Trusting in a relationship first begins with yourself. If you have a difficult time trusting yourself in general, it will make it difficult for you to trust your partner in a loving and healthy way. Trust begins with knowing yourself enough to let go of all expectations and be present with what you have in the current moment. In my personal experiences with dating I realized a lot about trust. As I stated above, trust begins with knowing yourself and ultimately trusting yourself with the decisions you’re making in your life. Listening to your gut I like to call it. If you don’t trust yourself, you won’t be able to fully trust the person you’re dating and experience that amazing romantic connection. I experienced this early on when I was dating a girl in college. I didn’t really know who I was as a person and was always second guessing the decisions I was making in my life. I took this insecurity and projected it onto my girlfriend at the time. This created an insecurity in me and an insecurity in the relationship. This relationship did end, but there were many great lessons taken from it, as with any relationship we experience in life. Below I’m going to mention three really important ways to build trust in any relationship.
1.) Communicate – be vulnerable with each other
Be open with each other. Always say what you mean to your partner, but come from a place of respect and make sure whatever it is your saying you’re in the right setting. Don’t hold thoughts in the back of your head. When we don’t say what we’re thinking or feeling that’s when we tend to get anxious, and possibly could lash out on or partner or even worse, resent them. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as consistently and over communicating one’s feelings. Constantly be communicating.
2.) Give Each Other Space
Giving each other space is extremely important in any relationship. Letting each other be alone and going to do hobbies/activities with other people is healthy and highly advisable in any relationship. We all have our own hobbies/activities that we do, that maybe our partner doesn’t enjoy doing and that’s okay. We all have hobbies that we enjoy doing, and we shouldn’t be giving those up if our partner isn’t the most fond of them.
3.) Talk about Values and the Future
Do both of you share the same values? This is super important when getting into a relationship with someone, is knowing if your values align with each other and what your plans our for the future. Do you each have a shared vision that aligns with each other? Are you committed to growing with each other and sharing a plan for the future? These are things you should definitely be bringing up if you see yourself with someone for the long haul. Not talking about the future is a red flag, and you should definitely find out the reasons why and see if this person you’re with even sees a future with you.
There are obviously countless factors that contribute to trusting in any relationship. The one’s I mentioned above were the ones I thought were the most important, and personally wished the ones I talked about in my past relationships with women. In any relationship you need to establish trust, but it first starts with trusting yourself!