Developing Trust in Relationships

The single most important factor in any type of successful relationship between any two people is trust. People can have professional or business relationships where they don't trust each other but those relationships are for convenience only and are not personally satisfying to either party. The man or woman who wants a successful personal relationship has to begin with trust. Trust is first and foremost even in dysfunctional relationships. If you look at the dynamics of a street gang you will see that the thing paramount among the gang members is that they trust each other. The purpose for banding together is for survival. For the individual member to survive he has to pledge his allegiance to the organization. He can then trust the rest of the members to protect him and the gang can depend on him to carry out their orders and promote its agenda. Every person on this earth wants to have someone that they can trust. Most problems with relationships are caused by a breech of trust. Trust seems to be a thing which is dying in our present society. People today want instant gratification in this information age and trust or being trustworthy becomes the first victim. Big businesses as a practice have full time legal advisors. They don't necessarily do things because they are morally right but they do what is most expedient for the business. If there’s a legal loophole they will take that loophole and make it work for them. This is the order of the day now. Real trust is the knowledge that you can freely communicate with another without having to worry that they will use that communication to take advantage of you. Trust is knowing without a doubt that the other person means what they say and will uphold their words with deeds as much as possible. Now we all have a different picture of trust which is based on our own psyche. The thing which may be unacceptable to one person is totally fine to the next. Part of our attitude comes from the experiences that we have had in life. If a person has been severely betrayed in life he or she will have a harder time learning or being able to trust other people. Many times we will damage our own relationships with other people by not trusting them because of our past experiences. Trust is a precious gift which once lost is very difficult to regain. When we trust others we make ourselves vulnerable to them because they know things that they can use to hurt us if their intentions are not honorable. Once trust has been betrayed we are reluctant to make ourselves vulnerable again. Some of the factors which affect our ability to trust others can be listed. The one which is probably the most important is the type environment that we grew up in. If a person grew up in a home where there was no trust exhibited by parents or siblings they learn not to trust others or to be trustworthy themselves. This personality sees the world through different eyes than the average person. He or she sees life only as a game to be played for their own satisfaction. This person will never regard the trust of others. The person who is trusting by nature and has a habit of giving of themselves or making themselves vulnerable is another category of affected trust. Many good people will take advantage of this person because we are all self centered and want what we feel serves our own intrest. This person may have been the victim of failed relationships because of this and may find themselves locked in a cycle which is almost impossible to break out of. In order to build or rebuild trust you must start out with small steps or situations. You can look at them as bricks in the building block of your relationship. Each brick must be put securely in place in order to build a secure structure. This takes time and can all be lost if trust if violated. Don't take the trust of other people for granted. Once you have gained the trust of another person be careful not to violate their good will. People know that you are not superman and we sometimes may have the best intentions in the world but for whatever reason can't follow through. People generally understand this. A few small transgressions won't do harm to your relationship but don't take that for granted. The Good Life