If you want a life-long marriage, trust is essential. It's not something that can be freely given, but must be earned every day. Learn how forgiveness and hard work can help build and restore trust in your marriage.

Shownotes:

Three pillars of a great marriage. 

Choosing love (pillar 1) will lead to a life-long marriage, but it'll feel like bondage without a daily commitment to the second pillar: earning trust.

We all have examples of people who we can’t trust.

• Shares info you asked them to keep confidential
• Person doesn’t show up on time for meetings
• Over-emotional at times so hard to know what version you get
• Outright lies
• Unmet needs even when we’ve expressed them

It’s even more devastating when it happens in marriage. The person who is supposed to love you the most has betrayed you in some way. In order to really understand the importance of trust, let’s begin with a definition.

Defining Trust

Trust is relying on the integrity or ability of another person. Your ability to truly trust someone is based on their character, not yours. 

• Deuteronomy 7:9 Understand, therefore, that the Lord your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands. 
• My example with the hot dog situation.

Trust is often misunderstood. Trust can be a “you” issue (if you have a history of abuse/abandonment you may be untrusting even if someone has proven to be trustworthy). Usually, though, trust is about the other person, their character.

The mistake people make is giving away trust without making sure the other person is trustworthy. That’s why the emphasis is on the character of the other person.

Trust is paramount to a healthy marriage. Healthy couples understand that trust is an ongoing endeavor. That’s why our second principle is this

Trust Is Earned

Trust is earned, not freely given. That’s why every spouse needs to work hard to earn trust from their spouse everyday. 

Think about trust like a bank account. How does it work with money? Deposits build up our account. Withdrawals deplete it. Same with trust. Every word, action either builds trust (deposits) or depletes it.

Characteristics of Trust

Measurable

Good news. You can measure if trust is working in your relationship and there are concrete things you can do to earn it back when it’s lost.

Measurable part is important to unpack. Here are some examples of measurable things that can be done to earn more trust.

• Money issues: ask spouse to keep receipts and track with a budget.
• Porn: get software that tracks searches, get in a group for accountability, give passwords to spouse
• Infidelity: be on phone when it’s broken off. Give spouse access to your phone, tracking etc.
• Follow through: create a “to do list”, plan out a time budget etc.
• When you fail, confess promptly

All of those things are measurable actions that your spouse can say “You’re doing those things! I can trust you more” or “You aren’t doing those things so I still don’t trust you.”

Building trust happens slowly over time, like building up a savings account.

Trust is reactive… We’ve already talked about the reactive part. Give trust as someone earns it. 

Trust vs Forgiveness

Trust is reactive, but forgiveness is proactive. Extending forgiveness opens the door to restoring broken trust. 

• Colossians 3:12-13 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.