Last Updated on September 6, 2024
They say trust is something that you should never break. But why do people continue to break it? Why do people remain careless? Why does it seem like people do not seem to give as much importance to it as needed?
One common line you’ll hear people breaking someone’s trust say would be, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to”. Some would blame the circumstances. Some would say they were backed up into the situation. And yes, there will be some who will deny killing the other person’s trust.
In reality, no matter what the background story is, breaking someone’s trust is breaking someone’s trust. No other explanation can excuse that.
How can one break another person’s trust?
Let me count the ways:
1. Lying.
The truth is, there are no white lies. There are no good lies. Lying is lying, and this is one of the most basic ways to break someone’s trust.
Remember that when someone puts their trust in you, they also expect you to tell them nothing but the truth. It doesn’t matter whether the piece of truth will hurt them. If you really care for someone and see them as important, you’ll know that they deserve the truth no matter what.
Sometimes, it’s just about the delivery. But regardless of the aftereffect, the truth should always prevail.
2. Breaking promises.
It’s a cliché that has been used one too many times – promises are meant to be broken. But you know what? They really aren’t. It’s simple – if you’re not sure about something, then don’t promise to do it.
You see, when you promise someone something, they are already investing a lot. Their emotions are already prepared for whatever you promised. If you promised to come home early, for example, they have probably managed their time well so that they can get ready at the same time.
No matter how small the promise is, once broken, it leads to a string of expectations that would have a negative impact on you and the relationship you have built or are trying to build.
3. Keeping secrets.
Especially if you’re in a serious relationship, keeping secrets is something that will not sit well with the other person in terms of trust. Having a relationship with another person means that you are trusting them with everything that you are. How can you say this if you can’t even trust them with a single secret?
Of course, secrets like a surprise party you’re throwing for another person, or a gift you’ve decided on giving the other person for her birthday would be okay. Those are acceptable and understandable. But if it’s something like constant correspondence with another person your partner does not know about, or maybe you’re spending money on something your spouse wouldn’t agree to, would be a different story altogether.
4. Passing judgment.
Yes, the moment you judge your partner or a good friend before even trying to find out their side of the story, you have also broken their trust in some way.
Remember that these relationships are investments. The moment you start putting some time and effort into it, you also expect them to have your back no matter what. Without that assumption, then it would be safe to say that the relationship is not as deep just yet.
But how would you feel if you already consider the relationship to be a deep one, and the other automatically assumed that you were doing something they wouldn’t approve of without any proof?
Let’s say you immediately believed someone else (someone whom your barely know, maybe) told you that your best friend has been selling you out. Wouldn’t you agree that the right thing to do would be to ask your best friend about it before getting mad at her immediately? If you rush into judgment, your best friend’s trust will be broken. You immediately fail your commitment to have your friend’s back no matter what.
The same thing goes for relationships. A lot of relationships are broken because one of the two parties involved would accuse the other of cheating even if there isn’t any had evidence. That, in itself, is a ways of breaking another person’s trust. Trust should be a two-way street. If you distrust the other person for no good reason, then that person’s trust in you will slowly break down, too.
Of course, other more obvious examples here would be cheating or being unfaithful.
You also have to be careful who you give your trust to as much as you should be careful about breaking someone’s trust. If you’re someone who has a lot of trust issues, here are some valuable quotes about trust that are worth thinking about.
These should allow you to dig deeper into the issue and help you contemplate on how you can build and maintain someone’s trust, as well as your own.
50 Valuable Quotes about Trust
“For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first.” – Suzanne Collins
“Love meant jumping off a cliff and trusting that a certain person would be there to catch you at the bottom.” – Jodi Picoult
“Loving someone is giving them the power to break your heart, but trusting them not to.” – Julianne Moore
“We’re paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It’s that simple.” – Harper Lee
“It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.” – Confucius
“Trust your instincts, and make judgements on what your heart tells you. The heart will not betray you.” – David Gemmell
“The truly scary thing about undiscovered lies is that they have a greater capacity to diminish us than exposed ones.” – Cheryl Hughes
“Because you believed I was capable of behaving decently, I did.” – Paulo Coelho
“People that have trust issues only need to look in the mirror. There they will meet the one person that will betray them the most.” – Shannon L. Alder
“Consistency is the true foundation of trust. Either keep your promises or do not make them.” – Roy T. Bennett
“Only those you trust can betray you.” – Terry Goodkind
“Don’t trust people who tell you other people’s secrets.” – Dan Howell
“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment unless you trust enough.” – Frank Crane
“The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A man trusts another man when he sees enough of himself in him.” – Gregory David Roberts
“Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean.” – Miguel Ãngel Ruiz
“Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.” – Jim Rohn
“Contrary to what most people believe, trust is not some soft, illusive quality that you either have or you don’t; rather, trust is a pragmatic, tangible, actionable asset that you can create.” – Stephen M.R. Covey
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Gandhi
“Always tell the truth or the truth will tell on you.” – Frank Sonnenberg
“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” – General Colin Powell
“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” – George Macdonald
“It is true that integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.” – Zig Ziglar
“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” – Oprah Winfrey
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place. Then stand firm.” – Abraham Lincoln
“He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.” – Lao Tzu
“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Conviction, commitment, credibility: the three pillars of morally courageous leadership.” – General John Michel
“Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people.” – Barbara Bush
“A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.” – Harold Macmillan
“Earn trust, earn trust, earn trust. Then you can worry about the rest.” – Seth Godin
“Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people.” – Stephen R. Covey
“The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.” – Henry L. Stimson
“For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.” – Bo Bennett
“Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.” – Booker T. Washington
“It is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together.” – H. L. Mencken
When mistrust comes in, loves goes out.” – Irish proverb
“Betrayal is the worst … and the key to moving past it is to identify what led up to it in the first place.” – Charles J. Orlando
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” – Albert Einstein
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.” – Isaac Watts
“Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too – even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.” – Mitch Albom
“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” – Maya Angelou
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” – Warren Buffett
“Trusting is hard. Knowing who to trust, even harder.” – Maria V. Snyder
“Trust, but verify.” – Ronald Reagan
“You must trust and believe in people, or life becomes impossible.” – Anton Chekhov
“Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities of which they were previously unaware.” – David Armistead
“Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
