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When it comes to relationship advice, pretty much, the word “trust” will come up.
In fact, in our society, trust has come to be up there with “love” and “loyalty” as far as traits that make a successful relationship.
Trust that our loved ones won’t cheat on us? That’s certainly important; we can’t build a healthy relationship while simultaneously getting offended every time that they talk to someone of the gender or genders they’re interested in.
Trust that our loved ones won’t hurt us intentionally or excessively.
Trusting them not to do something stupid just because you don’t want to see them get hurt. Not to put their foot in their mouth. Trusting them not to make mistakes or royally f*ck things up in their own lives. Are these sort of trusts important?
You might worry about them a lot, because they matter to you, and their happiness and well-being matter to you. And we know that everyone, once in a while, makes mistakes. You might start to think, if you can help them just avoid those mistakes beforehand, tell them what to do and how to act now before anyone gets hurt.
But what if your partner will make mistakes; we all do, after all. We all say stupid things from time to time and make the wrong decision. We all lose friends or jobs or pride. It happens. And that’s the point; it happens to all of us.
We make mistakes so that we can learn from them. We say stupid things so that we can realize that they’re stupid and not say them again. We make the wrong decision so that we can realize that it’s the wrong decision and fix it later.
At the end of the day, when we try to tell our partners what to do and how to act, it doesn’t truly help them to grow as people, but leaves them stagnant, relying on you to tell them right from wrong, and that is not a healthy way to lead a life.
We need to at least trust our loved ones to have the ability to navigate their way through it. Have faith in their abilities, because they are much more capable than we might even realize.
