Coaching practices for How Repair Builds Trust

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How Repair Builds Trust, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Trust with this person has cracked and I just keep apologizing for "not being trustworthy" in this big vague way
• Even after we patch things up, every new conflict still feels like it could be the one that ends us
• To smooth things over I say "sounds good," "I’m fine with it," "I understand" when none of it is actually true
• Something’s damaged my trust in them but I can’t bring myself to just say so, so instead I quietly pull back, vent to other people, and let it fester
• I’ve started treating every fight we have as proof that something’s broken between us, and because we never really circle back to mend them afterward, each unfinished one chips away at all the good we’ve built

Practices that may help

1. Diagnose which trust dimension is broken before trying to repair
   Name the specific trust assessment that failed — then address that one, not trust in general.
   The Trust Triangle
2. Let repeated repair build earned security
   Each successful repair teaches "we can break and come back" — which is what makes a relationship feel safe.
   Rupture and Repair
3. Build sincerity by saying only what you mean
   Only make commitments and assertions you actually believe — and retract the ones you don’t.
   The Trust Triangle
4. Have explicit trust conversations when trust is at stake
   Name the trust issue directly rather than managing it indirectly.
   The Trust Triangle
5. Treat conflict as maintenance, not maintenance failure
   Repair well and quickly — because how you end conflict matters more than how you conduct it.
   Relationship Maintenance Behaviors
6. Build reliability through small, visible commitments
   Reliability is built not by big promises but by flawlessly keeping small, everyday ones.
   The Trust Equation, Made Practical
7. The Trust Triangle
   Charles Feltman’s Trust Triangle (from The Thin Book of Trust) identifies four distinct assessments that together constitute trust: sincerity (I mean what I say), reliability (I do what I say), competence (I have the ability to do what I say), and care (I have your interests at heart). Trust breaks down when any one of these assessments fails — and repairing trust requires identifying which assessment was damaged.
8. Demonstrate care through visible acts in the other person’s interest
   Show that your interests and theirs are genuinely aligned — not only when it’s convenient.
   The Trust Triangle
9. Rupture and Repair
   Ruptures — the inevitable misattunements, conflicts, and disconnections in any close relationship — are normal and unavoidable; what builds security is reliable repair afterward. Research from infant still-face studies, couples work, and psychotherapy all converges on the same finding: relationships are not made secure by avoiding rupture but by the predictable experience that disconnection can be named and reconnected.
10. Extend trust deliberately to invite it
    Trust others first, in bounded ways, before they have earned every dimension — it is how trust is built.
    The Trust Triangle

Describe your situation in your own words to search the complete practice library.