When people think about relationships, certain sentiments are their first thoughts. Love and trust are usually the sentiments that we, as a society, most attribute to romantic relationships. But what is the difference between them? Is there any difference at all? Do love and trust mean the same?

Although it is hard to define sentiments and mental states, we know that love and trust are different emotions. Love englobes a wide range of strong and positive mental states and emotions, while trust is the willingness of a person (the trustor) to become vulnerable to another person (the trustee). As you can see, they are not similar at all.

Love and trust are not easy concepts to understand. First of all, they are very subjective. Everyone feels love differently, for example. However, psychologists, philosophers, and scientists, in general, created a definition for both that help us to understand them better.

The Real Difference Between Love And Trust

Let’s see more about love, trust, and the real difference between them.

What is trust?

As said earlier, trust is when a person is willing to trust in another, presuming that the trustee (the person being trusted) will act for the benefit of the trustor (the person who is trusting). Therefore, the trustor does not control the actions of the trustee. If they did, there would be no trust, only controlling or manipulation. Trust is an emotion.

The trustor often develops expectations about the actions of the trustee. Depending on the trustee’s actions, they can feel more secure or less secure. Just like any emotion, it comes and goes. You can trust someone with your life one day and don’t trust them at all the next.

Psychology and sociology research a lot about trust and other emotions, so if you are interested to learn more about it, you should check psychology and sociology books or articles. It’s interesting to see how many things affect our trust, such as the country where we live. People that live in very violent countries, for example, have more difficulty in trusting than those who live in safer countries.

What is love?

Love is so complex that there are several types, like friendship, bonding, romance, self-love, lovestruck, intimacy, affection, unrequited love, etc. Since love is a range of mental and emotional states, overall positive, there’s much to explore regarding this topic.

You can love absolutely everything. You may love your mother, spouse, food, music, a song, movies, buildings, cars, books, technology, animals, etc. You can even love to feel emotions. You may love the feeling of trusting in someone, for example. Or you may love the feeling of seeing someone who hurt you get hurt back. Love is certainly one of the most complicated emotions that an animal can feel.

Maybe love is having a strong –  generally positive – feeling about someone or something. We call it to hate when we have a strong – generally negative – feeling about something or someone. However, love can be negative as well. We all think that someone loving themselves so much that they forget to love anyone else is negative, right? But everyone thinks that loving someone so much is positive that you are selfless.

Can You Be In Love Without Trust?

It depends on what you think that being in love with someone is. This is a very personal question, but overall, yes. You can be in love with someone without trusting them. This often happens when someone finds that their partner cheated on them. Depending on the situation, they’ll still love the partner, but their trust is certainly shaken.

What Is More Important: Love Or Trust?

Trust and love are two very different emotions. You cannot say that one is more important than the other in a relationship. Both are important in their own ways. How can you be in a relationship without love? But how can you be in a relationship without trust? You need both if you want a healthy and safe relationship, a relationship where you can feel comfortable and loved.

What Is The “love Is Trust” Bible Verse?

The bible is known for various famous sentences. One of the most known and loved is probably “love is trust”. However, this sentence was never in the bible. The thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible is about love and the ways of love. Someone (probably a priest) read it, and when they explained it to the worshippers, they summed it up in the “love is trust” expression. It’s quite catchy and makes sense, considering the chapter.

The fourth verse says, “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;”. This is a good chapter to read if you want to know more about the biblical interpretion of love.

How Are Love And Trust In Relationships?

It depends on the relationship. In a romantic relationship, love and trust should be combined. They are essential. However, in a friendship, you can love someone without really trusting them. You may trust them, but not completely, although that’s not healthy at all.

In a co-worker relationship, you should have trust, at least enough trust, so that you can work properly with that person. However, you don’t need to love them. Therefore, how love and trust should be in relationships depends greatly on the relationship itself.