We have been together for a long time. When we first met, we knew that we had much in common and that we would be able to heal from the hurts of other past relationships through our time together. However, over the course of our relationship, it has become more and more difficult for us to trust each other. It seems that you believe that I am going to cheat on our relationship and that I would not respect or honor our commitment to one another. At first, I thought that some of your actions to keep me to yourself were out of love and it seemed that you must really care about me. Now, your possessiveness feels like you don’t trust me. It is no longer a good feeling. This mistrust could cause our marriage to be in trouble (Buehlman, Gottman, Katz,1992). The proposed change is for both of us to find a way to be more secure in our relationship. I am very puzzled about why you feel that you need to check up on me or limit my interactions with other people. I was very hurt when you installed a GPS in my phone to be able to see where I am at all times. Here are some of the thoughts I have had about our situation.
I thought that we had a strong commitment within our relationship that indicated our mutual values.
The strength of our relationship can be predicted based in part because of our mutual values (Kurdek and Schnopp-Wyatt, 1997).
I have made a commitment to you to be faithful and I have assumed that you believed my commitment as I have believed yours (Mollering, 2005).
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I have never given you a reason to mistrust me but when you want to track me down or forbid me from going places, I don’t understand what is causing you to react in this way.
You can trust me because future actions within a relationship can be predicted by past actions (Kurdek & Schnopp-Wyatt, 1997).
Trust is not based on words but on actions (Kurdek & Schnopp-Wyatt, 1997).
When you track me or deny me permission to do things, I feel like a child. I do not like having this feeling in my relationship with you.
When you treat me like a child, you appeal to the “child” in my personality and I find myself behaving like a child (Johnsson, 2011).
When you attempt to “parent” me by monitoring what I do and requiring me to get permission, you force me into wanting to rebel like a child. If I rebel, you will perceive me as breaking a trust and the problem we are having will get worse (Johnsson, 2011).
I would be more willing to understand your lack of trust in me if I did not feel that you were expecting me to violate a trust (Mollering, 2005).
My first proposal is that we explore what it is that is causing you not to trust me.
I have done nothing to cause you to not trust me. Therefore, your fear that I will cheat on you must be something inside of you that really has nothing to do with me. You are projecting something onto me that is not accurate (Valliant, Bond, & Valliant, 1983).
The ability to trust begins in the early stages of childhood. I wonder what has happened in your life that keeps you from trusting (Douvan, 1997),
My second proposal is that we negotiate ways in which we can communicate our concerns and worries without taking extreme measures.
We have a way of talking to each other that causes problems to escalate (Gottman, .1993).
We need to learn some rules of communication that keep us from making our conflicts worse by the things we say (Gottman, 1993).
My third proposal is that we seek some help in addressing the issues of trust that have arisen in our relationship (Abrahamson, Hussain, Khan, and Schofield, 2012).
It will be important to get help from someone who understands the dynamics of trust in marital relationships (O’Donohue & Ferguson, 2006).
I am afraid that we will not be able to communicate effectively about our problems without fighting (O’Donohue & Ferguson, 2006):.
- Abrahamson, Hussain, Adeel Khan, and Margot J. Schofield (2012). What Helps Couples Rebuild Their Relationship After Infidelity? Journal of Family Issues November 2012 33: 1494-1519, first published on October 21, 2011 doi:10.1177/0192513X11424257
- Buehlman, K. T.; Gottman, John, Katz, L. F. (1992). “How a couple views their past predicts their future: Predicting divorce from an oral history interview”. Journal of Family Psychology 5 (3–4): 295–318.
- Douvan, E (1997), “Erik Erikson: critical times, critical theory”, Child psychiatry and human development 28 (1): 15–21.
- Erwin, P.G., Salter, K., and Purves, D.G. (2001) Attachment style, family, and romantic relationships. Psychological Reports. Volume 88, Issue , pp. 1251-1252.
- Gottman, J.M. (1993). The roles of conflict engagement, escalation, and avoidance in marital interaction: A longitudinal view of five types of couples, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61(1), 6-15.
- Johnsson, R. (2011). Transactional analysis psychotherapy: Three methods describing TA group psychotherapy. International Journal for TA Research, 2(2).10.2466/pr0.2001.88.3c.1251
- Kurdek, L. A.; Schnopp-Wyatt, D. (1997). “Predicting relationship commitment and relationship stability from both partners’ relationship values: Evidence from heterosexual dating couples”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23 (10): 1111–1119.
- Mollering, G. (2005) The Trust/Control Duality: An Integrative Perspective on Positive Expectations of Others. In: Int. Sociology, September 2005, Vol. 20(3): 283–305. 2005.
- Vaillant, G. E., Bond, M., & Vaillant, C. O. (1986). An empirically validated hierarchy of defense mechanisms. Archives of General Psychiatry, 73, 786-794.
