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The Danger Of Trusting Too Much

The Danger Of Trusting Too Much

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Reading time: 6 minutes

Trust is essential for healthy relationships. So much so that you might wonder if trusting too much is even possible. Wouldn’t more be better?

Is trusting too much the same as loving too much or eating too much chocolate? How can you go wrong with something so good that is often in short supply? Anything used beyond its intended capacity or function can become harmful.

Trusting Too Much

Would you walk across a room in broad daylight? Most people wouldn’t have a problem with this. How about walking across the same room at night? While more challenging, most people could handle this. But what would happen if I had thrown out a handful of thumbtacks onto the floor?

Yes, it is possible to trust too much. It’s called blind trust. No one will fault you for it–possibly only yourself, after the fact. That’s because your trust benefits others. It will benefit you too, but only up to a point.

It might be helpful to think of trust not so much as an all-or-nothing blank check, but as something that you grant others in varying degrees. Asking whether you should trust someone oversimplifies the problem. Forcing a “Yes” or “No” leaves too much room for error. And the more error, the more people will be hurt.

To minimize the hurt, a better, more refined question is “How much do I trust this person?”

Trust has a natural limit or capacity much like a cup. If you fill a cup beyond its capacity, you will make a mess and waste your refreshing drink. With this analogy, the cup is the other person’s trustworthiness and the liquid is the length you go to trust them. Before you fill the cup it’s better to estimate how much it can hold. Does it have holes? Try to determine an individual’s character and trustworthiness.

Trust is a commodity that has a limited supply. If you give too much away… if you waste it… you might be unwilling to trust when you really want to.

Trusting too much is like giving away an essential body part and expecting the recipient will be able to keep you alive. It’s depending on someone for something they can’t possibly give you. You were never meant to function that way.

By trusting too much, you open yourself to being taken advantage of. Others might benefit, but only at your expense. When that happens, you are going to get hurt. The more you feel hurt, the more you are likely to decrease your level of trust.

While protecting yourself is wise in some cases, it’s never the best option all the time. Overprotecting yourself to prevent ever being hurt again goes too far. You might trust too little as a general rule you apply to everyone (even the people who are trustworthy). Instead of discerning if people are trustworthy (which requires much more effort), you predetermine to not trust anyone by withholding real consideration.

Trusting Too Little

Some people choose to trust too little. This is called mistrust. What if the person you are in a relationship with is trustworthy but you aren’t capable of trusting? That’s going to slow down your relationship, maybe to the point of breaking it.

Let’s return to the cup analogy. What if you go to fill another’s cup and realize you only have a few drops of trust that you’re willing to spare? If the other person has the capacity for trust, then you can be the limiting factor in the relationship.

How would a teenager feel about a mom who walks him to school and sits with him in class? Assuming the teenager typically makes it to school on his own and participates in class, this extreme hovering would degrade the relationship. The teen would probably either begin to rebel (which would be healthy) or suffer from low confidence (which would be unhealthy).

In an extreme case, trusting too little is called paranoia. A mom might have skipped school when she was a teenager. Perhaps she suffered from low self-esteem because her classmates teased her. She could over-emphasize her past hurts and then project them onto her son. It’s possible she feels too vulnerable even when her surrounding environment is safe.

It’s important to notice in this example that the amount of trust this mom allows isn’t based on her experience and observations of her teenager but based on her experiences and observations of herself.

Trusting Just Right

What is a person to do? If you trust too much, you can be hurt. If you trust too little, you hinder your relationships. The right amount of trust is called perceptive trust. The person engaged in perceptive trust is open to trusting others to the degree that they show themselves trustworthy. That’s exercising discernment.

Trust is evidence of a healthy relationship. But because no one is completely trustworthy except God, the cautions about trusting too much still apply. Even when you rightly determine a high level of integrity in a person, the amount of trust you place in an imperfect human should still be limited. Trusting too much will break your relationships with other humans. Others can’t live up to an exaggerated amount of trust. With too high expectations of a person, the relationship is doomed to fail from the start.

Trusting too much puts people on a pedestal. It can become idolatry.

It is better to trust the Lord for protection than to trust anyone else, including strong leaders.

Psalm 118:8-9 CEV

No matter how trustworthy another person is, there will always be some risk to trusting him. Nobody is perfect. Anyone at any time can let you down. So why should you trust anyone, including God who allows others to hurt you?

You can never trust God too much. He is completely trustworthy. You can’t blame Him for others’ mistakes. The more you trust God, without limit, the better off you will be.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
    do not depend on your own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5 NLT

Trusting God with all you’ve got provides you with an insurance policy. If anyone lets you down, God will always be there to take care of you. When you’ve been betrayed, trusting God might not always make sense, but it doesn’t have to. Blind trust in God is always better than no trust in God. Although, even with God, trust based on a positive experience of Him is more robust. Don’t neglect to build up your trust in God.

Read about repairing broken trust.
Image by Christian Calhoun from Pixabay
Updated and Expanded August 7, 2022

Repair Trust With 3 Fruitful Actions

Repair Trust With 3 Fruitful Actions

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Trust is fragile because people can be fragile. Each of us is only as whole as the effort we’ve spent to heal from our emotional wounds.

When you act unreliably toward someone, you might be weakening an already wounded part of them. This makes repairing the relationship complicated. The process can be relatively easy if you already have goodwill built up in the relationship. If not, then the rebuilding can feel impossible. And sometimes, it might be.

Forgiveness can be easier than trust because forgiveness requires nothing further from the offender. You can forgive and move on without necessarily continuing the relationship. Trust, on the other hand, requires that both people coordinate a complex repair process.

Even so, since you can’t control how much effort the other person puts into the relationship, you are limited to what you can do. Here are 3 essential steps you can take to repair broken trust.

Repair Trust By Staying

If you are going to repair trust, you first need to decide that you are still committed. Consistency and patience build trust. Frequently changing your mind (being wishy-washy), a pattern of leaving and returning, and imposing time limits all hinder the rebuilding process.

Love always trusts. Love doesn’t give up. Love is patient. Trust comes easier for God because He doesn’t struggle with self-doubt when we betray Him with our sin. He’s with us for the long haul. He knows how the story ends. However, you and I might struggle with self-doubt when someone betrays us.

When you want to repair trust with someone, adjust your expectations to allow as much time as it will take. Because you care about the other person, it shouldn’t make a difference how long they need before they can regain confidence in you again. Don’t attach strings to the time it takes. You likely don’t have the full picture of what other wounds are involved.

Repair Trust By Sharing

The bond of trust is formed by the glue of vulnerability. Honesty is inseparable from vulnerability. If you’re not being honest, you are keeping your guard up, so you can’t expect trust to stick.

When you are vulnerable, you are allowing yourself to be seen as you really are. No pretense. Vulnerability gives others a real reason to trust.

Before you can share yourself with someone else, you first need to know yourself. You can’t share what you don’t know. Invest time learning about yourself and learning to trust yourself.

What kind of relationship do you have with yourself? Whether you realize it or not, you do have a relationship with yourself. Are you kind and compassionate toward yourself? Are you self-sabotaging and self-condemning?

Are you reliable? Would you, trust you? Do you frequently betray yourself? It’s difficult to have a relationship with others if you hold onto self-doubt. Your lack of integrity won’t just affect others, it will affect you too.

Repair Trust By Serving

Being committed and vulnerable isn’t quite enough. At some point these fruitful actions need to ripen into direct service to the other person.

Jesus is committed to us. Jesus is vulnerable with us. We know this because He entered our world in the same bodily form as us and He came to serve not to be served (Matthew 20:28).

Jesus did not limit Himself to words alone but backed everything He said with actions that cannot be refuted. To regain trust, you must be worthy of trust–you must be trustworthy. This means your actions support your words.

Whether you’ve been betrayed, or you failed to keep your integrity, you now know what three ingredients make up the trust recipe. Are you allowing enough time? Are you using authentic ingredients? Are you willing to go beyond what you think is necessary in order to repair the relationship?

Are you interested in learning how to build trust with God?
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Master Conflict Resolution With 5 Concepts

Master Conflict Resolution With 5 Concepts

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Conflict resolution is the ability to be satisfied with what is within your control. That sounds simple enough, but it’s not necessarily easy. It implies that finding a solution requires knowing what you can control and what you can’t.

Do you know what you are entitled to? To be entitled is to be empowered to accomplish or obtain something. If you are entitled, you are authorized and you are in control. Unfortunately, for too many people, this creates the idea that they can demand certain activities from their spouses as if marriage comes with enforceable guarantees.

However, just because something is supposed to happen in marriage, doesn’t entitle anyone to demand that it happens. You could make demands, but if you can’t control your spouse (and you can’t or at least you shouldn’t be able to), what does this accomplish? Making a demand is prideful while making a request is humble and doesn’t rule out exercising your boundaries (controlling what you can control).

Here are 5 concepts to help you resolve conflict without overstepping your bounds:

Conflict Resolution Concept #1: Be Responsible for your Happiness

Each person is 100% responsible for their own emotions/happiness. If you aren’t happy, don’t blame your spouse. God expects us to find a way to be content even when other people are not cooperating.

If you are feeling anxious, angry, or sad, those are your emotions. They say something about you. You are empowered to take action to manage your feelings. If you make your happiness dependent on someone else’s behavior, you might never be happy again.

Conflict Resolution Concept #2: Clean Up Past Hurts

It’s an essential skill to be able to bring up hurts from the past, or whatever is bothering you, so you can discuss it and resolve it as a couple. When you solve a puzzle, it is finished. You can put it behind you and move on to the next challenge. If you don’t find a solution, you’ll be stuck or limited to what happened in the past.

Cleaning up the past is different than blame-shifting today’s problems onto your spouse. Resolving present-day conflict often requires looking into the past to see the larger scope of the problem. It’s like making sure you have all the pieces of a puzzle before you start working on it.

Conflict Resolution Concept #3: Find Balance with Multiple Options

Find an appropriate balance between the urgency to work through your concerns and the acceptance of your spouse. Everyone needs grace for their spiritual journey.

You should spend a percentage (for example 50%) of your time working on conflict resolution and the rest on having fun together. You should spend a percentage (for example 70%) of your time together and the rest on individual pursuits.

Conflict Resolution Concept #4: Be Clear About What You Want

Speak clearly (directly if necessary) about what is going on with you and what you want. Don’t expect your spouse to know what you need or want (read your mind).

Communication is hard work. It’s okay if it takes time to put into words what you are experiencing. See if you can say what is on your heart in a way you’ve never done before. Use different words to explain how you are doing. You might learn something about yourself in the process.

Conflict Resolution Concept #5: Keep at Least One Listener in your Conversation

Watch out for the trap of two people needing to be heard at the same time with no listeners present. This will mean taking turns speaking and listening without defensiveness (turning the focus back to you). Listening doesn’t count if you spend your time speaking about your perspective. Your spouse isn’t usually interested in your perspective when they are trying to share theirs. They want to know if you understand their perspective.

Anything less than one listener results in wasted effort at best and complete chaos (fuel for conflict) at worst.

I hope these concepts help you with your conflict resolution. What struggles are you having that seem unsolvable? Let me know. Remember to make sure you have all the pieces of the puzzle before you become too discouraged or frustrated. If you need someone to help you find all the pieces and where they go, there’s marriage counseling for that.

Other ideas about improving your marriage.
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Listen To The Heartbroken Spouse You Wounded

Listen To The Heartbroken Spouse You Wounded

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Is it possible to really listen to a spouse (or other loved one) who is furious with you? Maybe you betrayed them or simply have been insensitive. No matter the cause, if you want to keep the relationship, there’s no better time to listen well.

To listen well is a skill. You can learn to listen better if you want to. Hearing and understanding your spouse won’t guarantee their healing or their forgiveness. But it is both the least and the most you can do.

It’s the least you can do because listening does accomplish something. Listening can validate another’s pain and help him or her move beyond it. It’s the most you can do because there’s no way to undo whatever you did to upset your spouse.

In saying all this I’m making a few assumptions:

  • You are guilty of hurting your spouse in some way.
  • Your spouse is justifiably angry with you.
  • You want to do what you can to heal your relationship.

Listen and Understand Before Expecting Forgiveness

To be guilty is to be in need of forgiveness. But your spouse might not be close to being ready to forgive you. Be patient with the one who is struggling to forgive. It’s okay for them to take some time to work through the pain and be completely ready to forgive.

Jesus commands us to forgive one another because of all He has forgiven us. But shallow forgiveness (in word only) isn’t what Jesus wants from us. He wants us to mean what we say with all our hearts. See The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant for more details (Matthew 18:21-35).

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew 6:14-15 NIV

The command to forgive doesn’t depend on the other’s sincerity, however, you can certainly make it easier by being genuinely sorry. Listening isn’t a substitute for repentance, but it can be evidence you are changing your ways.

Listen By Focusing on the Other Person

When you are guilty where is your attention? It’s on you, right? Relief from the agony of guilt is an urgent need, not unlike needing relief from hunger, tiredness, or even a full bladder. How well can you concentrate on another’s concern in these situations?

Before you can be attentive to the one you hurt, you must first take your guilt to the Lord. After you have repented and secured His forgiveness, you will be able to give your undivided attention to caring for your spouse.

So many people attempt to “be there” for their spouse when they are still caught up in the mess of their guilt. You can tell if this is you by how you respond. When your spouse talks about how they are hurting, you aren’t listening well if you immediately shift the focus to you with something like, “I already told you I’m sorry” or “I feel terrible about what I did.”

Instead of starting with “I…” keep your spouse in the spotlight. Let their concerns be the focus. You already focused on yourself by hurting them, don’t repeat the offense.

There is one exception to this rule. If the person you hurt wants to hear what is going on in your heart, then you can meet their need by letting some of the focus rest on you. Maintain a healthy balance but always be prepared to serve the needs of the one you hurt.

Listening that focuses on your loved one requires a substantial amount of effort, but the payoff is worth it.

Read more on healthy listening.
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How To Ensure Your Empathy Is Healthy

How To Ensure Your Empathy Is Healthy

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Reading time: 4 minutes

Have you ever taken on someone’s pain as if it were your own? How about feeling the same way someone else is feeling? Only one of those is healthy empathy.

The primary difference between healthy and unhealthy empathy depends on how much self-awareness you have.

While listening to someone, the more you lose touch with your opinions, desires, and needs, the more likely you have an undeveloped sense of self. Some people might object by pointing out that good, empathetic listening means the listener forgets about their perspective. That is true. But it must remain a choice to de-emphasis one’s desires in favor of another’s. The unhealthy alternative is to default to what another wants because you have no idea what you want, or worse, you avoid exploring what you want.

The choice to focus on another must be positive. If you focus on another but harbor resentment or build up irritation, your empathy probably isn’t healthy. If you feel empty inside and have never really taken the time to understand your needs, your empathy probably isn’t healthy.

If you focus on another, feel pain, and think it is their pain, you might be deceiving yourself. Without a developed sense of your identity, it’s easy to become confused about whose pain you are feeling. In reality, any pain you feel is your own.

Identity Guides You To Healthy Empathy

Whenever you are relating to another, keep one foot planted firmly in who you are and the other reaching out to the person who needs help. It can be difficult to do this perfectly, so you might temporarily (for a few minutes) lose touch with your identity. When you become confused by taking on other’s pain as if it were yours, ask yourself questions like:

  • Who am I?
  • How do I feel about what the other person is going through?
  • What part of my life reminds me of the other person’s pain? Often, you can be focused on another person’s pain, but are really feeling pain from your own life.
  • How have the difficult life situations I’ve been through taught me to surrender (or perhaps “forget”) who I am when I’m around other people?
  • What are my limits when it comes to experiencing someone else’s raw pain?

If you lose yourself while focusing on someone else, then you are already past your limit. When you reach your limit, you should excuse yourself from the conversation until you regain your strength (your sense of self).

When you take on another’s pain, it probably means you are needing self-care or someone to care for you. If you continue to help another person without a sense of who you are, you are leaving yourself in a state of self-abuse, and you won’t be much help to someone like that. It doesn’t work to abandon yourself in order to help someone else.

Ownership and Responsibility Guide You To Healthy Empathy

Women are usually better at empathizing with others, but healthy is healthy. Everyone needs to be fully willing to feel and respond to their own pain.

Consider a wife who is listening to her husband. No matter how much she cares and wants to help him with his pain, she can’t work through his pain for him. It’s his pain. Only he can do something about it. She can help by listening, but his pain is still his responsibility. In this sense, the pain only multiplies. If her husband chooses to deny or disown some of his pain, his wife can’t make the situation better by taking on more pain. The increased pain she might feel doesn’t directly reduce her husband’s pain.

Self-Care Guides You To Healthy Empathy

If after you’ve been listening to someone, you notice that you have lingering pain, realize it’s your pain, not the other’s pain. You have some issues to work through, so it’s time to focus exclusively on yourself. If you lose touch with yourself while trying to be empathetic, you should be able to get back to yourself in minutes, not days or weeks.

To help you connect with yourself, you might try journaling your feelings and answering questions like the ones listed earlier and these:

  • What do I need to help the pain in my life?
  • Who do I have to listen to me?

Healthy empathy is knowing what it feels like to walk in someone’s shoes and communicating it to them without judging them. Unhealthy empathy would be wearing someone else’s shoes and thinking that they are your shoes.

Read more about healthy communication.
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Pursue Intimacy With Reliable Results

Pursue Intimacy With Reliable Results

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Reading time: 3 minutes

Intimacy can be quite an enigma. People want, need, and even crave it. But genuine, complete intimacy can trigger feelings of fear and shame. One minute a person can be desperate for it. The next minute a person can be desperate to escape from it. Frequently both happen at the same time.

Every relationship can tolerate a particular level of intimacy, depending upon the emotional and spiritual health of the two individuals. An excellent goal for marriage is to find that optimal balancing point and seek to grow it over time. The optimal point balances the individual and the relationship needs.

Marriage can become a disappointment when people expect too much or expect too little from it. How can you tell if your expectations are harming your relationship?

People Who Under-Pursue Intimacy Expect Too Little

They have many of the following characteristics:

  • Move away from their partner
  • Avoid healthy conflict, lack sufficient interest in their partner, and pursue alternative interests
  • Do not try hard enough to make the relationship work, at least less hard than their partner
  • Use a passive approach by cultivating indifference
  • Value their partner less than self or others
  • Focus on or expecting too much from self and too little from partner or God
  • Are comfortable with distance: prefer to live like a roommate
  • Stay in the relationship because of feeling bound by duty and obligation
  • Have given up or are about to give up
  • Have betrayed their partner or are about to

They need to find a way to expect more from their partner.

People Who Over-Pursue Intimacy Expect Too Much

They have many of the following characteristics:

  • Move toward their partner
  • Pursue conflict even when unhealthy, lack enough personal interests, and avoid healthy separation
  • Try too hard to make the relationship work, at least harder than their partner
  • Use an aggressive approach by cultivating entitlement and demanding needs be met
  • Value their partner more than self or others
  • Focus on or expect too much from partner and too little from self or God
  • Are uncomfortable with distance: prefer to spend a lot of time together, at least more than partner
  • Stay in the relationship because of the expectation of receiving a payback
  • Feel jealous or insecure

They need to find a way to expect less from their partner.

Can a Person Under-Pursue and Over-Pursue Intimacy?

Yes. In fact, this could be a sign of a healthier relationship. As you learn how to find an optimal balance, you might shift from one side to the other. The goal is to find the optimal amount of pursuing. But the ideal level of intimacy can be a moving target. Many factors make for an ever-changing environment in relationships: aging, life experience, spiritual growth, awareness of needs. That is why it is necessary to evaluate your progress every so often. I recommend at least once a year.

In an unbalanced marriage, husband and wife can both under-pursue, both over-pursue, or they can pursue opposite strategies at the same time. If you can become more aware of your pattern of how you pursue intimacy, you can be intentional about improving it.

I designed a set of 52 questions to help couples work on finding their balancing point. I’m making the questions available as a deck of cards. The deck is currently going through testing. I’m looking for 3 couples who can try the questions and provide feedback. Even if you are single or with someone who won’t answer the questions with you, you can still participate in the test. Contact me if you are interested.

Read more about finding balance.
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