How To Build Trust in your LDR

Jealousy. One of those horrible things that all types of relationships suffer from. It’s understandable though. When you love something this much you don’t want to lose it. You want to keep it forever and swat away anything that might carry it away from you. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

However its a completely different story when that jealousy gets out of hand. Then it morphs from an adorable expression of protective love, to something much more violent and unattractive.

Believe it or not there is a kind of ‘healthy’ jealousy. But when that jealousy makes you feel downright distrustful of an otherwise trustworthy person then we have a big problem and it’s no longer healthy anymore. Far from it!

Trust is absolutely VITAL in a long distance relationship. You’ve got enough distance & obstacles between you! Don’t add distrust to that already long list. You absolutely will not survive this relationship if you do not have trust.

If you feel yourself teetering on the edge, take the tips below to heart. They will help you to reevaluate yourself and your relationship so that you can bounce those trust levels right back where they need to be.

Be truthful

Trust and Truth are like two peas in a pod. Two halves of a whole. BFFs Forever. Without one, you honestly can’t have the other.

To have someone trust you, you absolutely have to be truthful with them. Likewise, if you don’t feel that you can trust someone else, odds are you won’t feel like you need to be completely honest or truthful with them either.

The very first and best way to restore trust in your relationship is for you to make a personal resolve to be truthful and trustworthy yourself. Honesty can be contagious and we need more of it in this world and in our relationships! Take the first step to make sure that you are being 100% truthful first.

If your partner sees that you are making a real dedicated effort to always tell the truth (even half truths and leaving out bits of information!), they will trust you much quicker.

Even if you’re already a pretty honest person, just seeing you put the effort into being MORE honest can move the most stubborn of people to be honest as well. Truth breeds trust and trust builds more trust.

Follow the golden Rule

As a general rule of thumb, if you wouldn’t like your partner to do what you are doing to them -then you’re definitely not following the golden rule.

In a relationship you should both have come to an agreement that you respect each other and will treat one another fairly and with consideration. Just following the golden rule the way you’re supposed to will do a lot for the level of trust in your relationship.

No one likes to feel played with and people aren’t dumb -we all know when someone is being insincere. If you make it habit to treat one another the way you’d both like to be treated then you will be laying on the heavy foundation bricks for building trust in your LDR.

Keep Your Promises

How self explanatory is this? Keep your promises! The surest and quickest way to lose someone’s trust is by breaking promises. This means keeping your appointments, your dates, not missing phone calls or simply doing the things you said you would do.

And if for some reason you find that you DO have to break a promise be prepared to explain why, maybe even doing so ahead of time to keep from hurting someone. No one likes to feel stood up. Not only is it a sign of respect for your partner, but it’s also just the right thing to do.

Every broken promise is like a knife whittling away at everything you’ve built up in your relationship so far. It slices away at the trust your partner has for you little by little until it become so fragile that it can’t be fixed.  Don’t let it get to the point where it can’t be fixed and don’t break your partner’s heart by letting them down so many times. Keep your promises to maintain the trust you already have.

Be Transparent

Maybe you’re the cool guy who’s always been emotionally distant. Or maybe you’re the girl who tends to keep her thoughts to herself. That’s not going to fly in a long distance relationship!

To keep your LD relationship alive, you really have to be prepared to be somewhat transparent. This will of course differ for everyone because people have different levels of transparency already. Some people overly expose themselves and all of their emotions while others are very reserved. In the same way some people love having a reserved partner while others love emotionally revealing ones.

Whatever your preferences or your style of opening yourself up to others, if you are in a long distance relationship you definitely will have to open yourself up a little more than you usually would. LDRs lack that physical concreteness that close distance couples take for granted, so staying your same clammed up self isn’t going to always work for you.

As a whole we have have to make up for the physical aspects we miss, by opening ourselves up and becoming a little more transparent to our mates than we usual would. If you don’t your partner may start to feel a lack of connection with you. You can’t treat the relationship as if you are close together. You aren’t. You have to give little more of yourself if you want the relationship to thrive.

Maybe that’s why they say long distance relationships are more intimate than close distance ones. Because we have to be a little more transparent and that in turn brings us closer together.

Those are my tips. I hope they help you to build even more trust in your LDR.