How to Have the Best Trust Ever
The woman came into my office and shared some concerns with me about her husband. The husband met me later and shared some concerns about his wife. I asked them both the same question “Do you trust him?” “Do you trust her?” Their answers are what would set the course for the future of their marriage.
I have been working with couples for 20 years. Twenty years of marital discussions. That means thousands of hours tackling difficult situations and wading through the waters of pain and suffering as people work toward recovering trust in their relationships.
By far, trust is one of the most important factors in marital success. If you don’t have trust, your marriage cannot attain health. Trust is one of those building blocks that is essential for strong and healthy communication as well as passionate sex. You absolutely need to build trust in your marriage and here are five ways to begin the journey.
#1 – Be Honest
Every practice listed here is important, honesty is the number one most critical. If you want to build trust in your relationship, you need to be honest with yourself and honest about yourself to your spouse. This requires you to do a few things. You need to be able to look at yourself and honestly see yourself. Most people cannot do this because they are unwilling to see their faults. Instead they gloss over their issues and say to themselves “I’m not perfect, but I’m not that bad.” This is a critical failure to be honest with yourself.
Being honest with yourself is not comparing or weighing yourself against others. It is in fact just acknowledging what is. Honesty is seeing trust and being willing to interact with it.
You also need to be honest with your spouse. If they do something great, let them know it was great. If they do something not so great, let them know. As a spouse, you are the greatest asset to your spouse. They benefit when you are honest with them.
The trick is to do this with love, in the context of love and in words that will help them best hear what you have to say. When you practice this you are creating a culture of honesty which will reach all areas of your marriage life.
#2 – Show Interest
Building trust in a relationship requires your partner to feel they are of interest to you. Many times in a day I think of my wife. I think about what she is doing, where she is working, what I may want to say to her, things like that. Early on in my marriage, I would have all of these thoughts but never share them with my wife. Instead, I would keep them to myself and only share the things that needed to be discussed such as finances or other issues that would come up. In doing this, my wife never knew that I was actually thinking about her all day long, instead she perceived me to be only critical of her. I have since learned to better communicate and thereby show more interest in her.
Here are a few ways to show interest:
- Pay attention to them when they are speaking.
- Consider their needs and try to meet their needs without them asking.
- Call or text them. Let them know you were thinking about them.
- Take initiative on reconciling your differences when they come up.
These four practices will require effort and they will begin to change the culture of trust in your relationship. Your spouse will begin to trust you in new ways which will increase your emotional closeness/intimacy.
#3 – Take Responsibility
“Say your sorry!” Boy have I heard that phrase and used that phrase several times. Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. The issue of course is our ability to take responsibility for our actions and words.
I have found one of the best metaphors for marriage that of two individual cups that pour into one cup which is the marriage. Each cup represents an individual in the relationship. Each individual must take responsibility for themselves and as they do they fill their cup and begin to spill out into the marriage cup.
Taking responsibility for yourself, your words and actions looks like 1) Not blaming 2) Not complaining 3) Knowing what you want and communicating it and 4) Being intentional. When we do these things we begin to better take responsibility for our words and actions and thereby create a culture of trust in the marriage.
This is a continual work in progress. There will be times when you succeed and times when you fail. It is okay. Keep working on this and you will build better trust.
#4 – Non-Defensive Responses
One of the hardest things to do when you are being accused of something or feeling personally attacked in an argument is to respond in a non-defensive way. Non-defensive communication is akin to being a verbal ninja. It shows mastery over yourself and the product is an higher level of communication in your marriage.
Make no mistake, this is definitely an upper division communication skill. It will require practice and finesse.
This looks like:
- Taking responsibility for your words and actions.
- Paying attention to your body language.
- Managing your emotions.
- Not making excuses.
There are more skills beyond the first four in order to achieve non-defensive communication. Hopefully the four practices listed here will help you begin the journey of enhancing the trust in your marriage. These practices work well.
#5 – Showing Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and show the feelings of another. Your ability to practice empathy in your marriage will radically improve trust in your relationship.
Showing empathy requires you to be able to actively listen to your partner when they are sharing. This means you are able to show you are listening as they are speaking. It also means being able to recognize the emotions present in your partner. When they are sharing things with you, you have the unique ability to try to sense how they are feeling about a particular situation allowing you to ask more questions about their feelings.
Showing empathy means you are listening to their interpretation of a specific situation. You may not see eye to eye on the issue but you must be willing to allow them to interpret the situation as they see it. When they believe you have genuinely heard them, you can move on to more clarity regarding the specific situation.
Finally, a great exercise around showing empathy is asking for permission. This looks like you saying to them “Can I share what I heard you say?” or “Can we take the next step?”. This kind of asking for permission shows your partner that you are truly invested in the relationship.
Final Thoughts
Building trust is the cornerstone of any great relationship. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. It is also the most important factor in cultivating a culture of trust. When you do this you will experience a profoundly deeper relationship with your partner. At my church the Orchard Community Church, in Escondido, we work hard in the way of developing these kinds of relationships among couples.