Trust is the bedrock upon which meaningful relationships are built. It’s the invisible thread that weaves together intimacy, security, and happiness. But what happens when this foundation crumbles? When doubt, suspicion, and fear creep into your life, how do you rebuild trust and find peace? It is surely a very stressful experience when the foundations for a stable relationship are crumbling apart. We need together delve into the complexities of trust, exploring the signs of mistrust, its potential causes, and practical steps toward healing and restoration.
Trust in human relationships is about believing in someone’s character, ability and honesty. We need trust to develop healthy and secure relationships that produce satisfaction. Living in distrust is stressful. To do well in a relationship, you have to trust the person. But there are problems with mistrust. When there is no trust in a relationship, harmful thoughts and feelings arise, such as negative judgments, suspicion and jealousy. If mistrust persists, it can lead to bigger problems such as emotional and even physical abuse. People can have trust issues leading to depression, excessive anxiety, fear of being abandoned, post-traumatic stress, schizophrenia, among other factors.
Want to know if you have trust issues? Here are some signs:
- Checking the facts you’ve been told, even if you have no reason to doubt what the person has told you.
- Always expect the worst from what they do to you, being suspicious of other people’s motives.
- Staying away from people and finding it difficult to open up to them, being too afraid of being vulnerable and intimate.
- Being very jealous, always feeling threatened in your romantic relationship, as if the other person is going to cheat on you.
Some authors separate cognitive jealousy from emotional and behavioral jealousy. Cognitive jealousy is linked to rational or irrational thoughts, worries and suspicions about a partner’s fidelity. In cognitive jealousy, you ruminate on thoughts of betrayal. In emotional jealousy, painful feelings arise in response to a situation that produces jealousy. And behavioral jealousy is linked to detective-like or protective attitudes that a person may take, such as examining their partner’s belongings, purse, wallet, or looking at their text messages or emails.
What can be done to improve the problems of mistrust? If they are very serious and creating a lot of problems in your relationships, it can be useful to have a few consultations with a psychologist to discuss these things and check whether you may be cultivating distorted thoughts about mistrust for some reason that may not be linked to the other person cheating or not being a trustworthy person. Sometimes we can bring trust issues into adulthood because of traumatic situations we experienced in our childhood, and this can disrupt adult relationships in which there is no reason to distrust.
In psychological therapy with a good professional, you can learn new ways of thinking to combat negative feelings, help people separate past problems from future fears and gain confidence to rebuild trust in current relationships. If there has been a situation in your life that has led to a loss of trust, such as a case of marital infidelity, it is possible to rebuild trust. Those who have betrayed, using this example, need to ask for forgiveness, show sincere regret for the mistake made, offer some compensation for the slip-up and no longer repeat the same behavior that disrupted trust.
If your friend, husband, wife or other loved one has trust issues, strive to be more honest and transparent in all your interactions with them and, in fact, with everyone. Make an effort to be less defensive when communicating with them, stating your ideas and purposes in clear, sincere and honest words. Say what you like to say, but do it with respect and clarity. Try to be direct, objective and clear when asking for what you want in your relationship. Don’t use generic phrases like “Oh, I want to be loved more”, “Oh, I want you to improve your relationship with me”. Explain to the other person what this means in practical terms. Love isn’t a crystal ball to which you say a generic phrase “I want to be loved more”, “I want to be loved more”, which isn’t clear and the other person has to guess everything you haven’t said. Opening your heart, talking about what you feel, being honest about your feelings, being objective in your requests and doing so with respect, without shouting, without hysterical outbursts, without manipulation, all of this fosters a good relationship with love and promotes trust.
Dr. Dean Ornish is a cardiologist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, author of books such as “Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease”, “Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy”, where he explains the importance of a vegetarian diet for the prevention and treatment of diseases in general, especially coronary heart disease. He also talks about opening the “emotional” heart, meditation and prayer. He talks about support groups to learn how to deal with emotions and the practice of physical exercise, all of which are important for physical, emotional, social and spiritual health. Living with mistrust is bad for your health and can produce psychosomatic illnesses, which are those that appear in the body, with mental stress factors as one of the causes, or perhaps the main cause.
One characteristic that favors heart disease is a sense of isolation. And Dr. Ornish, who I quoted, says that anything that promotes a sense of isolation leads to chronic stress and, more often than not, leads to illnesses such as heart disease. On the other hand, anything that leads to real intimacy and the feelings of connectedness can be healing in the truest sense of the word. He puts it this way: “The ability to feel intimate has long been considered the key to mental health. I believe it is also essential for the health of our hearts.”
You can pursue intimacy horizontally and vertically. Vertical intimacy has to do with faith in a loving Creator God and is developed through prayer, meditation and reading the Bible. Horizontal intimacy, on the other hand, depends on relationships with other people and with yourself. Intimacy here does not have to do with sexuality. Many people have sex frequently and don’t develop emotional intimacy with others, and people can be abstinent from sex and manage to build healthy emotional relationships with intimacy. So, physical heart health also depends on improving your affectivity towards yourself and others.
Dr. Ornish explains that it’s not just a question of learning to deal with stress, defending against it or fighting against it, but it has a lot to do with transcending that sense of isolation, so that real healing can begin, that is, so that our hearts, the spiritual and the psychological, can begin to open up and not just our arteries. So ask God for the ability to trust people you can trust, to trust yourself and what God can do in your life. And help others to trust you by improving the way you are with them. That’s it, it’s simple isn’t it? Practice it and you’ll develop your trust in people or help someone to trust you more.
Do you need a guide to help you understand how to cope with Stress in an all inclusive approach? Learn how to combat stress, mentally, physically, emotionally and strategically in your life.
Dr. Cesar Vasconcellos de Souza is working as a psychiatrist and international speaker. He is author of 3 books, columnist of the health magazine “Vida e Saúde” for 25 years, and has a regular program on the “Novo Tempo” TV channel.
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