Rebuilding trust after lies
When a loved one is caught up in a lie or even a host of them, it can be very difficult to learn to trust that person again.
People lie for many reasons but one of the commonest reason is that they believe that if they do not lie, in the short-term their lives will be filled with more pain or they will cause more pain if they tell the truth. So they lie to save themselves or others from pain in the short-term.
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Some people lie because lying is how they figured out how to get what they wanted in childhood and now it’s a habit.
Others are simply pathological (not reasonable or sensible; impossible to control) liars and nothing you do can change them.
Whatever the reason, if you are a child who lies, you lose the trust of people around you. It takes time for others and even your parents to trust you again. When trust is lost, there are a variety of emotions to face in gaining it back. You will have to be prepared to deal with your parents’ anger, disappointment, frustration and hurt.
Here is how you can do to regain their trust
• Supposing you sneaked out of the house with your parent’s car without their knowledge and they get to know about it, they surely will be angry.They may ground you (stop you from going anywhere).
To get things back on truck with your parents, the first thing to do is to accept their anger first. Fighting them over the matter doesn’t show you accept that you did wrong. That is only going to make matters worse.
When they are ready to give you back your freedom, which automatically comes with a small degree of trust, they’ll let you know. You have to accept what is going on as punishment and be truly remorseful.
• Keep doing “EVERYTHING” and don’t stop even when they don’t seem to be responding the way you want them to. Try and do things which will please them. You can go out of your way and do this even if they not ask you to do so. But while you do
“EVERYTHING”, try to understand that they are very hurt so it will take some time for them to get over it.
• If things are really unbearable for you, try to talk to them over the issue so that they know how you feel. Make sure you explain to them and tell them that you are sorry you lost their trust. Do not talk about your punishment and how you feel. If your regret even seems to be more about self-pity than remorse, you have already lost the battle.
• Do not resort to threats of “you’re not giving me any reason to be good” or say things such as “you are making me have no choice but sneak around”. Those type of sentiments will not help your case. Instead, tell them you know you did a bad thing.
• Let them know that you are sorry and that you will do whatever it takes to fix things.
