Dating Tips: How to Build Trust

Building a better relationship. Photo: ReubenInStt

Any solid relationship is built on trust, and there is no future in a relationship without some degree of trust. There is always something of a risk to trust: you let the other person into your life by opening the door a little and slowly opening it further as trust develops.

To commit to a relationship, however short, requires us to feel safe and trust what does that. So to build trust, we need to help the other person feel safe with us. Heres some ideas:

• Mean what you say and say what you mean. In this way your expressions and body language will agree with your words quite naturally. If your words, voice tone and body language do not agree the other person is not going to trust much of what you are saying.
• Be predictable, consistent and reliable. This is not an excuse to be boring – surprises and spontaneity are fun, but be reliably spontaneous!
• When circumstances force you to change, (i.e. you do something that is unpredictable) let them know what’s going on. You may not know what it is that’s going on, but you can say things like “I don’t know what’s going on with my life at the moment, but I may need to run some of this by you occasionally”.
• Talk to each other about everything, not just the major things. Letting them know what’s going on in your life, what you’ve achieved and so on!
• Know who you are and make sure that the other person knows too. Don’t be afraid or ashamed of who you are – being happy and confident with who you are helps you to trust yourself, and you can’t expect others to trust you if you can’t trust yourself! What do you value in life? What themes do you live your life by? What standards do you set for your life, and for a relationship? What are you know for? Let key people in your life know – they will know you more deeply, know your character and will fell able to count on you. They’ll be able to trust you because they’ll know what’s inside you.
• Remain calm – being “like a rock” shows you can be trusted to remain calm in a crisis.