Relationships are based on trust. Without trust a relationship will wither away like a plant without water.
But isn’t this a bit naïve? After all if we give others a blank check they will surely take advantage of us. It is true that some people are not trustworthy; and because of this we should not form relationships lightly, be they personal or be they at work. But once we decide to enter into a relationship we have to be willing to trust our partner. It often happens that many relationships that initially show promise are sabotaged because one or both partners keep looking for signs of trouble. One might ask whether such persons are really interested in maintaining a relationship or simply looking for an excuse to project their insecurities on to their partner.
A common pattern at work is micromanagement. A person is taken on to a project and every detail performed by the subordinate is scrutinized by the manager. The outcome is that nobody can realize their potential under the manager because the manager won’t let them discover their potential. A particularly negative pattern that crops up in love relationships is where one partner is constantly demanding that the other partner prove their love. Such relationships can become impossible because for every demand you meet, your partner keeps raising the bar.
We enter into a relationship because we share a common destination with our partner. This doesn’t mean that we walk hand-in-hand every step of the way. There may be times where we follow very different paths, and when our paths diverge we have to trust that our partner hasn’t lost the way, but is in fact finding their way. At this point if you insist that your partner follow your way, you run the danger that your partner will lose the way, thereby undermining the very purpose of the relationship.
Relationships based on trust focus on the destination and not in controlling where or how one’s partner takes their next step. By simply trusting our partner we have already taken a huge step along the way.