Can I Trust You?

by Wendy Warner, LPC, NCC

Wendy Warner is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. In addition to working with couples, children, and individuals, Wendy also enjoys teaching the premarital classes for all couples planning to marry at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Macomb.

Let me start by stating the obvious: honesty in relationships is essential. We all want to believe that our partner is willing to tell us the truth in matters great and small. We want the people we are in relationship with to believe us. There are great benefits to telling the truth. In marriage, truth is the key to trust and building an emotional, physical and spiritual intimacy. Trust leads to security in the relationship, an absence of anxiety and the wonderful experience of feeling valued and loved.

Having said that, why is there so much dishonesty and mistrust in relationships?  Fear plays a major role in blocking us from telling the truth at all times. Fear of conflict, fear of rejection, fear of judgment, failure, pain, or abandonment. Just as there are strong benefits to the truth, there are painful consequences for lying. Trust is shattered and must be slowly rebuilt. Lying creates anger and hurt in the relationship that resurfaces over and over again. Lying creates mistrust or jealousy for the partner and a fear of being discovered for the untruthful one. After a very short time of dishonesty, security in the relationship is lost and staying emotionally close becomes almost impossible.

If you find yourself in a pattern where fear overrides your ability to be truthful in a relationship, counseling can help you discover the origin of your fear. If you struggle to trust in a relationship, counseling can help identify and address those issues as well.