Trust In Marriage: Ways To Build It

Trust is a big part of the foundation when it comes to a strong marriage. Building trust is an ongoing process in your relationships, marriage especially. Here’s what works for us.

Trust comes about through actions primarily. It’s the action that backs up the words you speak…so that when your spouse hears the words, they can trust that you’re being true.

To have trust in marriage is to be trustworthy. Do the things you say you’re going to do. Always.

Or, at least as often as you have the power to do so.

And always keep it as a priority.

When I think about trust in marriage, I often think about the big areas…fidelity, well, I guess that’s pretty much it.

Trust and faithfulness go hand in hand.

But how do you trust your partner in that big, major area?

Trust is built in the small things.

The small, day-to-day, seemingly insignificant things.

Ask yourself how trustworthy you’ve been in the past week:

• Did I do the household chores that I’m usually responsible for?
• Did I complete a task that I said I’d complete?
• Did I run that errand that I said I’d run?
• Did I keep my commitments at work?

When I look at these questions, I know there are some weeks when I am more trustworthy than others.

But consistency is key.

Trust is built little by little. As Derek’s grandfather used to say, “by degrees.” 🙂

Let’s look at trust through the lens of The Five Love Languages, an amazing concept and book by Dr. Gary Chapman that I have talked about here. I highly recommend it!

I’m going to discuss how trust might be felt and known through each of the love languages but also give you practical ideas for how to actually incorporate them into your relationship, not as a marriage counselor (not even close!), but as a neighbor who’s been married for more than 25 years to my best friend.

Build Trust Through Serving Your Spouse

Servant leadership is a concept that has been discussed widely in the business world of late. I’m not an expert on the business side of it, but it seems to be modeled on an ancient style of relating to people, namely Jesus’s method.

Jesus served in many ways that were so remarkable that people wrote entire books about it.

Here are three quick examples.

He made breakfast for His friends (John 21: 1-13), healed people from their blindness (John 9: 1-7), and even helped His mom when there was a social emergency (John 2: 1-11).

If serving was a way of life for Jesus, no matter what your belief in Him, then we can probably agree that it’s a good choice for us, too.

So let’s look at two ways to serve our spouses and build trust at the same time.

1. Food. Let’s face it. A lot of home time centers around food. So, recognize that you have multiple opportunities every day to create a trusting situation for your spouse.

How in the world do we do that?

Have you ever heard a husband or wife say that their spouse always cooks a nice breakfast on Sunday mornings or always brings home a pizza on Fridays so that no one has to cook at the end of the week?

These “random” habits can actually build trust because of the comfort they bring…especially if they’re done with the right attitude.

Notice that in both of those situations, the person used the word always.

There’s that consistency piece again.

So, what kind of attitude is needed? The one that realizes that this is special or it brings relief to your spouse, takes a load off of their plate. It’s one that says, “I want to do this for you.”

2. Think of a chore or routine task that your spouse is responsible for but really detests doing.

Ask yourself (this part is important!):

• Can I take on that task?
• What would I need to rearrange to make that happen?
• Is that something I can reasonably, with a little effort, take over for my spouse and do consistently for the foreseeable future?

If so, you may have found an excellent opportunity for building trust in your marriage.

Here’s an example: Early on in our marriage, for whatever reason, I was the finance manager, the bill payer.

I was clueless. I didn’t have the internet to google my questions, so I just avoided it essentially.

The whole process was confusing and stressful to me.

I nearly put our house into foreclosure when we had the money to pay the mortgage, which is a story for another day!

Partly to save our financial life, but also to rescue me from the terrible way I felt about handling it, Derek took over the process.

And he has consistently handled, managed, discerned, and just plain figured it all out. Month after month. Year after year.

I’m more aware and knowledgeable about it all now, but I trust completely that he’s got this.

Did we get a water bill this month? Did it get paid? Yes and yes. I know that because I know Derek. It doesn’t matter that I never saw it or that he never mentioned paying it.

And what if he did forget?

After all these years, that doesn’t make him untrustworthy, it makes him human.

Trust is a beautiful thing.

Build Trust Through The Time You Spend Together

Quality time is a great method for building trust in your marriage.

How?

By being consistent. By keeping your word with your actions.

Plan to spend time together one-on-one with your spouse after work today. Move hell or high water to make it happen.

You know what works best for you, but your time might be “spent” on…

• a walk around the neighborhood
• going out for coffee
• watching your favorite tv show together
• making dinner together
• meeting up at the gym for a class

You get the idea. Keep. It. Simple.

The key component is not the activity itself, but the fact that you said you’d spend this time together, and you do.

{Quality time is undivided attention time…don’t keep looking at your phone if your goal is to build your relationship with your spouse.}

Build Trust Through Physical Touch

Without a doubt, your spouse needs to have full assurance that every physical touch from you is a loving one.

There should never be a question of whether it will or won’t be.

If you’re in that situation, stop reading this and contact a professional.

This section is for encouraging new ideas for physical touch.

Consider increasing the number of physical touches you make each day.

If your spouse speaks this love language and you don’t, you’re probably not touching him enough for his taste!

Look for ways to connect more often physically. Every positive interaction is positive momentum in your marriage.

Build Trust Through Gifts

To me, this heading sounds like you’re bribing your spouse into trusting you! Lol, not what we’re going for here.

So, what does this mean?

It means that if your spouse’s primary love language is through tangible gifts, then this is a primary way that they will perceive whether or not they can trust you!

Gifts that build trust??

I think (not an expert, just my opinion) that this is one part the gift itself and one part the thought behind the gift.

Let’s say that an important-to-your-spouse date is coming up, such as the anniversary of when she landed her dream job or the day when her beloved grandmother passed away.

We’re not talking birthday, Christmas, or Valentine’s Day, here.

• How can you show that you care about this day because she cares about this day?
• What memento could you give her that says that this is a milestone or important event and should be remembered?
• How could you give the gift in a way that shows it’s important to you, such as having it delivered to her work? Conversely, you might definitely not have it delivered because you know that it’s a private remembrance that she wouldn’t want made public.

Trust has reliability built into it. Can she trust that you care about the things that are deeply important to her?

What would be some appropriate gifts for this type of occasion?

• losing a loved one

• work-related

I hope these ideas have sparked ones of your own.

Build Trust Through Your Words

For those of us whose primary love language is Words of Affirmation, we really take you at your word.

I trust your word if I see actions that back it up. Someone who is “all talk” is not to be trusted.

Trust is built on actions, so this seems like sort of a chicken/egg situation. (As in which comes first?)

I believe that over time, your word stands because of all the times previously that your actions reinforced the truth of those words.

So, the old adage is especially meaningful here: Say what you mean and mean what you say.

This builds trust in a relationship.

For your spouse who feels most loved when he hears words of affirmation….

Here’s an idea for letting your spouse know that you trust him!

Grab some sticky notes. On each one, write a specific reason that you trust your spouse.

For example:

• Thank you for always picking up the kids from soccer on Thursdays.
• I love that when you say you’ll make time for us this weekend, you always do!
• When you rub my feet at the end of a long day, I know that I can count on you to always be there for me.

Now for the fun part! Take these notes and place them in spots where your spouse will find them at random times.

And then wait for them to discover your surprises. 😀

Building trust can take time, but it’s vital to marriage, so you just keep at it day after day. You’ve got this!