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One of the important components in a relationship or friendship is that people feel safe with you.  Safety ensures that a person can trust you with information, care, and with their life.  When safety is missing from a relationship or friendship, trust is missing as well.  For someone to feel safe with you, you have to make them feel that they can trust you.  They have to know that you have their best interest at heart and what you do and say to or for them is done without the intent to harm, hurt, ridicule, belittle, or take advantage of them.  

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People need to know that you are there for them, and not only when things are going well.  They also need you when things are not going well.  When a person doesn't feel safe with you, they usually have a difficult time disclosing personal information.  He/She may be reluctant to share things with you or love you with their whole heart.  They also might evade giving you major responsibilities.  Having safety in a relationship is important.  If you can fall backwards with your eyes closed and know that your mate will be there to catch you so that you will not fall, that is an awesome feeling.  This means that you feel safe, protected, loved, cared for, that you matter, you are important, and respected.

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Having a sense of security feels like having a bridge between fear, doubt, distrust, and worry that crosses over to trust, confidence, assurance, and safety.  Building safety in a relationship might take time, especially if the person you are in a relationship with did not feel safe in their previous relationship or friendship.  This could happen if he/she was cheated on, ghosted, lied to, mistreated, neglected, abused or taken advantage of.  However, it is important to note that despite what you went through, you should never make someone else pay for the "crime" that someone else committed against you.  It is not their fault and he/she had nothing to do with what you went through prior to meeting him/her. 

 

If you don't feel safe with someone, it should be because of something that person did to you, not because of what someone else did to you.  Spending quality time with your mate will help you determine how safe you feel with him/her.   You have to be open and vulnerable enough to at least let him/her get close to you.  Get to know them on a personal level, don't base your feelings of safety on your own assumptions or on what someone else may have told you about your mate.  Their experience with your mate, does not have to be your experience.

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Get to know your mate, before you unfairly judge him/her.  In getting to know your mate, you can become more secure about his/her intentions.  Safety is important to building a healthy relationship or friendship.  So, I encourage you to ask your mate, "Do you feel safe with me?"  And, after they answer yes or no, ask them, "Why?"  Their answer will either reassure you that you are doing the right thing or teach you how to make him/her feel safe with you.  Dependent on their response to that question, you might have to ask your mate, "What can I do to make you feel safe with me?"  Let your mate know that they can trust you to have their back when they need you, and even when they don't...help them feel safe with you. In relationships, we want to feel safe.

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By Lynnette Clement