I Love You But I Don't Trust You: The Complete Guide to Restoring Trust in Your Relationship

by Mira Kirshenbaum

Is my relationship worth saving?
Will the trust ever come back?
How can things be good between us again?
Whether broken trust is due to daily dishonesties, a monumental betrayal, or even a history of hurts from the past, it can put a relationship at risk. This is the first book to show you exactly what to do to restore trust in your relationship, regardless of how it was damaged.
In this complete guide, couples therapist Mira Kirshenbaum will also help you understand the stages by which trust strengthens when the rebuilding process is allowed to take place. And you will learn how the two of you can avoid the mistakes that prevent healing and discover how to feel secure with each other again.

Genres: Relationships, Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology, Marriage, Communication, Audiobook

303 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Duckoffimreading]

I can’t say this book saved my marriage - as many of the qualities of my situation fall into the “better to end it” category, but this book was helpful as far as other relationships when betrayal is endured, or even future relationships. Trust is so critical to healthy relationships and sometimes bad things happen. Taking the stance of “I can’t trust anybody” (which I may feel like from time to time) will ultimately limit my joy in life. My big takeaways from this book is how forgiveness is best and time does heal wounds. People are complex, human, imperfect creatures. Sometimes hurt can be righted, sometimes - you just gotta move on.

[Rick Sam]

1. Why read this?

To chisel my own pride, and to raise myself to grow in relationship, I chose this book

2. What brought me to this work?

I was looking for something that can help me give template, practice, having better relationship.

I’d say, this is the best book — I read this year, 2020 - Why?

Because, teaches you about relationship from Professionals.

This book is practical, pragmatic, doesn’t give theory of relationship. Why?

It’s easy to follow, practical stories, with insightful discernment.

3. What is in this work?

I’d say, this book gives archetype stories. We can use in relationship, regardless of culture.

Perhaps, socially, this would be different cross-culturally, but basic ingredients might remain the same.

Oh, hey, I don't need this.

Oh and don’t think, that none of the things in this book, won’t happen to you.

More advantageous to be prepared,

Imagine, being dropped with surprise bombs at your face like a land-mine in midst of relationship.

Let's say you come home from work, and you step on land-mine, and there goes your week from happy, to gloom, to burning hell.

Imagine your friend, boss, co-worker, children, parents walks towards you.

Suddenly, with a tirade of aching emotional verbal atom bombs.

Hurling with razor sharped words, hurled at you to lacerate your soul —

3.a -- How would you deal with it - Mr.Man?

Well, this work showed me areas, I’d need to work on and grow - relationships.

A lot of the narrative in this book comes counter-intuitive.

This book is worth reading two or three times.

Perhaps, in Tamil Nadu - most people think, they know about relationships.

In Tamil Nadu, most people even know, how they can manage relationship, but how does reality look like for them?

Countless heartbreak stories over decades, mostly older people refrain from sharing wisdom.

They'd quip, "Na Pathadhu illaya?" [Seen it all]

Meanwhile, for Girls/Boys in Tamil Nadu, they'd do wrong decisions.

Can you believe it? Perhaps your clique of Girlfriends say, dump the guy.

But the author shares stories that is otherwise.

She says, if people really care, or desire to care, there’s hope.

4. What is in the meat of this book?

Outline of Book:

Part One:
“You can Restore Trust in your relationship.”

Part Two:
“Restoring Trust After a Major Betrayal.”

Contrary to popular opinion, trust can be restored.

Part Three:
“Restoring Trust in Other Situation.”

“Broken trust can heal more quickly than most of us have thought, too.

And it’s worth it, because whoever coined the expression,

The broken places are stronger where they heal is absolutely right when it comes to trust.”

Deus Vult,
Gottfried

[Aida]

It’s pretty cis and het and even when discussing intercultural stuff it’s not terribly diverse BUT it still has a lot of valuable and practical content. It offers a lot of “translation” between perspectives (which as a therapist who sees many couples is a huge part of my own work!), specific questions and scripts to use, concrete paths for repair, and especially lovely chapters on things like differences, trust, anger, openness vs hiddenness, and more. Definitely plan to share this with some of my clients :)

[Kristy]

This book is amazing & a life saver. I couldnt have come across it at a better time!

[Grace]

Y’all are soooo lucky I just got prescribed a new prescription of Prozac

[Beth]

reassured me that everything I had been through was actually rather normal - as far as the stages of grieving/sadness/anger etc, this in turn filled me with confidence about things to come and gave hope for our future. I definitely understand much more about myself AND my husband after reading this.

[Patti]

Fantastic book. Brought up challenging, yet good questions and scenarios.

[Carrie Anne]

Extremely practical, instructive and encouraging guide to building better trust in a relationship (or knowing when that isn’t possible). I really like the author’s approach, and i would really recommend people read it *before* trust is broken- it sets out a roadmap for the healthiest ways to react in order to lay groundwork for healing, for both sides (betrayer and betrayee). Importantly, she doesn’t only focus on the “big betrayals” (affairs, major money loss etc) but also the insidious loss of trust through many small betrayals/lies/mistakes/etc. Well worth the read- i learned more about myself and my own actions than I expected.

[Amyiw]

So this starts slowly and really at points I just had to put it down. It does hit on some real points of how trust is broken and rebuilt but really doesn't go in depth but more trying to understand why. With that understanding you can move on. Also she points to bumps in the road and recovering from them. Along with understand the different ways trust can be broken, she goes into the ways we react and how long things take to get back to somewhere normal.

When she goes into what went into to breaking the trust, there are some issues. Here is where many people get defensive and start to hate this book as she puts some blame on to the betrayed person. No relationship is perfect so I don't get defensive here and think people should look to themselves, only... I think she gives too much to the betrayer as an excuse. I read over this along with other things that I didn't agree with completely but I could see a point. And then there were analogies that were way too far off the situation that I had to just ignore. You need to get the point, ignore the analogy.

She describes many situations that don't apply to your situation but if you look deeper and switch thinking slightly, you can apply the thoughts in a way that actually is helpful. In the end, she talks a lot about "open" people and "hidden" people. Well the word "hidden" is a bit idiotic. There are open people, less open people, and deceptive people. Most people are in the middle and I believe that is where her "hidden" comes in. I think she was all over the place in explaining this and contradicted herself at least twice. I've read much better explanations but cannot remember which books at the moment. She does come to the conclusion that I agree with, which is communication and honesty is needed to recover trust, but she really goes in a round about way to get there.

So was this a bad book. No it had some excellent points but overall, it was wordy to get there. It also contradicted points at some area and had a few really bad analogies. Were the excellent parts enough to make it great, or really good? Not really but it was good overall. The good points made it worth the read. I only wish I had a hard copy or Kindle so I could've highlighted because I forgot a bunch of them. The good is not worth me buying written copy.


----update at 25%-------------
I got this on audio from the library so it is a little strange listening to a self-help rather than reading. I find reading I take notes and highlight a lot on self-help and that is kind of impossible here. Bookmarks are hard to reference.

So my thought so far. 23% into it and we haven't got very far except that trust is broken more than just with infidelity and she puts out a bunch of couples that have worked through their trust issues and some that haven't. She says there are six points but instead of listing them and then going over them, she starts with point 1. We get the couple where one is a gambling addict, another where the wife nit picked and yelled about her in-laws so much that he pushed her (sorry I'm out of there if there is true violence) and she cannot trust now, etc... In the middle of this she starts talking on whether there is a spark to work on, or of hope to trust, or want to build the trust. That is point one. And then she even points us to her book, Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship, in case it is not a trust issue at all. Hmm... well. Without giving us a little insight into the nuts and bolts of what it says, she shouldn't have brought it up. I actually have that book on my shelf but I don't want to go to it to decide if I'm reading the right book for me. Then she goes into when the break in trust, breaks the relationship. I got the person that she pointed to and described, but how it was the break, and it wasn't broken before, didn't make sense. It seems that must be the other book. So, here I am almost 1/4 through and we've touched on 1 point of her 6 and it gives a lot of examples but no really nuts a bolts or at least very little. Yes, both parties need to want to work on it.
Then she says things like, keeping your anger in because that will break the relationship yet, we know that the person is angry and rightfully so. She doesn't say how to get there, she doesn't give an outlet, instead, what? Are you supposed to just bottle it up so that you can get to yes. Wow, there are just too many things that she doesn't get to the heart of the betrayal, understanding it, and figuring out whether to move on. If you are reading this for a infidelity, I suggest, , Not Just Friends. Because instead of droning on about what trust is and what not to do, it actually immediately give you really substance.

Further along and she talks about a unfaithfully husband. Literal came home to him with one of his students in bed at the end of counseling she asked him to have another baby. That would build trust. Wow. Then she talks about the woman that insists on her boyfriend setting a wedding date, an ultimatum. Wasn't the baby the same kind of thing. There have been some interesting points, but there have been contradictions.

Here is what she says, trust builds trust, anger hinders safety and feeling safe is building trust.

Part 2 After a Big Major Betrayal

[Sarah Kruszka]

Read this for work. Not 100% a book I would have picked up but wanted to be in alignment with patients. Easy to read and slow. The author gave a lot of real life examples which can help validate a person experiencing betrayal or trust issues.

[Parker they, them]

Writing is very cishet mono normative otherwise very good and helpful advice.

[Ashley Case]

This is a straightforward book. No fluff, just good advice beginning to end.

[Dan]

As I use to say, science is about being precise, engineering is about living with errors.
I did read many behavioral psychology books. Lots of them great, some not so good and most of them right.
But we all know how mathematics, the science of all science, feels . Most of the time we don't feel it's applicability in life. Moreover it was many times when real life observation pushed the advance of mathematical theories and not the mathematics that revealed practical solutions.
This book does nevertheless the same.
It feels real life, not one of those scientific demonstration of how we should react and be, but an answer that takes into account of who we all are in the moment of doubt.
It does not offer slogan solutions good for only those that are either too strong to need them or to emotionless to react like the overwhelming majority of people do by arranging realty to what it seems most plausible scenario when feelings and ration colide.
It is a book that acknowledges human error as a fact of life and deals with the result in a practical way that takes into account more than the narrow individual perspective. It is an invitation to reconsider, to not rush in denial and dismissive attitudes, to generosity, a reminder that we are not perfect, sooner or later we all do mistakes and so does the person next to us. In the end it is a plea to remind us that if we accepted ourselves as humans in our bad moments in their bad moments, others may hope to the same.
To me this book was different from the rest, life is different, slightly different then even the best theory about it.  By something I cannot express, something so ineffable and in defiance of the imperceptible .

[Kim]

This is a must read for everyone in a relationship. It’s not only breaks down all of the ways we break peoples trust, it shows exactly what to do to rebuild that trust. Highly recommend it, warning there are several F words in the book.

[Sarah]

The biggest issue with this book is that it barely acknowledges that some betrayals reveal aspects of someone's character that show that person is untrustworthy for the foreseeable future (at least in the context in which they betrayed you). Kirshenbaum doesn't address the hard work that it takes for a betrayer to actually change their character and become trustworthy. She doesn't discuss restitution by the betraying spouse, which should be a minimum starting point for earning back trust (e.g. paying back stolen money, publicly owning their behavior, correcting any lies, actually stopping an affair and creating a post-nup, etc.).

She does not seriously engage with betrayal as a trauma and sets forth an unrealistically short timeline for processing the betrayal.

False equivalencies abound. She seriously lists "becoming obese" as a type of betrayal alongside cheating on your partner and gambling away marital funds. Oh, but that's fine because she's talking about what people might perceive as betrayal, not actual betrayal! My buddy... if you can't see why a partner gaining weight is a completely different behavior compared to theft and abuse, I don't think we have compatible views on ethics or human emotions.

If your partner has cheated on you, read Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life: The Chump Lady's Survival Guide instead. Your behavior did not force your spouse to cheat on you, and no amount of "owning your part" in the dynamic can guarantee your spouse won't continue to cheat on you. Cheating comes from an entitled and abusive mindset that requires sustained effort over a long period of time to change -- effort that a cheater (who was too lazy / insecure / mentally unwell to address marital issues without cheating on you) is unlikely to expend.

[Heather]

This is a gaslighting, victim-blaming, garbage book. I can’t hate it enough. I’m only on page 64 and have rolled my eyes 128 times.

Edit to Add: I've finished the book and still hate it. It's a good thing I'm reading this for research purposes because if I were actually in a broken relationship this could be very confusing and cause someone to stay in an incredibly toxic situation.

[Miriam]

I picked up this book to give me more insight on some issues I've come across when helping couples and individual women. There is a lot of good information that will help one to be able to regain trust in a relationship or decide that they will never be able to get trust back.

[Tyler]

This book is written by a therapist who specializes in helping couples who are dealing with betrayal of various kinds. It is a practical book based on the author's personal experience of betrayal in her own marriage and in her professional experience working with many couples as a therapist dealing with similar problems.

I didn't think the book was terribly well written, but there was some good content about trust, honesty, openness, dealing with anger, forgiveness, healing, and making decisions in a relationship where you have experienced betrayal, whether in large or small ways. This book was somewhat helpful for me in deepening my understanding of some of the issues I have experienced in past relationships where betrayal and the erosion of trust played a significant role in undermining the relationship. I also learned some valuable things about strengthening trust in relationships and learning not to respond defensively to attacks from others. It was a very helpful insight for me to realize that when the person you are in a relationship with goes on offense against you it is often because they feel unsafe and are trying to protect themselves emotionally or otherwise. Respond defensively to these attacks generally only causes the person to feel even MORE unsafe and therefore causes them to escalate their offensive tactics rather than defusing the situation and helping them feel more safe. I imagine that will be helpful for me to know in future relationships.

[Casey Lalli]

You should see how many tabs my copy of this book now has. Even if you have not been hurt before, or have not felt the need to learn more about restoring trust, I would still encourage you to pick up this book to get the tools to help you before it happens.
I picked this book up passively- I had been hurt before but there was no PRESENT reason why I felt I couldn't trust. But halfway through, something happened in my relationship that made this book so helpful and relatable, and allowed me to calm down and think rationally though the problems.
I ended up ordering two more Mira Kirshenbaum books- I love her writing for sure and find her incredibly educated and relatable.
This book does well with focusing on romantic relationships, but I would not limit the book to just that. This book does a good job about talking about relationships in general, and all the tools that Mira writes about can be applied to any relationship. There are also many "real life" stories sprinkled throughout that give good examples.
I am a therapist for work, and I find this book to be extremely helpful in my personal AND professional life. Enough so that I actually purchased her books so that I can add tabs to them, instead of my usual borrow from library-return and never think about it routine.

[Munchie]

Very insightful book about finding trust after or even before a betrayal, with vivid examples of many different types of betrayals, why it happened in that scenario, how she solved it, as shes a psychotherapist and these are her clients.

It felt a bit long with almost 300 pages, but it gave good advice of when to, in my words, suck it up and find peace, or when to call it quits. Most of the time its based off of a misunderstanding, or in the first half of the book, talks heavily about affairs and money trust issues like when partners gamble or heavily drink. Theres so many examples, even cutural examples when two different backgrounds don't understand each other, and breaks it down in an easy to digest dialogue. As the author is very well spoken throughout the book.

A highly recommended read to anyone who's at their wits end. Which I'm sure is a lot of you. I had a betrayal of trust almost 3 years ago. Glad to know based on the examples in this book and a similar scenario to almost a tee. I handled it well on my own but the reassurance from this book makes me feel happy to know my problem solving during that time, healed the relationship instead of hurt it.

[Dan]

I used to deal with immense trust issues for years. Reading this book has helped me to develop the tools of trust, rather than my old patterns of suspicious agendas.

I related a lot to the suspicious personality. In a sense that it was almost as if I used to find reasons or create reasons to distrust.

It’s been years of hard work, learning how to trust safe people, learning how to trust myself and trust my faith.

Rebuilding a relationship after a betrayal is possible. But it takes work, on both sides. Power imbalances play a big factor in mistrust, but with communication, alternatives, and actually following up on agreements, this too can be navigated through.

After a betrayal, the partner making it known what was hurt and why. And the other partner needs to genuinely see and witness the pain / damage that was done.

There is hope. There will always be one partner feeling as though the other isn’t sharing as much or being as open as they are. We are all imperfect people, but with the right tools trust can be restored and a relationship can even grow stronger through the trials.

[Geoff]

A good book with practical information in regards to trust issues in relationships. I read this book for the opposite end of most, being the betrayer of trust vs the betrayed so my perspective on it is probably a little different. I definitely was able to see the pitfalls of the relationship, where I had gone wrong and where we, as a couple had gone wrong, but most importantly for me is that it gave me perspective of how she was feeling and what she was going through.

If you’re looking for a step by step guide on the process of rebuilding trust this book probably isn’t for you. It more walks you through the decision process of working on the relationship with some ideas of changes that you could make to improve and rebuild things but definitely isn’t a comprehensive how to guide.

I found the most useful information for me to be near the end where I was able to put a bunch of things together from my relationship, figured out the root of the problem and an idea of how to start rebuilding. (Chapter 15). That’s a pretty good sign the book is well worth a read.

[Bes]

I thought I’d give 2 or 3 stars because I didn’t like how the writing is so conversational and constantly broken into very short sentences, Mira constantly writes “believe me” and “I know” in what feels like overly earnest ways, and the examples sometimes feel so saccharin. Plus this title is a tad ridiculous to read in public. I felt like everything was simplified for beginners, or for young adults.

But I changed my mind halfway through when I realized that I was glad for many of her very simple perspectives, and I would encourage anyone who felt like I did above to make it to the halfway point and then choose to continue or not. It’s mostly fluff and cushioning in this book, and countless examples, but there are a handful of keen views and perspectives on how to evaluate and/or resolve issues with yourself and/or another.

For a more “advanced” book I strongly recommend After the Affair by Janis Abrahms Spring, although it deals specifically with infidelity whereas this book is about trust, betrayal, and reliance no matter the subject.

[Isabel Fontes]

A common question I ask myself is, how long will or should the process of anger and healing last before we can trust another person again after someone has betrayed our trust?

There is no set time.
There is no line for when to start trusting someone.

Our relationships with others vary, and each one is unique. And therein lies the difference.
We must not shut the door after a betrayal or a failed relationship, even if our door is closed. Leave the window slightly open, because perhaps someone wonderful might be just around the corner, watching.

And it's an interesting book, like many others I've been reading along the same lines.
It focuses more on offering strategies for building steps and moving forward.

Because in truth, if there is no trust, it is better to move forward and not block anyone's path.

[Sarah]

It’s a good book and I’m glad I read it. I learned a lot but sometimes it just feels like it’s beating a dead horse. I felt like if it’s going to be a practical guideline it could have been probably 1/3 shorter or more than it is. It’s very dense to work through when you’re trying to get practical steps out of it. I understand that the background to each scenario is important (how each step plays out in different scenarios, how relationships go awry) but there were a lot of stories that I felt were superfluous and it just got wordy. That being said I do recommend this book because if you’re trying to re-build trust - somewhere ensconced in all the wordiness - are some excellent and insightful tips on just how to do that.

[Adrienne Gallagher]

Although I firmly believe that you can love someone but not trust them, this book was not helpful to me. Rather than dive into how to restore trust, there was first a list of reasons why you shouldn’t restore trust. The author listed many scenarios that are not good fits to restores trust. I found this insulting. I am choosing to try to rebuild trust in my marriage. I am looking for advice on how to do so. I am not looking for someone else’s opinion on whether or not I should be trying to restore trust. That would be a completely different book that I would have read months/years ago. I never reached the portion of the book to give guidance on restoring trust. I was too discouraged to continue the book. It may have good advice for those whose relationship is worthy of being saved.

[Gene]

Fundamentals of honesty, vulnerability, consistency to restore trust in relationship.



If I was to recommend companion or supplemental reading / listening- it would include;

When Sorry Isn't Enough: Making Things Right with Those You Love
by Gary Chapman, Jennifer Thomas


AND
Brene Brown and Harriet Lerner on How to Apologize.

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/harrie...

The world could use these lessons applied broadly.

[Alexandra]

the first 1/6th I was like eh idk about this.

but the rest just spoke to me.

the anger that comes out of feeling betrayed is natural but resolves nothing.

figure out what will make the betrayed feel safe again.

don't take the inflection point to be the end - it's just the beginning.

figure out quickly if you can stay - remember who they were before - think of the situation you created together that got you here - take responsibility for that small piece - don't compare blame.

[Krystal House]

This book helped me identify that I had trust issues and in order for my marriage to recover from the betrayal I experienced from my husband I needed to understand how to trust him again along with trusting in all relationships that I am blessed with. I am happy to say that this is one of many resources recently that has made my life exciting and filled with the spirit of the Lord in my, from a very unbearable and anxiety ridden season of my life, marriage and motherhood.

[Emily]

A very insightful guide to beginning to heal mistrust in relationships after betrayal. I found this book to be balanced, recognising that betrayals don't always happen because someone is bad necessarily, although sometimes that is the case.
I appreciated that the start of this book outlines reasons why you should try to heal a relationship, and reasons why you might choose to just walk away.
I'd recommend this to anyone who is dealing with betrayal to read before making any big decisions.