O.

The wall of Jell O has a separation of air between the edge in front of me.

That's not as gross.

But it's all the way out.

Out here.

Yes.

Right?

Right.

Okay.

So, and generally, it keeps my mind safe.

from other people's minds, and it keeps their minds safe from mine.

And so I don't need to change what my partner is thinking or feeling while they're doing the whataboutism.

But I'm also not going to respond to the whataboutism question.

I'm going to stay on target.

So, in addition to

normal jobs,

well,

the thing is, is that my jello wall is really helping me

out with that.

I'm not saying I'm not getting a little bit irritable, As this is going on, it's just that it's not, it's not like piercing my heart.

Okay.

The fact that, the fact that my partner, my sweet partner is in defense.

Oof, there must be a lot going on in there if that's where we are.

Okay.

I will bear witness to them being that upset, but I'm not letting any of it in like arrows to me.

And I'm just going to pause us here for a second because I want to let our listeners know.

You want to go deeper on this topic of psychological boundary images.

Go back to one of the episodes in our mini series.

It's called, Why Do I Feel So Bad When My Partner Gets Disappointed or Mad at Me?

And in that episode, yes, Vic, that episode.

That magical episode.

We're really talking about psychological boundary.

Boundary images and how to use them.

And Vic and Jules gave a wonderful demonstration about how to dive in with that.

So yeah, these two episodes kind of go together in that way.

And I just want to point people back to that.

They need a little deeper.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And I was thinking if you need a little deeper and you're really interested in deep dive, we have a workshop coming up and we will be talking about

this and helping you find your own image in real time in small groups.

So yay.

Um,

so that's another option.

Right, because like Jules, I, as I just pointed out, I don't have a wall of Jell O around me.

Everybody has their own image.

Right, right.

Mine is a black

wrought iron fence.

Right.

And lots of people's changed through time.

That's normal.

Mine

changes every time.

Mine changes.

Yours changes all the time.

It totally changes.

You have a

flexible image.

Mine has never changed.

What I'm actually discovering is that it does, mine changes, but it also is situational.

Like I always have this Same one with my partner, and I need a really different one with my mama, and I have a different one with my clients.

Oh, that's brilliant.

Like, like it's almost like I, I have different ones for kind of different environments for some reason.

Maybe, maybe it's just a different.

Mm hmm.

Who knows?

I can make up stories.

I don't need to.

It works for you.

It's working.

It works.

It doesn't matter because it works.

So I'm, I'm leaning into my jello wall and it's keeping me

safe from the slings and arrows being thrown at me by my sweet partner, Rebecca over there.

Right?

Yep.

And I'm being actually pretty

curious

about why this

is so hard or what's going on that's making this so hard.

But I've asked my Jell O wall to do a little extra job for me in this moment.

I asked it to please

only let through information if.

It is pertaining to answering the question I am asking, which is, can I share my hurt feelings about the betrayal with you?

If any other answers coming up, I might comment that I heard that that was out there, but I'm not going to engage in that conversation.

So I'm asking my Jell O wall to throw up an extra filter for me, and that can help me really see.

Stay in this on target space around amazing.

I am going to just meet you here in this and it really does work in

real life.

My daughter

did an about what about ISM when she had a very hard moment with not wanting to complete her homework and she was.

Going, what about my feelings?

And what about your care for me?

And what about whether or not you love me?

And don't you want to make me happy?

And she was, what about me?

All over the place.

And I just kept coming back to you.

I totally hear you.

This is super hard love.

We have to figure out what we're going to do with the homework.

You could choose to finish now and it's not complete.

You could turn it in incomplete.

You could, I'm totally here.

I can help you.

Maybe we could do it together and we could finish or I don't know, maybe you need to like tear the paper up and throw it up in the air.

I have no idea.

What are we

going to do?

You don't get it!

I totally, you're probably right.

I bet I don't.

Sweet love, we really need to make a

decision here about what we're going to do about your homework.

Do you just want to be

done

now and we can turn it in incomplete?

Without flipping out.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

We just need to figure out what we're going to do with this homework.

Oh no.

That's where I historically would go.

No.

Right.

That's where I would go historically.

But that's,

that's the thing about this, right?

Because what you're doing is you're holding up your psychological boundary image.

Right?

And you're asking it to help you stay on task and help you stay with this one thing.

And by doing that, you're helping to make this a little safer for yourself so that you can stay more embodied and feel more okayness, right?

It doesn't mean it feels great.

It means that you feel like, yeah, I can do this.

And if you get a signal that this is no longer okay, that you can't do this anymore, take a

timeout.

Yeah.

There was actually a moment tonight where she threw a swat at me and that is not okay.

Right.

Right.

That now we have a physical boundary violation.

So we handled the behavior and I backed up and said, nope, it's not okay to do anger in that way.

Mm hmm.

Do you want to try again?

Right.

But I think what the, what that psychological boundary wall gives us that whatever, mine's a wall of jello, yours is going to be something else.

It could be anything.

Dinosaur, bird.

That was a real one that somebody had in my office.

I don't know what's going to happen.

Right.

Um, but what I'm wondering about.

Is, could that help us see the of coarseness of the situation?

Yeah.

So I answer the reality I'm right in front of.

Of course this is hard.

Of course you are defending the crap out of yourself.

This is a huge thing.

And also, if we're going to make it through this, I need you.

Now, I want to say one more thing before we wrap this up.

It's really hard and deeply unfair, especially if you're the one who's doing this so that you can get repair.

And I cannot make this fair, and I'm so sorry.

I

want to follow that with something.

Well, just, I don't want to encourage a kind of tab keeping.

But, um, also, if there's a great imbalance in terms of who is always initiating repair and who's getting tended to, then that's something that should at the very least be a meta conversation.

Yeah.

Maybe something that you bring to a relationship therapist or counselor to help you work through.

Or practice some deep discernment about,

all

right, let's wrap this up.

We'll see y'all again next week.

Take good care.

Sounds good.

Bye everyone.

Bye.

Bye.

That wraps up this week's episode.

Join us again next week for another, why does my partner,

we hope that you continue to listen wherever you get your audio and that you'll follow the show to

go deeper.

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Go to why does my partner.

com to either write in or record your question

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Take care of each other.

Best you can see you next time.

Yeah.