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There is a very important lesson about building trust in a relationship. This lesson is – you have to engage at a level that gives an abundance of material to base trust on. It is the trust that creates the environment where there is little doubt, where you feel free to be yourself.
This trust allows you to give abundantly without hesitation. It is the kind of trust that allows you to be fully in your relationship.
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Building Trust – Is Character Enough?
Therefore you cannot get to this by basing your trust on whether your partner is of good character or not. Sure, that too is very important. However as important as that is, good character may not address areas that you are unsure about, or uncomfortable with.
So how comfortable would you be with someone who responds to your ‘I love you’ with ‘Okay’?
In order for you to find it desirable to keep on saying ‘I love you’ you have to be comfortable with the feedback. If you are uncomfortable with the feedback you are going to be tempted to stop saying what you genuinely feel. Good character doesn’t fix that problem and in that sense does not give you the desired trust level. You need more than good character to really build trust in your relationship.
Engaging Beyond The Ordinary
You have to engage each other sufficiently at different levels – the physical, the emotional, and the intellectual – beyond just normal everyday interaction to develop the kind of trust that results in complete comfort. You have to be prepared to engage and engage deliberately. You have to go beyond aspects of the relationship where normal every-day interaction would not necessarily take you.
What I am saying here is not for you to disregard any characteristic that foster trust in your relationship. We all know how this trust thing usually works – we meet someone, we have interactions upon interactions and from those interactions we derive feelings of comfort and trust or discomfort and mistrust. There is nothing wrong with that approach and of course it has its benefits.
Why Building Trust Organically May Not Be Enough
However, when we meet someone that we like at a certain level, we so much want to trust them, so much want them to be who we would be comfortable with that we are more inclined then to overlook little warnings, little indications that are trying to tell us that discomfort is ahead.
Trust is all about comfort. If you are uncomfortable in your relationship you are going to have a really hard time trusting.
In my book, “Trust Building In Relationships & Resolving Trust Issues ” I go into this a lot more. I use anecdotes and real stories from real people who had to struggle with trust in their relationship.
