Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship and not trusting the other person will hurt how satisfied you feel in the relationship. Our childhood has a great impact on who we become as we grow up and sometimes, the patterns that we have formed as a child makes it hard for us to trust other people.
Refer to these signs below to know if you have trust issues:
Being unduly skeptical of the motivations of others
Lack of trust is the same as being overly cautious. Your thoughts are operating under the presumption that you will be harmed by others. Therefore, it could be challenging to recognize kindness and affectionate acts for what they are. Your mind starts looking for the “true” causes and hidden goals of such deeds.
It can be challenging to accept loving expressions of kindness, praise, or affection in general because you find it difficult to trust they’re sincere and not a front for hidden agendas.
Unstable relationships
According to a study, trust influences how couples communicate as well. You are more likely to start arguments when you are suspicious of your partner’s motives. When you fight, you tend to concentrate on your relationship’s flaws rather than its advantages. Your love history may show a pattern of dysfunction, turmoil, and on-again, off-again relationships. You may be more likely to form codependent, psychologically harmful relationships if you struggle with trust.
Lack of intimacy and transparency
According to research, love and the intimacy of self-disclosure are related to trust. The inverse is also accurate. It makes sense that you wouldn’t give information to someone you expect to betray you. You can be completely avoiding affection. However, mistrust deprives you of the chance to engage in close, profound connections.
You may be extremely private about yourself when you do engage with people, especially those you are close to. The underlying motive behind this is frequently “I’m afraid I can’t be myself with you. I’m concerned you won’t accept me for who I am. Or perhaps I’m worried you won’t let me in
Unable to forget and forgive
It can appear that your trust concerns have protected you from harm. Actually, they have done far more harm than good. Yet you believe that your mistrust is shielding you. Such a perception is especially possible if you have trust issues as a result of adult trauma.
You’ll probably be highly alert to any indication of betrayal if you ever allow someone to grow close to you. Furthermore, you probably wouldn’t be able to forgive and move on if they did injure you. Trust and forgiveness are in fact intricately entwined. Forgiving others can be quite difficult for those who have trouble trusting others.
Isolation from others and loneliness
One study found that certain people have a strong motivation to learn relationship-threatening knowledge. They are eager to learn if someone has damaged them inadvertently. These people also have paranoid cognitive habits and behave suspiciously. But nobody loves that. Because of their fury, others socially reject those they have a high level of mistrust for. According to a different study, having a high level of mistrust increases the likelihood that romantic relationships would end within a few months.
Moreover, building new relationships becomes less important once you believe you can’t trust people, and you could even decide to purposefully avoid doing so.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
 |
—
Photo credit: Max Yamashita on Unsplash
