Week 11: Trust Is a Must
Read Time: 3 min
Being able to trust your partner is one of the most important ingredients for sustaining a healthy and joyful marriage. Having trust is like having clean air to breathe; it is life giving. It helps maintain the vitality of a marriage and provides the security and confidence that is necessary for a couple to commit to and be forbearing of one another.
When you are able to trust your partner, it creates safety in the marriage and the space for each of you to be vulnerable and transparent. When there is no vulnerability or transparency, there is likely to be only a very shallow and cautious relationship.
Having a firm foundation of trust makes it possible to extend the benefit of the doubt when your spouse’s words or actions are out of character. Trust serves as a buffer that can temper the reflex to jump to a negative conclusion when something troubling happens before all the facts are known.
Trust is the framework around which hope is built, and hope is the emotional fuel that keeps a marriage growing and progressing.
Trust emerges from a set of beliefs about your spouse, and when these beliefs are shattered it becomes difficult to know what can be depended upon to rebuild the marriage The process of rebuilding trust in a marriage is a challenge. It requires time and patience, forgiveness and grace. It requires one spouse (whose trust has been broken) to be willing to once again trust in
the other. It requires overcoming skepticism about ever being able to trust your spouse again, because doubt is the scar left by a breach of trust.
Trust is the framework around which hope is built, and hope is the emotional fuel that keeps a marriage growing and progressing.
Some Things To Do For The Week
Day 2: Reflect on the message and scripture reading; journal if you like
Day 3: Pray for or meditate on what you think you need
Day 4: Discuss the message and scripture with your spouse
Day 5: Plan how you can best respond to the message
Day 6: Rest; don’t think about the message or the scripture; listen in the stillness
Day 7: Recommit yourself to your marriage
Applicable scripture listed under Discussion References.