Reduce distrust in a relationship
Messages on the phone you're not supposed to read. Hearing that he/she has been somewhere when you knew nothing about this. Money that seems to spontaneously disappear. There are all kinds of reasons why trust in a relationship gets a big dent. If you still want to move forward with your partner without ruining the atmosphere by becoming extremely controlling, it is important to reduce the distrust in your relationship and rebuild trust.
That's why in this article, I will discuss distrust in your relationship and how to rebuild trust.
What is confidence?
First and foremost, it’s important to know what kind of situation you want to return to. Perhaps you’re also distrustful in your relationship because of past experiences. Trust is essential for a relationship to function.
After all, trust also involves taking a risk. You entrust something to others with the belief that they can live up to your expectations. When you hire a babysitter for your children, you trust that he or she will not abuse them. If this does happen, mistrust quickly sets in—not only toward that specific babysitter but also toward others—because your confidence in your own ability to judge people diminishes as well.
In a relationship, you entrust your heart to someone with the expectation that they won’t break it—for example, by cheating, breaking promises, or suddenly changing after you’re married.
There are several facets that determine whether you trust someone, such as:
- Optimism about the ability of others to do the same things in the same circumstances.
- You have signals that the other person is trustworthy in other areas.
- You even have actual proof that the other person is trustworthy.
This last point is not necessary for everyone to have confidence in the person. Still, there are often signs people look for to determine if someone is trustworthy, such as whether they have a job. What friends say about the person.
According to researchers, trust depends on 3 factors:
- Predictability
- Reliability
- Belief (in the other)
For example, behavior from your partner is predictable. Appointments are kept and therefore your partner is reliable and you believe that your partner can perform certain tasks( 1).
Suspicion in a relationship
Suspicion in a relationship can be a character trait of a person created by beliefs formed over the course of a person's life. This is also evident in scientific research on connection styles and the type of relationship one gets into, conducted in the 1990s. The research is not large enough to generalize, but it provides useful insights into the role that suspicion, trust and the creation of mistrust can show( 2).
Congenital Suspicion
The study discusses three styles that can affect the view you bring into a relationship.
- Safe
- Avoiding
- Anxious
In the first style, you find it normal to make connections with people and to be open to deepening relationships. Distrust is not common in this style, and people who have these traits also tend to be good partners who deal with people who are less confident in a relationship with patience.
With the second style, there is not immediate distrust, but there is some kind of idea that a relationship is not going to last and therefore these types of people are less eager to deepen a relationship and open up to a relationship. The study also shows that people with this trait tend to have shorter relationships and can grow over them quickly.
The anxious style is actually the type of person who is naturally suspicious about the relationship and the partner's feelings for him/her.
Especially for the latter type, it’s important to examine their beliefs in order to change them, so that distrust can be more easily transformed into trust. In addition, insecurity also plays a major role in the last type of person’s ability to trust in the other person’s love. For example, insecurity can lead you to think that the other person finds you “just as stupid/ugly/unreliable” as you find yourself.
Research conducted in 1990 shows that such beliefs are not always true at all. For example, women who were anxious indicated that they were in a relationship where there was little commitment and trust, while their partners could think very differently (depending on the view they naturally brought into the relationship).
In the process, how you view relationships can also negatively affect them. For example, partners of women who were anxious were less likely to report intensely positive experiences than partners of women with a secure view of relationships.
Another disadvantage is that there is a chance that you could become controlling, which also makes your partner feel that they can be less open than they really want to be. Oddly enough, controlling behavior by men is accepted more often than controlling behavior by women.
So by changing your mindset about relationships, your own relationship can actually be improved.
In fact, research shows that if you are in the safe view of relationships this means that you are more adaptable when needed, more confident in how people look at you and how you look at yourself and therefore you also suffer less anxiety.
Suspicion with a cause
For people with the first and second styles, suspicion is often something that begins with a trigger, while with the third style, the suspicion is simply there because of the beliefs that person brings into the relationship.
Suspicion in a relationship can arise from various factors. If the factors that are important for building trust are missing in a relationship—for example, because your partner doesn’t have a job or can’t hold one down—this can cause you to become suspicious in your relationship.
For example, friends of your partner report that he has been with them all day while you thought he was at work.
In addition, you can become suspicious in your relationship because of the other person's behavior. In fact, trust is also a matter of consistent behavior. If your partner's behavior suddenly changes and he/she cannot explain it, it can cause you to become suspicious because you think he/she is hiding something.
Too bad then if it was a surprise party whose preparation takes a very long time. I once read on social media that someone broke off the relationship just before the surprise party and all for nothing.
Gaining confidence in a relationship
As you can see, there are two possibilities that can create distrust. In this blog, I will focus mainly on removing distrust due to an illogical cause. If your partner has cheated, it is very difficult to reestablish that trust from within yourself because an external factor has violated it.
Trust in a relationship with no logical cause of distrust
If you’re naturally anxious about relationships and actually being able to build a connection with another person, distrust can quickly creep in.
The research suggests that especially the beliefs you have about relationships and yourself can then be changed to have a better relationship and to suffer less distrust.
Hypnotherapy is a way to change your view of the world. If you have no logical cause for mistrust it can be very annoying. Also because all the time your partner gets the feeling of having to defend himself when nothing is going on.
During hypnotherapy, you can explore the underlying, often illogical cause. The ways people view relationships are actually formed during childhood. That’s why regression therapy can be a good way to discover why you feel distrustful in your relationship.
Perhaps your parents split up at a young age and that has had a big impact on your beliefs about relationships.
Another issue that can cause you to be distrustful is self-confidence. Low self-confidence can make it hard to understand why you’ve found such a wonderful partner as the one you have now. This can make you afraid that he or she will eventually realize this and leave you.
Still, you snared your partner so that low self-confidence is completely unnecessary.
Hypnotherapy can also help you gain insight into yourself and why your partner does think you are the most amazing person on earth.
In the process, self-hypnosis can help reinforce hypnotherapy treatment. This can be done, for example, by repeating hypnotic suggestions, such as:
"I am handsome."
"I'm smart."
"It's fun to hang out with me."
In addition, mindfulness is a good way to identify and stop anxious and controlling thoughts. Through mindfulness, you can more quickly identify thoughts that undermine your self-confidence and distance yourself from them. This can also help reduce distrust.
Would you like to learn more about mental techniques to make your life better? Then check out the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands or join the free online masterclass.
Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
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