3 Ts about trust
Trust and betrayal show up a lot in relationship therapy.
Each person’s values and beliefs and expectations about the relationship (often unvoiced at least in the earlier stages of time together).
My model boils down to 3 elements that create trust:
Transparency
Truth
Trust
Transparency about motives and intentions and behaviour and movements. What would it be like for your partner/s to see everything on your phone or your social media or your emails? Are you hiding anything? Without pathologising any of that, in relationship therapy it’s often healthier to explore what unmet needs might be hidden drivers of any aspects that lack transparency. Discussion of transparency can bring to the surface lots of material that might have lain dormant for years. This excavation enables each person connect with their own inner world about this, before dialogue with any partner/s.
Truth can also be a challenge. Many people in relationship are afraid of telling their truth. This can be perhaps a misguided attempt to avoid hurting the feelings of a partner. That’s why communication coaching in relationship therapy can support a more authentic and congruent communication. This encoruages each person to say what they need to say but in a way that is more likely to be heard and respected in a palatable fashion by the other partner/s. It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it!
Trust deepens when transparency and truth are solidly in position. The risk can be that transparency and truth can be challenging to voice and live in a consistent way. Increasingly digital ways of being in the world can bring all sorts of temptations and distractions which leech energy away from any primary relationship/s.
What erodes trust?
Often my clients in relationship therapy are quick to point out faults and blocks in a partner.
More often than not, that very client may have triggers or sore spots or hurts from prior relationship. Sensibly each person in the relationship can be preoccupied with defending their own views, but underneath that is a reactive attempt to protect their own hurt parts. Hurt is caused in relationship but luckily it can also be healed in relationship. But for that healing to occur, each person is required to identify and nurture their own sore spots, with a reasonable expectation of support from partner/s in this growth process. Reflexively, the other partner/s might seek the exact same support in return, to show up authentically with ownership of their inner process or historical patterns.
Trust is eroded by blame and fault-finding. Trust is built through honest presence, with a growing awareness of one’s own patterns and defences.
This emerging process can be very rewarding as well as healing. This shift in the conversation is about personal ownership of each person’s contrubution to the relationship dynamics. It’s not about being wrong or right. It’s not moralising or condemning a partner.
It’s an intentional focus on what boundaries and behaviours are going to work for the relationship. Or at least defining what areas are conflctual. Naming a conflict does not mean that the relationship needs to be in conflict. Rising above the argument can show where the redemptive path might lead.
Updated relationship approaches and ways of connecting with each other can bring new opportunity for connection and safety and joy. Which is what a relationship is all about.
I understand that relationships aren’t easy all the time
I’m here to guide you if this description reflects the kind of relationship you want. Especially if you are weary of going round the same negative tracks time and time again.
Too easily in a relationship, we get caught up in our own stuff which can be unconscious patterns which we developed as adaptations from past hurts picked up and carried along the way. It’s hugely hard to see our partner/s clearly and compassionately without the filter of our own assumptions and priorities.
I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s possible. This is according to many models of relationship such as Imago, Gottman, Terry Real’s RLT (I’ve trained in all of these approaches, and others).
My aim in offering relationship therapy is to support each client relationship in uncovering what is situated beneath the surface, so that the buried unconscious material no longer acts as a tripwire or minefield affecting the relational space. This seems to hold true whatever the composition of the relationship and the social identities of the people within it.
For those who want to do the work, but importantly want to do the work together, I’m here with relational support.
I’m here to help
There’s no need to suffer in silence. Resourcing yourself is a sure-fire way to navigate your relationship/s without going crazy.
One way to do that is through relationship therapy. Sarah Briggs is accredited by COSRT in the UK as a sex & relationship therapist; she is also certified by Imago internaitonally as a Certified Advanced Clinician to work with couples and relationships.
Or check out our ebooks which effortlessly guide you through ways to handle emotions and communication.