Successful couples and lasting relationships are not a product of fate or something only reserved for a fortunate few. No one is born with the skill to have a great relationship. The ones who manage to are the ones who realize the effort that goes into creating something meaningful.
Trust is a fragile thing. Once it’s broken, a relationship is never quite the same again. So the real question is, how do you create the kind of trust that feels unshakable?
Doing these three things consistently will help you build a strong foundation of trust with your partner:
1. Be Honest, Especially About The Little Things
Honesty is the baseline for building trust. Honesty about big things like debt, past relationships and mistakes you are not proud of matters, but so does honesty about the little things.
For example, perhaps you said something negative about your partner to another person long ago, and they confront you about it now. Instead of taking accountability and coming clean, you lie. Because you don’t want conflict, and you think things are different now, in your eyes, it doesn’t matter. You don’t want to be the “bad guy” and you want to keep the peace between you.
But later, they find out anyway. In their eyes, they may think, “If you can’t be honest with me about the smallest of things, how can I trust you with the big stuff?”
A 2014 study published in the Journal of Relationships Research found that people justified the use of white lies when they were the ones telling them, but didn’t like it when they were on the receiving end. Interestingly, men, not women, were more open to benevolent deception.
You may lie due to fear of conflict, abandonment, protecting your partner’s feelings or even to be socially accepted. But white lies, a lie by omission or the feeling that you’re hiding something can collectively keep your partner second-guessing your intentions.
Here are some little things people lie about and what you can avoid doing going forward:
- Saying “I’m almost there” when you’re still far away
- Claiming “My phone died,” so you don’t have to reply to texts
- Saying “I’m fine” when you’re not
- Claiming “I don’t mind when plans change,” even if you do
To build trust, start by being truthful and honest about both the big and small things, and take accountability when it matters the most. When you are consistently honest, especially about the small stuff, it builds a foundation of trust that can weather the harshest storms.
2. Always Keep Your Promises
Keeping your promises shows the consistency of your character and intentions. When your actions match your words, people see you as someone reliable. When they don’t, it creates distrust. Being reliable not only signals honesty but also communicates respect for others’ time, feelings and expectations.
When you say what you mean and do what you say, it leaves no room for doubt. Such dependability is a cornerstone of both personal and professional relationships.
When people love ardently, they tend to make ambitious promises to their partners. A 2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people make such promises to please and respond to their partner’s needs, but keeping those promises depends on their level of self-control and planning.
Researchers found that the people who make bigger promises, motivated by how good they feel in their relationships, are also the ones who are not good at keeping them. They showed that keeping promises relies more on self-regulatory skills rather than on how strongly you feel in a relationship. This includes displaying traits like conscientiousness; being organized, responsible and disciplined.
When recovering from relationship conflict, people often make promises to change their behaviors or habits that are harming the relationship. But when that promise is not delivered, it breaks trust.
When building a strong foundation of trust, only make promises that you can realistically keep. Focus on aligning your actions with your words. This shows respect and care for your partner’s feelings and expectations.
3. Make Them Feel Safe
Solid trust in a relationship is built on a sense of safety. A 2024 review published in the Annual Review of Psychology explored how people try to feel safe in relationships and when they reach for connection or hold back to protect themselves. The researchers found that people balance their desire to get closer against the fear of being hurt. People “risk-regulate” by connecting only as much as they feel safe to in each situation.
Safety for them is signaled through two types of cues:
- Direct cues. This includes partners’ affectionate touch, warm words, how responsive or unresponsive they appear and the power dynamics of the relationship. This signals immediate feedback on whether the connection feels secure or not.
- Indirect cues. This includes bodily sensations, feeling tense or at ease, one’s prior or present living conditions and socioeconomic status, which can affect how safe they feel in their relationships.
Researchers found that one’s ability to trust others shapes how safe they tend to feel in their relationships. And, when you build safety first, it becomes easier to trust.
One of the primary barriers to feeling completely safe with your partner is the fear of being judged, mocked and ridiculed for being honest or opening up. For many people, feeling safe means knowing their honesty won’t be weaponized against them during fights, and that if they express their needs, they won’t be punished for it. It means their vulnerability will be met with care and kindness instead of judgment.
Safety also means their partner is consistent, so they never have to guess which version of them they’ll get. It also involves their partner creating a relational environment where there are no veiled comparisons and subtle jabs; only direct, respectful communication.
When safety exists, your partner feels like they can drop their guard. They cease to doubt themselves, stop tiptoeing around you and instead feel comfortable being playful, affectionate and vulnerable.
Most importantly, partners feel safe when their boundaries are respected, not just emotional, but also physical, financial, spiritual and so on. This is when genuine intimacy and trust develop, when two partners can be with each other without fear, masks and the need to constantly protect themselves.
Curious how authentic you really are in your relationship? Take this science-backed test to find out: Authenticity In Relationships Scale
