This week, we have a Guest Post from Aleksander Pichkur:
”How to deal with a person who cannot be trusted? If there is no axle in the cart, how can you ride it?” Confucius
Psychologists often declare that love relationship should be built on trust. Trust is a feeling of complete peace of mind and the absence of any doubts in your beloved partner. This is the absolute naturalness of a relationship. Trust is built on confidence in the decency and goodwill of another person towards you. Trust does not know doubt; when doubt begins – trust dies.
Indeed, trust is the main component of harmonious romantic relations, but how to get this very component? How to learn to trust each other? Today, we are going to discuss how it is formed and what can be done to increase the degree of trust in a couple.
As a rule, there are no trust issues at the very beginning of a relationship. At the courting period, a man and a woman behave a little differently and try to seem better than they really are. When this period ends, they become themselves again, and all their
past experience becomes obvious. So, the initial trust does not last forever. Over time, people begin to know each other better and find out whether a partner deserves trust.
The beginning of relationships is a very important period when it is possible to build a really trusting relationship, but past experience often prevents some people from doing it. Having burned their fingers once, they no longer want to be hurt. Although they realize that a full life and happy relationships are impossible without a certain risk. This is what the saying goes, “Love like you have never been hurt.”
Why is it important to trust each other? It can be said that trust is like a prism through which you look at your loved one. If the degree of trust is high, then you are inclined to interpret their actions from the best side and not look for double meaning in them. If there is no trust, then even the most innocent things can be perceived as a sign of betrayal, indifference, an attempt to offend, etc.
However, you cannot just decide that, for example, you will completely trust your partner from today. Trust is something that takes time and effort. Let’s try to figure out what affects the ability and willingness to trust your loved one.
How trust is formed?
In fact, the ability to trust a person depends on many factors – relationships of the parents, the enveloping society, past experience, miscommunication in a relationship, and so on. For example, how much you can trust your beloved partner is largely determined by the relationship of your parents, that is, how much they showed confidence in each other. If there were secretiveness or regular interrogations that start with “Where have you been?”, then there is a chance that you will unconsciously transfer the same relationship model to your couple.
Moreover, your loved one may have a completely opposite idea of what degree of trust there should be between the spouses, to what extent a woman should participate in the affairs of a man, and what the red lines in the behavior of the partners are.
Another important factor in the formation of trust is the enveloping society, and this is not only about friends or relatives. It includes the media area which influences the
understanding of what the relationship should be. In modern society, there is a slightly perverted perception of relationships. Sexual liberation and emotional independence became the norm.
How to trust a loved one
If you feel that you are not as close with your partner as you would like, then, first of all, you should sort out your feelings. But you shouldn’t go to extremes and take things on your shoulders, as any relationship is a team-work, and two people participate in its improvement. To begin with, you can try to analyze what prevents you from trusting a partner. Are there some real reasons or your suspicions connected just with the past experience?
Yes, of course, sometimes suspicions are justified, but it is not a reason to suspect one and all. Trust means to open yourself and become more defenseless, and this is probably the only way to achieve true intimacy in a romantic relationship.
The degree of mutual understanding is largely influenced by how well you understand each other’s emotions. So sometimes you should pronounce your feelings and gently ask your partner to do the same thing. For example, if a loved one asks, “Are you in a bad mood? Something happened?”, the worst answer is “Everything is fine.” If you are worried about troubles at work, then tell your loved one about it! Do not keep it to yourself, forcing your partner to think that it is them who are guilty of your bad mood.
Also, you need to remember that trust does not mean total interpenetration in the life of each other – you both should have some personal space.
