Once communication has been established, trust will come without effort.  Trust cannot be taught or learned, but must be earned.  Trust in a relationship is as important as effective communication.  Trust is the basic principle that allows a relationship to grow.  Unlike communication, trust is something that comes with time.  You meet someone for the first time, and you may communicate well.  You may not even have to work at it, it just comes naturally.  You may feel comfortable talking to this person; but trust, this is different.  You cannot possibly trust this person yet, having just met them. 

            A bond of trust between two people has no outside influences, but is generated from a feeling from deep within (as discussed later, trust can be influenced by past relationships, but in any new relationship, you have to be willing to let go of the past but also learn from it).  When you trust someone, you will not wonder where they are or what they are doing.  You do not question their motives or other relationships, including those with the other gender.  Once trust has been established by both parties in the relationship, the other elements will continue to build on that bond of trust.  

Trust is something that should be discussed often.  Trust, like honesty, is not only established from how you communicate, but is an element that most relationships can never get back if lost.  Once the bond of trust is broken, to truly regain it is somewhat of a miracle.  Once a person in the relationship breaks the other’s trust, a line has been crossed as if it was carved in stone.  Trust is one element that is taken for granted more often than not.  We do not often discuss our trust with our partner because it is an earned right.  When the trust is broken, there will always be a hint of hesitation, or a question that lurks in the back of your mind.  No matter how much you talk about or deal with the issue that broke the trust in the first place, that initial formation of trust will be forever gone; the apple has been taken from the tree and eaten from.  A relationship can survive on limited trust, but there will be a void in the pie from this point forward.  Trust is one of the elements that you do not want to lose.

For many people, trust is the greatest element of the pie.  I am not a believer of the idea that a child who watches his father beat his mother will inevitably beat his own wife because this is what he learned as a child.  Or that a boy who watches his alcoholic mother drink throughout the day will become an alcoholic.  I am a strong believer that strong people will overcome these childhood issues, or even past relationship trust issues, and become who they want to be.  I grew up watching my mother drink all hours of the day.  I grew up watching my brother put more than enough toxins into his body to kill a horse. But that is not what I became.  I learned from these situations, and knew exactly what I did not want to become.  Everyone can trust, even if they learned not to earlier in life. You can overcome your childhood pains, and set and achieve better goals for yourself. 

Not only is trust something you can only earn over time, it is also one of the few elements that truly exposes who you are.  To trust someone is to open yourself up to the world, even if there are only two people in your world.  You must open your heart and allow your partner to see through it to completely fulfill your element of trust.  You must allow those walls to be penetrated.  Trust is putting who you are and everything you have in someone else’s hands.  Anyone can learn to communicate, but trust is granting someone else entry into your soul.  This can be painful, based on your past experiences, but can also be one of the most rewarding attributes of a relationship.  Leaving oneself open for hurt is a risk in life that must be taken to have a successful relationship and a truly satisfying life.  Trust is possibly one of the hardest elements to achieve, but the easiest to lose.  As mentioned above, you must first have good communication in order for the other elements to follow.  Without communication, you will never have the trust needed to sustain a relationship.