Learning to Trust in Relationships

The pandemic has created new rules for dating, with more people relying on technology to start relationships. When it comes to finding love and maintaining strong bonds, however, one thing has not changed: the need to establish trust.

Whether it’s romantic, friendly, professional, or familial, trust is essential in any relationship. Yet it can be difficult to establish and maintain trust. Many people carry emotional baggage from painful experiences in the past that prevent them from trusting others. Signs of lack of trust may include:

• You aren’t sure you matter to the other person.

• You have nagging doubts that your spouse or partner really loves you.

• When they seem distant, you imagine it must be because of you (even though it may have nothing to do with you).

• You fear you’ll be dumped at any time.

• You find yourself fixating on these feelings.

If you have a persistent fear of being left or dumped, this may undermine the foundations of any type of relationship. If you feel lack of trust is a big problem for you that requires counseling, please seek it out. But if you’re simply looking to strengthen a relationship and increase your ability to love and trust, here are some things you can try:

Examine Your Feelings: Be mindful of when you become stuck in negative or anxious thought patterns about your relationship, and recognize when those thoughts aren’t rational. Simple mindfulness is a great tool for many types of anxiousness. If you realize your fears aren’t based in reality, sometimes that can help you turn them around.

Keep Your Own Identity Intact: Some people tend to identify so strongly with the other person in a relationship that they lose pieces of themselves, and begin to identify as a couple instead of an individual. Be careful to maintain your own sense of self; keep the hobbies, beliefs, and opinions you’ve always held. Your partner loves you because of who you are — don’t stifle that because you think it will help you hold onto a relationship.

Determine If Your Heart Is Open to Love: Many people unwittingly suffer from a Heart-Wall™. Heart-Walls are like emotional scar tissue from past heartbreak. Made of the literal energy of past emotions, they are designed to protect the heart from further hurt, but may block you from fully giving and receiving love. As a result, you can go through your life somewhat insulated from others because of the emotional traumas you’ve been through and the wall around your heart.

Communicate: Don’t be afraid to loop your partner in on what you’re going through. Explain that you know your anxious feelings or lack of trust in a relationship is coming from you, not things they are doing. Their reassurances of their love for you may not take away your anxious feelings, but it can’t hurt! Plus, your vulnerability may even strengthen your bond. Keep communicating with honesty and sincerity.

Keep Your Word: The source of the distrust may have nothing to do with your current relationship. It could be rooted in past experiences with friends or family, even going back as far as elementary school when someone said one thing, but then did another, perhaps in cruel ways. A powerful way to rebuild trust in a relationship is to follow through on your own word. Don’t promise things you think you may not be able to do. Practice integrity.

Release Trapped Emotions: Trapped Emotions are unresolved feelings from past traumatic or difficult experiences that might compromise your ability to build trust in a relationship. Trapped Emotions like resentment, anxiousness, abandonment, insecurity, bitterness, jealousy, and others could make you more prone to feeling these emotions indefinitely unless you take action. The Emotion Code® is a process to help people find and release Trapped Emotions and remote Heart-Walls. This could make an immediate and significant difference in your ability to trust in a relationship.

Be Patient: Building trust takes time. Rebuilding trust can be even more arduous. Progress comes in baby steps, so don’t expect too much too soon. Remember that you and your partner may make three steps up, but then take a step back. Keep working on Trapped Emotions to make sure they aren’t holding you back.

A broken heart can mend, a Heart-Wall can be dismantled, and Trapped Emotions can be released. Many people have found that getting rid of emotional baggage has allowed them to restore damaged relationships or open themselves to new love. Learning to trust in a relationship isn’t easy, but with time and commitment, you can do it.