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Trust and loyalty are essential elements to every relationship.  Trust is earned by the actions of your mate towards you.  Trust is developed when your mate does things that give you the feeling of confidence in your partners word and actions, believing that they will be there for you when needed, because it has become a patterned behavior.  When you trust your mate, you have an assurance that they have your best interest at heart.  Trust is the foundation of a healthy relationship.  It is what you need in the relationship to be loyal to the relationship.  When you have trust in your mate you can approach the relationship without the fear of being hurt. 

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Trust is developed when there is transparency in the relationship (open and honest communication), when your mate is reliable (they show you by their actions that you can count on them when you need them and they honor their word), you can be vulnerable with your mate, because they show you that they protect your emotions by caring about how what they do or say impacts you.  You also have feelings of safety, when your mate proves themselves as trustworthy.  In a relationship full of trust, you also have a love and respect for one another.  Trust is something that you have to build by honoring your words and actions consistently. 

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People who do not trust easily, usually have a reason that they don’t trust their mate;  it could be based on a previous experience with their mate or someone else that they compare to their mate based on a similar or same experience.  If you don’t trust your mate, let it be because of something he/she did or said to you, not because of what someone else did or said.  Work towards building or rebuilding trust when broken, if the relationship is worth saving.

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A relationship is not easily sustainable long term when trust and loyalty are broken.  It is not that neither are reparable, it is that it will probably take too much time and energy that neither mate is willing to put in consistently to rebuild once broken.  It is always best to be Honest in your relationships, so that you can build trust in your relationship.  Without trust, it is difficult to be loyal to your mate.  Loyalty goes hand-in-hand with trust.  If there is no loyalty, there is not trust.  If there is no trust, there is no loyalty.  Loyalty in the aspect of committed to the relationship (not just in a sexual way).

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Too often in relationships, we use the word loyalty, as a weapon to defame our mates character and try to guilt trip them into staying when we would leave if the roles were reversed (meaning, if she/he cheated on you, lied to you consistently, or was violent towards you, you would leave without questioning your loyalty). 

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Please know and fully understand that loyalty in a relationship does not mean that your mate should let you treat him/her like shit, and still stay with you.  In any relationship that I am in, Before I’m loyal to you, I’m loyal to my happiness.  The disconnect comes in, when you impair my happiness and it causes me to become a bit disloyal to my happiness.  I will always choose my happiness over someone or something that no longer contributes to my happiness.  When my mate contributes to my happiness, I will remain loyal to him (in reference to not leaving).  If I can trust him with my heart, he has me forever. 

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Loyalty is the responsibility of both parties in the relationship.  Just as loyal as you want your partner to be, you have to be loyal to your partner.  That commitment to being loyal is what helps to build trust.  If you are the cause of why your mate no longer trust you, you have to work towards rebuilding trust, if you want your partner to remain with you (if that is something that he/she wants as well).  If you decide to move on after trust is broken in your relationship, you will have to let the next person you are in a relationship with enter your life with a clean slate (having done nothing to you in the beginning). 

 

Don’t distrust someone who hasn’t given you a reason to not trust them.  Don’t hold yourself back from finding love again.  Just tell the new person, what you NEED to feel loved, and how you NEED to be loved, and ask him/her what do they NEED to feel loved, and how do you NEED to be loved?  Work towards achieving the goals of the responses.  When your mate tells you what he/she needs from you, listen to him/her, so that there is no room for anyone else to come in and fill in the gaps.   When the two of you are doing your jobs to make the relationship work, there are no gaps to fill, and that’s the type of relationship we all want to remain loyal to.

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By Lynnette Clement