Relationship Friday: Dealing with Doubts

Relationship Friday: Dealing with Doubts

It's not really too easy for a person to change. I believe people can change. Change is a possibility. That influence is a reality makes change a possibility. But we have to agree that change in character isn't like the flip of a coin. People don't change easily.

What has that got to do with trust or doubt in marriage? It has got everything to do with it. It is expected that you know whoever you are giving such intimate and intricate relationship commitment to.

Marriage is life impacting to put it mildly. Marital decisions are never to be taken lightly or uninformed. They need considering every detail one can get before making commitments. It's like playing with fire and it can burn badly if handled without utmost care.

Premarital behavioural assessment is important beyond being swept into marital commitment by the euphoria of sensuality that may lack substance. You have to know what you are getting into.

Just as people don't change easily, so also people aren't known that easily. But people can be known. People can be known because it's not that easy to pretend or to put up an act for too long. With patience, people can be known, even if not totally, but to a large extent.

Doubts help in scrutinizing. Trust is earned. You can't discover too much without having a level of doubts that prompt questions. And those doubts come, but we often feel guilty having them and so not managing them properly.

When doubts are cleared by sound knowledge, you can be sure of what you are getting into. When doubts are confirmed, we know we should steer clear. But when people don't give room for doubts, the doubts don't get clarified and they walk on into trouble.

Trust comes by knowledge, just as faith comes by hearing. When we know who people are, we can make the decision to trust them and then make commitments if they are found trustworthy, they will hardly change, except for major influential impacts.

This must be the process that should lead into marital commitment. Many a times, people overlook the red flags. They doubt their doubts and refuse to see what is obvious and fall into trouble.

A marriage built on trust that came from knowledge has the tendency of being solid. The knowledge must be of both strengths and weaknesses. Of course, we can't have absolute knowledge of another person, we don't even have such knowledge of self, but we can know the fundamentals and see if it's what we can handle.

With that, doubts are minimised in marriage. Doubts in marriage are caused either by inadequate foreknowledge, major influence that can create change or personal insecurities.

The impact of doubts that have no basis can be devastating on a marriage. Trust can be so powerful too. Doubts create more reasons to doubt. Most people who feel doubted lose the impetus to disprove it and may see that as a license to freely do what they are being suspected of. Most people who feel trusted want to maintain that trust and may strive to become more trustworthy even when they struggle with things.

People who exercise doubts in marriage expose themselves to being doubted too. Most people won't trust someone who had shown distrust and doubts in them.

Relationships are sustained by trust. That's why we should strive also to envisage areas where we may be doubted and do our best to allay such fears in our spouses.

When we permit questionable and compromising situations, we put pressure on our spouses' ability to trust and cast doubts on their hearts even when they know us not to have such characters.

And we need not use lame excuses in trying to deal with doubts and suspicions when we are not ready to be truthful in dealing with the situation.

It means, those who would want to really keep their marriages healthy must trade truths all the time. They must understand that certain things are poisons to their marriages and those should not ever be done, no, not even in secret. Otherwise, any trust given is undeserved.

Trust is necessary for behaviors behind the scene. We only trust that unseen intentions are in our favor and not against us. We trust, being confident that behaviors we don't see or understand are not contrary to our interests. It is when those intentions and behaviors are what we think they are that trust is deserved. And each person knows if he or she is trustworthy or not, what we should do is to make sure we are, by being watchful of our intentions and behaviors behind the scenes.

We want our marriages to work and so we should not be throwing doubts everywhere like fiery darts. We should not be creating suspicious scenes too that engender doubts and fears. We should be more open and more communicating. What you aren't saying, shouldn't be coming out of the mouth or seen in any non verbal communication.

What we didn't doubt before marriage can cause trouble if we start doubting in marriage.

And if those doubts are quite founded, then ask questions and seek clarifications to restore trust and confidence.

And when you are being asked about such things, be truthful and open, don't wave it off. Deal with the doubts.

Let's make our marriages whole and healthy.

Have a glorious weekend.