Five signs that you can trust your new love
I have often looked back at failed relationships and wondered how I could have ever really trusted the people I have dated in the past. If there were obvious red flags and warning signs, I had clearly missed them, because I sat multiple times on the edge of an absolute train wreck of a relationship. Now that I have been married more than 13 years, I have learned to see some important signs around whether people are trustworthy or not. Back then, I wish someone had come along and shared these same signs with me.
1. Trustworthy people do what they say they will do
People who are trustworthy hesitate to make promises because they will only make the ones that they can keep. Therefore, trustworthy individuals try their very hardest to follow up on their word.
2. Trustworthy people take responsibility
A sure sign that an individual is not trustworthy is that they rarely take responsibility for their actions as they lie, bend the truth or blame others in an attempt not to “own” whatever they have done wrong. Trustworthy people know they are not perfect, and if they have done something wrong or made a mistake, they promptly take responsibility as they make what was wrong into something right as long as it is within their power to do so.
3. Trustworthy people have nothing to hide.
People who are not trustworthy do not want the individuals in their lives to make contact. So they work hard to section off their friendship groups, so individuals are not able to get together to connect the stories or compare details, to see that there are lies as well as missing details. If you are dating someone and they will not introduce you to their friends or other individuals in their emotional world, then there is a reason, and they may not be trustworthy!
4. Trustworthy people have appropriate boundaries
People who are not trustworthy are “overly familiar” with everyone else as they regularly flirt, make inappropriate comments, act sexual with others and so on, often under the guise of making a joke. A new love should have “eyes only for you” and “treat you with value” so that when you are going out in public, they do not forget that you are there, and start having a better time with the waiter or waitress at your dinner table in the restaurant than with you!
5. Trustworthy people are stable through the seasons
People who are not trustworthy are “hot” and “cold” and “on” and “off.” Such individuals have moods that blow along with the wind in multiple directions. Also, untrustworthy people throw their moods around and feel like others should be on edge just because they are unhappy in the moment. When we get to know people “through the seasons,” we see them over time in all kinds of different circumstances or situations. Trustworthy people are stable in a number of different atmospheres and around a variety of people. In fact, you do not have to walk on emotional eggshells, fearful of saying or doing the wrong thing that will upset them. Furthermore, you do not have to ride an emotional rollercoaster of highs and lows according to their moods. Healthy people control their moods, and they are stable. Trustworthy individuals do not act out according to their whim of their moods.
So how do you know you can trust your new love? They walk with integrity, are stable and have eyes for only you!
This article was originally posted on Single Matters on 8 January 2014.
