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Tana Marie's Monthly Romance Column and Love Tip Newsletter

By Tana Marie

REBUILDING TRUST USING THE TIME LINE MODEL

So you’re out there, living your life, and WHAM! Your lover, partner, family member or friend hurts you, betrays you, or abuses the relationship in some way. You feel like the wind has just been knocked out of you! Usually your first reaction is you can’t believe what just happened, followed by tears, anger, physical pain or emotional shut down. You’ve gone into “emotion shock.” Emotional shock is very similar to the physical shock you experience after some kind of physical trauma to the body.

The following step is VITAL to your wellbeing. After the initial shock has worn off, it’s important to objectively analyze what just happened.

You have two choices regarding what course of action you take after any sort of violation. You can choose to end the relationship, or decide to give it another go.

If you decide to give your relationship another chance, here’s a wonderful technique that will help you rebuild trust - use my “TIME LINE MODEL.” Here’s how it works:

Boom! The offense occurred, or you just found out about it. The first thing that has to happen is the injured party be given ample time to get over the shock of the offense and to cool down. I call this the “COOLING-OFF PERIOD.” This is when the injured person needs to regain control of themselves and start thinking clearly again before they make any decision regarding the relationship. Too often people make inappropriate decisions based on their level of pain regarding the offense. Many otherwise good relationships have ended because one or both partners reacted and made their decisions before they cooled down and wouldn’t reverse those decisions later due to pride or ego. How often is someone devastated to hear that his or her X remarried or was in a new relationship? It’s because they still love the person and now that they’ve cooled down, they realized what they’ve lost. So Step #1 is to cool down first - before you make any permanent decisions.

Step #2 is the Decision To Try Again.
If you have determined that this relationship is essentially good and worth saving, you have to discuss the offense with your partner and make sure that there’s a complete understanding of the physical and emotional impact. It’s also incredibly important to establish rules, boundaries and guidelines for rebuilding the relationship that both people agree on. The injured person must decide upon the length of time they are willing to wait and see if the other person keeps their promises.

Again it’s essential that there be complete buy-in from both people, otherwise you might as well stop right now, because any efforts on your part alone won’t work.

A very good way to analyze and review the progress the two of you are making is to set up “Benchmarks.” In the conversation where you set up your rules and boundaries, it’s important set up a time frame in which the new behaviors must be evident. For instance;
1. “Within two days of our talk you must stop seeing her.”
2. “Within a week you have to start attending AA meetings.”
3. “You have two weeks to find a good counselor.”
The way you know the benchmarks are working is you experience perceivable, positive change, and both partners are pleased with and involved in the process.

The last step is ESSENTIAL. I call it the “Drop Dead Date.” The reason this is so important is in too many relationships people fall back into old habits and patterns, or they just give up and live in “The Land Of Diminishing Returns.”

OK, let’s talk about the “Land Of Diminishing Returns.” What on earth is that? Simply put, any time you love someone and that person hurts you, violates the relationship, or leaves you, you shut down. So the next time you fall in love, you don’t let yourself fall as fast, as far or as deeply.

Now you may desire a wonderful relationship, or close friendships, but because of your past experiences you don’t trust as much, won’t give as much of yourself, are more cautious - essentially you bring a lot less of yourself to the relationship table. Your life begins to be governed by fear, you start attracting partners and friends that will abuse you, and your fears become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Remember the old saying, “ the first cut is the deepest”? That’s what the “Land of Diminishing Returns” is all about - you start to believe that the only way to survive is allow yourself to only become 10 or 25% invested in any relationship, because that way they can never hurt you the way someone in your past did.

The Catch-22 about this situation is that when you numb your pain, you also numb your pleasure. Have you ever noticed how bland life is when you’re not playing full out? Any athlete can tell you the most serious injuries occur when they’re trying to be the most cautious and start thinking too much about past failures. Watch a child who’s attempting to do something for the first time - they’re 100% present, fearless, and usually master the activity in record time. The “Land of Diminishing Returns” takes that childlike joy and presence away from you and you begin to live and love at a diminished level. How you get out of it? Forgiveness. In my experience it’s the most effective way to start living & trusting again is by entering each new relationship with a clean slate. Forgiveness gives you that clean slate.

If your partner has promised to clean up their act, and you are not seeing any evidence of that, you must know at what point you will end the relationship – EXACTLY and SPECIFICALLY.

It is IMPERATIVE to know when to try again and when to say goodbye. Women especially will hang onto hope for years, while never seeing any evidence that their partner has emotionally re-entered the relationship. Love yourself enough to give it your best shot, and if you see that your partner doesn’t want to be in the relationship anymore, or continues the abuse or violations be honest with yourself and make your exit plan.

This article is an excerpt from the book “Isle of Fantasies: Secrets for Creating the Love of your Life” by Tana Marie & Robert Misrack.  Click here for more information.