16 Ways Women Who Aren’t Quick To Trust Love Differently

1. She shows you how she feels with her actions, instead of with her words. When a woman has difficulty trusting, but still cares for you, she isn’t able to say it in the straightforward way you expect. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t able to feel it and express her emotions in other ways.

2. She will throw herself into learning about you because she is scared of fully exposing herself. When she opens up parts of her life to you: her friends, her family, how she likes to fill her time when she’s alone, it’s a sign that she is genuinely trying to let you become part of her life.

3. She wants to believe in love more than you think. She is not the outward cynic, she’s just scared to reveal the parts of herself that have believe love can end in happiness instead of in ruins.

4. Her insecurities will show at the smallest times, instead of in the big moments. She knows how to handle herself in the big moments. She always, always knows how to keep her shit together, or how to come prepared. It’s in the tinier moments when she’s caught off guard that you’ll catch small glimpses of her insecurities.

5. She will be more defensive than she needs to be. It isn’t your fault. She starts relationships worried that she will have to defend herself, so it is her default setting. The more she trusts you, the less defensive she’ll be.

6. She will have high expectations, but she will never let them scare you. She will never let her expectations make you feel inferior. Instead, she’ll help you rise to meet them.

7. She will be hesitant about the love she accepts. It’s not because she’s trying to make you work harder. It’s not because she wants you to see her as “coy” and wants you to keep vying for her affection. It’s because she wants to make sure you’re not going to take advantage of her. She wants to know that you’re not going to be in love one day and leaving her behind the next.

8. She won’t forgive easily because she has experience dating people who only showed her tough love. However, she will still be open to giving you a second chance because she knows what it feels like to be denied that privilege.

9. She’ll tease you, call you out on your bullshit, and gently make fun of you. These are all good things.

10. And yet she will take your side when you least expect it. She make might fun of you, but she’ll be fierce with anyone else who does. When you’re a woman who knows what it’s like to be in a relationship where the other person never sticks up for you, you know better than to let someone else feel that way.

11. She will appreciate every single time that you are patient with her when she doesn’t feel like can move as quickly as you might want to. She won’t let you guilt her into commitment, but she will love you for moving at her pace and not rushing her into a serious commitment.

12. If she really cares for you, she won’t be overly annoyed by your small, minorly-frustrating habits. She knows that the way you treat her is what matters, not whether you’re clumsy, or whether you always have the right comeback or wear the right shoes.

13. She won’t cling because she has been the one who held onto a relationship that was already gone, and she knows how badly it hurts. She never wants to be the one holding on too hard. She wants to be on even footing with you.

14. She’ll put in as much effort as she receives because she isn’t trying to play games. She isn’t going to do all the work in the relationship because she doesn’t find “the chase” alluring, she finds it exhausting and won’t waste her time with it.

15. She loves you for giving her space without asking too many questions about why she needs space. Sometimes she wants to recharge while spending time with you, but other times she just needs to hang out with herself.

16. She will want to know everything that hurt you. She understands that these things shape how people love.