There’s an old saying that trust is hard to build but extremely easy to break. The many steps you have taken to build trust in relationships can easily be broken in a moment. Without this trust, a relationship cannot become more intimate.

Like a plant needs continual water to grow, a relationship needs much attention and effort to improve. Caree Brown offers couples counseling that can help you learn the proper way to build trust in relationships. Here are 7 ways that you can utilize to help your relationships grow.

Be Honest

The best way to build trust in relationships is by being trustworthy. Being honest is the only real way to do this. Eventually, a liar is always found out.

Being honest means that you follow through with things you say you will do. It means that your words actually account for something. Even getting caught in a lie once can have major repercussions on whether you are ever trusted again.

Just be sure that you don’t use honesty as a means to refuse responsibility for what you say. There are more diplomatic ways to be honest than being harsh and condescending.

Be Respectful

A healthy, long-lasting relationship will never form if both sides don’t have respect for one another. This aspect is important in any level of relationship, not just the intimate ones.

We are all humans and deserve some level of respect in all of our encounters. Being respectful to your waiter may not seem as important as being respectful to your spouse, but it can have major ramifications.

Showing respect to everyone you encounter allows your partner to understand this is who you are as a person. If you are only respectful to your partner, you may begin looking a bit dishonest.

Be Open and Vulnerable

Trust is a two-way street. You cannot expect a relationship to grow if you are not willing to open up. Letting those close to you see parts of you that are vulnerable shows that you trust them with this intimate information.

In turn, this showing of trust will allow them to reciprocate by allowing you to see their vulnerable side as well. Trusting your partner is a very important part of building their trust in you. When they do open up and share their inner feelings with you, keep that between just you two. Keeping secrets builds bonds, and there’s nothing more intimate than emotional secrets.

Take Risks Together

If opening up and being vulnerable creates an environment for trust, why not do that together? Doing something adventurous, taking a leap of faith, or exploring somewhere unknown will create moments that strengthen the bond between two people. It’s amazing when you are vulnerable to your partner. It’s even more amazing when you are vulnerable together.

Communication

Communication is the key aspect in a relationship, but can sometimes be misconstrued. Just saying what is on your mind doesn’t cut it. You need to use communication effectively.

Sometimes knowing when to keep quiet is just as important as saying something. If your partner does not respond well to harsh language or raised tones, abstain from doing this to show that you know them at a deeper level.

Effective communication is probably one of the harder aspects of building trust. We all communicate and respond differently, and in our emotional moments, we tend to communicate how we see fit. However, the way we like to communicate may not always be the right way to communicate. This by no means is an overnight change and is one of the things that plague relationships for entire lives.

Make Joint Decisions

Making decisions unilaterally shows selfishness, which is the enemy to trust. By making others a part of your decisions, you show that you value their opinion. However, you need to take it one step further than just including them. You need to actually take their opinion into account otherwise the façade will be broken quickly. This goes hand in hand with respect and honesty. To build trust in relationships, work on doing it together.

Keep Working

Finally, you need to continue to show your partner that building trust is an ongoing journey. Make building trust in relationships a habit. If you quit watering the plant it will die, so never quit building the trust in relationships.