If your husband has betrayed you, figuring out how to rebuild trust in a relationship can feel overwhelming. You may even feel pressure, from others or from yourself, to help him rebuild that trust by explaining what you need to feel safe again. However, that can actually put you at risk.

After all, you can’t rebuild trust for him. Trust only grows when he consistently chooses to be trustworthy.

That’s why, if your husband has broken your trust and you want to feel safe with him again, it helps to pause, take a step back, and think strategically. If you need support in the process, attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session to talk to others in similar situations.

THREE WAYS HOW TO REBUILD TRUST IN A RELATIONSHIP

1. UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF TRUST

The first and most crucial step is to understand that you shouldn’t trust someone who isn’t trustworthy. The person who broke the trust is the only one who can repair the damage by changing their actions and demonstrating their commitment to honesty over time.

2. RESIST THE PRESSURE TO TEACH HIM HOW TO BE TRUSTWORTHY

It might seem helpful to tell your partner how to rebuild trust, exactly what they need to do to earn your trust back. But giving instructions like, “text me when you’re late” or “share your location” can create a dangerous illusion of progress when he complies.

He may follow your directions just enough to keep the peace without really changing. Creating a false sense of security and leaving you vulnerable to hurt again.

To find out if he’s using any one of the 19 different types of emotional abuse, take my free emotional abuse test.

3. KNOW THAT EFFORT ISN’T THE SAME AS TRUSTWORTHINESSS

The safest and most effective way to see if your husband becoming trustworthy again is to observe his words and actions over time. Here are some things to look for:

• Has he taken full responsibility of restoring trust without making excuses or pressuring you to reconcile?
• Is he consistent in his words and behaviors?
• Does he show empathy for the pain he caused you?

Keep reading to learn more about how to move forward with clarity, even when you’re not getting answers.

If you’re feeling confused about whether or not your husband is trustworthy, we’re always online to support you. Here’s our daily support group schedule.

Obviously, rebuilding trust after he’s broken it is so hard, and there’s another part of this that’s just as hard. For women of faith, if you’ve been praying and praying for God to help change your husband’s heart, and it’s not happening. That can be so painful, especially when He doesn’t seem to answering prayer for your husband. So if you’re interested in hearing more about this from a faith perspective, here’s my interview with Kirby Kelly.

TRANSCRIPT: HOW TO REBUILD TRUST AFTER BETRAYAL

Anne: Welcome, I have a wonderful guest on today, Kirby Kelly. Kirby is an author and speaker whose book The Fabric of Hope invites listeners into honest reflection on hope and loss without shying away from the depth of human pain.

Her perspective on healing is rooted on both empathy and thoughtful reflection, acknowledging the weight of betrayal, while encouraging steady hope and inner resilience. Kirby, I love that the focus of your book is on when things don’t go quite right. Our audience is interfaith and inner paradigm, so for those of you listening, we’re having a discussion of faith today and the betrayal that a lot of women feel when they’re doing everything right.

They’re reading their scriptures, talking to God, and it’s not going the way they hoped. They’re wondering how to rebuild trust in a relationship with their husband and maybe, even God. So let’s start with what inspired you to write this book?

Kirby: For anyone who doesn’t know who I am, hi, my name is Kirby Kelly. I’m an author, speaker, also a podcaster. We had you on my podcast so people can come over and enjoy and listen to our episode.

I wrote The Fabric of Hope because I have definitely walked through different experiences in my own life of suffering, that I did not ask for. That I did not pray for. It felt like life didn’t just hand me a lemon, but chucked a couple lemons at my face. And being Christian and believing what scripture says about God being good. That was something that I had to reconcile, was the fact that this good, loving, kind, and just God would allow us to go through things that are hard.

FINDING HOPE NO MATTER THE OUTCOME

Kirby: As I thought about what the pattern was in my life. There were moments where there was a lot of bad. A lot of things going on in my life were difficult, but I was able to see God work miraculously, give me hope, weave redemption into those places. And although there are some seasons and situations I wish I didn’t have to go through.

I’m now able to look back with perspective and see how God used all of those things for good and how he is my hope, not my outcome. When I place my hope in Jesus, there’s real redemption that I otherwise might discard and think would never be used for good.

And knowing that a lot of people go through hard things or have gone through hard things, and are also trying to reconcile that, well, is God good? In answering these hard questions, I wanted people to wrestle honestly and wisely with the whys they ask, but also arrive at the same conclusion as me, of knowing, hey, God is a redeemer of all things, and we can live a life full of hope.

Anne: Yeah, oh, I’m so glad you brought that up. So for me, my experience with betrayal brought me closer to God. In interviewing all the women that I’ve interviewed, for some women, it takes them farther away. So our stance here at BTR is that whatever works for you works for us. If church or religion or even God feels unsafe to you and learning how to rebuild trust is not even on your radar, you’re welcome here.

HOW TO REBUILD TRUST WHEN FAITH FEELS UNSAFE

Anne: So if you’re somebody who’s like, you know what, I just can’t. I just wanted to let you know that’s what this will be about. So you’re not like, I don’t want this. ‘Cause so many women, they’ve been so spiritually abused.

So they’ve gone in for help maybe with their betrayal or trauma from what is, essentially hidden abuse. And their clergy has told them that they have to submit more or they have to forgive when they’re really genuinely emotionally unsafe. So for women who have grappled with that and are grappling with betrayal, and wondering, is God there?

And they want God to be there, but they can’t feel him. I’ll just say one more thing from my own personal experience. After my husband’s arrest, I could not feel God at all. Not even a little bit. I prayed, couldn’t feel his comfort, couldn’t feel anything. I was just in intense distress for about nine months, wondering how to rebuild trust in God.

And I would go in my closet sometimes. I would wrap a blanket around me. No matter how hard I prayed, no matter how much I studied the scriptures, I could not feel him. I knew that I would at some point, and so I continued to do it. And I remember this one night, it, I woke up in the middle of the night and for literally like maybe two seconds, I felt comfort for the first time in nine months.

And it was like, okay, he’s there. I think I sat up and I was like. Was that real? Is that just me? And I felt it again and I thought, okay, everything’s gonna be okay. God knows who I am. And then I didn’t feel it again for months.

FINDING HOPE IN THE PATTERNS OF GOD’S FAITHFULNESS

Anne: So it was really, really hard. Just knowing that, and that women are going through this, and that some women really want to hold onto their faith even when they can’t even feel God. Can you share some things that might bring them comfort?

Kirby: As you were talking, I thought of the story of Joseph. Because that’s a story of betrayal. He was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused. imprisoned, and forgotten about. This was his life over the span of decades. Yet, God ended up using it all to save the nations from a famine, These broken pieces of his life that he probably questioned if it could ever be used for anything good, ended up being the very stepping stones that led him to great purpose.

In Genesis 50:20, he even says to the face of the people who betrayed him, and I’m not saying that you have to come face to face and completely reconcile with the people who betrayed you, but in Joseph’s story, he was able to look at the people who put him through what he went through and say, “Hey, what you all intended for evil. God ended up using it all for good.”

Joseph’s pain was real. The betrayal that he went through was real. But it wasn’t final. That wasn’t the end of his story. God was able to redeem that situation.

HOW TO REBUILD TRUST BY HOLDING ONTO WHAT IS STILL TRUE

Kirby: And sometimes we don’t understand the things that we go through or what God has allowed us to go through, until later. And if you’re not getting that clarity at this moment, if you’re not feeling comfort, there are four things that I write about in my book that we can hedge our hope on, and sometimes they might overlap in certain seasons. Other times it might just be one pillar that we stand on. We can hope in the promises of God, we really can. And learn how to rebuild trust in Him.

Another thing that we can hope in is his patterns, and that’s why I bring up the story of Joseph. Because maybe you’re not seeing it happen right here, right now for you, your healing, your deliverance, whatever it is that you’re praying for. We can at least look at the patterns of God’s faithfulness, that he has this pattern of redemption. Maybe it’s not always on our timeline or how we expect, but we can have that hope and that confident expectation that God, you are a redeemer you can redeem this thing too.

Two other things that we can hope in is his presence, that he is with us even when we don’t feel it. That he is near to the brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed in spirit. And then the last thing that we can hope in is his personhood.

And what I mean by that is his character. If God is who he says he is. Then that means he is kind. He is just, merciful, loving. I know that our circumstances can shout at us.

SCRIPTURES HELP BY GIVING EXAMPLES

Kirby: Well, if you’re going through something bad, how can God be good? I know the Christianese answer that maybe you’re tired of hearing is that we live in a broken world, but we do. There are people who are operating out of their own selfishness, and they end up wounding other people.And it’s really sad and unfortunate when we’re the ones on the receiving end of that. God is not the author of evil. He’s the redeemer of it.

He can actually do a good work, because we see that time and time again in scripture. We also have to understand that these people were real people, and probably didn’t have the five-year plan either. They didn’t know what God was up to. I think that can bring us to a place of, okay, if they were able to get through this, that will give me strength and hope to trust in God in my own betrayal story.

Anne: Yeah, and not knowing what that resolution would be. There are so many women who have come to share their story on my podcast, and have talked about this. Many of them have ended up divorced. Many of them are in the middle of it. They don’t really know what their financial situation will be and they’re wondering, “what if I can never trust my husband again?”

They don’t know how it’s going to work out, but they testify, I would say, of God’s love and that their relationship with God improved. I welcome everyone who has been betrayed to come share their story no matter what happened to them.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU HAVE MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

Anne: I was talking to my sister, who is not a believer, and we were discussing our different views on things. And she said, “Well, you’ve never doubted.”

And I thought, yeah, I have, ’cause I’ve been like, where are you, God? But actually, she’s right. I’ve never had a time where I thought, is God actually there? I know other people have, and I totally validate that, but I’ve always known He was there. And so when I couldn’t feel Him, rather than feeling abandoned, I was actually angrier.

Like, I know you’re there. Why are you not talking to me? My experience has always been not so much like thinking He wasn’t there, but more being mad at Him. Like, if you can do anything, what is going on? My experience has been when I’m just totally honest with Him and tell Him how mad I am, it works out really great because He loves our honesty and wants to be there for us while we learn how to rebuild trust.

Kirby: Oh, absolutely. I think we need to be honest with God about what we are feeling and experiencing, honest about our pain. I think about the biblical concept of lament. Lament is like this deep sorrowful, woeful cry. From the depths of our soul.

Like you said, I feel justified in my anger, in my disappointment. I feel justified in wondering why things are going the way they are. One third of the Psalms are lament. I think that’s really telling of the human experience, because I think a lot of people gravitate towards the Psalms when it comes to dealing with hard things, needing hope.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO PRETEND YOU’RE OKAY WHILE LEARNING HOW TO REBUILD TRUST IN A RELATIONSHIP

Kirby: In seasons where they feel like they’re wavering or just trying to navigate something that’s super difficult and unknown to them.There’s even a whole book called Lamentations.

Anne: I’m just now putting two and two together. That it’s literally called Lamentations.

Kirby: This is about weeping and mourning and being like, God, what is going on? In any form of lament I’ve noticed, at least as I’ve studied the laments, because for me, three years ago, this wasn’t necessarily betrayal, but loss. My mom died. And I remember going through the laments and just being like, this is all that I feel like my heart can relate to right now is the God, why? Why are my enemies after me? And why are they pursuing me? Why is everything overcoming me?

In the laments, there’s this honest pouring out of this is everything I’m carrying and feeling and thinking. But what’s beautiful about lament and also beautiful about praise, both end in hope. Praise ends in hope. A lot of the laments, they end on this high note of hope. Of declaring and remembering, okay, but you are good, this is what you have promised, this is what you have done in my life.

This is your record of faithfulness. I’m going to cling onto this because I know that if you were able to bring resolution to those things, then where I’m at right now isn’t the end of the story. So to the person who’s like actually wrestling and maybe grew up in a church environment where you had to fake fine.

HONEST DOUBTS AND QUESTIONS

Kirby: Or you grew up in a community where they didn’t want you to bring honest questions or honest doubts before the Lord and wrestle with those things. We need to wrestle with those things and bring them to the Lord, because he’s not looking for performative Christianity. Especially when it comes to navigating the really hard human things that we go through. We don’t have to edit our emotions before we go to him.

In Psalm 62:8, we are told to pour out our hearts before him. He already knows you’re feeling it and he might be thinking, well, if he already knows I’m feeling it, do it for you. When you begin that open conversation with Him, we can get to a place where we can begin to take the steps of trusting God with the situation and to see his hand at work behind the scenes.

Anne: I think so many women who are experiencing their husband’s betrayal have prayed so much that many are sick of it. They’re like, this isn’t working. I pray for the same thing every day.  They’re not sure how to rebuild trust with someone who isn’t really changing. Also, they’ve been lied to about prayer. I’m gonna say true things that are also lies in this particular situation. So the true thing is God can work miracles. The true thing is God can change people’s hearts.

The true thing is, God can heal people. The lie is that it will happen. And when I say that it’s not that God isn’t capable, it’s that somebody might not want their heart to be changed.

FINDING THE TRUTH THAT SETS YOU FREE

Anne: So then if they hear, “Pray and God will heal you,” which was true. It sounds a lot like pray and God will heal your marriage. So, you have to stay married to this abusive man. but that’s not really what God wants. The Bible isn’t to oppress us and to force us to do things that are really not good for us. It’s for us to find God’s love and to learn how to rebuild trust.

Kirby: Yeah, it really matters contextually these promises that we’re reading about where a person prayed a specific prayer, they prayed for something and they got a certain result.

And it’s easy for us to be like, okay, if I pray that exact prayer, if I do this exact thing, then it’s going to happen exactly like it happened for these people. Or it’s going to turn out the way that I’ve always heard it taught to me. And this is why context matters. Because I think that sometimes we can read scripture and just read one verse and end up with a misinterpretation.

When I think about prayer, we’re told to ask and seek and knock at the door, and it’ll be given to you. But we’re also seeing in scripture, not my will, your will be done. So there is this dichotomy of God can do it. But will He do it?

Will He do it in the way that we expect? Will He do it on our timeline? And will He do it the way that he did it for the person sitting next to you in your small group? Or the person that you just read about in scripture?

HOW TO REBUILD TRUST IN A RELATIONSHIP REQUIRES WILLINGNESS, NOT JUST POTENTIAL

Kirby: And that’s the providence of God, he can do anything that is within his limits of being God. But at the same time, he created man with free will.

Anne: They can be in open rebellion. God could be trying to help them and they are literally like, no God , I’m not doing it.

Kirby: And the whole point of that is because He created us to be in relationship, to give us autonomy, to give us choice, to actually choose how to rebuild trust in our relationships. Because love is a choice, to be in relationship, to give your heart to somebody else. God’s not going to overstep boundaries. He respects boundaries. And I’m thankful God is kind and gentle in that way. But at the same time, God can move in our lives. He’s moved in mine. I’m sure He’s moved in yours and can move in the lives of other people that we are praying for.

But like you said, because he has given us that autonomy, we all have that choice. And as much as that can be so frustrating for us who are praying for the breakthrough, the miracle, or the relationship to be restored. It can be warped in a way to think, well God, you’re not good for not doing this. If he’s not changing the heart of the other person, I think a prayer that we can begin to pray is, “God, what do you wanna change within my heart? What do you wanna change within my prayers?

What is something different or new that you want to do, that you want to reveal to me to start praying for?”

RELEASING EXPECTATIONS

Kirby: I mean, keep praying for it if you want to, if you feel that conviction to, but maybe there’s a new perspective or a shift, maybe it looks different, so maybe that’s something to start preparing your heart for, but that doesn’t make it bad, it’s probably going to be greater than the thing that we’re putting expectation in. We can put expectation in God to answer, move, work, redeem, but we also need to release expectation of what that might look like, especially when other people who have their own will are involved.

Anne: I’m smiling because the way you describe it sounds extremely nice. For me, it’s more like, “God, I’m so mad at you.”

Kirby: Yeah.

Anne: You are driving me crazy. I know you can do this, and you are not doing it.

Kirby: Oh, trust me. I feel that.

Anne: And in that moment I’m so frustrated.

Kirby: That’s real. I’ve been there too, but God is so kind that even when I’m showing up with any attitude, any anger, or any emotion, whatever it is, he’s not trying to get me to the next thing, even though I’m like, get me to the next thing. He’s like, we just need to walk right now. And there’s a lot of grace in the slow down pace of trying to heal us that often we don’t realize. Until oh yeah, You were doing something deeper in this whole situation that I ever could have thought. And He’s not an I told you so kind of God.

Anne: No.

MOTHER TERESA AND GRATITUDE

Kirby: I’m glad you see it now kind of God. And I’m thankful for that.

Anne: Yeah, and I’m like, wow, He really loves me, like literally loves me so much because I am like 98% lamentation and maybe 0.001% praise. And I don’t know what the other part is. Maybe like mild, thank you, gratitude, maybe that’s what it is. But I’m so much more lamentation than praise. So I’m happy to hear that at least that’s getting me somewhere.

Kirby: Well, hey, you relate to a lot of the people in scripture.

Anne: I was reading about Mother Teresa the other day. There’s a book, I haven’t read it yet, but I just read the book cover. So I don’t know what I’m talking about. But it was by a nun who worked with Mother Teresa for most of her life, and she said that Mother Teresa felt abandoned and angry with God most of her life.

And she personally knew her. Not angry in a, I’m not gonna do your work kind of way, but just like, why is this happening? And I thought, oh, I need to read this book, because Mother Teresa and I, I’m not saying I’m as good as she was or anything like that, but I was like, we have some stuff in common.

I relate to this and think this idea, and I’ll call it more spiritual abuse, that “righteous women,” maybe talk a certain way or look a certain way, or they wouldn’t be angry with God or they wouldn’t wrestle with some things. I think it is a disservice to women, because they don’t realize all the different options they have to interact with, because I’m Christian too, our Savior, or with God.

SPIRITUAL ABUSE CAUSES LACK OF TRUST

Anne: I think opening it up to realize that the maybe there’s more to our relationship with Him than the spiritually abused way of seeing Him, that people use so that you aren’t getting out of your lane. So that they could keep you in the spot they wanted to keep you in. I’m not talking about all religious leaders or anything. But, abusive men do this quite often. There are so many options than you knew to have a relationship with God, I think is really important for women who want it. They want to know how to rebuild trust.

Kirby: I wanna add that for women who have gone through spiritual abuse, specifically by their husbands or ex-husbands, maybe that was even affirmed in leadership in the church. And you have this anger towards this patriarchal God. The more and more I’ve studied it, God loves his daughters, He fights for his daughters, He sees his daughters, He interacts with his daughters, he invites his daughters.

And so if you can get to know God as a father, a perfect father. Not your father, not the man you married and how he treated your kids, not the father of your church.

Anne: Yeah, thank you. I couldn’t agree more. There’s so many instances in the New Testament of Christ treating women in ways that were absolutely…

Kirby: Ludicrous to society.

Anne: Yeah, and so he was a disruptor. He was definitely not the poster child for institutional obedience. That’s for sure. I love that about Him.

Kirby: You wanna know who God is? Look at Jesus. He is the word of God, the heart of God, like the Son of God walking around.

Anne: Yeah, I love that. You are amazing. Thank you so much.