RULE 13

If you can’t trust them, you haven’t got a relationship

Trust is an absolute essential between partners. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about being faithful, sticking to promises, keeping spending within what you can afford, or anything else. If you can’t trust your partner, you’ll never be happy.

Of course, there are lots of reasons why you can’t trust someone. Maybe they have a track record of being untrustworthy. Maybe you just have hunches. Maybe they didn’t tell the truth about some small things and you wonder what else they weren’t entirely honest about. Maybe they are just a bit shifty (although in that case I’m not sure why you’re with them at all and might I respectfully suggest you move on pronto). It doesn’t matter. You just have to be able to trust them.

Then again, maybe it’s you. Maybe you’ve been lied to in the past and you find it impossible to trust people. Well then, I’m afraid you still don’t have a relationship, and you never will have until you learn to trust. I know it’s tough, especially if your suspicions have been justified in the past, but that’s why you deserve a good relationship now. And you won’t get it unless you can deal with the trust thing.

How must it feel for your partner? They’re behaving impeccably, they’ve done nothing wrong, they’re being as honest as they can be, and still you mistrust them. That can bring down a relationship. However sympathetic they are to your ‘trust issues’ (to use an awful psychobabble expression^*), in the end it will grind them down and make them feel you just don’t love them.

However justified you were in the past, it isn’t fair to your new partner to make them pay for someone else’s mistakes. Deep down, I think you know whether it’s you or them that’s causing your mistrust, and you need to be honest with yourself about where the problem is coming from.

So if your partner is either doing the dirty on you, or is so secretive you can’t tell whether they are or not, have it out with them and if you can’t get them to be more honest, get out while you can. And if it’s you that’s behind the problem, find some way to sort it out. I’ve seen people throw away good relationships and cause themselves great damage by failing to tackle their own inability to trust. If you’re still looking for your Mr or Miss Right, best sort this out quick before you meet them. I wouldn’t want you to blow the whole thing just because someone in your past was stupid enough to betray you.