Trust is one of the elements of the foundation for joyful relationships. It is fortuitously placed in the fifth position in the hierarchy of pillars to be hoisted before and while building a relationship. Building trust is fundamental to the development, growth and sustenance of a joyful relationship. Many relationships out there lack trust and those involved are dealing with an uphill task. When trust is broken by the indiscretion or untrustworthiness of a partner, it creates serious complication in the relationship.
Here are some techniques you can use with proven guarantee to grow your connectedness by improving the level of trust in your relationship:
• Communicate needs – Convey without fear or restraint your needs to your partner. Do not create room for your spouse or partner to begin to guess what it is you want or expect. Let him or her know and directly from you. Without worrying about being termed selfish, make your claims on the relationship. When you do not get what you want from a relationship – whether or not you asked – it would arouse resentment and ultimately create emotional problems. In addition, failure to affirm your needs may result in your seeking for satisfaction and assurances from elsewhere which might be stifling to the relationship.
• Learn to disagree – Having your partner communicate his or her needs effectively is good for the relationship. However, you do not need to agree with everything. If you are in the habit of saying yes to everything your partner asks for, you lose respect. People erroneously feel that allowing the other partner or being allowed by a partner get everything asked for is a sign of love. One, it is not a sign of love. Two, allowing you to be dominated by the other partner kills trust on both parties. If you do not agree with a proposal, disagree. Both parties to relationship should develop the strength of character to disagree when a request or proposal is not right. Consider the need for this mindset when a partner demands or desires premarital sex. If you give in to such a demand, you lose respect and most often, the relationship.
• Predictability – There is a time for everything. While it praiseworthy for ladies to be mysterious at the onset of a dating relationship, however, as the relationship grows into steady dating, courtship and marriage, predictability becomes superior to surprises. Surprises are good to spice up a relationship such as in giving unexpected gifts. Nevertheless, we need to be consistent and reliable so as to make our relationship to grow. We have to be dependable to be trusted, hence predictability is key here.
• Honesty – Do not keep secrets from your partner. Consider that nothing is hidden under heaven. It will eventually be out in the open sooner than later. Secrets are destructive to trust in a relationship. Secrets are like lies, it requires a lie to cover a lie and if you start covering, each lie would require another to cover it. That would be a vicious circle. The time and energy you need to keep a secret if invested in building the relationship would give it power to produce joy and peace for you. Honesty is the best policy any day.
• Harmonize message – Make certain that your words and their meaning are in harmony. Hearing your words harmonizing with your body language is reassuring to your partner. You should not be frowning when you say that you are happy. Like children, your partner hears what you say with their eyes. Remember the saying what you are doing is so loud I cannot hear what you are saying. Your partner should not need an interpreter to trust your words. Your face and tone should match with words you speak. Trust is built in a relationship when you say what you mean and mean what you say.