Trust

Regardless of your politics, the person who wins any election is the one who voters think is most aligned with their "rules" for living.A vote for a candidate, especially in this election where such a high percentage of people did vote, says "I trust you." This is no different from how it is in your relationships.

As we are choosing whether to be in arelationship with someone or not, we are looking for how we are aligned with him or her. Whether we realize it or not, we are looking for someone with similar "rules" for living. We are looking for someone in alignment with whatever rules we've made up about what a relationship looks like. When we do commit to being in a relationship, for most people, it's a "vote" that says "I trust you."

What usually happens when you make that commitment is that the relationship goes along just fine until (and I use the word "until"on purpose) one or both of you does something or not do something to break the trust in small or not so small ways. One or both of you might have made a half-hearted "trust vote" because of painful experiences in past relationships which makes trusting in this relationship pretty difficult.

You may have withheld trust because your "rules" say that you'll be hurt if you do. Now of course, most of us withhold our trust and ourselves from others from time to time and in some cases, maybe for good reason. But if you want a close, connected, loving relationship with better communication, passion or whatever else you want, you'll want to look at where you might be withholding your true self.