This thing called trust

What does it mean to trust someone? After many years as a therapist and being married for 18 plus years, I still don’t have a definitive answer to that question. In my much younger years to trust someone meant I trusted they wouldn’t fool around on me.

Now being older and hopefully a little wiser, trust means so much more than that to me.

Today trust means that I can be who I am and that you will accept that. You can be who you are too, and I will be OK with it.

But there are some elements to trust that can railroad me. People change, and who I was 5 or even 2 years ago is different that than who I am today and who I will be tomorrow. Being an adult child of an alcoholic, having people act consistently around me is important for me to feel secure in my personal relationships. So when someone acts out of character or reveals something about themselves that I didn’t know, it can give me pause.

Is it bad that it gives me pause? It’s probably a good growth experience for me, but it doesn’t feel like it at the time. It can feel scary and put me off center.

But if we are changing, and we all are, people will reveal the depths of their soul over time, as the relationship develops and “trust” builds. The onions peel back, and we show who we are to the other. What a great thing it can be when intimacy builds and we can be vulnerable and share things about ourselves that we couldn’t before!

What a healing affect on us to be in a relationship where I am OK and you are OK. We all want to be accepted for you we are, and achieving that in a relationship can be very powerful.

I have seen many relationships get destroyed because one partner acts differently and the other no longer trusts them. From going out and being more social, to having opposite sex friends, to wanting some adventure in their lives, quitting their jobs, revealing things about their past that are surprising, having a “nervous breakdown”, to deciding they are generally unhappy with their lives and want change. The other partner is usually rocked by these changes and finds that they “can’t trust the other to act like they have in the past”. But if we are all changing, this is bound to happen in most of our relationships at some time. Our need for people to act consistently and also leaving room for growth and change can be a difficult but worthwhile path.

So ultimately I feel that if we can trust ourselves our trust for others will grow. I trust that I will be able to handle whatever curve balls life throws at me, I trust that I have the internal resources to see my way through difficult situations, I trust that I am resilient and can roll with change (maybe not right away, but eventually!), I trust that it’s OK for me to be who I am.

I trust myself so I am able to trust you too.