On Trust

A few years ago I wrote a blog entry on interviewing for jobs. I brought up the ever-present interview request of “tell me one word you (or your friends) would use to describe you.” I deferred to trusted sources for my own answer: my best friend used brave, my sister had said mean. I described myself as honest, or, at the next level, having integrity.  Fast forward to a few months ago when I’m out to dinner with my new boyfriend’s friends; I’m asked to share my passions. I could have listed out The National, or candlelit classes at my yoga studio, or even beer. Instead, I went with “living an authentic life.” If you haven’t yet caught my drift, I’m dramatic, deep, and apparently full of myself. Still, the way I see myself has remained the same: I hold myself to a high level of truth, honor, and integrity.

            Shortly after my aforementioned exploration of seeing myself as honorable, I would learn my first boyfriend of almost 5 years had been cheating on me while we were in a long distance relationship. The breach of trust was one I hadn’t yet witnessed in my life. The “mean” part my sister referenced is something that has run through my family— I get it from my father. We are blunt, unwavering at times. It makes for an efficient communicator and is what I had always been comfortable with.  However, outside of my immediate family, I still trusted. In that sense, I was naïve. The “brave” part my best friend alluded to was a self-fulfilling prophecy for those next months, which turned unexpectedly into years. I would weather new colleagues, new friends and a new city with a sense of skepticism I had previously saved for dabbling in religion or text analysis in college. To me, everything became a question of intention. Who would be the next one to cause me to question, to hurt me? I dare you. I’ll be ready for it this time.

            In early therapy sessions after the break-up—which let me first take a pause to be clear. I knew my ex boyfriend was not the person I was to be with: irreconcilable differences. It doesn’t matter how many times your friends tell you that you can and will do better, or how terrible it is that he did what he did. I believe the jolt to your being after deceit is one of the worst feelings a human can experience, no matter what the circumstance. In the early therapy sessions after the break-up, she asked me to list things I respect in relationships I’ve seen. I said loyalty, including commitment to your family and the greater good of the unit. This went hand in hand with why I couldn’t wrap my head around divorce when I knew two individuals had made a pact to loyalty. She would explain to me how sometimes break-ups and divorces are the best solution for everyone involved. That changed everything for me.

            I didn’t realize the magnitude of trust issues until I started dating my current boyfriend, Matt. It started on our first date when we briefly brought up past relationships. Matt explained how his former relationship ended, which (in his words) luckily didn’t involve “cheating or anything like that.” My face must have said it all in that moment as it became clear—something had happened. Not to me, but in my life. I didn’t get into it until a few months later when we started to get to know each other’s friends of the opposite sex, and also started facing bigger life changes together. All of these became triggers for me as I had faced similar circumstances with my ex’s female friends, or when we moved to the same city after college. Despite the passing of 2 solid years, I’d get a pit in my stomach if a girl’s name would appear on Matt’s phone, even when I knew them. It manifested in a different way when Matt started looking for new jobs and was planning to leave the city where we met. I couldn’t pinpoint the anxiety aside from a strong feeling of dread, that I was yet again involved in a major decision that could eventually burn me if I put my trust in someone enough to potentially also move with them. The even intangible sacrifices I would make for someone—in the likes of opening up enough to support them in their journey, only to have the rug pulled out from under me—hit me like a ton of bricks.

            I’d journal at night wondering how almost 3 years could pass, yet I still suffered regularly with the implications of dishonesty. I am with someone who was so transparent with me it hurt—not in terms of what he’d share or say, but that I couldn’t give it back to him even if I knew I wanted to. We sat on the phone one night after I’d snapped a few times, usually in response to his style of helping me sort through a financial or work-related crisis. This guy would do anything to try to alleviate my pain, and I wanted none of it. In my mind, opening up again and accepting support was setting myself up for a hurt I wasn’t ready to face again, should something go wrong. That was something more about me internalizing the anxiety as a protection mechanism, a need for the independence and solitude to not rely on someone who I might not always be able to rely on.

            My comfort and curiosity ebbed and flowed like waves, the weeks fluctuated between syncopation and feeling like I was in too deep into my own head and sorrow to have this happening again. All of a sudden, little things became really big things. A trip to visit your boyfriend’s father becomes some level of commitment you didn’t see coming; not because you don’t care for someone, but because you’re somehow now responsible for letting even more people in. This is something the average person might be happy about, excited to expand into a new family with new memories. When you’ve let this happen before, it becomes daunting. You beat yourself up about the details you’d already forgotten, and what you’ll soon have to remember.

            Betrayal of trust hurts. What hurts more is the hurt you pass on; the unfair expectation placed on the next love. The expectation they will inevitably deceive, the expectation that you must—at all costs—defend the loyalty you have for your own wellbeing and yourself alone.  The expectation to defend the 3 years spent building oneself up, but also 3 years of the paralyzing self-criticism of letting an event define you and who you’ll be in the future. You must defend the hope that you deserve to connect with someone again. It’s the opening of the little compartments of your heart only reserved for that special kind of love, even when—whatever beautiful matter they held before—had been cleaned out by someone else.

            You must practice self-love. You must understand these things must come up in order for you to heal. That if the new person, or the new relationship wasn’t worth it, all of it would stay tucked away. The internal monologue about the healing process and whatever timeline you have put on it is negligible once you’re in it every day. And you must recognize how you let people in, even in the smallest ways. By letting them know how scared you might feel, but how comforting it is to say it anyway.