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Building trust is vital for a healthy relationship.
Without trust, a relationship can't grow and risks failing.
So how do you build trust with your partner?
Keep Your Promises
Making commitments or promises to your partner that you don't intend to fulfill will only lead to broken trust.
Only make promises that you intend to keep!
Choose commitments and promises that are doable and realistic to ensure that you're capable of fulfilling them.
Strive to fulfill the promises and commitments that you make to your partner.
Be Honest
Trust is built by honesty, and broken by dishonesty.
Telling lies will only cause your partner to lose trust in you.
To build trust with your partner, strive to be honest and avoid telling lies. Even white lies can cause problems!
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Be Vulnerable
To trust someone, you need to allow yourself to be vulnerable with them.
Express how you feel
Reveal your secrets and fears
Share your intimate thoughts and feelings
Withholding these thoughts and feelings will lead to secrecy and mistrust between you and your partner.
Communicate Clearly And Honestly
Being clear about the commitments and promises you make will help ensure you can meet them. You can also avoid a loss of trust if you fail to meet those commitments.
Build trust with communication by:
Openly and honestlycommunicating your expectations for your partner
Listening to your partner's expectations of you
Informing your partner beforehand when you don't foresee meeting a commitment or promise
Quiz
Mason promised their partner that they would take them to a movie on Friday. It's now Thursday and Mason suddenly has to work Friday evening. Mason should:
Mason's partner will be less disappointed if they're informed as soon as possible and given an honest reason. It's also better for Mason to tell their partner in person or over the phone, as texting can be impersonal.
Be Consistent
Trust in a relationship is built and maintained over time, not over one occurrence.
There are countless opportunities in a relationship to build trust, and likewise, to break trust.
Failing to keep a couple of minor commitments or promises may not break the trust in your relationship, but doing so continuously or failing to keep major commitments or promises definitely can.
Repair Trust When It's Been Broken
When you or your partner breaks trust, it needs to be repaired.
Repair broken trust by:
Taking accountability and apologizing
Practicing forgiveness
Discussing what broke the trust and how to fix it
Changing your behaviour to not repeat what caused the loss of trust
Quiz
Mason needs to rebuild trust with their partner for cancelling their movie date. Mason should:
Rather than making shallow gestures or tell the other person to get over it, take accountability by apologizing to your partner and making it up to them.
Take Action
Are you working on building trust with your partner? If so:
This Byte has been authored by
Sasha Scott
Learning Designer