Monday, May 9, 2011

Tips for Trusting Your Significant Other


If you’ve been hurt in the past, it can be difficult to fully trust a person again, even when it was a different person that hurt you. If you want to develop a trusting relationship with your significant other, there are several things that you should, and should not, do.

1.Don’t project the past onto the future. Just because the last person in your life lied to you, does not give you the right to expect that or fear that from your current relationship. This is not fair to the person you are with. They should be allowed to start out on neutral ground, not with strikes against them because of someone else’s failures.


2.Be open about your insecurities. Let the other person know about your fears and insecurities. This will help them to be extra considerate of situations that are difficult for you.
3.Don’t be accusatory. Don’t accuse the other person of things without any other basis than your own fears. False accusations could cost you a relationship that you would regret losing.


4.Be fair. Don’t expect more from the other person than they expect or receive from you. If you spend time with your friends without having to answer twenty questions afterwards, then they shouldn’t have to go through a grilling either.
5.Be trustworthy yourself. Often times the cause of distrust is knowing that you have broken their trust. If you are faithful to them, you are more likely to assume the same from them.


6.Don’t be possessive. The tighter you hold onto someone, the more they will try to pull away. Don’t try to control what the other person does and with whom. This can make a person feel smothered in their relationship.


7.Strengthen your self-image. Sometimes a lack of trust comes from our own lack of self-worth. We don’t see why the other person would value us because we don’t place much value upon ourselves. This is not their problem, it is ours. Choose to see yourself differently and it will change the way you look at others too.


8.Do others consider them trustworthy? Is your significant other considered a trustworthy individual by their boss, their co-workers and their family? If others trust them, why shouldn’t you? Do you hear them lying to others? If they don’t lie to others, than it is unlikely that they lie to you.


9.Return the level of trust they give you. If the other person in your relationship trusts you, believes what you say and assumes the best from you, they have every right to expect you to return that same level of trust to them.
10.Invest in building them up. Instead of looking for faults in your significant other, look for their strengths and work on building them up. Give them plenty of reasons to honor your trust of them.
Invest in building your own emotional health and theirs, and you will find that building a trusting relationship will naturally become part of that process.

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