Relationship Advice: Trust is Crucial

A little bit of relationship advice: trust is crucial in forming the bonds that make our relationships healthy & loving. Learn more about trustworthiness here.

One of the most important qualities you should put on your list is trust.

This is a value that must be earned, not given. You must be trustworthy to be trusted. If anyone says to you “Trust me” or “Don’t you trust me?” and you only have known them for a short while, chances are they cannot be trusted.

Anyone with decent character and perception knows this would be a silly question to ask someone when you have not had the time to evaluate whether this is true or false. It is a very strange comment when you hardly know them.

It is all about building a foundation so your life does not come tumbling down as a result of not doing your due diligence in this area when meeting different people.  

You wouldn’t continue building your house unless you had a strong foundation to begin with, would you? The same goes for your friends. You would want to know if they are trustworthy before you begin a close relationship, wouldn’t you?     

I have come to know that we all have within us the ability to know what is good for us and what is not, but the problem is we don’t follow our intuition or our gut feeling; we tend to follow what we want to happen, not what we should do.  

That is why when we go through life, people frequently say or think in hindsight, “I knew I should have done so and so” or “I knew I shouldn’t have done this or that.” Well, if you knew, why didn’t you? Because you preferred to do what you wanted rather than what you felt was right. I know most of you probably have experienced this more often than not, myself included.

This reasoning is what gets us into trouble.  

With most people, common values are not considered important and often are left out when looking for friendship. But I would suggest they are very important. If you don’t have common values, you will not be able to form a strong friendship without that respect. 

I have seen many people complain about their friends’ behavior and fail to understand why they get treated the way they do. It is because they did not take the time, or did not know the rewards of, finding out other peoples’ values. A few years ago, a friend of mine was asked by his friend if he could borrow a large amount of money. 

The amount was given in good faith on the understanding it would be returned when he was back on his feet. After twelve months, despite the friend being back on his feet, the amount was not forthcoming. Several attempts to recover it fell on deaf ears, causing the friendship to deteriorate. The acrimony escalated from harsh words to inappropriate behavior. The result? No contact, no communication, no money and no friendship. This all could have been avoided if the values had been identified ahead of time. 

This person had no friends because he owed others money as well. Instead of feeling sorry for this person for not having any friends, you might take time to see how much value he puts on friendship. This person’s attitude when it came to friendship obviously was to use them. 

Remember, to be trusted and have the respect of others you must first BE the person who is trustworthy and respectful. Only then can you have. BE, DO, HAVE.