There is plenty of advice being put out there regarding building trust in your relationship. Most of it is true and helpful, but a lot of it won’t do you any good.

Here is one piece of advice that will be beneficial: Be consistent. A lot of people in relationships or marriages say that they want to be surprised, they want spontaneity, and they don’t want to be stuck in a rut. And although this is true enough in most situations, they also don’t want to be shocked or caught by surprise by sudden changes in your behavior all the time as well.

Your partner wants to think that he or she knows you and knows what you will do. Your partner wants you to be consistent in your actions, your feelings, your behavior, your treatment of him or her, and everything else. Your partner wants to be able to expect or predict how you will react or respond to whatever situation that might go your way.

Sudden changes in your behavior – losing weight, dressing differently, acting differently – these things tend to cause suspicions and doubts that lead to your partner suspecting you of things that may or may not be happening, and end up destroying the trust in your relationship.

You may think that being consistent means being predictable, which is something that everyone does not want to be. But consistent doesn’t always have to mean predictable, and predictable doesn’t always have to mean boring. Be spontaneous, be surprising, be impulsive, but be all of that consistently.

It may seem to be one of those “too good to be true, cure all” steps to fixing a marriage that you read everywhere all the time. And yes, it is such a simple answer to a complex issue, but it does work. Being consistent in the way you are when it comes to your husband or wife is one of the simplest ways that you can build and develop the trust in your relationship.