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This can be a hard question to answer, especially at the beginning of a relationship, but your own instincts about another person and the way they behave over time are two important things to consider when making that decision.
Building trust requires mutual commitment. So, as your relationship progresses, ask yourself:. Does your partner listen to you and support you? Are they sensitive to your problems, worries and fears? Do they show compassion and genuinely care about you? A person who is trustworthy is able to demonstrate consideration and care of others. Each person in a relationship demonstrates their trustworthiness through consistency in their actions.
The first behaviors you look at might be relatively small, like showing up for dates at agreed-upon times. Again, learning these things in a relationship happens gradually, as you both show that you are consistent with your actions not just occasionally, but all the time. For this to work, you both have to agree to all the rules ahead of time.
So here are the rules! Make a calendar event recurring once a week and set it to infinite. For one hour a week you are both going to sit together and listen intently as you talk about yourselves, one at a time. For the first week you flip a coin to see who goes first. The other person must listen but not respond in any way shape or form. In other words, no cross-talk: The last rule is no discussion of anything said during your hour — for at least the next three days. This might sound arbitrary or kind of pointless, but what actually occurs is both people are able for one measly hour — to stop relating to one another in their unhealthy cycle.
You are suddenly forced to experience yourself minus the other person. What you will likely find after doing this is that you both feel happy and closer as a result of it. You are experiencing a new version of yourself within the relationship, a feeling that is rewarding to both parties. This is an exercise for you to do solo, but you can invite your partner to do it too.
I want you to take your couple-fights and freeze frame them: What are most of your fights about? What are the core values that seem to recur? What themes come up? Are there other parties who get brought into it? Which of you is the one to bring up conflicts most often?
What are the tactics that are used? What are the fights usually about — in terms of needs and emotions? What are the kinds of words you both use — most often? Think about the last fight you had with your partner and take it apart in detail. Think about what they said or did that upset you. Think about what you said or did in response. Last and most important in this reflection: What is your role, most often?
Know it, name it, and wrap your head around how that role behaves — and the next time a conflict comes up, I want you to choose to play someone else. Because for both parties to return to intimacy, both have to REALIZE in the moments when behavioral loops are taking over your perception. This is a way for you to stop the exchange of the imbalance and step outside of it, momentarily. This is how you can begin to actively guide your relationship and break bad habits.
If your average reaction is to feel hurt and try and explain yourself, next time you should choose the opposite. Let the critique be of no importance and reply with no sarcasm. What did you just say? This is a mantra I use all the time, for any relationship issue — romantic or otherwise.
Try to witness this person in their pain or their unconscious loop. Try to isolate their bubble of pain as this entity that lives around them, almost like a flu. If anything, feel bad for them in their loop of pain. Know that you cannot force them to see your view, because they are blind. And from this place, you can tolerate them and even love them without words. And at the very least, not take their pain personally. You can be there with your positive energy, which requires no interpretation. We all have limits, unless we are given the gift of insight and awareness to see past them.
I want to say thank you to my latest monthly sponsors!! If you have any requests for new content, as always, please let me know. You cannot make someone change. They must choose to do it for themselves. Say how you feel — put it out there, invest.
You might be the reason your partner is brave enough to invest right back. When people feel safe enough, they will give more of themselves. Major conflicts, when addressed, can be a leveler that allows intimacy to return to the relationship in a more rewarding way than ever before. So although this hurts, this can become a great gift in disguise.
People are different in their strengths and also their limits. Sometimes people are just not capable of facing their feelings right away, or they are threatened by the change that needs to be done. Sometimes they are too damaged, too weak or afraid, or it takes them longer to arrive at the same understanding of the solution. People need to take their own path in their own time, and they need to be allowed to fail and still be loved and accepted, and at the very least forgiven if they are incapable.
Even if they are intolerant to themselves. I believe in hope when it comes to two people who love each other. New and deeper bonds are formed. People absolutely can and do change — all the time.
But it has to be something they want for themselves. The one thing you can count on is change. You cannot predict what will be one day, from where you stand now. When you do, your relationships improve dramatically.
Responsibility is a key building block of a great relationship. People who take the blame, who say they are sorry and explain why they are sorry, who don't try to push any of the blame back on the other person--those are people everyone wants in their lives, because they instantly turn a mistake into a bump in the road rather than a permanent roadblock. A great relationship is mutually beneficial.
In business terms that means connecting with people who can be mentors, who can share information, who can help create other connections; in short, that means going into a relationship wanting something. The person who builds great relationships doesn't think about what she wants; she starts by thinking about what she can give. She sees giving as the best way to establish a real relationship and a lasting connection.
She approaches building relationships as if it's all about the other person and not about her, and in the process builds relationships with people who follow the same approach. When someone speaks from a position of position of power or authority or fame it's tempting to place greater emphasis on their input, advice, and ideas. Smart people strip away the framing that comes with the source--whether positive or negative--and consider the information, advice, or idea based solely on its merits.
People who build great relationships never automatically discount the message simply because they discount the messenger.
They know good advice is good advice, regardless of where it comes from. I sometimes wear a Reading Football Club sweatshirt. The checkout clerk at the grocery store noticed it one day and said, "Oh, you're a Reading supporter? My team is Manchester United. Normally, since I'm pretty shy, I would have just nodded and said something innocuous, but for some reason I said, "You think Man U can beat Real Madrid next week? Now whenever I see him he waves, often from across the store.
I almost always walk over, say hi, and talk briefly about soccer. That's as far as our relationship is likely to go and that's okay.