When distrust enters a relationship, it’s hard to restore what you used to feel for your partner. When it happens between friends, the easy way out is to maintain distance, but when it happens between intimate partners, it takes a toll on the entire relationship.
It is necessary to understand where the feelings of distrust are coming from otherwise, it is easy to blame your partner for it and believe they are cheating on you even when they are not. The feelings of paranoia make you put restrictions on your partner, demand information on what they are doing, and even spy on them. This is often the beginning of the end of a relationship. It’s not just infidelity; distrust in a relationship can come from past traumatic life events too, such as loss of a loved one, an accident, or an illness.
Effects of distrust on couples
The moment you feel that your partner has failed you, you repurpose a cause for that failure and subconsciously make a prediction that they will fail you again. Once the wheel of distrust starts, you naturally start avoiding them. Lots of couples are living this secret battle. They start acting like opposing forces that flow in different directions.
According to a research article called ‘The Price of Distrust: Trust, Anxious Attachment, Jealousy, and Partner Abuse’, individuals who have lower levels of trust monitor and occasionally even test their partner’s support and responsiveness. This may happen because the person believes that their partner might leave the relationship for a better alternative. Hence, when there is a lack of trust in a relationship, it allows for the development of cognitive patterns like suspicion, negative attributions, and jealousy.
Eventually, these suspicions turn into obsessions. In the end, a battle of reproaches start and the blame game begins. It’s because of this obsession and fear of infidelity that couples start relying on monitoring apps to track each move of their partner. Since they cannot scroll through their partner’s phone every minute of the day, it is convenient to have a spouse monitoring app to validate your suspicious. That’s why lots of couples are secretly using Xnspy to track down each and every move of their partner. They are conveniently able to:
• Read their text messages, check their contacts and view the phone log
• Track their current location and check their location history
• Read their emails and access their phone’s web browsing history
• Constantly monitor their social media activity on Facebook messenger, Kik, Instagram and access their IM chats on WhatsApp, Viber, Line, and Skype
• View their phone’s calendar to see what hidden plans they have made for themselves
Xnspy simply needs to be installed on your partner’s phone to start giving you details of their day. It’s a discrete app which is why most partners never figure out they are being spied on. Marital espionage is being carried out through various sophisticated means and Xnspy is just one of them. People even hide gadgets in their house and place trackers in the car to snoop on their partners because of their paranoia.
Trust is the foundation of any relationship, most importantly marriage
Trust is the glue that keeps two people together in a marriage or in any other relationship. With trust, a healthy foundation for all interactions is created. When partners are honest with each other, the relationship nurtures itself. They start feeling confident about each other and make future plans together. But when there is distrust in a marriage, it takes away this confidence, partners lose intimacy, and they start withdrawing from each other. After all, you can never be close to someone whom you don’t trust.
The truth is, trust comes before love. There always has to be some level of trust before a person can fall for someone. Even if you have a little faith that you can trust this person, it is enough to start having feelings for them. David Kinyanjui, a marriage therapist based in Limuru says that a relationship without trust can never be fulfilling.
Even if a couple stays together just because other things in their marriage is binding them together, an arrangement without trust can breed pain for both parties in the long run. It is hurtful for the person who is being misjudged or being accused of betrayal even though they are innocent. It is even hurtful for the person who is showing mistrust since it gives an impression that you are feeling guilty because of your own misdeeds. If there are children involved, it can leave a negative impact on their well-being. They will have to go through their own struggle of trusting others.
Distrust is a virus – How can it be treated?
You can either let distrust ruin your relationship for good or try to look for an antidote to fix this issue. The problem is, even if you find an antidote, it is difficult to inject it because we are talking about healing the feelings and emotions here.
Hanna Fry, a British mathematician, in one of her lectures talked about an equation to help her students understand why it’s a positive thing not to overlook a suspicion. The important part of her equation was how two members influence one another in a relationship. For this influence to be present, the two must communicate and the communication needs to be continuous. This is exactly what couples need to do. Talk to each other and ask for an explanation if they see anything unusual or have a doubt. Remember, first you have to identify the cause of mistrust and then work on rebuilding trust. Here are some tips that can help:
• Share more: Sharing is a great exercise for building trust in a relationship. You can start by sharing what happened during your day, what you are planning to do on the weekend etc. Also, next time you think you are going to be late, give your partner a call and let them know.
You have to focus on communicating instead of waiting for your turn to talk. At the same time, show concern about what your partner has to stay and listen carefully.
• See a counselor: Sometimes, the trust issues are deeply rooted in an individual because of their past experiences. This calls for professional help. The counselor can help you identify the cause in case the individual is unaware of it and come up with the right exercises to overcome the issue.