4 Signs Your Partner Doesn't Trust You - And What To Do About It

Trust is one of the most important elements of any good relationship.

Without trust, love cannot take shape because both people remain closed off to one another. Like a flower that never quite blooms, growth has stagnated and will stay that way until trust is developed.

But while trust is important, it can be difficult to notice the signs of a lack of it. The last thing you want to do is to continue to dedicate yourself to someone who is never going to fully trust you, so you need to know what to look for to determine if you and your partner have a strong and healthy relationship or if you could use a little work.

Most good relationships are built on mutual trust and respect.

– Mona Sutphen

Here are four signs your partner doesn’t trust you (along with what to do about it).

1. They check your phone– constantly

Do they consistently steal your phone away from you to check what you’ve been up to? Does it happen anytime you leave their sight most of all?

This can be one of the most frustrating expressions of mistrust because it’s an invasion of your privacy. A desire for privacy and space doesn’t mean you’re up to no good. In fact, a strong relationship should have healthy, clear-cut boundaries (the kicker is that depends on trust to work).

So, when you’re partner seeks to break all notion of healthy boundaries at every chance they get, it makes you feel vulnerable and positively exhausted.

2. They ask a lot of probing questions

Does your partner ask you probing-type questions constantly? Questions such as:

• Why did you take so long?
• Why are you going there?
• How long are you going to be there?
• Who are you with?

If it seems that every moment of every day– or very frequently, at least– they demand to know where you are, what you’re doing, and who you’re with, they have big trust issues.

3. They always want to know where you’re at (and prefer not to keep you far from hand)

If you feel like you’re being kept under close surveillance, there are probably some serious trust issues about.

One of the more common behaviors is calling the people or places you said you’d be at to confirm that you’re there or to check social for the same reasons, always trying to keep tabs on your position and pouncing anytime you can’t be located.

Someone who expresses their trust issues in this way believes that by keeping an eye on you they’ll be able to keep you out of trouble. Needless to say, this can super frustrating.

4. They attempt to control your behavior

One much more serious sign that your partner doesn’t trust you is by using controlling behavior in a broader sense.

As opposed to simply checking up on your location or questioning you frequently, the person might seek to control where you go and who you spend time with, dictating how you live your day-to-day life in an effort to make themselves feel better about their insecurity.

This can be the sign of a much more serious and abusive behavior, however, it can also simply be trust issues at their most intense.

What to do if your partner doesn’t trust you

As with any internal challenge such as this, the only way to truly solve the problem is to get to the heart of the issue.

It is possible that the person just isn’t a fit for you or doesn’t have any desire to heal their subconscious issues. If that’s the case, it’s simply time to leave and stop wasting your time on someone who doesn’t want to change.

However, if the person truly cares about you they’ll be willing to work with you to get to the heart of the problem.

Trust issues are always the result of some past experience causing the person great pain. Because of this pain, the person acts in a way that attempts to avoid this from happening again. It’s an almost subconscious survival response to the psychological pain of the past.

It’s your job then, if you’ve chosen to stay with the person and work through it, to help them figure out what sparked the issue and talk them through it. They need to go there again, to the memory, and relive what happened. What happened, how it made them feel, and how they changed because of it. By drawing a line from the cause to the effect they can gain the clarity necessary to make a real change.

Ultimately, while you may love and care about the other person and want to help them work through the issue, it’s not your fault. You don’t deserve the kind of treatment they’re giving you nor do you owe them anything.

Remember that and remind yourself that you’re acting from a place of love and compassion and you can heal the issue together– and come out stronger because of it.