Trusting each other to be faithful is essential to a healthy marriage. Your human heart wants to trust your spouse and wants to know that your relationship is exclusive. Trust stands on two legs, 1) a willingness to trust another person, and 2) trustworthy behavior.
Do you think that trust is freely given, or is it earned? The answer is yes, both. In many relationships you start with assumed trust that you give to each other freely, but you can only keep trust through trustworthy behavior.
The human heart gets hurt when we think we have an exclusive relationship and find that our partner has cheated. Humans can be irrational with this desire and maintain a double standard. Someone can feel hurt that their spouse cheated on them, even when they are also being unfaithful.
It’s reasonable, though, to expect a relationship to be exclusive when you have made a commitment to each other and you are being faithful to that commitment yourself.
Trust in an exclusive relationship satisfies a deep desire in our heart. Trust, however, is based largely on how people have behaved toward each other.
Some people have had their ability to trust someone damaged by the actions of their parents or others who have broken trust with them in their past. Your spouse may have already had difficulty trusting another person when the two of you met. However, over time, the influence of the past will dim and your spouse’s trust for you is going to be based primarily on your actions and your words.
What do you need to do to build and maintain trust in your marriage? Your words and actions need to line up with your marriage vow to forsake all others and keep yourselves for each other.
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. (Ephesians 5:3)
The command here is that there not even be a hint of sexual immorality. I believe this means that we shouldn’t joke about cheating and we shouldn’t put ourselves in situations where our intent is unclear.
Cheating on your spouse, or even entertaining the idea is a foolish choice. Proverbs 5 is devoted to warning us against adultery, telling us it will cost us health, wealth, and reputation. The person who is unfaithful will look back on it with regret. We are urged to maintain faithfulness in our marriage.
Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? (Proverbs 5:15-16)
And we are warned to take care to take precaution not to put ourselves in a tempting situation.
Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house. (Proverbs 5:8)
If your spouse doesn’t trust you, don’t ignore it and don’t merely yell at them for not trusting you. Examine the roots of the lack of trust and discover what it will take to build trust in your marriage. If your words and actions have been worthy of trust, give your spouse time to develop a stronger sense of trust in you. If, on the other hand, you have said or done things that damaged trust, you need to change your words and actions to those that reinforce trust in you.
If you have been tempted to infidelity, it is a symptom that you need to nurture your marriage. Cheating is a fool’s bargain. Proverbs warns us:
For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. (Proverbs 5:3-5)
It may take some effort to build trust and maintain faithfulness, but it is well worth it.
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