The Leading Edge - Too little, too late for Eliot Spitzer, but maybe not for you

How to Earn Forgiveness and Rebuild Trust After Betrayal

Too err is human,
to take full responsibility for it,
face and pay all the consequences, divine

We and Eliot Spitzer may never know why he did what he did? It’s unclear if we or Bill Clinton ever figured out why he did what he did.

But
what is clear is the “rubbernecking” that this story is causing as if
people are watching some roadside disaster. The attraction may be that
the exposure of Spitzer’s immoral, not to mention illegal behavior, is
causing waves of anxiety among the not-yet-caught men who are flirting
with similar disasters and the women who love them. It has been a bad
few days for denial.

I can imagine millions of men who have been
cheating on their wives through prostitutes or mistresses or tip toeing
into their dens and home offices to lose themselves in the world of
pornography, scurrying around to erase phone numbers and delete
computer files and swear to themselves that they will never engage in
such behavior again.

I can also imagine these men looking more guilty than usual and raising the suspicions of their wives.

Finally I can imagine volatile confrontations taking place that are finally exposing marital infidelity of one form or another.

If such activities are exposed, can the damage be undone? Once trust is broken by betrayal, can it be regained?

There
is a road back, but it takes practicing the 4 R's to respond to the 4
H's you triggered in the other person by betraying their trust.

The 4 H’s*:

When you betrayed your spouse:

1. They felt HURT by you for taking away trust and safety
2. They HATE you for turning their world upside down
3. They’re HESITANT TO TRUST and be re-hurt by you
4. They’re HOLDING ONTO A GRUDGE to protect themselves from accidentally lowering their guard and being vulnerable again

The 4 R's:

1. To ease the HURT you need to demonstrate REMORSE to
   show that you know you damaged something in them, by looking them
   directly in the eye and admitting you're truly sorry, with no excuses
   (this is the stumbling block for very narcissistic people and something
   Bill Clinton had trouble with during the Monica situation)
2. To respond to the HATE you need to show RESTITUTION and
   offer a payback for what you took away from them by giving up something
   that matters to you or letting them verbally punch themselves out at
   you for making them feel crazy while you lied to them
3. To lower their HESITATION TO TRUST you need to REHABILITATE yourself
   to let them see a new way of dealing with those situations that caused
   you to stray and that you actually prefer to your old destructive
   behavior
4. To get them to stop HOLDING ONTO A GRUDGE, you need to REQUEST FORGIVENESS after practicing those 3 R’s for a minimum of 6 months so they can become a part of your personality

If
the other person is still unable to forgive you after that, you are no
longer unforgivable (if you haven’t gone beyond betrayal into abuse),
they are unforgiving.

It's clear what is in it for you if they
forgive you, but what's in it for them? When you earnestly practice the
4 R's above, you enable the person you injured to go from fear and
loathing to feeling safe, trusting and even liking you again---and that
feeling is called, "euphoria."

*A full explanation of the 4 H’s and 4 R’s and how to use them to rebuild trust is available in The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee, $13.95) by Mark Goulston with Philip Goldberg.

© 2008 Mark Goulston