Look, I hear you. And I want to say something to you right away before we go anywhere else: trust issues is not a diagnosis. It’s not a character flaw. It’s not evidence that something is broken in you. It is evidence that you got hurt, and your organism learned something from that.
Here’s what’s actually happening when we talk about “trust issues.” Your brain is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. Every time you meet a new moment, a new person, a new relationship, your brain goes back through its filing cabinet of past experiences and says, “Okay, what do I know about this?” And if what’s in that filing cabinet is, “The last time I trusted someone, I got hurt,” your body activates. It sends signals. And your brain goes, “Right. I know what happens here. I’m not doing that again.”
You keep expecting a safe partner to repeat your past.
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You’re not broken. You’re a learning organism that learned something painful.
The problem is, those old files are now coloring everything. It’s like having a filter over your eyes, tinted by every past hurt, and you’re looking at your present relationship, your present partner, through that filter. And you genuinely cannot tell the difference between what’s actually happening right now and what happened back then. The past merges with the present. That’s not weakness. That’s just how human beings work.
Now here’s the thing I really want you to sit with. The way we actually heal this is not by building walls higher or lower. It’s not by working on your communication skills or reading the right book. What actually changes those old files, what literally rewrites them, is having a new experience. A real, felt, present moment experience where you risked being hurt again, you let yourself be vulnerable again, and something different happened. And you let that in.
That last part, letting it in, is often the hardest part. Because even when someone shows up for you beautifully, the old files say, “Yeah, but they weren’t here yesterday,” or, “I don’t trust this will last.” So you exit the very moment you’ve been longing for your whole life.
The goal isn’t to stop having those old fears. The goal is to go right into the heart of them, feel them fully, and then risk reaching for connection anyway. And when connection shows up to meet you there, stay in it. Don’t look for the sparrow out the window. Stay.
That’s the work. And I promise you, it’s possible.
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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
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