Trust is something that has never come naturally to me, even as a child. I have always suspected that people have ulterior motives when they do kind things. I honestly don’t know where this suspicion stemmed from, but it’s been something I’ve had to overcome and am still overcoming.
You always hear people say that good relationships, particularly good marriages, are built on trust, and it’s true. Think about it. If you are married, then there is only one person on this planet with whom you spend every waking moment, share your bed and your body, and make other humans. If you can’t trust that person, then who can you trust?
Marriage has a way of challenging where our trust lies. First and foremost, our trust must be with our Creator. Trusting God is an anchor for all the other trust relationships we will develop. We have to know, without a doubt, that God will not let us down. He is the one Person who will never fail us.
““Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.””
Though all the humans in your life fail you, He will never fail you. And when those humans fail you, there is always hope. His inability to fail you fills the holes that human failure leaves behind. This doesn’t excuse people from hurting you. Healing must occur in you and the other person. But the fact that God’s love never fails enables you to move forward in a healthy way.
As your trust with God is established, trust with your spouse becomes easier. Trust within marriage is built on communication. Being willing to share both the difficult and the awesome is essential to having trust with one another. When spouses open up to each other, they are saying, “I trust you to see me as I am, and I trust you to respond well. I’m taking a leap of faith that you will receive me and love me.”
The actual definition of trust is firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. When you trust your spouse, you have a firm belief in their reliability, their truthfulness, and their ability or strength. However, this definition does not say trust is knowing by proven facts that a person is reliable, truthful, able, or strong. Trust is the firm belief. Trust is an act of faith. This doesn’t mean you blindly continue to trust someone who has hurt you. But in order to establish or reestablish trust, you have to choose to believe in the other person.
Trust is the firm belief. Trust is an act of faith. Not blindly, but to establish trust, choosing to believe in the person.
For those of us who struggle with trust, this is not easy to swallow, and actually sounds unhealthy. We tend to think, “They should prove they are trustworthy before I trust them.” That’s actually not how trust works. If that’s how trust worked, then no one would be able to have any type of relationship. Trust has to be given freely in order for relationship to be established or reestablished. The only way trust would be unnecessary is if we were able to crawl into someone’s mind, hear their thoughts, and feel what they’re feeling. Since we can’t do that, we have to believe the other person.
Rob and I have had many conversations about trust, and both of us have failed each other in being trustworthy in the past. However, we have never given up pressing through and believing in each other again. In order to build trust, both parties have to be willing to believe in the other person and take a leap of faith. I would much rather have a marriage where trust was reestablished after being broken then one where we chose to live our whole lives disconnected from one another in fear and anger. Hopefully, trust never gets broken in your marriage and you never have to worry about this. But if it has or does, don’t let it stay broken.