Can Marriage Counseling Help With Trust Issues? 5 Ways Therapy Can Save Relationships

Are you struggling to rebuild trust in your relationship? Can marriage counseling help with trust issues? Discover 5 ways a good counselor can help you regain and rebuild trust in your marriage.

Can marriage counseling help when trust is broken in a relationship? Our answer: Yes and Nol.

Let’s start with the ‘No’ answer. If you think counseling will work like a magic wand and make all the problems in your relationship go away, you are mistaken.

I realize no one says this outright. Yet, we tend to think doing one thing (in this case counseling) our marriage will automatically improve. It’s more of a faulty thought process than an overt wrong belief.

Counseling serves a purpose. We will look at five ways it can help put your relationship on the right track below. The thing to keep in mind is you have to do the work in order to build (rebuild) trust in your marriage. It is not automatic and a professional counselor will not take the place of you putting solid prinicples in place to reconnect and rebuild a healthy relationship.

Here’s a list of reasons to be cautious and practical when it comes to marriage therapy.

Now for the ‘Yes’ answer; counseling can help couples identify and work through problems. Just remember, the work is your part. Counselors, in my opinion, are useful to help you understand what is happening in your marriage.

Unfortunately, we misdiagnose the real problems in our relationship. Then we implement the wrong process to make things better. To properly diagnose your marriage crisis, you need to understand the eight stages of a marriage crisis mentioned by Dr. Lee Baucom.

So, marriage counseling can help if you approach it with the right mindset and expectations.

Anatomy Of A Trust Issue

What exactly do we mean by trust issues?

Trust issues can be rooted in our past experiences and manifest as insecurity, suspicion, or lack of faith. Trust issues can affect relationships by creating an atmosphere of doubt and not enough communication in the present moment.

When trust is lacking people are not open to connect on a meaningful level, often resulting in negative cycles that prevent meaningful connections from forming both within the relationship and with others.

Creating a trusting bond between two people is like building a bridge over a gulf – each person must contribute effort to help steady each other as they move toward meeting in the middle. Tightening the bonds on either side steadies the bridge and serves to strengthen it against any future turmoil that passes underneath it.

But if either side fails to add their input and bring strength to their side then eventually one whole half may collapse into the water below- bringing with it all its passengers clinging on for dear life.

In order to restore faith, individuals should be willing to work diligently together so that trust can once again form as strong as steel instead of fragile sandbags prone to crumbling away when put under pressure.

Open dialogue and patience are key ingredients needed during this process and should be practiced until confidence has been fully restored on both sides of the bridge.

Marriage counseling is a potential solution for couples who are experiencing difficulty building the bridge. In the section below, we delve into five ways individual therapy can support your work on building bridges to reconnect and rebuild trust in your relationship.

In a research study conducted by Amanda Kepler at St. Catherine University school of social work, she concluded that couples counseling has a positive impact on marriage satisfaction.

Spouses who participated in marital or couples counseling will have a higher level of marital satisfaction and less likelihood of divorce than spouse who did not participate in marital or couples counseling.

How marriage counseling can help couples with trust issues

As mentioned above, keeping healthy expectations is important when considering marriage counseling.

Here are five ways therapy can help you build trust and create a more secure relationship:

1) Marriage Counseling Provides a Safe and Neutral Space To Discuss Issues

Marriage counseling can provide an environment in which couples can tackle their trust issues. It is a unique therapeutic setting where both partners feel like they are part of the process and that it’s fair.

Let’s be honest. When trust issues in relationships are present it often creates a sense of hostility. This is where a neutral party can help.

The family therapist creates this neutral and safe space so they can openly express their thoughts and feelings without as much fear of being judged or dismissed.

Imagine this safe space is like a buffer between two opposing forces. Each person can explain why they feel a certain way without worrying about retribution from their partner. It is also an opportunity to think about what aspects of the relationship have been lost and how to repair them, either independently or with the help of a marriage counselor.

The goal when working on building trust is not just to tell your partner what you expect, but understanding why you expect it and what triggers can trip up the fragile balance of rebuilding mutually respectful relationships.

This is why providing a safe zone is key to both partners feeling seen, heard, understood and supported in ways outside conversations don’t offer alone.

2) Relationship Therapy Helps Identify Underlying Causes Of Trust Issues

Relationship therapy can be thought of like a puzzle. All the pieces, representing the emotions and interactions within your relationship, have gotten scattered, misplaced, and hidden. It’s only by looking for them can you put them back together in a way that makes sense.

Underlying issues are often the culprits that are causing lack of trust. Maybe it’s a lack of communication or insecurity perpetuated by another factor in your life, such as job stress or illness.

Uncovering these pieces is one of the key ways a couples counselor helps – it helps you to think about things differently and make connections that maybe weren’t clear before.

Finally, sometimes its just a lot easier to talk things out with someone impartial who isn’t steeped in history or emotions like family or friends may be. Being able to express yourself freely is hugely beneficial when navigating tough topics like trust issues.

3) Counselors Offer Tools and Strategies to Improve Communication Which Helps Rebuild Trust

I look at marriage counselors as building contractors. They have access (and knowledge) to tools, programs, and resources most married couples are not aware of.

When couples find themselves in the position of rebuilding trust, counseling can offer an invaluable solution. Counselors provide couples with the tools and strategies to improve communication, setting them on a path towards emotional reconciliation.

The tools and strategies provided by a counselor are first used to gain understanding with one another. Counselors teach their clients how to make safe requests and offer different ways of speaking in order to keep conversations positive.

Clients also learn ways on what not to say or do in order to prevent further mistrust while rebuilding relationships.

By utilizing these tools, couples begin learning how to express themselves without fear of judgment or interruption. Both partners become better listeners which creates an atmosphere where feelings can be discussed openly so that each person is heard.

Using constructive means of communication allows for mutual understanding regardless if there is a shared decision or not at the end of discussion. When those exchanges become regular occurrences because of the assistance from counselors, true healing can begin as a couple begins trusting each other again.

This is our #1 recommendation (even before relationship counseling) for couples in crisis.

4) A Good Marriage Counselor Can Address the Pain and Hurt in Your Marriage

In marriage, as in many areas of life, it’s easy to become distracted by the superficial – what we can see and immediately address.

Just like with physical injury, however, if you want to effect lasting change or healing, you must go deeper and identify the source of the pain.

A marriage is like a body: the health of one part impacts the health of the other. When something is wrong, it’s important to go to the source of the problem and address it. Just like if you have a broken bone, you don’t just paint over the injury with a plaster bandaid—you fix what’s causing the pain so that it can heal properly.

Pain and hurt can accumulate over time if we don’t address it head-on. It can manifest itself in covert ways too, leading to things like nagging, arguing and resentment. If something is eating away at us inside, we won’t be able let our guards down long enough to really connect with our partner or even communicate well in general.

The only way to bring any kind of lasting healing and resolution is to identify where the hurts started and work together as a team—with both spouses actively engaged—to heal them.

Marriage counseling can help couples address this pain and traumatic experiences in order to work towards rebuilding trust in their relationship.

Suggested: Healing Emotional Scars In Your Marriage

5) Therapy Can Help Foster Deeper Understanding Of Your Partner

Understanding your partner is vitally important for a successful relationship. When we practice empathy, we’re allowing ourselves to take the time to consider their perspective on a situation or topic.

It can help us better comprehend why they feel how they do and ultimately better connect with our partner.

Aside from helping us to build stronger bonds, practicing empathy can bring a world of benefits:

• We learn effective communication strategies that can be used in any setting
• We’re able to more clearly understand our partner’s needs
• We gain new insights into our own emotional responses
• It encourages mutual respect between both parties
• Trust levels can increase dramatically

The list goes on and on! Practicing empathy helps us create meaningful relationships that last and foster deeper connections with those around us.

This is one of the benefits of marriage counseling; a skilled counselor will help you uncover the real needs in your life (as well as your partner) so you can begin the work of reconnecting.

What Else?

Trust is essential for any relationship to thrive, but it can be hard to achieve when there has been a breach of trust in the past. When one partner feels betrayed by the other, they may become suspicious and untrusting of their partner’s words and actions.

This lack of trust can create tension in the relationship and lead to further misunderstandings.

Marriage counseling provides an opportunity for couples to explore their feelings about trust in a safe environment with a trained professional mediator.

The counselor will provide guidance on how each partner can express themselves honestly while still respecting the other person’s feelings.

This will allow both partners to feel heard and understood which is essential for building trust between them again.

Where To Find Help