You know, I love that you’re asking about trust exercises, because most people come in thinking trust is this thing you either have or you don’t. Like it’s a light switch. But it’s not. Trust is built through repetition. It’s built through doing the hard thing, over and over, and letting your partner see you do it.
That’s what I call the Proof of Work of Love. It’s not a grand gesture. It’s the visible, felt evidence that you showed up through the pain, through the awkward moment, through the fight that could have gone sideways, and you chose connection anyway. That’s the work. And it accumulates.
So here are some of the actual exercises I use with couples in my office.
The Repeating Question Exercise. One partner asks the same open question, over and over, gently. Something like “What are you feeling right now?” or “What do you need from me?” The other partner just answers, each time going a little deeper. What happens is that the asker learns to stay present without fixing, and the answerer learns that it’s actually safe to keep going. That’s trust being built in real time, right there in the room.
The Three Question Structure. This one I use before big moments, stressful seasons, hard conversations. Each person answers three things: What am I feeling, longing for, or afraid of? How am I going to support myself through this? And how can you support me? It sounds simple but it is not easy. It requires both people to get honest and stay soft at the same time. When you do that together, something shifts.
The Empathy Exercise. This is the one I’m most protective of because people often rush it. The whole structure is: reflect, accept, validate, and then feel with. Not problem-solve. Not reassure. Just stay in the feeling with the other person long enough that they actually feel felt. The trust that comes from that moment, where someone stayed with you in your pain instead of trying to get you out of it, that’s irreplaceable.
The 15 Minute Date. This one’s deceptively powerful. Fifteen minutes of undivided, intentional presence. No phones, no agenda, no discussing logistics. Just being with each other. It sounds almost too small. But for a lot of couples I work with, fifteen minutes of real contact is more than they’ve had in months.
Here’s what I want you to hold onto though. The exercise is the container. What builds trust is what happens inside it. It’s the moment someone starts to share something scary and their partner leans in instead of pulling back. It’s the moment someone says “I didn’t know you felt that way” and means it. That’s the proof of work. That’s what trust is actually made of.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
