5 Tips to Build Trust in a Relationship

Trust is the foundation of any kind of relationship, say it within a family, friendship, or romantic one. Without trust, people cannot hold on to each other for a long time. Even if they do, it will be a rough and painful journey for both sides.

There is a huge difference in the amount of time it takes to build trust and break it. Therefore, the journey of gaining or regaining trust back requires high sensitivity and sincerity. Without putting these into the process, it is unlikely to have someone rely on you.

Here are 5 ways to build trust based on my observations and personal experience.

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1. Articulate your feelings, don’t hold back your emotions

If you don’t speak your mind, how do you expect others to understand you or what you are up to? Additionally, if you don’t talk about the way you feel about a certain matter, others will fill this void with their own perceptions anyway. It can be done through your facial expressions or your body language and they will immediately assume something.

Things get harder when you are in a relationship with someone and they expect some kind of closure or answers and you decide to hold back your opinions. Imagine what your partner can think when all they need was just assurance or the truth you keep to yourself.

Talking about our feelings and emotions might sound like weakness to many people, however without this in a relationship, nothing is going to work anyway unless you want to be in a dull and boring one.

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2. Be open to vulnerability, accept its importance

Being vulnerable is not exaggerated, it is the basic fabric of believing someone and letting that person rely on you. By opening up to someone about whether it is about your past or future, or the things you are going through at the moment, you are building trust for both sides.

Now by being vulnerable we also sort of lay the ground for being disappointed, if not heartbroken. However, we ought to remind ourselves of the fact that in order to receive, we must give.

The more you are open about your funny, sad, embarrassing stories from your past, the sooner the trust will start blooming between you. Just be careful that you are not the only one doing this and that you two are in this together. Only giving and not receiving anything or vice versa will disbalance your roles in the relationship regarding this sensitive process and, at worst, this disbalance might make you feel undervalued.

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3. Do something unusual with that person, make it a unique experience for both parties

In other words, make some effort to make this relationship special where you two will have something only for you and to no one else.

Now, you don’t have to create magical memories where you two are traveling to the other side of the world where no one knows you, doing some extreme sports, exploring the jungles and seas. Of course, you might choose to do these things as well, for these can boost not only the trust between you but also the intimacy and vulnerability between you.

However, there are much simpler and everyday things you can benefit from such as: discovering a new bookshop, trying out new meals in a new cafe, exploring a nearby city you both have never been to or it might be talking about stuff that you don’t usually share with others.

All these things will push you towards vulnerability, thus increasing the possibility of trust being built and strengthening.

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4. Don’t give pledges and when you do, distribute the possibilities

When we are almost certain about things, we love to promise to our loved ones that we will either show up to their parties, dinners or that we can help them with some problems, issues they are dealing with, and so on.

However, it is better to keep things less serious and remind them of the fact that you are willing to help in any case, without actually promising anything. Because there are two sides to the coin.

First, even if nothing bad happens, and you end up helping them, it will boost the trust or at least will not break it at all. However, something might pop up at the last second when you have given your word and you might not help them actually. Imagine this happening a couple of times. Trust me, this would seriously damage your image in their eyes.

If they really need some kind of reassurance regarding their situation, even though you promise, you can also let them know of the potential possibilities of not being able to keep your word while making them feel that it would not keep you from trying anyway.

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5. Respect, respect, and respect some more

What does respect have to do with trust? I want you to do some visualization.

Imagine someone you trust so much belittles you and keeps doing it over and over again through a period of time. They start to look down on you for some reason. They judge you mercilessly and point out everything you would rather not hear. It would be hard to tell that you would still trust them as you did before.

Thus, if we go back to the beginning, building trust requires a basic level of respect. If you take the respect out of this equation you might get anything but trust. Would you really believe someone wholeheartedly who does not respect you or does not have manners?

No? So don’t expect it from others either.

Ironically, when we get close with people, when we get to feel more comfortable around them, we might forget about the manners and say mean stuff when we are in the middle of rage and cannot hold our anger back. It is human, yet we should still be careful about our words and actions considering the probability of losing that person’s trust once and for all.

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Bottom Line

Having someone whom you can trust fully is priceless. In my opinion, it should not be lost for the things we do uncertainly or without being aware of it. It is easy to lose someone for our mistakes and wrong actions. If we want to avoid it, we should shoulder the responsibility of taking care of the trust that we both build day by day and little by little.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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