Trust.

[PITTM]

I have been thinking about it a lot lately and I am wondering what it is that makes us actually trust what another person is saying. I mean, if you're in a relationship and you think about the way it ends and what the two people say to each other about why one or the other thinks it ended. I mean you look back later and go "woah, that person was lying about x, y, and z. How could I have possibly known?".

One specific instance I always think about wrt trust is a relationship my best friend had. It was HS and he started dating this girl colleen. She was gorgeous, super cool and we all got along with her. Suddenly she switched classes and stopped talking to my best friend. He was pretty crushed. Finally I asked him what happened and he said that she wrote him a letter about how since her father left her mom she hadn't been able to trust/commit to other people. I saw Colleen about a year ago and I finally asked her about what had happened. It turns out that this wasn't an excuse, but how she actually feels to this day and hasn't really been able to have a successful relationship even after she has now finished college.

This made me think about that one event in her life and how it will change the way the rest of her life works. I mean if you grow up with you vision of a family being someone who runs from your mother, how could you as a woman want to start a family with a man when youre older?

In contrast, I grew up with 2 parents who loved each other and have always stayed together and never broken each others trust. As a result, I have grown up to be kind of a romantic. I prefer being naked and close to someone i love over the sex and all that, I don't really sleep with girls i dont have feelings for, I would way rather be with one person for 2 years than 24 girls for a month each, etc. After the end of a recent relationship I am kinda crushed and feeling like I may have been too quick to trust the other person and in my head I keep evaluating points at which I could have picked up on some sort of cue that the other person was no longer feeling what I was feeling. Now, with this in the back of my mind I am worried that I will have a more difficult time loving, trusting and respecting whomever I choose to spend my life with in the future, but at the same time I really have no idea how my feelings will be affected. I don't really know what I am looking for here, but I would be shocked if my experience wasn;t shared by others who had some kind of advice. I obv would like to go into way more specifics about how I am feeling about the relationship, but the other person reads this board so I really cannot.

[tame_deuces]

Just flow with it and have fun. Getting burnt now and then is part of life. Overthinking these things just takes the zest out of it.

As for what makes us trust people, its because it is a practical thing to do. Life gets very complicated and impractical if we were to go around distrusting everyone all the time.

[hitch1978]

Lack of trust is a cancer in any relationship.

If you go into any serious relationship, there is only one way it will ever work, and that is to give 100% of yourself. Honesty really is the key.

I am not saying that you have to commit your body, mind and soul to someone after knowing them for a day, but more that when you decide this relationship is worth making 'seriou' that there cannot be any holding back of oneself. To try and protect yourself emotionally from something that may not be there will always lead to it becoming. At least in my experiance.

Also, when I talk about honesty, that doesn't mean that you have to be like Jim Carey in 'Liar Liar.' 'That dress doesn't make your bum look big - your bum makes your bum look big.' eg is never nescesary.

IMHO the keys to succesful relationships, and vital for longevity are -

- Honesty
- Trust
- Respect
- Communication
- Contentment with oneself (So the relationship is not one way dependance)

Not nescesarily in that order.

P.S. I suppose the last one may not be essential, but I believe it is important for a healthy life for both parties.

[hitch1978]

On a general trust issue, I have lived in many enviorenments where to trust everyone would have lead to many troublesome circumstances, maybe even death. I think I tend to (subconciosly) weigh up the risk reward ratio.

If the consequences of my trust in someone being wrong are that I am 30 secomds late for work today - I'll blindly trust them, no matter what, because realistically there is no significant negative consequences for me if I am wrong. If the consequences for me wrongfully putting my trust in someone is that my family die, I am apt to do everything within my power to not be in a situation where I am forced to trust this person/ Take up safeguards against this persons word etc.

[PITTM]

Telling someone you love them and having them tell you that they love you is one of the specific things I am thinking about. I mean every relationship builds up to the point where you decide you are in love and are saying things like "i love you" when hanging up the phone. I mean the guy pretty much always has to say it first, hopefully the girl agrees. If she does they go on and say it for their whole relationship. Say one day she stops loving him, she can't really just like stop saying it. I just don't know how you would even give someone an out here besides just dumping you. But if you find out after that by the end the other person wasn't in love with you it hurts because:

a) They were lying to you for some undetermined period of time.
b) You feel like you developed some kind of suckitude that made the other person fall out of love with you. Normally you could just ask, but by this point it is pretty obv the girl is uncomfortable actually being truthful ever, so pretty much no matter what she says you assume she is lying anyway.

This is pretty much how I am feeling now and I am struggling to get past it.

[hitch1978]

I get that but, here's the thing. If you are concerned with things of this nature while within a relationship, THEY WILL DEVELOPE. They may develope any way, but worrying about them will ensure they do.

They answer? Well, throw your hat wholehartedly in the ring and don't worry/distrust about these type of thinge, or else you are doomed to fail. You may fail anyway, but the only chance you have at non-failure is to trust.

Also, being 100% comfortable with yourself is important. I understand you are not right now, and THAT'S FINE. It's normal. It will get better. You don't believe it. That's normal. Even when you do believe it, you still don't need to hear it. That's normal. There will come a time when you are ready to trust again, the only thing you can do to make this experiance +EV is to learn from it. Distrust through fear is not learning.

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