Building Trust

Posted on August 09, 2020 by Stephen Maloney, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Trust is an essential building block in any relationship, but particularly in marriage. It is most difficult to obtain because trust is bidirectional, involving two people with needs, desires, and fears that are experienced, with some being shared and some kept hidden.

Building trust involves both risk and sacrifice, a willingness to be hurt both from when we give and from what we receive in the relationship. Every time hurt is experienced, it shakes or even knocks down a building block that was put in place upon which another could have been layered.

Part of the complexity is that each person has their own set of blocks that they bring to the relationship that have to be intermingled in order to build a combined structure. Each person has to be willing to give way, place, and consideration to the other person’s needs, desires, and fears over time.

If both people can accept that trust will be broken at times, maybe even often in little things, but still work through their mutual needs, desires, and fears, then they can continue to build-repair-build-repair-build a structure that will endure long-term even with some shaking and knock downs, which is expected at times. However, there are some areas of trust that should be agreeably essential, that if broken, makes a commitment to and in marriage impossible. Two examples of this would be infidelity and lying, because sexual faithfulness and verbal honesty are absolutes for a marriage. Before you seriously start trying to build a new combined structure, each person’s building blocks, past and present, should be examined and discussed, before too much building time and effort is spent. If a sufficient foundation of trust can not be established to begin with, then all the rest of the relational building work is vain.