Building trust in your relationship

Trust is weird because the only way to earn it is to be given it. You simply cannot know if you can trust a person until you can no longer trust them. Which is even harder for the person giving the trust because they have no evidence in either direction before they have to make that leap. But, we give out our trust all the time, in all kinds of situations, without having any evidence that the people we give it to are deserving. And we do it because trusting other people starts with trusting ourselves.

Trusting your partner, starts with trusting yourself

Think about driving. Cars are super dangerous and the only things that keep us safe in them is that we as a society have agreed to follow a set of rules which enable driving to be safe for everyone. Every time you make a left turn at a stoplight, you are trusting that so and so the green Mazda won’t run their light and hit you. Now maybe sometimes you hesitate to make that turn because the Mazda isn’t slowing down so fast, but still you’re trusting yourself enough to know how fast is too fast. It’s the same in your relationship.

You trust your partner because you trust yourself. You trust that you understand the realities surrounding your relationship. You trust that you believe how they feel about you. You trust that your instincts tell you whether or not this person deserves more of your trust. The trust we give our partners is just an extension of the trust we give ourselves. Which is also why it is so hard to forgive someone for betraying your trust.

Extending your trust after betrayal

Sometimes the people we trust behave in a way that hurts. We have a tendency to internalize the betrayal to try and figure out what it says about us. “Why do I always pick men who cheat on me?” We somehow connect the dots in our head to say that we were wrong for ever having trusted this person.

This means if you are trying to forgive your partner for breaking your trust, you are also also trying to forgive yourself for having ever given them that trust in the first place. But the important thing to remember is their actions are a reflection of their values and your actions are a reflection of yours. You trusted this person because trusting them aligns with your values. You cannot withhold your self-trust because someone took advantage of your value system. You cannot allow someone else’s misbehavior to keep you from loving yourself through the pain they cause.