Trust First, Doubt Never

Trust.

We begin all relationships with trust. From the moment you enter the world, you are reliant on others to care for you to ensure your survival. Your life is in their hands. Hopefully, they are trust-worthy. No matter how safe you may have been kept, throughout life’s journey, trust is sometimes tested. It can alter your perspective of a love interest and hinder your chance at a healthy relationship.

Even those who appear to have “trust issues” often give new beaus the benefit of the doubt until they are either proven right or wrong about his or her love interest. How refreshing to experience an honest lover. How terribly disappointing to add another to the list of deceivers.

Give a person several reasons to believe your word and actions, then do or say one thing that deviates from the realm of reasonable and all bets are off. Trust is forgotten. Everything that came before, whether true or not, becomes invalid.

If you’re caught in a lie once, who is to say you didn’t lie before you got caught? Who is to say everything since isn’t false? The thing about trust is that it can be lost much more easily than it can be regained once gone.

In order to regain trust, you have to consider that the person you are appealing to must be exposed and vulnerable in order to let you back in. This is because he or she is giving you another opportunity to cause emotional damage if you falter and betray his or her trust again. Allowing oneself to be so open is a difficult feat because self-preservation is innate. No one wants to experience heartbreak.

When there’s no trust, both parties suffer. On the one hand, a point of exhaustion can be reached when you’re spending most of your time trying to convince your lover that you are loyal and honest. On the other hand, your partner doesn’t want to distrust you or imagine you’re capable of doing anything that could be potentially hurtful.

So, how do you resolve this issue? Do you simply give up on love? Do you convince yourself that all women are conniving or all men are dogs? That’s no way to experience life abundantly.

Take each occurrence on a case-by-case basis. One time could really mean one time. One time could also mean one time today, so far. Just because Mark was a player doesn’t mean John is too. Just because Erika slept with the football team doesn’t mean Maya will run through the men in the neighborhood.

If your partner has been unfaithful and you decided to remain in the relationship, actually remain in the relationship. Don’t allow your hurt feelings to spoil the future you may have together. By holding on to the past, you leave no room for growth or true forgiveness. Constantly bringing up the indiscretion reopens the wounds for both of you and that’s no way to heal.

If the damage is irreparable, take comfort in knowing you can have another chance at love elsewhere. But only if you leave the baggage behind with the one who broke your trust. Don’t commit to another person if you will enter the relationship with expectations of betrayal.

Love is a beautifully frightening experience when done right. Trust your instincts, your heart, and your lover. And if you find opening yourself up is to your detriment, let him or her go because trust is essential to the development of any relationship. You can’t embrace someone with your arms folded.

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." --Ernest Hemingway

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