The word “again” in your question tells me everything I need to know. This isn’t about one slip-up. This is about a pattern that’s eating away at something precious between you two.
Here’s what I see in my office constantly: people focus on the broken promise itself instead of what’s happening underneath. Your partner didn’t just fail to follow through on something. They chipped away at your ability to feel secure with them.
When someone keeps breaking promises, there are usually two things going on. Either they genuinely don’t understand the weight their words carry for you, or they understand but can’t hold themselves accountable to it yet. Both are fixable, but you need to know which one you’re dealing with.
Think about it like this: imagine trust as a bank account. Every kept promise is a deposit. Every broken one is a withdrawal. If your partner keeps making withdrawals without understanding they’re doing it, you’re going to end up overdrawn. And once that account hits zero, even small broken promises feel catastrophic.
What I want you to pay attention to is what happens inside your body when they break a promise. Not your thoughts, not your reaction. What do you feel physically? That tightness in your chest? That sinking in your stomach? That’s your nervous system telling you something important about safety.
The conversation you need to have isn’t “you broke another promise.” That leads nowhere good. The conversation that actually moves something is: “When you break promises, this is what it does to my ability to feel safe with you.”
This shifts everything. Instead of focusing on their behavior, you’re sharing the impact. Instead of making them defensive, you’re giving them information about what’s at stake.
But here’s the hard part: you can’t have this conversation from a place of attack. You have to come from that wounded place underneath your anger. The place that feels small and unimportant when promises get broken.
And if they respond with defensiveness or minimizing? That tells you something crucial about where they are in their ability to hold your heart carefully. Some people need time to grow into that capacity. Others need professional help to get there.
The question isn’t whether you should trust them again. The question is whether they’re willing to understand what their broken promises cost you and do the work to rebuild what got damaged. Without that understanding, you’re just setting yourself up for more of the same hurt.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: How to Rebuild Trust After Lying: What Actually Works
