How to Gain Trust in a Relationship: 7 Steps You Can Take

In this article, we’ll consider seven practical steps on how to gain trust in a relationship. But first, let’s start with the basics.

What is Trust?

Trust is the confidence that you have in a person in that they will always be loyal to you and always love you. Trusting someone means you have faith that you can rely and depend on them as well as feel safe and comfortable enough to confide in and be vulnerable with them. Trust is a foundational building block for any type of relationship. Without it, a relationship will be shaky and insecure.

Why is Trust Important in a Relationship?

When a couple can establish a relationship in trust, there is a sense of security that allows them to be their authentic selves. A healthy relationship of substance is built on trust. When there is trust in a relationship, insecurities can be more easily be kept at bay.

Trusting one another helps partners to fight problems together and assists in keeping a balance between the relationship and outside relationships you may share with friends and family members.

When trust is established, allowing each partner to have their own time, space, and life apart from the other does not threaten the relationship but can strengthen it.

Having faith that your partner is trustworthy allows you and your partner to walk in confidence. Partners who have a support system within their relationship are more likely to be able to challenge themselves and take risks for personal growth and ambitions.

The knowledge that you have a partner that has your back and who will be there, regardless, brings a sense of freedom. It strengthens the relationship when trust is secure because you feel supported and know that your partner is there rooting for you just as you are there for them.

When obstacles come in a relationship, trust can help to overcome. Trust is binding and gives confidence to partners to come together against whatever problem presents itself.

Even when there are hurts within the relationship, you are able to move past it and heal because trust establishes a deep knowledge and faith that you have in your partner. It is a reassuring thing to know that even in times of conflict that your partner loves and is loyal to you and the relationship, which can cultivate more honesty.

Without trust, a relationship cannot grow and will not survive. When there is a lack of trust, there follows fear, insecurity, and breakdown of a relationship. It becomes difficult for the relationship to thrive because without trust it is chaotic and becomes quickly dysfunctional.

Having trust as a foundation for a relationship is key because it will not be easily swayed or crumbled in times of storm. However, if no trust is established, it is like having a house built on sand; the relationship will surely collapse when the wind blows and suspicion or doubts arise.

Trust creates a safer place within a relationship. With a safe place, people feel more comfortable and it provides space for more love and intimacy to grow. Without trust and safety within a relationship, there is limited space for partners to share without fear and insecurity.

Tips on How to Gain Trust in a Relationship

The following are all steps that will help you learn how to gain trust in a relationship. There is no particular order to this list and the items should be part of an ongoing and intentional pattern of interacting with your partner.

Weave these components into any relationship and experience trust build when both partners mutually take action in implementing these elements.

Set Boundaries

Show respect for one another’s mutually agreed upon boundaries that are necessary for a relationship. Honoring your partner’s values and implementation of boundaries, even if they differ from your own, can create essential opportunities for you to learn about each other’s strengths and virtues.

Having boundaries helps partners in a relationship to know how much space, emotionally or physically, you are comfortable with. Discuss openly with your partner what your boundaries are, including how much alone time you may need to yourself, what your comfortability level is with vulnerability within the relationship, as well as what you want other people to know about the details of your relationship, etc.

Learn Open and Effective Communication

One of the main reasons that relationships fail is due to a lack of communication. Active, open, and constructive communication takes effort and intentionality in a relationship but is necessary to a healthy pattern of communication. Open communication is a way of including others into the details of your life and further assists in building mutual and shared understanding within a relationship.

Another aspect of effective communication is active listening. Often times we can tend to interrupt when our partner is talking, jump to a solution, or give advice without taking time to fully hear what your partner is trying to express. It can take practice to not be formulating what you are going to say in response and instead just actively and intently listen to what your partner has to say.

This is a significant way to build trust because it shows a person that you care and that you respect what they have to say, even if you don’t agree, you can hear what someone is saying. Allowing people to feel heard without judgment builds trust.

Be Honest

Honesty is key and one of the most effective ways to establish trust in a relationship. Transparency in a relationship builds trust because it allows for partners to have peace of mind. When both partners are open and share with one another consistently, it does not leave much room for insecure assumptions or wonderings about what the other person is doing or thinking. Offering information about what you are going through as well as details about your day creates a pattern of consistency and predictability that tends to build trust.

However, honesty does not require partners to share every detail or over-share about things in healthy relationships. But dishonesty, omitting important information, and deception are all ways that relationships can be surely torn apart. As intentional honesty is practiced and as trust grows, you will find that you do not need to try to explain or justify things because you have faith that your partner will understand and trust your words, behaviors, and decisions.

Be Humble

While it is inevitable in relationships for mistakes to happen and for close relationships between partners to be damaged, repair work can be done, and healing can take place. But that requires for there to be an admittance of mistakes when they happen and for partners to be willing to come together with humility and openness to work through missteps.

It is unrealistic to expect perfection in relationships or for every expectation to be met seamlessly, especially at the beginning. So being aware of that fact going in with a heart of grace and humility for when you or your partner miss the mark is important. Confessing behavior and taking ownership or responsibility when a mistake is made can actually help to build trust.

Avoiding talking or sharing when you make a mistake can lead to mistrust and contribute to the other partner to wonder about what else they may be hiding or lying about.

Be Reliable

A major part of building trust is in the follow through with the boundaries, communication habits, and intentional behaviors that are established for a healthy relationship. A quick way to dissolve trust happens when one or both partners fail to follow through on promises or agreements made within the relationship.

Do not make promises or agree just to keep your partner happy, because breaking a promise or not keeping your word is one of the simplest ways that trust can be broken. This goes in tandem with being honest and continuing to have open communication. It’s a classic example of where people can build trust by being sure that their words and behaviors match up.

Express Your Needs

Avoid mind reading with your partner. No matter how well you know one another, it is impossible to know what the other person is thinking. You can make an educated guess based off of past patterns of behavior, but unless you explicitly ask them, you don’t actually know what is going on in anyone else’s head. Assuming that you know what your partner thinks, feels, or did is not going to help either of you.

Expressing what you need is a key way to avoid assumption or mind reading. When you are able to express what you need, you give your partner something specific to follow through with and that follow through can help to build trust. When your partner is expressing their needs, be empathetic and put yourself in their shoes to help you gain perspective and understand that need. Fulfilling your partner’s needs can help to deepen understanding of your partner as well as build trust.

Forgive

Trust in a relationship brings about forgiveness. The establishment of trust between partners in a relationship produces the understanding that having a disagreement, or a fight is not necessarily the end of the relationship. Trusting that each has the other’s interests as well as the relationship in mind can give security to when things are tough. Working through challenges and forgiving each other is easier when you can trust that your partner means well, even if some tough truths are being revealed.

What If I Have Been Hurt In the Past?

Trusting a person can take time and intentionality. It can be a difficult thing to establish, especially if there has been a betrayal.

A betrayal can be in the crossing of a boundary set, the misuse of power, or when with lies or deception. Repairing trust from a betrayal is the only way for a relationship to move forward toward a healthier state. The first place to begin is with an apology.

There must be an acknowledgement of the hurt and betrayal that took place. Taking responsibility for the part that you played in that wound can go a long way toward acknowledging someone’s pain. Next, there needs to be some assurance that the hurt or betrayal will not happen again. A person getting a promise that they will not be hurt again followed by behavior that backs it up is crucial.

Finally, you must take stock of your feelings and recognize what you are experiencing. Do not dismiss or deny the hurt, but press in and explore any questions that may arise from it such as: “What do I want from this relationship?”, “How long have I been holding onto this?”, or “How is this affecting me?”

Being aware of your own tendencies toward insecurity or doubt is helpful when beginning to build trust. Be patient with yourself and learn to identify when you are hesitating to extend trust due to a past wound rather than considering the person and situation in front of you. If you are having doubts about the relationship, speak with your partner about them instead of hesitating to ask them or just burying them for fear of saying anything.

Knowing that no one is without flaw and that you will have to take a step of faith in extending trust can be an intimidating thing to do. Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes we don’t react well but extending patience to yourself as you learn and grow in developing trusting behaviors to and for your partner is an important step.

Seeking Help

Sometimes it can be difficult to move forward on your own from issues of mistrust in past relationships and you begin to feel stuck. If you feel as though you are unable to trust your own judgment at this time, reach out to a counselor for you to help explore and address issues you may be having with intimacy, communication, and trust. We would be happy to join with you as you continue toward healthier relationships with the establishment of trust.