How Your Childhood Trust Blueprint Affects Every Relationship (And What to Do About It)

Let’s start with a question: Were you taught that being good at relationships meant being trusting?

Like, trust-first-and-ask-questions-later kinda trusting?

Many of us were rewarded, especially as kids, for being agreeable. For being accommodating. For making it easy for others to be around us. But here’s what most of us weren’t taught: how to trust ourselves.

If you’re nodding your head yes, then keep reading, because that’s exactly what this episode of The Terri Cole Show is about. 

Trust is not blind loyalty. Trust, when it’s real, is earned clarity. It’s transparency. It’s discernment. And when we don’t have it, when we’ve absorbed distorted messages about what trust is supposed to look like, it can lead us to abandon ourselves in subtle but damaging ways.

So let’s slow it down together and get curious about what you learned about trust and how to unlearn what no longer serves you.

Prefer the audio? Listen here.

What Is Your Trust Blueprint?

Think back. We all have a blueprint for trust, just like we do for love or boundaries, or money. It’s usually formed in childhood, absorbed through observation and experience, whether or not it was ever directly talked about.

So, what did you learn in your family of origin?

In the downloadable guide that goes with this episode, I’ve included a few questions to help you map this out. But here’s a start:

Did the adults in your life keep their word?Could you count on them to do what they said they were going to do?Did they protect your privacy, or were your secrets passed around the dinner table?Were you expected to trust others automatically, no matter what?

In some families, trust is modeled through consistency and care. In others, it’s demanded, no matter how people behave. And that distinction matters.

Want to explore how your trust patterns began? Check out How to Trust Again With Discernment.

In a lot of families, especially enmeshed ones, there’s no real privacy. Everyone knows everyone’s business. It can feel like your loyalty to the group is more important than your personal truth. Maybe you grew up being expected to keep secrets, or to cover for other people, or to look the other way when something felt off.

In my own family, I had three older sisters and yes, of course, we fought. Four girls within six years, that’s inevitable. But we also had a kind of unspoken, sacred sisterly code. If someone needed cover, we didn’t ask questions. If you told me to say you weren’t home when someone called, I would say you weren’t home. Loyalty was a given.

Even now, my sister Kathy lives nearby and if something happens, she’s there. No questions asked. When life hits hard—sickness, loss, heartbreak—my family rallies. And I love that. It’s motivated by love, by devotion. But even in a system that was mostly healthy, there was an element of assumed trust. A kind of unexamined loyalty that didn’t always leave room for questioning.

So it’s important to ask yourself: What did you learn about trust as a kid that you’re still carrying now?

And more importantly, does it still serve you?

How Self-Trust Gets Eroded—And Why It Matters

Let me tell you a quick story.

When I was 21, I moved to New York City from a tiny, safe town in New Jersey. We didn’t lock our doors growing up. We left the keys in the car. That was my reality.

So there I was in the city, sharing a studio apartment (I slept in the closet!) with my old beater of a car parked on the street, unlocked, of course, with bags of new clothes I got from a sample sale inside because I didn’t know any better. And the next morning? All the clothes were gone. The car had been robbed.

I remember feeling crushed. Like, who would do that?

And the answer, of course, is: a lot of people.

But I had no context. No lived experience. I was naïve.

I also had to confront something important. Not everyone is as trustworthy as I am.

And that’s where we run into what is called positive projection. Just because you wouldn’t do something doesn’t mean someone else won’t. And when you’re a naturally trusting person, when you are trustworthy, it’s easy to project that onto others and assume they’re the same.

But they’re not always.

Trust is not something you give away. It’s something someone earns.

For some of us, our blueprint taught us to trust until proven otherwise. But I’ve found, both personally and in 28 years in my therapy practice, that this is a myth. It’s too simplistic.

Trust isn’t about being naive. And it’s not about being paranoid. It’s about being discerning.

I want to talk about this especially for the folks raised as women, because we’ve been sold a cultural script that says asking questions makes you rude. That advocating for yourself makes you high-maintenance. That if you’re too cautious or too slow to open up, you’re somehow damaged or hard to love.

I’ve had clients afraid to get a second opinion on a medical diagnosis because they didn’t want to offend their doctor. That’s not good girl energy. That’s a potentially life-threatening level of self-abandonment.

What’s the Cost of Being Too Trusting?

When we confuse trust with compliance, we prioritize being seen as easygoing over being truly safe.

When you trust too fast, too soon, without discernment, it can lead to:

Over-functioning in relationships

Staying in toxic dynamics too long

Betraying your own gut instincts

Silencing your voice so others feel more comfortable

And yes, it can even mean walking on eggshells.

Because here’s the truth. In a healthy relationship, you don’t regularly feel afraid. You don’t fear their disapproval. You’re not being tracked. You’re not constantly trying to decode what they meant. You don’t feel like asking a basic question will cost you their affection.

And if you are afraid? It’s time to ask why.

You Get to Raise Your Standards

I remember after one particular breakup, I made a commitment to myself. I would never again date someone I was afraid of. Not physically afraid, he wasn’t abusive, but I feared his disapproval. His jealousy. His tracking. It was exhausting. It was controlling. And it was not trust.

So I raised the bar.

And you can too.

Ask yourself: Are you trusting someone because they’ve shown you who they are? Or because you’ve been conditioned to believe that not trusting them makes you the problem?

We’ve got to move past the idea that being low maintenance is some kind of virtue badge. There is no prize for ignoring your gut. There’s no gold star for silence.

Here’s What Real Trust Looks Like

It’s not intensity. It’s consistency.

It’s aligned values, not shared trauma.

It’s emotional transparency, not emotional dumping.

It’s repair after rupture, not pretending things didn’t happen.

It’s a nervous system that feels calm, not contracted.

You should know where you stand. You should be able to ask what you need to ask. You should feel safe enough to exhale.

So Let Me Leave You With This

You don’t owe anyone instant trust. You don’t have to prove that you’re easy to love by making yourself smaller, quieter, or less discerning.

You’re allowed to take your time.

You’re allowed to ask questions.

You’re allowed to protect your peace.

Because real trust is a radical act of vulnerability. And it begins not with them, but with you.

When you trust yourself, everything changes.

You become your own safe place.

And from there?

You get to choose who else earns a key.

Go download the Trust Blueprint Audit now. It’s a guided reflection tool to help you uncover the roots of your relationship to trust, get clear on what’s no longer serving you, and begin building a new foundation rooted in self-trust, discernment, and emotional safety.

You deserve relationships where you can relax.

You deserve to feel safe in your own body, in your own choices, in your own life.

And if no one ever told you this before, let me be the first.

You are worthy of trust. Especially your own.

I hope you liked this. If it made you pause, reflect, or feel even a little more seen, then it did its job. Keep coming back to your own inner wisdom, and know that rebuilding trust—especially with yourself—is one of the most powerful things you can do.

As always, take care of you.

Terri 

Real Talk: What You’ve Been Wondering About Trust1. What is a “trust blueprint” and how does it impact relationships?

Your trust blueprint is the unconscious pattern you learned growing up about how trust works—whether trust is earned, assumed, demanded, or withheld. It shapes how you relate to others, and most importantly, how (or whether) you trust yourself. Understanding your blueprint helps you make conscious, empowered choices instead of repeating old, unhelpful patterns.

2. How does being “too trusting” lead to self-abandonment?

When you’re overly trusting without discernment, especially if you were raised to be agreeable or avoid conflict, you may betray your own instincts to maintain peace. This shows up as staying in toxic relationships too long, silencing yourself, or ignoring red flags to appear “low maintenance.” That’s not trust—it’s self-abandonment.

3. What does real trust look and feel like in a healthy relationship?

Real trust is consistent, emotionally safe, and transparent. You know where you stand. You’re not walking on eggshells, decoding someone’s behavior, or afraid of their disapproval. You feel calm in your nervous system. Trustworthy people show up even when it’s inconvenient, and they don’t shame your truth.

4. How can I start rebuilding self-trust after ignoring my instincts for so long?

Rebuilding self-trust starts by asking honest questions about your past experiences. When did you override your gut? What messages did you absorb about trust and boundaries? The downloadable Trust Blueprint Audit at terricole.com/guide helps you reflect on these patterns and begin creating a new foundation rooted in discernment and self-loyalty.