Why are we ready to jump with a parachute with one person, but with another it seems unsafe to even open a can of tuna together? At what point do we decide to trust or not to trust another person, to tell him about our experiences at the risk of being misunderstood and rejected, or to maintain distance in a relationship, playing pre-conceived socially approved roles? If you juggle a little with the words “trust” and “faith”, you will notice that they relate to each other in the same way as, for example, “pro-vitamin” and “vitamin”. Provitamin is a substance that is not itself a vitamin, but can be converted into a vitamin in the body. The same goes for “trust.” This is not yet faith, but it is a necessary condition, a “step” that precedes real faith: in the person you trust, in yourself, in the correctness and necessity of your relationship with him... Throughout life, the stages of trust or distrust in the people we meet can be completely disproportionate, illogical, when from a person absolutely open to the world you can turn in the blink of an eye into distrustful and closed. Quite a lot of time will pass before the understanding comes that “you need to trust someone who can be trusted, and someone who cannot be trusted should not be trusted” (from a conversation with K.S. Lisetsky). There is a serious difference in the concepts of trust and faith. Faith may involve shifting responsibility for one’s safety and one’s experiences to another person. This, for example, is typical for children. Trust comes from the fact that a person is still responsible for his choice of a trusted person, who, in general, may not justify this trust. This is already the position of an adult mature person. I was once struck by a conversation with a person who showed a video from a car recorder, where one young couple was rushing through the city streets on an ATV, periodically taking risks, switching to riding on two rear wheels. “I would like to be trusted like that too,” this man told me, not without a little envy. “Can you be trusted?” After a pause, he replied: “Now you trust me, but I may not live up to your expectations...” It must be said that this conversation haunted me for quite a long time, despite the fact that, it seems, all the words spoken were correct and place. But something seemed to be in the way... A man whom you want to trust almost immediately and without hesitation, focusing solely on natural instincts, is afraid of “not living up to expectations”? Over time, “the picture has taken shape”... A responsible person, categorical in his judgments, authoritarian, wanting trust in himself, is ready and, perhaps, accustomed to justifying this trust “totally”, in all areas of life. On the one hand, this is not bad and, in general, masculine. But, firstly, you can “strain yourself”, and, secondly, over time, the second partner is simply obliged to become infantile and helpless, allowing him to bear the entire burden of responsibility, trying his best to live up to expectations. Perhaps this comes from the fact that he himself is a distrustful person, accustomed to controlling the situation, who believes that he is understood and accepted only when they agree with his opinion, and any contradiction is perceived as a threat. Or perhaps he perceives self-confidence as a gift that needs to be gratefully appreciated and protected. Trust in relationships is a multifaceted concept. It can vary widely: from choosing a menu for dinner to the absolute belief that the person you are with, even if you piss him off at some point, will prefer, figuratively speaking, to “beat you” rather than betray you. Trust is not only faith in another person, in his responsibility and integrity, but also, first of all, faith in oneself, that you “cannot put” on another person more than he is able to “bear.” Trust in a relationship is an honest dialogue about how much each partner is ready to move and change in order to create a comfortable environment for each other, in! :)