One of the first things to understand about relationships is '5, 10, 20'. Sounds weird to those of you who haven't heard it yet. Tonight Rosemary talks about the Satipattana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, and in the teaching, there's part of it where the Buddha explained that basically we're made up of Five Aggregates, the body as one, and the mind, which is divided into four parts. Every human being has 5 aggregates. So when a fellow gets together with woman and they make a relationship, you would think that 5 aggregates come together with 5 aggregates and you get 10 aggregates. However, very rarely does it ever add up to ten. Mathematically it's supposed to, right, but it doesn't work that way.
What happens is that the man brings his 5, the woman brings her 5, the man has his 5 he wishes she was, the woman has her 5 she wishes he was, the man has his 5 he wishes he was to please her, the woman has her 5 she wishes she was to please him. One of our students figured out that there are at least 50 in their relationship! OK, now the more aggregates you have, the more Dukkha you're going to have in your relationship. It's just that simple. As long as you want her or him to be different to what they are, you've got pain. Now if 5 come together with another 5 and this 5 really likes that 5, and that 5 really likes this 5, it's classically called love at first sight. They meet, boop, and it's immediately perfect, perfect, perfect. Yet, it happens very seldom on the planet, although it does happen.
It's a matter of accepting the other 5 for what they are, and liking them for what they are. If you don't like them at the beginning, don't try the relationship. We've seen it so often, one person's trying to change the other person, and they come into the interviews all the time and they say "Oh, so and so is doing this, and I don't like so and so doing that." We tell them about 5, 10, 20, and then they come in the next interview, again saying, "I don't like so and so doing this!" There's nothing we can do, and eventually they will break up, because they're not happy together. Those aggregates don't match the other aggregates.
With relationships and divorce, etc., it's almost that simple. If the aggregates aren't matching, you're going to have trouble. Now in this particular case, the question was, "If one loses one's trust in a person can it ever be regained?" It's very, very difficult, because we always remember what that person did to us. I personally don't feel human beings change very much in one lifetime, unless they are dedicated to changing themselves and even then it takes a lot of effort, as you all know. And most people do not wish to put in so much effort. That sounds a little bit odd, because some of you may find that you've changed a lot. Yet, Buddhism has this rebirth theory and all, and I don't really know if I'm much different to who I was when I died in my last life.
So when a person loses trust, and if you want to believe this theory, that most human beings don't change very much in one life, then it means that whatever that person did that made you lose trust in them, they're likely to do it again, unless they are truly regretful and dedicate themselves to improving themselves.
Now we do hope that everyone will reform, everyone will get better, and that's the principle behind compassion and jail systems, but it's also known that a lot of people who end up in jail become repeat offenders. This is because the roots of the causes may lie in their mind, and unless they are given ways to transform their views and thoughts, the wrong views and thoughts will again overwhelm their minds.
They've done it before, and they're likely to do similar unwise actions again. I knew a person who liked to go to jail. He actually liked to go to jail, because in jail he didn't have any worries, he could play snooker with his buddies, watch TV with his buddies, he didn't have any worries. So every time he was let out he would steal another car just so he could get back in the jail. Repeat offenders.
Now in particular about losing trust, for a lot of relationships this means a partner had an affair with somebody else, and then they come back and say please forgive me and so on. OK, some will do it again. Some won't.
One particular couple came to us for help. They'd been married one or two years and they were having a lot of trouble because the guy had had an affair. They'd been married one or two years already and the guy had had an affair. The girl was a mess, he was a mess, but they were keen on making it work. Over ten years later, they were still together. They regained trust, because the person who wanted to regain his partner's trust worked very hard to prove he was trustworthy and renewed the trust.
As to the question of whether there is a special technique which would help the person to regain trust, there are two perspectives with this, the person who wants to regain another's trust and the person who has lost trust but may give the trust back. If you've done something that's caused someone else to lose trust in you, the special technique is that you need to apologize sincerely allowing moral shame to guide you to showing genuine regret, make a determination within to not cause Dukkha for yourself and others. And, you've got to do lots and lots of good Kamma, in order to prove to the person that you're trustworthy. However you've also got to accept the fact that you're going to be blamed and reminded about what you did many, many times. Yet as more years go by and you don't repeat what you did wrong, trust will increase in the other person, and eventually, hopefully like this one couple who are still together and have two kids now, the trust will be regained after a long time.
Now if it's another person who broke your trust, is there a special technique for you to be able to give them the trust again? No, they have to earn it, you can't just do it, you can forgive them, but you don't want to forget. That's an interesting thing. Forgiving is one thing, but forgetting is different, because if you forget what the person did, then you leave yourself vulnerable to be hurt again. This is why so many families of alcoholics continue to get abused, because after a guy has been drunk and beat them up, they forgive the guy on the weekend, then he does the same thing the next weekend, and they forgive him again. Rather than that, the person has to earn the trust. So there's nothing really special you can do except encourage the person, and tell them flat out that, they've got to earn your trust back, that it's not so easy. Yet again, remembering the 5, 10, 20 business, if the person's not really the person you want to be together in a partnership with, then you should think about ending the relationship.