Seven months into being honest, I started a sentence with my wife that I never finished. "I've been honest with you for seven months now." She heard the rest of it anyway, and so did I: so you should trust me by now.
That was an invoice. Underneath it was an internal ledger, and underneath the ledger was entitlement that survived my sobriety and showed up in my recovery wearing a different voice.
In this episode: what trust actually is, why one lie outweighs a hundred honest days, why her trust comes back and then collapses after a trigger, and the one thing that rebuilds it. I close with Joseph and his brothers, which I think is the longest account of trust repair in Scripture.
FREE WORKSHEET: THE SHOULD AUDIT
Find the entitled beliefs and the ledger still running underneath your recovery.
https://www.joy-recovery.com/shoulds-audit
CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome
00:40 The sentence I did not finish
02:00 The invoice and the internal ledger
02:45 Shoulds, should nots, and resentment
03:30 I trained her not to trust me
04:30 The football field and the three yard line
05:50 Tear up the invoice, and the Should Audit worksheet
06:40 Annette Baier: trust is accepted vulnerability
07:55 What you are actually asking her to hand you
09:00 About the Joy Recovery Academy
09:40 The three components: ability, care, integrity
10:50 Why integrity is the hardest one to repair
11:55 Paul Slovic and the trust asymmetry
13:30 Distrust reinforces itself
14:45 Proverbs 25:19: the broken tooth and the lame foot
15:40 Pavlov: your voice was the bell
16:50 The thin layer over the cloud of distrust
18:40 Behavior is your language now
20:00 Joseph, and the long test
21:30 Judah steps forward
22:40 Tear up the invoice
RESEARCH AND SOURCES
I move through a lot of research in this episode without stopping to cite it. Here is all of it.
Trust as accepted vulnerability
Baier, A. (1986). Trust and Antitrust. Ethics, 96(2), 231 to 260.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/et/1986/96/2
The three components of trustworthiness
Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709 to 734.
I describe these as ability, care, and integrity. The original paper calls the second one benevolence.
Why integrity violations are the hardest to repair
Kim, P. H., Ferrin, D. L., Cooper, C. D., & Dirks, K. T. (2004). Removing the Shadow of Suspicion. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(1), 104 to 118.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.1.104
Free copy: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/2368
The trust asymmetry principle
Slovic, P. (1993). Perceived Risk, Trust, and Democracy. Risk Analysis, 13(6), 675 to 682.
Free copy: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/22413
Classical conditioning
Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned Reflexes. Oxford University Press.
Why fear returns after a trigger
Bouton, M. E. (2002). Context, Ambiguity, and Unlearning: Sources of Relapse After Behavioral Extinction. Biological Psychiatry, 52(10), 976 to 986.
Free copy: https://www.appstate.edu/~steelekm/classes/psy5150/Documents/Bouton2002.pdf
DARVO
Freyd, J. J. (1997). Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness, and Betrayal Trauma Theory. Feminism & Psychology, 7(1), 22 to 32.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353597071004
SCRIPTURE
Proverbs 25:19. Wording varies by translation, so check yours.
Genesis 37:26 to 28, Genesis 42 through 44, Genesis 44:33, Genesis 45:1 to 4.
JOY RECOVERY ACADEMY
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Joy Recovery Radio is an educational podcast about betrayal trauma, deceptive sexuality, and the integrity work required when a relationship has been harmed by hidden sexual behavior. This content is educational and is not therapy, coaching, or a substitute for professional care.
