"My husband cheated on me. We've had counseling and we are currently not ending our marriage, but I still don't trust him. What can I do?"
"My wife ran our credit card up to the point of putting us in financial jeopardy. She is getting help with this now, but how can I ever trust her again?"
"My husband brought us to financial ruin with his gambling addiction. I love him and I don't want to leave him, but I feel I can never trust him again. How can we continue our relationship without trust?"
These are very difficult challenges in a relationship. Trust is such an important issue that when it is lost, it can wreak havoc in a relationship. However, there is a way to know whether or not you can currently trust your partner -- but it might not be what you think.
The way to know whether or not your partner is currently trustworthy is to learn to trust yourself.
When I work with clients who have been betrayed in their relationship, I always ask, "Did you have a sense that something like this was going on and did you ignore it?" Invariably, the answer is, "Yes. I knew it but I didn't trust myself. I thought I was just being insecure or paranoid."
There may be times when you might be coming from insecurity or paranoia, but much of the time the information you are picking up is real and valid.
While you don't have control over whether or not your partner will betray you again, what you do have control over is whether or not you trust yourself. Often, what my clients fear the most is being betrayed again and not knowing it. Most people hate being blindsided. But, much of the time, you CAN know it.
The reason you can know it is that energy is non-local. That means that we can pick up energy from a distance. I'm certain that many of you have had the experience of thinking about someone and then a few minutes later receiving a call from them. Or you knew the moment someone you loved died, even when they were at a distant location.
When you are willing to stay tuned into yourself and trust your feelings, you can experience a sense of "knowing" when something is wrong. You are actually picking up the energy of your partner's choices. When you learn to trust yourself, it will be hard for your partner to hide his or her choices.
How often have you "felt" that your partner was lying to you but you let him or her talk you out of your knowing?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." I love this quote. It is saying exactly what I'm saying here -- that instead of focusing on trusting your partner, focus on learning how to trust yourself.
You might want to explore what happened to you as a child that led to you to not trusting yourself. Was your knowing ridiculed? Were you taught that, as a child, you can't possibly know the truth? When I voiced my truth, I was often told by my mother, "Don't be ridiculous." Many of us were systematically trained to mistrust ourselves, which is very sad.
I had to re-learn to trust myself to know how to live. Now, instead of focusing on trusting others, I focus on trusting myself -- my feelings, my inner knowing, my intuition, my spiritual guidance. This lets me know immediately whether or not I can trust another.
As you learn to trust yourself, you will know whether or not your partner is trustworthy. By knowing this, you will be able to make decisions about what is in your highest good regarding your relationship.
Learn how to trust yourself. Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Frequency: Connect With or Deepen Your Connection With Your Spiritual Guidance & Learn The Art of Manifestation."