Where to start looking
I do not trust them the way I used to
You check things you never used to check.
They have apologised, and the apology did not do what apologies used to do.
You are tired of being the one who has to decide.
Trust returning is not the same as trust resuming
People wait for the old feeling to come back. It generally does not. What can be built is a different kind of trust, made deliberately rather than assumed, and it takes work from both people. Whether that is worth building is a real question with a real no available.
Vigilance costs something
Watching for the next thing is exhausting and it changes who you are in the relationship. That cost is worth counting, whatever you decide.
The decision is not yours to make alone, and it is partly yours
Repair needs two people. You still get to decide whether you are one of them.
What this usually connects to
- What has actually changed in their behaviour, as opposed to what has been said.
- What you would need to see, specifically, over what period.
A question worth sitting with
- If nothing further went wrong for a year, would you expect to feel differently?
The session works through what happened and what, if anything, you want to build from here.
After trust has been brokenIt is a conversation, not a questionnaire. You can stop at any point, and finishing it does not mean anything has to change.
If the question turns out to be a different one
This is reflection, not therapy or couples counselling, and it is written for one person thinking alone rather than for two people in difficulty.
If anyone is at risk of harm, stop the exercise. Safety comes before reflection and before any conclusion this page might reach.