Keep The Faith

By Faye Mui

There's no such thing as trust at first sight. Not to women at least. Trust, like love, isn’t something that hits you instantly when you gaze upon a fine specimen, no  matter how angelic the breed – puppy-dog eyes, straight nose and toothy smile. Only animalistic lust happens what way.

Trust needs to be earned, nurtured and established over time – from the second you give your heart away. Like your investment portfolio, you need to keep working on building trust. And like your money, trust can go “poof!” decades later with one wrong decision.

So you can’t just thump your chest (or beer belly) and bellow: “Don’t you trust me? You should trust me!” and sail along. In a woman’s dictionary, that’s defined as “taking it for granted”. If you still don’t see why we’re making such a big deal over trust, let me explain it with two common scenarios.

You're cagey about your activities

It’s important to first address the perennial chicken-and-egg argument when it comes to the right to privacy: The man reckons the woman’s desire to check on him shows a lack of trust, while the woman sniffs that if the man has nothing to hide then he doesn’t have to worry he’s being checked upon.

The solution is to presuppose the truth in each position: We women acknowledge we’re distrustful and want to snoop around, while you men are actually quite happy to let us have free access to your phone records and e-mails because we would never find anything contentious. Which would then mean there’s no conflict and everyone lives happily ever after, right?

Unfortunately, things are not that simplistic. Men are natural non-communicators and when they’re elusive (even if they don’t mean to be), they create room for doubt in women, who are naturally inquisitive. And so this causes us to look like ballistic bimbos to you when we wonder why you’re not sharing vital information with us. You, on the other hand, probably think that such information is only vital if it’s going to cost you your life.

If we eliminate the extremes of the neurotic variety, it’s safe to say there’s no reason for anyone to be uptight and every reason for everyone be upfront. No matter what history, habits or character you have, there’s little for us to question when you’re forthcoming with where you’re going, who you’re going with and what you’re going to do without us even asking (unless you’re going to Batam with the boys to “chill”).

You don't wear your wedding ring

“Our love shouldn’t be represented with an inanimate object,” you say. But then again, why not? Yes, the ring represents the marriage covenant and we’re certainly not deluded nutters who think a metal band equates to love. So what’s the real issue here? The ring should never clash with love but complement it.

Besides, why spend all that money on a ring in the first place if you’re going to keep it in a box? Doesn’t fit? What do you do when your belts don’t fit you anymore? You get more holes punched! The logical thing to do is to have your ring resized.

The truth is: A ring on a finger sends certain signals. Conversely, a ring-free hand sends quite a different set of signals. At the heart of it, we all need to act in ways that make it easy for others to trust us. For instance, if your financial adviser acts like the Road Runner – two “beeps” and he’s gone – wouldn’t you fear he’ll skip town with your millions? Trust comes from consistent actions that show responsibility and accountability. One needs to prove he can be dependable. It’s often not very hard to achieve this at work – we prove our worth and reliability to our bosses – but why is it so hard to do this for our loved ones? Go figure. 

Tags: Sex Relationships, Her Say, couples, faith, her say, trust, Dating, Relationship, Sex,

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