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How can I earn back the trust of my parents?

Okay, so about three months ago, my parents found my bowl and a little bit of pot. They made me sign a contract in which I promised not to partake in drinking and smoking (indefinitely?), they took away my driving privileges for a month, and I had to see some drug counselor like two times. So I cut out the smoking, no problem. Three months clean. I've never really gotten into drinking anyways. However, over the past month, I've drank four of their beers when they've been away (as in one beer each time they've been gone, on four separate occasions), because I guess I was bored and had nothing else to do. Honestly, I really don't have a good reason, I just did it. I put the empties in my dresser drawer (stupid, I know). Well, my mom found those this morning, and she's not happy. As soon as she found them, I told her the truth about how they got there, what had happened, etc,. She now thinks I have some sort of drinking problem, and doesn't believe me about stopping smoking, although I encourage her to drug test me. She says she doesn't know if she can trust me about anything I tell her. In my eyes, it looks like she thinks I'm turning into some sort of delinquent, when in actuality, I look pretty damn close to a saint compared to most of my shithead friends that drink 10+ beers a night every Friday and Saturday. r/parenting, how can I get it across to my parents that I am not a pothead alcoholic? Or at least get them to see that I'm not as "wild" as they think I am?
To whom it may concern: I don't drink on the social scene at all. I usually drive whenever I go to a party or somewhere where I know there will be drinking because 1) I don't want to risk being stuck riding with someone who has been drinking and 2) I don't want to put others in that position. I've earned a reputation as being an available DD whenever I go out and try to give as many people as I can manage rides. The best thing you said in here was about your "shithead friends". Drinking 10+ beers a night is no amazing feat, drinking can be fun on special occasion but becoming an alcoholic is nothin to look forward to. Like you said you're not that bad off and it was a stupid thing or you to do, so stop again and earn back the trust by doing it right again for a couple months. Sounds like you need a hobby, maybe a new circle of friends. Maybe interested in a part time job? Do you like doing things with your hands? Get into wood working, art, volunteer somewhere... Do things that will look great on a future resume. Ever thought of traveling? Pick an awesome vacation spot to visit - think big - Fiji, Egypt, Rome, the Amazon, somewhere cool where you can really see some history and a different part of life. Get a part time job and start saving up and making plans! Or how about a car? Save up towards one? Take a class to know how to work on one and save thousands in the future on car repair while having an awesome skill. There is so much more you could be experiencing than getting high and drunk for no reason. This will do everything you want - you won't be bored and your parents will be proud and excited for you. There are ofcourse many other options but I just came up with a few. Basically think of a goal you find exciting and work towards it. Once you come up with a good one talk to your parents about it and let them in on the plan, but the follow through is the important part. My mother freaked out. She over-reacted. Years later she admitted that she was proud of me for finding a ride home, instead of driving drunk. Parents over-react. That's what we do. It's because we care about our kids and feel responsible for them. While it's important for your parents to trust you, you are also at an age where this sort of thing happens because you want to be independent and make your own decisions about how you live. You're about to be a grownup and it's important that you're comfortable with what kind of grownup you are. If you're okay with what you did, then you're probably just going to be at odds with your parents for a while. Everyone has to go through this when they're becoming an adult. This probably won't be the last time you disappoint them. So, maybe you should ask yourself how you feel about everything you've done - the pot, the drinking and the lying. Don't rationalize it in the context of what your other friends do; but how do you really feel about it and is it something you want for yourself?
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I think I have seen it echoed a little in the comments below. You cannot convince parents of anything. I tried to commit suicide with sleeping pills and to this day they think I was just trying to get high. They may give you privilege back but in the back of their minds they will always be a little skeptical of what you are telling them. This is a good thing. As you grow up, you will realize your parents are just being over safe because they are scared for you. They have seen the things they have done in life and will apply them to you. But you have to be smart too. I do not punish my children for telling me the truth. Ever. And they are in MORE trouble when they get caught in a lie. However, you know your parents more than I do. If telling your parents the truth is going to just make things considerably worse. DO NOT DO THAT. So, taken to something of an extreme, if you were living in a very religious southern baptist conservative household with your father/minister who consistently preaches an antigay message on sundays. Your life will only get worse by coming out. There is no simple answer. You have to use your 17 years of experience to weigh your options. 10 years from now when you have 27 years of experience/reasoning you will see how naive your decisions are but it is the best that we have. I grew up in a traditional Japanese household but in America - that should set the tone already. My mom held her Japanese ideals here in the US, so when she found out I had been drinking and smoking weed in my junior year of high school (like you, FAR less in amount and frequency than most of my friends) she flew off the handle to say the least. I couldn't do anything right and she didn't trust me at all to be out of her sight. It was not good. I was the good girl growing up, living with an extremely rebellious younger sister (ran off as soon as she turned 18 with a then-married man twice her age). I could never understand the appeal of drinking or smoking (or already married men), so that's the point of view I'm coming from here. I get being bored, but why does boredom equal stealing beer? That's the big one for me as a mom. There are so many other things to do; like studying for finals, picking up a hobby that works with your hands, binge-watching something on Netflix, etc. You signed a contract, and if you were legally an adult signing a drug-policy contact with an employer, and failed a random piss-test, you most-likely would have been fired. That contact you signed with your parents was an attempt to reestablish trust, which you have broken again. Best things to do: ditch the shithead friends. If you know they're shitheads already, then you know they probably won't have your back for the long-haul.
Come clean to your parents on your own, take your consequences like the adult you will be soon. Talk to them, tell them you're bored, talk to them about your friends (without the "but they're worse! crap), show them you understand why you're in trouble, even if you don't agree.
Get a hobby/workout/help your parents around the house/get a job/do something to quell the boredom. What about taking a summer class in something physical, like martial arts, auto mechanics, wood shop, or something else to keep you occupied?
How can you provide reasons to why you weren't serious with the original commitment other than saying it was an honest mistake? For example, I used to call all my friends babe. My SO said this made them feel really uncomfortable, but I've been doing that for my entire life basically. I said I would stop, but they found out that I slipped a few times 3 months ago.
Humans are flawed creatures. Plain and simple,as simple as that. Trust can ebb and flow with me. Perhaps I'm inherently more forgiving, but rather than running away from the person who has lost my trust, I problem-solve a way around needing to trust them. If they want to re-connect that trust, I'm okay letting them re-prove their competence.
For example, I don't trust my SO to not leave their phone in the refrigerator, for example. They lost that trust the second time it happened, and I don't foresee a change in this trend. Not that I wouldn't be open to the change, and if confirmed over a significant period of time, I could begin to trust that they wouldn't leave their phone everywhere. The issue is that they simply wont change. This is often the case with many larger, less trivial issues as well.
Another example: If your parents are controlling or micromanaging, its likely they will always be like that. Either develop a way to minimize the impact of that on yourself, or confront them and let them know, hoping they will be self-aware enough to be open to change (preferably both). The most likely outcome, that which my internal model would discern, would be that they won't change, so in effect I won't be able to trust them to not be overbearing, but hypothetically if they were to change then I would be fine with that. There are certain actions which will make it impossible for me to enjoy your presence though. My father is in that camp. Primarily because I've seen him do "good" or altruistic things with ill-intention.
That makes it impossible for me to relax around him or anyone like that. Stuff like that is pretty standard for most people, I'd think. Still, people do note that I am particularly irreverent towards bonds in general. I won't give you a second shot just because you're my legal or blood family and family bonds hold no pedestal for me. Certain members of my family I have completely quit on because they're possessive or they like using denial to cope with problems. They know these things are problems but they don't understand why I don't give them a second shot or show leniency just because of the family connection. So there's a bit of that to take into account. The question of trust have an ambiguous borders when it is not about obvious betrayal. It is beneficial in life in some way to check everything twice (or more) but it is time consuming and a live goes on nevertheless. Communication concept builded on trust. Love is builded on trust. Friendship builded on trust. That is hard to regain trust to someone who deceived you indeed (if it was a deception in reality, and not your mental construct of what should had happened and what happened that was percieved as fraud). But people are changing (i believe) if they are truly understood their mistakes. If making swindle on you is not concidered as a mistake, well… You are not on the road with these people. You can't be too open and believe everything and everyone by default, but being distrustful and paranoid at everything/everyone will fill your life with misery and loneliness. Trust is the assumption that other people won't or will do certain things the way you want them to get done. If they prove that assumption wrong then obviously the assumption is dropped forever. It would be stupid to cling to an assumption that has already been proven false. I have a friend who disappointed me deeply once. Before it happened I would have probably said I trust him. After it happened I broke off contact for about a year. Then we reconnected and now I would call him my friend again, but I will never ever trust him again. That would be stupid. There's a hard limit to how good of a friend he can be to me, or to how big of a role I would let him play in my life at any point in the future and that simply wasn't the case before. It's been many years since the incident so yeah, I can say with some confidence that broken trust is irreversible for me and there's no turning back on it when I've made my mind up.
-Cheating I expect someone’s word to be their bond. When they break a promise to me, I become very angry with them for feeling as though they think they can take advantage of me. I pride myself of my faithfulness and put in a plethora of work to make sure my partner feels comfortable and trusts me. When someone cheats on me I have the mindset of “how dare you not reciprocate my effort. I did all of this for you for nothing.” That being said, if I find value in the partner, am willing to work with them. It is a gauntlet for upwards of a year and very tiring on their end so most just leave but those who stay and put forth the effort to gain back my trust gain not only a majority of that trust, but a level of respect I don’t give many people. My current s/o cheated on me in the infantile stages of our relationship. I don’t even like stating this because it brings judgement a lot of the time. However, he worked tirelessly to make up for the pain he caused me so long ago that my mind and heart put him on a pedestal and he remains up there to this day, three years later. To try and get past the trust that is lost with infidelity, you have to let go of your dependency on that person. Trying to take away their freedom so they will not wrong you does not allow them to prove to you that they care enough to right their wrong on their own. It’s tough but you need to sit back and disconnect from them until you feel as though you are 100% confident they have shown enough initiative to ensure they won’t do it again. If you try and control their actions, you will never feel as though they have done enough to satisfy you. -Lying Fuck that. Lying not only is the shittiest thing someone can do, but paired with cheating or stealing it is 100% unforgivable. My biggest expectation of others is thorough transparency. If you lie to me, it is insulting to the nth degree. “Do you think I’m some sort of fucking moron?” You can probably tell I’m pretty irritated just typing about it. Not only does someone lying to me imply they think I’m stupid, it shows me how much of a coward someone really is. I will tell the truth to someone no matter how bad it hurts them. I do not care to spare feelings (even if other would rather I did) and I expect others to do the same with me. If I see you as a liar, I see you as a cheater, a thief, a manipulator because how the hell do I know you do not lie about those things? I assume the worst and no amount of reasoning will convince me otherwise. Why? You’re probably lying. Lying to me opens up a can of worms that I absolutely cannot get past. That being said, if you want to work on allowing that person to gain your trust back, it is important to understand that people lie for two reasons. My (21F)partner (24M) didn’t cheat on me but he has lied to me at 3 points during our year and a half relationship. The first time I told him that if it happened again that I would break up with him. The second time I said the same thing and then the 3rd time I did the same. The 3rd time happened on Saturday. I asked him if he was lying to me and I told him that I wouldn’t be mad if he told me the truth right there and then. But he looked me in the eyes and lied to me. I found out a couple of minutes later because he had undone himself by saying something different to what he has just told me and that’s when he came clean about lying to me. The lies aren’t massive lies and they aren’t malicious lies. I think what I’m hurt about is that he looks me in the eyes and lies straight to my face. I think that’s the part that I’m struggling with the most, especially when I asked him to be honest with me and when I told him that I wouldn’t get mad if he lied to me, that I just wanted the truth. I think I’m also struggling to believe that everything else he has told me during our relationship hasn’t been a lie. I love him more than words could ever tell. He is a great boyfriend and a good person. Our relationship has never had any serious problems and he’s pretty much my best friend. I just don’t know how to trust him again and I’m frightened that I might not be able to fully trust him again or that I’ll always be questioning if he’s telling me the truth. I’ve been still struggling to trust him since the second time he lied to me. I don’t want to leave the relationship, I want to figure out how I go about building the trust back. It really has a lot to do with your own boundaries and how much you are willing to trust them with your life. Think of it as a test of your priorities. If him lying to you is truly a deal breaker then follow through. The only reason you’re questioning it is because you don’t trust yourself to make the right decision. It’s completely normal but once you establish what your willing to put up with versus what you absolutely will not, you should absolutely stick to it. At this point, it is likely he will continue this cycle so it’s important to figure out if you can live with someone who lies occasionally. Don't get me wrong, he is the one causing waves, but you sure are awfully naive to think that he's only told three lies. You've only caught him in three. It's like icebergs, you only see 10%... think about that. That means 27 lies you don't know about. Then you lie about breaking up with him, so he receives no consequence and now he is coercing you to play his game of lies. He may honestly be a pathological liar, or just a cheat, but if you don't leave him, you're signing up for more and more hurt each time. He will continue to disappoint you and let you down, and lie looking you straight in the eye. You don't rebuild trust with someone who continues taking it away, you leave and get someone that you deserve. You say he is otherwise the best, but many of us have been blinded by someone who is heavily taking advantage of us. We just don't want to see it. And until you do, this issue will get worse and worse, you may end up with panic and anxiety disorders and be traumatized and have to have therapy...all because you believed a liar only told you three lies
It may be harsh, but at least you know I don't have to lie. I have nothing vested in whether you stay together or not. It's none of my concern, actually.
There is a bunch of different ways people are messing up and losing someones trust, so in my opinion it is to be considered in individual cases. Also it depends on the attitude and the principles of the person,wether he can trust the person again or not. Generally i would say the first step trying to regain the trust is to face the mistake the person has made and apologize. If it's possible it would be more effective doing something instead of just apologizing, to show the person you didn't want it to come so far. In my case i maybe accept the apology, i think generally everyone deserves a second chance.
If they COMPLETELY lost it? They probably wouldn't get it back at all then. I like to believe that if someone fucks up once, they're still 100% liable to do it (or something just as bad) again. Saying sorry doesn't change who you are as a person. I can totally forgive people for various things that have happened in my life, but to completely lose trust in someone? Yeah, that require Listen to him and his concerns and be open about things. The reason I say you're not ready for more is you still justify it as a drunken kiss. That's an excuse. Alcohol lowers your inhibitions it doesn't change who you fundamentally are. You can say you own up to it but you still made a point to clarify to a bunch of strangers you were drunk. You say in another comment he doesn't want you to stop going out and drinking because most likely he knows if you're gonna do it again that'll be how and he'd rather it happen sooner than later. You're using alcohol as an excuse so he's letting you keep that excuse to see what h

 
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