Rebuilding Trust and Exploring Non-Monogamy: Lessons from Betrayal

Jun 15, 2024
Two people walk on a path through a green and brown grassy field. One has a gray beard and is wearing a white bucket hate, glasses, grey jeans and a black jacket with gold buttons. The other has short white hair, is using a walker, and is wearing praying purple jacket with a hood.

4 minute read

Navigating the emotional landscapes of relationships after experiencing betrayal is a complex journey, and one that cannot be skipped when exploring non-monogamous relationship structures. The meaning you’ve made from past experiences with betrayal is worthy of attention. Episode 156 of the Playing with Fire podcast, featuring Ken and Joli Hamilton, delves into the nuances of trust, betrayal, and the transition from monogamy to non-monogamy, offering invaluable insights for those grappling with these issues.


Though sexual cheating in the context of a monogamous relationship is what likely pops into your mind when you think about betrayal, that is hardly the only source of betrayal trauma. The rush of feelings associated with betrayal can arise from any act that violates the trust and explicit agreements within a partnership, or, and this is harder, when our implicit expectations are not met. Joli explains, "Betrayal is defined as an act of violating the trust, loyalty, or confidence that someone has placed in you," highlighting that it can stem from emotional, spritual, or physical acts. This broad definition opens up a discussion about the expectations and boundaries that are often unspoken but deeply held within intimate relationships. And you need to consider your history with betrayal when you are negotiating a conscious relationship.


Transitioning to non-monogamy require that you reevaluate what trust means outside the mono-centric notion of exclusivity. Many enter non-monogamy seeking freedom from the constraints of monogamy, yet they carry the baggage of past betrayals that can complicate their new relational dynamics. This can also have its roots in witnessing infidelity between your parents as a child. Joli notes that transitioning to non-monogamy requires clear communication about boundaries and expectations, which, if not well articulated, can lead to feelings of betrayal even within open relationships. She emphasizes the importance of direct conversations about past betrayals to set the groundwork for healthier interactions, stating, "We have to deal with betrayal head-on; we have to look right at it because I see people struggle with this for a long time because they try to just imagine that their betrayal history won’t impact them. But it does. It just does."


Ken draws parallels between the clarity needed in relationship boundaries and those in professional settings. He remarks on the explicit boundary settings required in his workplace and how such clarity could benefit personal relationships. "In the microcosm of my day job, I have mandatory yearly trainings on what the boundaries are. And this is what will happen when you do so," he says, suggesting that similar clarity in relationships could prevent many misunderstandings and hurt feelings. The podcast also explores the aftermath of betrayal, which can be long-lasting. It also explores how couples can navigate the choppy waters of healing and rebuilding trust.


Joli stresses the need for a proactive approach to communication, where discussions about expectations and boundaries occur regularly, not just when problems arise. She points out that many couples struggle because they operate under assumptions based on societal norms or unspoken rules, which often go unchallenged until they lead to conflict. She advises, "It’s about creating an ongoing narrative that allows for the reality that yes, we’re going to hurt each other over time, and we want to learn the skills of coming back together."


This episode is particularly valuable for anyone who has experienced betrayal and is curious about or transitioning to non-monogamy. It serves as a reminder that while betrayal can profoundly affect trust, understanding and renegotiating the terms of a relationship can lead to a path of recovery and empowerment. Ken and Joli provide a roadmap for building trust through open and honest communication, illustrating how these skills are crucial in both monogamous and non-monogamous relationships.


For those exploring non-monogamy, or anyone interested in how betrayal impacts relationships and how to move forward, listening to episode 156 of Playing with Fire can be both therapeutic and enlightening. The episode not only unpacks the complexities of betrayal but also provides practical guidance on how to rebuild trust and maintain healthy relationships through proactive and transparent communication.

 


 

Episode 156 Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated, and may contain some errors.

Ken Hamilton
Let's answer some questions. I happen to know that questions are your love language.

Joli Hamilton
Questions are if I were to have a love language, then it would definitely be questions. Yeah, I know, we've been collecting questions from listeners. And it's fun for me to answer these and listen to what, what comes up for you when we get these questions because I answer questions about relationships all day. And you get to do it in this cool context. Yes, record you. Where do you want to start?

Ken Hamilton
Well, I have, I have a couple of questions that have come up a few times that I feel pretty strong about answering. So I'd like to get into one of those. Because, well, it's been part of my life. And so I know what it is, then. Yeah, but you do know what it is. It is. I'm in a relationship. And really, monogamy non monogamy, I don't really care I'm in a relationship with someone might not even be a romantic relationship. But I'm gonna stick to that context. How do I build up lost trust? Well, I have made some strong doozy mistakes, some I have, I've done harm. I have inflicted abuse of different kinds.

Joli Hamilton
So me too. I don't we do jump up against each other, we bump up against each other. And I've had more relationships than just this one, I had friendships that have broken down, I have a first marriage that broke down. And I have absolutely caused harm to you, as well. And, you know, when I think about building up lost trust, the word Trust holds so much for me. So when I'm working with it personally, one of the things I have to remind myself about is, what is it that like, how big is this? Like, do I need to rebuild trust, because I now have no capacity to trust this other person, like I find them actually to be dangerous, like they feel like a huge threat to my existence. Or because I've I've had those experiences where I'm like, Well, I can't really even I don't even feel like I can trust us to be in the same room together. On the other hand, there are times when when we have a wobble, or a breach of a violation of an agreement comes up. And what it is, is I don't trust you to behave the way that you say you will or I don't trust you in this particular context, or you keep struggling with this particular agreement with me. And so now I'm struggling to trust you to hold your own agreements. So

Ken Hamilton
now, I'm I'm in a situation where I would like to be the person that I told you I would be Yeah, I have. I have not done that I have I've fallen short. And I want to build up the trust. Because originally, I painted a picture, here's me, and you took it in and said, Great, then let's do these things. And then I stumble. Now what now I want to rebuild that part of my connection with you, or possibly build for the first time? Well, it's a little bit of it's against a bit of an obstacle that I have put in my own way.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, a lot of us want to be imagined as trustworthy without having ever built trust. So that's worth mentioning, you know, we imagine we humans, we tend to imagine ourselves as trustworthy, but another person doesn't owe us their trust, right? There are many things that go into establishing a basis for trust. So you introduced to me a long, long time ago, actually, before we were romantically involved, you introduce the idea of questioning, what is it that I trust out of this context with this relationship? What is it that I trust you to do? Because we can trust someone to actually behave negatively. We can trust someone to let us down. But most of the time when we're talking about building trust, what we're doing is we want to build trust, that who you say you are and who you how you say you'll act, is how you'll actually show up. And I just think it's so important to get clear on the difference between being seen as a trustworthy person and therefore I can trust you with everything I can trust you with my life. I can trust you with my money. I can trust you with my children. I can trust you with my health. Versus Can I trust you in the context we have created together? there. Yeah, those are two different, like, great. There's a huge gradient I would say of them for wide wide. So if you've lost trust that makes that calls into question for me, like, in what context? Is this a? Is this a violation of trust? That means like, wow, we're really starting from ground zero, we gotta, we have so much to rebuild, in which case, I would aim toward repair. Before we even worry about rebuilding trust, I would work on our hair. Yeah, I would my aura ties that and repair is often an iterative process. It happens over time. And it often takes much longer for the person who broke the trust to then like much longer for them to to get to where they want to be. Yeah. Like they there. It may take longer than they imagined it should.

Ken Hamilton
Sure, right? Because they're like, Okay, I'm trustworthy. Now speaking for myself, I am trustworthy. Now you can trust me. But in fact, in my experience, both myself and observing other people, trust is about pattern recognition. It's about understanding the pattern of someone's behavior and expecting it to continue in certain directions. Like you said, Trust to do what those directions could be anything, it doesn't really matter. From the point of view of well, what have I seen, what do I know of this person? That leads me to expect them to do what I'm trusting them to do?

Joli Hamilton
This brings up a really important couple of points. First is, for those of us with a lot of trauma history, or brought up in chaotic environments, we may struggle to trust because we have our hyper vigilance, our pattern recognition may be a little haywire or super hypersensitive. And that might not actually suit the situation we currently find ourselves in anymore. Ideally, it wouldn't like ideally, we'd actually find ourselves in a safer situation. But also, it brings up the apophenia. Humans spot patterns where there aren't patterns, I definitely fall prey to that, I am very quick to jump into imagining a pattern, especially if I perceive a pattern that puts me at relational risk with, in particular with romantic partners, or romantic friendships or best friendship like deep best friendships like that level of intimacy, where I've started sharing my really profound truths, my like, my deep wounds, I will see a pattern really fast, like even just one time. And obviously one time can be It can't be a pattern. So this needs to own that and say, Ah,

Ken Hamilton
this is great. So from from your point of view, and I'm, I'm having this discussion, from the point of view of I've, I've lost your trust is just simple. I know how to talk about this. And you're describing your experience as someone who might be considering rebuilding trust, yeah, you need to think about yourself and how trust works for you. And that leads so perfectly into what was going to be my first part of the answer of how do I build up trust step? One, very, very much. One is, you find out what trust means to this person, you find out their stories, what inspires trust in them? What are the elements that they need to trust, you have to know their stories, particularly in contrast to I will do the things for you that I would want for myself to build trust, that's unlikely to work it might you might happen across something. But no,

Joli Hamilton
the golden rule, not really the rule to use here. No, do you want to others as you would have done unto yourself? No, that's not actually that's not really going to get you where you want to go. But the platinum rule, yeah, that one will get you somewhere the platinum rule is do unto others as they would have done unto themselves which means you need to enter into a process of inquiry and let yourself be in the, in the process of finding out yeah, what what does trust look like feel like sound like for them? Like what are the what are the elements that create that sense of you are trustworthy to me? And that's where I'm going to return though to so my hyper vigilant self, my my self with a lot of complex trauma, I would say I also I have some some room there to get clear on what is it that I need to build trust with you in this context, while also taking care of myself? And not overextending? Not saying, Oh, I gotta rush my process. Okay. Yeah. And that's why I say like, yeah, we need to give this time that was going on comfortable.

Ken Hamilton
Yeah, it can be can be. But this is a recipe. And one, one ingredient is inquiry, I love that that's a great word, I need to find out from you what? What will move us in that direction. Second, that's the very first ingredient next ingredient time, because you can't re establish patterns of behavior without time.

Joli Hamilton
Right? Because we're looking for patterns of being right. So, and one, one instance of betrayal, can then rupture, create a rupture that now, it takes many instances of reaffirming of being an integrity of accountability in order to establish a basis. And this is just an uncomfortable truth. And, and here's the thing, we don't have to do this. But a relationship may come to an end, if we're unwilling to. And when I said rebuilding trust is an iterative process. You know, we've had situations that there was layers of hurt that I needed to allow to sort of rise to the surface over time. And later after we thought it was done. I had done enough of my own healing to realize like, oh, actually, there was another there was another big pain point. And there, I didn't even know that was there. Can we go back and work on this? Because I'm struggling to trust you in this new context? And that's my stuff. So I want to say, this isn't? That doesn't mean it's your fault. Right? Like, it can be about how do we build trust, given my particular wounds, your particular wounds, our particular psychology, how we work together, that doesn't have to be about blame. You don't have to be the person at fault. In order for us to be because we've worked on this quite a lot when when I recognize like, oh, it's not you, I don't trust. This is my father, I don't try this is my first husband, I don't trust this is my father in law. I don't trust this, oh, wow, this is actually quite a lot of men who've existed in my life. And I accidentally, over and over again, can glop them into an amalgam and then project that onto you, right? It's about my fear that you will act in this way that I have seen men treat me. And now you don't have to do this work with me. But you have volunteered and it's been incredibly healing to me for you to, to stand in that space and say, I'm not going to take the blame for this, because it wasn't me who took the actions, but I will enter into the trust building with you. Right, I will do that I will get into that. boat and row. Right, there

Ken Hamilton
have been easy, it's been so hums, when actions that I think are innocuous. They check that they match patterns in your life that I'm not aware of. So now you respond to that action in a way that seems from my point of view, to be out of proportion, or like I don't understand why this is such a big problem. I don't need to understand like in the moment to, to, to work with you to make it better. I don't need to understand it, to commit to it. It will help me the more I understand it, the more I will understand what to do. But I don't need to understand why you're there to commit to helping you and us move through it.

Joli Hamilton
Right. And again, I think this is about that that idea of we're volunteering for our relationships, volunteering, we're showing up and volunteering to be in this relational situation. And I'm choosing this and I have equally found myself in a position to to get in and do some healing work with you do some relationship development work with you and feeling the phrase that often comes up in our household around this is, hey, I think you're treating me like I'm someone else. Right? I here's what I think what I'm feeling right now is you treating me in a way that lines up with the patterns you had with this other person or with other people. Because I know your stories. And it's this is a very tender moment to share. Because I'm making I'm taking a guess I'm taking a get I'm saying I think this and so there has to be this sense of gentleness around here's what it feels like. But I also have to be open to you pushing back and saying, No, honey, that is not it. You are actually pissing me off right now. This is actually and yeah, maybe it reminds me of previous things. And that's not all that's going on here. And that's been incredibly helpful for me to just have that language and to have we have built that language into our relating over time. So that now it's a time we're both Most of us see that as sort of a soft pause, that's almost a soft say, for you in our relationship where, hey, I think I think you might be treating me like I'm someone else right now, can we do a check in about what's actually going on for each of us? And what you're perceiving and what I'm perceiving, and see if we can make some more shared meaning out of this,

Ken Hamilton
which brings us right back to inquiry. Hey, are you what, what are you doing right now? And then there's, and so I can respond to that, either as or you can, I mean, we've we've both done it. We both said, I think you might be treating me as someone else. And one of the responses is to say, No, I'm not and being wrong. I was like, oh, for some reflection, I'm

Joli Hamilton
like, oh, no, like to get defensive. No, I

Ken Hamilton
did I get defensive. Right. And, and that happens. And it's about being resilient enough to to let those moments pass and get back to actual collaboration.

Joli Hamilton
Yeah, so we're, really what we're talking about here is recollecting our projections, like we can be projecting our our junk our unconscious material on to our partners, that happens, the work of recollecting that is to look honestly, at what is a pattern that's happening right now? And how much of that is my stuff? Yeah, because it probably isn't 100% in either direction. So it's about entering into the collaboration of rebuilding trust. And this doesn't go as like we could take this much more deeply. There's another episode that we've recorded recently on betrayal trauma, and I think that that would be a good one to link to this, but I actually think, you know, Ken, why don't we wrap this up another q&a in another short episode. Thanks for bringing this up. And thanks for owning your stuff. You're really good at it. Thanks.

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