Trust Issues: Definition, Examples, & How to Improve Them

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
How do we define trust issues, recognize them, and work to improve them? Read on to find out.
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Have you ever done one of those group-bonding days at an outdoor adventure center, where everybody solves puzzles together, navigates an obstacle course, or overcomes their fear of heights on the rope course? While many of these activities can push people’s limits, one of the most challenging is the trust fall. If that’s not a familiar term, imagine this: with a group of people standing behind you, you close your eyes, cross your arms in front of you, and fall backward – into their waiting hands and arms, which catch you.
Does imagining that make you just a little bit nervous? I know it does for me. The first time I did it, with a group of high school peers, it took me a while to commit to falling backward. I knew some of my friends would catch me, but I wondered about a couple others, the kind who just might think that letting me fall flat on my back was a great example of a practical joke.

Trust is variable like that – depending on the context, and who we are, trust may come very naturally or barely at all. This article will explore where trust issues come from, give examples and symptoms of having trust issues, and point to some ways to heal one’s trust issues.

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What Are Trust Issues? (A Definition)

To define trust issues, we must first define trust. As you might imagine, psychologists have spent a lot of time coming up with definitions for trust. Here is my combination of several definitions of trust (Lewicki & Weithoff, 2000; Miller & Rempel, 2004; Rousseau et al., 1998):
 
Trust is believing that it is safe to be vulnerable with somebody else, because they are willing and able to respond to you in a way that will meet your needs, or at least not harm you. The amount you trust another person comes down to how confident you are that they will respond that way. The more confidence you have, the more consistently you believe they will meet your needs, or even respond with the same level of vulnerability and trust that you showed them.
 
By the same token, having trust issues means suspecting that another person does not have the ability or the integrity to meet your needs in a situation (Covey, 2006). Somebody with trust issues does not believe it is safe to act on the actions, words, and decisions of another person; in fact, people with trust issues often think that the other person is acting in ways that will deliberately harm them (Lewicki & Weithoff, 2000).
 
Social scientists have studied closely how consistent trust issues are for people. They have found that while our levels of trust vary a lot from one situation to the next, most people have a range of trust that they show others (Fleeson & Leicht, 2006; Weiss et al., 2021). In other words, most everybody trusts a close friend more than an acquaintance or a stranger, but some people will trust their close friends more than other people will. Our perceptions of the trustworthiness of other people are important determinants of how trusting we are in each situation (Weiss et al., 2021).

Trust Issues Symptoms

What are some symptoms of having trust issues? First of all, we know that people who are regularly jealous of others have lower levels of trust (Guerrero et al., 2014). For example, somebody who gets jealous when they see their romantic partner talking to somebody else probably does not trust their partner to be faithful.
 
Second, we know that people who see others as threatening, lacking integrity, or generally incompetent will be less likely to trust other people (Mayer et al., 1995). I think this finding makes a lot of intuitive sense – if you thought other people were going to mess things up or hurt you, even if it was unintentional, how much would you rely on them? So people who make frequent statements that indicate they believe others are dishonest or unable to do their jobs may be experiencing trust issues.

Trust Issues in a Relationship

Trust issues happen most often in close relationships, such as romantic relationships (Wieselquist et al., 1999). There are three key components to trust in an interpersonal situation (Righetti & Finkenauer, 2011): First, one person has to be relying on the other in some way. Second, there has to be risk involved – somebody gets something if trust is rewarded and loses something if trust is not rewarded. Third, both people involved could potentially leave the situation at any time.
 
We can easily see how these elements of an interpersonal situation can lead to trust issues. Relying on other people, and having potential risk of not being helped, makes trusting a high-stakes decision, especially in close relationships where topics related to trust are often quite personal. The possibility that the person you’re trying to trust might disengage entirely can make it difficult for many people to trust others. And yet trusting others is key to having successful and loving close relationships (Wieselquist et al., 1999).
 
A big component of how much we trust in our relationships is how much self-control we believe other people have (Righetti & Finkenauer, 2011). This may be because what we want and what other people want are often at odds, and only people who can consistently control themselves can be trusted to respond effectively when we make ourselves vulnerable and show trust.

Trust Issues in Friendships

Friendships have the potential for trust issues just like any other close relationship. This is seen most often in situations that potentially strain the friendship by bringing opposing goals into conflict (Simpson, 2007). For example, telling a close friend about a conflict you are having with someone you are both close to creates that strain. To confide in your friend, you must trust that they will not betray your confidence because they do not like being caught between friends or disagree with you about the conflict.
 
It is through the accumulation of many such interactions that deeper trust is built (Holmes & Rempel, 1989). However, if one’s trust is not returned – if, for example, you confide in your friend and they turn around and discuss it with the third party with whom you have the dispute – you can develop trust issues over time (Schneider et al., 2011). 

Examples of Trust Issues

In modern times, an easy example of trust issues is what psychologists call online surveillance, or the monitoring of a lover’s social media activity (Marshall et al., 2013). If we do not trust our partners are being faithful or fully honest with us, we may turn to tracking their posts to know where they are, what they’re doing, and with whom they’re doing it.
 
Trust issues can occur between family members and between coworkers as well. A parent who secretly puts a tracking app on their teenager’s phone may not trust their child to tell the truth about where they go each day; an employee who finishes a project late because they did not involve colleagues they believe will do a subpar job is compromising work performance because of trust issues.

What Causes Trust Issues?

Like so many relationship issues, trust issues are usually thought of as resulting from insecure patterns of attachment (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008). We form insecure patterns of attachment when we don’t consistently get the love and support we need from caregivers as children. Perhaps a parent promises special time with a child and rarely delivers on the promise, or only sometimes comforts the child when they are clearly very upset. When this happens again and again over time, we develop a “working model” of relating to others that tells us not to trust others with our needs and desires (Bowlby, 1982).
 
Although our closest relationships in childhood are the strongest influence on our ability to trust (Bowlby, 1982), our relationships in adulthood continue to influence whether we have trust issues or not (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008). For example, research tells us that people who get married for a second time are strongly influenced by their first marriage; if they experienced a lack of trust in the first marriage, they will have a harder time building and maintaining trust in the second marriage (Brimhall et al., 2008).
 
In this way, we are constantly changing our ability to trust others. Sadly, this means that people who experience huge, painful breaches of trust in adulthood, even if their early relationships were solid, can develop trust issues. Indeed, many adults who have trouble keeping a romantic relationship going report that broken trust in past relationships is a big reason why (Peel & Caltabiano, 2021). At the same time, it also means that people who had few trustworthy relationships in childhood can work on and heal from their trust issues in adulthood.

Trust Issues and Anxiety

It appears that people with trust issues are more likely to experience anxiety, especially about their relationships (Fitzpatrick & Lafontaine, 2017). Anxiety, particularly of the avoidant kind, can create trust issues if it is present in either person in a relationship. Think about it: if one person in a relationship withdraws from the relationship when they are anxious, the other person will eventually have a hard time trusting them to meet their relationship needs.

Therapy for Trust Issues

Can therapy help people with trust issues? Indeed, therapy has helped distrustful couples connect with each other, and it has helped individuals who are isolated by their inability to trust become able to build close relationships. This suggests that trust issues are a good target for psychotherapy (Johnson, 2008). There are several kinds of therapy that are known to be effective for helping people change their “working models” of close relationships in order to expand their capacity to trust others. Below are some ideas for how to address trust issues outside of therapy.

How to Improve Trust Issues

One way to improve one’s trust issues is to cultivate the sensations that are opposite to what we feel and experience when we are distrustful. In place of the negativity, uncertainty, and closed-off way of approaching the world that come with trust issues, we can seek to build openness, positivity, and confidence in our conflict management skills (Suwinyattichaiporn et al., 2017).

What might this look like? It could involve activities that help one intentionally focus on instances when trust has been rewarded. Identifying positive instances of trust throughout one’s day could help: from the other drivers who stayed in their lanes during one’s commute to the family member who calls regularly to say hi, people are being consistent and trustworthy more often than we might give them credit for.
 
In relationships where trust has been broken, we can also learn how to seek greater trust. If there are people in our lives who have withdrawn from us or let us down, we can find new ways – often, softer and gentler ways – to state our needs, describe how meaningful it would be to have the other person meet them, and hope for the best (Burgess Moser et al., 2015).
 
For more ideas on how to decrease one’s trust issues, I recommend the following video:

Video: How to Deal with Trust Issues

Articles Related to Trust Issues

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

Books Related to Trust Issues

To keep learning, here are some books to explore:​​

Final Thoughts on Trust Issues

Trust issues happen for almost all of us somewhere in our lives. I think that’s natural and good. If you can find somebody who’s never been betrayed or hurt or let down, don’t be jealous! That person has never had to figure out who is trustworthy and who isn’t, and how to make sure their trust is better returned next time. We are all constantly in this process of figuring out where and when we can be vulnerable.
​
If trusting others has been hard for you, I want you to remember how common this is and that you probably are this way for very good reason: somewhere along your life’s journey, there’s been at least one relationship that taught you not to trust. That’s not your fault. I hope you now feel a little more empowered to take action to help yourself, or somebody else, with trust issues.

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