Trust Me, Go to Bed Angry: Anxious Attachment & Rebuilding Trust in your Relationship

Rebuilding Trust Using the Windows and Walls Technique: A Therapist’s Approach

When trust is broken, the path to rebuilding it requires patience, structure, and a focus on both honesty and commitment to the future. One powerful approach to fostering trust in relationships is the Windows and Walls Technique. This technique creates a clear structure for addressing the past while focusing on the present and future, enabling partners to gradually rebuild a foundation of trust.

GO TO BED ANGRY: I PROMISE IT’s Okay

First of all, it is okay to go to bed angry. One of the greatest myths is that going to bed angry is unhealthy for your relationship. Yet, going to bed angry allows trust to build if there is a dedication to communication ONLY when both individuals have adequate emotional capacity to honor and respect their partner. Often times, we force reconciliation after a fight to happen immediately (due to anxious attachment). In fact, one person in the relationship is usually the pursuer, who wants to talk now and fix the discomfort and discord; meanwhile, the other partner wants to take time to process it. They are the withdraw-er. This pursue-withdraw cycle is a pattern of the typical anxious-avoidant relationship attachment dynamics.

Check in with your partner with true honesty. Do you have the ability to hear your partner without blame? Do you have the capacity to seek to understand versus listening to respond? Do you have too much resentment and anger in your energy reserve? If so, take time away to fill your own cups and come back to the conversation after you get rest, after you move your body, after you talk to a friend, after you go for a walk, journal, or regulate your nervous system. THIS is the key to making genuine repair in your relationship. If you don’t allow space for healthy repair, trust will continue to be broken. Nothing changes if nothing changes. Therefore, change how you approach conflict and use the window and walls technique to rebuild a positive foundation.

The Windows and Walls Technique

The “windows and walls” concept involves designating one day each week where the “windows” are opened to discuss the past where trust was broken. During this time, partners can explore past issues with honesty and vulnerability. The rest of the week, the “walls” are up… I know. Why would a therapist tell us to have walls up? Well, when building trust it is crucial to have boundaries to support the focus on positivity versus living in the sticky, painful, resentment-filled past. If your relationship has experienced a break in trust you must focus, diligently, on positive behaviors and reaffirming trust in the relationship without revisiting painful memories. This approach allows for crucial healing conversations to happen while avoiding the constant replay of past hurts, enabling both partners to create a new narrative of trust.

What you place your attention on will be the direction you go. If you want to recreate these trust breaking habits, then, keep doing what you’re doing and keeping the windows open at all times to resurface the resentment. However, if you are sick of feeling mistrust in your partnership, it will require you to challenge your fear. It will require you to challenge your mindset. It will require you to shift your focus to the good you see in the present versus the pain you experienced in the past.

If, and only if, you are both dedicated to moving forward in a renewed sense of trust and an even better experience of love, can you see this change. You will have to be open to starting the relationship over completely. Present the past history is not even your reality anymore. What relationship are you building? What do you desire? Can you meet each other again? Set the intention and watch the love flourish in a new way. It is possible for you to move forward if there is: 1. emotional and physical safety and 2. genuine respect.

Honesty and Insight from an Eternal Source

In rebuilding trust, honesty must be a cornerstone of every interaction. Open communication is vital, but sometimes it’s hard for individuals to recognize all the areas where they might be contributing to mistrust or misunderstandings. That’s why having an “eternal source”—a therapist or coach—is invaluable. A neutral party can help each person see patterns and blind spots, encouraging both partners to cultivate deeper insight and accountability. This support helps both partners approach trust repair without projecting or making assumptions, fostering a more genuine and grounded healing process.

Combatting the Instant Gratification Trap

Rebuilding trust isn’t a process that brings instant results, which can be challenging in a world where quick solutions are expected. To truly restore trust, both partners need to commit to living in the present and focusing on the future they want to create together, rather than staying tethered to past disappointments. This involves dedication to daily positive reinforcement and mutual growth—small actions over time create a cumulative effect that can genuinely transform the relationship.

If you don’t feel like you have access to a therapist or coach at this time, ask other trusted sourced in your life that you feel will be able to give you unbiased observations. You cannot heal your relationship on your own. We all need guidance. We all need support. Relationships are the core of all human life and thus, they can be the most life-giving and the most complex and challenging. We all want instant change and that cannot happen without seeing the whole picture of your relationship.

We often cannot see our relationship from a birds-eye view on our own because we are standing within it. Seek out support from someone who can illuminate the shadows, the dark spaces, and the patterns you cannot see. By doing so, your desire for “quick transformation” will become more of a reality. Don’t forget, the biggest asset you have is your mind.

Reach out for your free 30 minute session today to see if I could be a good fit to support your relationship: https://www.guidetobe.com/

Building a Trust-Biased Mindset

As the walls stay up during the week, partners should work to create a “confirmation bias” toward each other’s trustworthiness. This doesn’t mean ignoring issues but instead noticing and valuing the behaviors that affirm trust. Acts of kindness, consistency, and reliability contribute to a trust-biased mindset. By consciously choosing to recognize these affirmations, partners can reshape their understanding of each other, replacing distrust with a new, more positive narrative.

The best way to solidify the neural pathways of trust is to verbally share your positive feedback for your partner, daily. If you don’t verbally say them, I recommend writing it down. The extra step of hearing the confirmation of trust out loud or seeing it on a piece of paper will dig the new pathway toward trust, love, and satisfaction deeper and lessen the habitual response of the pathway of mistrust.

After pain and mistrust, your brain will be looking for all the other data that will show you that this relationship is bad, your partner is not trustworthy, or that you will get hurt again. While your mind is trying to protect you, it won’t allow you to move toward love and toward the trust you want to rebuild. As a couple, patience with each other’s emotions is vital. I believe in you.

Focusing on the Journey, Not the Destination

Rebuilding trust is a journey, not a final destination. By practicing the Windows and Walls Technique, committing to honesty, seeking guidance, and focusing on future-building, partners gradually foster an environment where trust can thrive. The path to lasting trust requires mindfulness, accountability, and a dedication to restarting anew, but when both people stay committed to loving their partner at their core (without a fixation on what has happened externally), it can lead to a deeply fulfilling and resilient relationship. In the end, trust becomes not just an achievement but an ongoing practice and commitment that enriches the partnership.

This approach, rooted in patience and structured communication, allows partners to reclaim their relationship while letting go of past burdens, one honest step at a time.

Listen to the full podcast episode on trust here!

If you believe in the dedication of your relationship, work through a 18 week self guided realignment program created by Rachel Jackson, MA MFT. Purchase here: https://guidetobe.thinkific.com/courses/realignyourrelationship

Want a full Relationship Audit from Rachel, a trained-therapist, apply here: https://www.guidetobe.com/realign-application