You have to understand what trust means to you and your partner before it can be built in your relationship. Communicating your expectations and understanding what your partner needs is the foundation for building a long-lasting relationship.
Also, take the time to understand what your partner is looking for in a relationship and make sure your needs are clearly expressed. When you begin with that, building trust becomes much easier.
Below are the steps to build trust in your relationship.
1. Keeping secrets
Don’t keep secrets from each other, rather, keep them for each other. Keep your personal conversations at home. It is only okay to talk about something once you hear your partner bring up the subject in a conversation. Also, he may share this information only with certain people. It’s his story, so let him tell it and follow his lead.
2. Earn it
Don’t just assume that trust exists, instead, always work to earn it. When you stop taking trust for granted and make it a priority, you will be conscious of your actions and the perceptions of those actions to your partner.
3. Disagree in private
A public forum is never an ideal place to express a disagreement. If what your partner is saying doesn’t sit well with you, discuss it at home. Disagreeing in front of other people can humiliate or shame the other person. This sort of behavior will ruin your lines of communication and your trust factor. Waiting till you get home gives the benefit of processing your thoughts in a respectful way to encourage an honest and open discussion.
4. Give space
Trust builds in an atmosphere of security and safety. The cycle of hurting each other, either verbally or physically, and then rejecting the other person, creates a lot of fear which undermines trust.
Also trying to control your partner’s every move is another type of mistrust, so make sure you’re not over-possessive because that will only push your significant other away.
If your partner wants to spend time with their friends, you need to be supportive of that. As long as you and your partner communicate regularly and aren’t afraid to let each other know what your respective boundaries are and what you are and aren’t comfortable with so the same problem does not keep happening again and again.
5. Be forgiving
Trusting doesn’t mean mistakes won’t happen, and when they do, be forgiving. Holding on to past misdeeds will only erase the trust in your relationship. A mistake made by you or your partner should not be a constant source of contention. Letting go of the hurt, accepting the apology and moving on builds a trust based on love and truth.
Building trust isn’t really hard when you approach your relationship with understanding and respect.
