The Need to Trust Your Spouse's Character

One of the fundamental requirements of a healthy marriage is that you trust your spouse's character. This doesn't mean believing that your spouse is always right, never selfish, or never hurtful. But it does mean having a basic trust that your spouse is not your enemy and is not intentionally trying to hurt you.

Without that basic trust, almost anything your spouse says or does can be interpreted negatively.

For example, your spouse disagrees with you about something. Rather than seeing this as a disagreement, you interpret it as evidence that your spouse doesn't respect you or care about your feelings. Or your spouse offers some criticism, and instead of considering whether the criticism might be legitimate, you conclude that your spouse is trying to tear you down.

In both cases, you are assigning motives to your spouse. You are assuming that you know not only what your spouse did, but why your spouse did it.

There is an important distinction between someone's behavior, the impact of that behavior, and the motives behind it. You may be able to describe accurately what your spouse did and how it affected you. But that doesn't mean you know why your spouse did it.

For example, saying, 'When you said that, I felt dismissed,' is quite different from saying, 'You said that because you wanted to humiliate me.' The first describes your experience. The second makes a judgment about your spouse's character.

And once you've decided that your spouse has bad intentions, almost everything becomes evidence against him or her. Disagreement becomes hostility. Criticism becomes an attack. Even attempts to explain or defend oneself can be interpreted as further evidence of dishonesty.

This makes a healthy relationship nearly impossible. How can you work through disagreements with someone whose character you fundamentally distrust? How can you receive criticism from someone you believe is trying to hurt you? How can your spouse ever convince you otherwise if even attempts to explain are interpreted negatively?

Of course, this doesn't mean that we should ignore genuine wrongdoing. Some spouses really are dishonest, cruel, or abusive. Trust must be grounded in reality, and it can be damaged by repeated violations.

But in a reasonably healthy marriage, we ought to give our spouse the benefit of the doubt. We should be willing to consider that there may be explanations for our spouse's behavior other than the worst ones we can imagine.

We can confront hurtful behavior without assuming malicious motives. We can disagree without questioning one another's character. And we can acknowledge that our spouse has weaknesses and faults without concluding that our spouse is fundamentally against us.

Trusting your spouse's character is not simply one more communication skill. It is part of the foundation that makes healthy communication possible.