Meanwhile, Dylan went about proving his trustworthiness. He was not only attentive and kind to Hannah, he became generous and kind with various members of his family, from whom he had previously distanced.

After a few months of individual work, Hannah and Dylan began to work together in their phone sessions with me. They learned to open and explore their conflicts and learn from them instead of Hannah getting angry and Dylan complying and withdrawing. In shifting their intent from protecting against pain to learning about love, Hannah and Dylan developed a loving relationship based on trust for themselves and each other. They are now married with children and their relationship continues to evolve in love and trust.

Trust is built in a relationship when both people are open to learning rather than controlling through anger, withdrawal, compliance or resistance. When our intention is to control rather than to learn about what is loving to ourselves and our partner, we can never trust or feel secure with our partner, because if we can control and manipulate him or her, others can too - and that’s scary. Only when we believe our partner is with us because he or she wants to be - out of desire and caring, rather than out of fear, obligation, or guilt - will we feel secure and trusting. This only occurs when our intent is to learn about loving ourselves and others rather than to control.

The more we trust ourselves - our own inner knowing and wisdom from our spiritual guidance - more open and trusting we can be with our partner. People often hold back from being open with their partners with implication, “I can’t be open until you prove that I can trust you.” By trust they mean being able to predict their partners’ response, guaranteeing that their partners will be loving rather than rejecting. One of life’s hardest realities is that this kind of guarantee is impossible. However, more we trust ourselves and develop our ability to speak our truth, more we are willing to be open and risk another’s free response to us. This is what creates a loving and trusting relationship.