How to Build Trust in Relationships

The basis of most good relationships is trust. If you cannot trust the other person, then the relationship is never going to run very deep. Building trust takes time, especially when one or both parties have been hurt in the past. Here is how to build trust in relationships.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Commitment to the relationship
• Integrity

1. Be trustworthy in the little things. The other person needs to be able to trust you in the little things before he is going to trust you with the big things. If a person cannot trust you to show up on time or remember to do something that you promised to do, why should he trust you with something more important?

2. Keep the other person’s confidence. What a person tells you in a relationship needs to stay in that relationship. If you are a gossip, then you are going to have a hard time building trust in relationships.

3. Share personal information about yourself. Relationships need to be 2-way streets. Why should another person confide in you if you will not share personal information about yourself? If you want to build trust in relationships, then you need to become vulnerable yourself.

4. Do things that are in the best interest of the other person. If you want to build trust in relationships, you need to make choices that are beneficial to the other person and the relationship. While the other person’s needs should not always come before your own, they should be recognized and met as frequently as possible, while balancing them out with your own needs.

5. Spend time with the other person. In this day and age of text messaging and email, it can be easy to spend very little time with the people we love. If you want to build trust in a relationship, you need to spend time together. There is no replacement for spending face-to-face time on a regular basis.

6. Apologize when you make a mistake. Nothing shatters trust faster than hurting the other person and then refusing to take responsibility for a bad choice. If you want to build trust in relationships, then you need to be willing to say “I’m sorry” when you make a bad choice that hurts the other person.

Tips & Warnings

• Trust is a 2-way street. Each person in a relationship needs to be investing in a relationship in order to build trust.
• Some people are not trustworthy. No matter how much you love another person, you might not be able to build trust in a relationship if that other person is not willing to make the same investment that you are.

[cduncan]

on 3/13/2009 Here is a great process designed to heighten trust. http://jujumama.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/got-jinx-add-juju-train-the-brain-to-trust/