Building (and Breaking) Relationship Trust
Relationship trust is an interesting thing. It’s one of the most important ingredients to any successful marriage or relationship. Building it takes a long time, but breaking it takes no time at all.Trust builds emotional safety and connection in a relationship, and lays a foundation to the well being of any marriage or relationship. When it’s compromised, we’re inclined to close up, to not be as emotionally available to our partner, and withdraw from the relationship.As babies, we come into the world with a trusting nature. We trust that our caretakers will be there to fulfill our basic needs for love, food, attention and touch. Without those needs being met, we’d perish. We’re no different when we get older, as we still have those essential needs, and even more so. We trust that our partner will be there for us - not just physically, but emotionally. When that trust is compromised, we’re left in a tailspin because the very people that we counted on to trust have compromised it.I think it’s important to identify the ways to build - and break - relationship trust, to kind of break it down into things you can see and apply to your relationship, or diagnose if you’re falling into negative patterns that break trust.I’ve summarized a list of ways to build, and ways to break, relationship trust. How do these ideas play into your current or past relationship or marriage?
Ways to build trust in a relationship:
Be honest with your partner
Employ a “do unto others” philosophy in your relationship: put yourself in their shoes before doing something potentially harmful to your relationship
Put your true feelings out there, even if you’re afraid of hurting your partner
Not harboring negative feelings by not communicating them
Don’t make assumptions about the other person: check it out with them first
Deal with the ways you let fear take over
Identify your own issues that prevent you from trusting, like insecurity, inadequacy, or jealousy
Be true to your word: follow through with what you say you’ll do
Deal with other women in an effective way, rather than getting into “leaking” out sexual or emotional energy to other women (and then rationalizing that you’re doing it).
If you lie, commit to getting help to deal with the root causes of your lying, so that you can stop it
Ways to break trust in a relationship:
Lying, or even white lying
Not being upfront and honest with your mate, even if it’s difficult
Communicating with other women inappropriately, whether it’s text, email, photos, social media, etc.
Being manipulative in your behavior
Making promises you don’t keep: not being true to your word with your partner
Being someone you’re not: being a phony, a cheat, or a deceiver
Withholding your emotions, especially negative ones, from your partner
Being “emotionally dishonest” with your feelings
Not listening to your partner (creates distrust and lack of safety for them to reveal themselves)
Breaking Trust and Infidelity
Trust takes a long time to redevelop after it’s been compromised or destroyed, especially in an infidelity or cheating situation. If you’ve cheated on your partner, it may take them a lot longer to repair, and will certainly take couples or marriage counseling, and time. Even if you’ve gotten over the cheating situation, that doesn’t mean your wife or girlfriend is over it. She may not have even started the process to heal herself from your infidelity. Don’t assume she’s on the same schedule as you in terms of repairing from the damage.But time itself does not heal wounds. I can’t tell you how many people think that time alone will heal trust breaches, but it doesn’t. Therapy is needed, and a commitment to work through the pain of whatever broke the trust. Just pushing the distrust issues to the back of your brain and not dealing with it doesn’t mean you won’t have to deal with those same issues at some point down the road.I also think the definition of infidelity extends out past just a sexual affair. I think it also includes texting with or communicating with other women through social media, email, chat, etc. I think too many guys rationalize that if they just talk with other women and don’t have sex with them, that it’s not really cheating, but I disagree.
Put yourself in your partner’s shoes. What would she (or he) say, or do? If you rationalize your behavior, you might want to consider your behavior, and consider the fact that breaking trust comes from these very actions.
Do consider how important trust is in your relationship, and if you’re doing things to compromise the trust, stop those behaviors or seek out counseling to help you identify the root causes of those behaviors so you don’t have to expose them to your relationship. The best relationships are trusting relationships, and if you’re not trustworthy, you’re not only not bringing the best you to your relationship.
You’re damaging it. If you’re interested in learning more about the Marriage counseling , or if counseling might be right for you, please feel free to contact me directly or visit our Couples counseling page for detail.
