The following article is offered for free use in your ezine, print publication or on your web site, so long as
author resource box at end is included, with hyperlinks. Notification of publication would be appreciated.Title: Mending Broken Trust Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. E-mail: mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com Copyright: © 2004 by Margaret Paul Web Address: http://www.innerbonding.com Word Count: 935 Category: Relationships
MENDING BROKEN TRUST Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Dylan and Hannah were to be married in a month when Hannah found out that Dylan had been cheating on her with another woman. Devastated, she ended their relationship.
Dylan was also devastated. He really loved Hannah and had no idea why he had been having an affair with a woman who meant nothing to him. Fortunately, Dylan reached out for help and started phone sessions with me. In course of his Inner Bonding work, he discovered deep feelings of worthlessness from a highly abusive childhood. He had learned to define his worth through women and sex, and was addicted to validation he received from women. He had no idea how to fill and validate himself and was driven to appease his fear and anxiety through sex with multiple women.
Dylan also discovered that he was terrified of being controlled due to his angry and controlling mother, and having an affair was a way to protect himself from this fear. Hannah frequently used anger as a way to have her way and Dylan had never learned how to stand up for himself, having learned to be a caretaker for his parents. Withdrawing into his addiction was only way he knew of not being controlled.
While Dylan believed in God, he had no connection with a personal source of spiritual guidance. As he learned and began to practice six steps of Inner Bonding and developed his spiritual connection, Dylan began to fill up from inside instead of having always to fill up from outside. Dylan was diligent regarding his Inner Bonding work, and within a short time, he knew that his sexual addiction was behind him. He had no more desire to act out sexually. He loved Hannah and just wanted to be with her.
Dylan was also healing old guilt from his parents’ blame and abuse. He was learning to stand up for himself rather let himself be controlled, to speak his truth rather than comply out of fear and guilt to another’s demands.
At this point, he contacted Hannah. She was still hurt and furious and had no trust in him at all. However, she still loved him, and was confused about what to do. Her family and friends advised her to stay away, but she heard something new in Dylan’s voice that compelled her to open up a bit. She started phone sessions with me as well.
“I love him but how can I ever trust him again?” she asked over and over. Instead of working on trusting Dylan, we worked on Hannah learning to trust herself. As we went back through relationship, it became apparent to Hannah that she had been ignoring inner promptings that told her something was wrong. She had not trusted her own inner knowing. Out of fear of conflict, she had let many events go by that, if she would have confronted them, would have shed light on problems much earlier. Instead of speaking her truth, she had learned to get angry as a way to protect against her fears of rejection. Hannah worked on developing her spiritual connection with a source of guidance that helped her begin to trust her inner knowing. As she stopped abandoning herself and learned how to take care of herself so that she no longer needed to control Dylan to feel safe, her anger subsided.
