TRUSTING YOU (FOR ME)

How Allowing Myself To Trust Has Enhanced My Life

My fiancé, John, went out of town this past weekend for a college friend’s wedding. I stayed behind because of work and school and, if I’m honest, an aversion to airline travel unless it’s absolutely necessary. For three nights, he split a room with a female friend at a Best Western and stayed up late partying with a bunch of people I’ve never met. The best part? I wasn’t worried about any of it. Because I choose to trust him.

That might seem like a bizarre choice of words, but I think it accurately portrays how I think about trust. Many people think about it in the sense that someone needs to earn your trust and I agree with this mindset to a degree. But, for me, I have found it more productive to think about giving my trust to someone as an active decision that I do for myself as much as for the other person. Because there are few things more tiring to an anxious mind than not trusting someone.

Obviously, some people give us reasons to be skeptical either due to their history or their actions. So, I am not recommending ignoring a potential partner’s red flags and handing over your Social Security number after a third date. But, if your partner hasn’t given you any cause not to trust them, allowing yourself to fully believe that they have your back and aren’t going to betray you is a great way to have a more peaceful existence.

I didn’t used to be this way. I used to fear my boyfriends were going to leave me for someone else or secretly cheat. I once got so uncomfortable with the idea of a boyfriend meeting up with his ex for a casual lunch that he decided not to go so as not to rock my mental boat. At the time, my concerns felt valid. What if they rekindled something? What if he realized he preferred her to me? Why take the risk? Now, I think about it all differently. I am no longer concerned about what could happen because I care more about my current internal world. And I simply don’t want to live my life on the offensive desperately trying to prevent outcomes that may or may not even happen.

Part of what has allowed me to trust more fully is changing how I conceptualize relationships in general. I used to think that if I had a partner I had somehow duped them into being with me and I had to mitigate any opportunity for them to want to leave. Now, I realize that no one is forcing anyone to date (or marry) me. If someone has chosen me as their partner, they are doing so because that is what they want. And if they end up breaking my trust, it won’t be my fault for not seeing it coming or not going to great lengths to prevent it. It will be their fault—and theirs alone.

After my ex-fiancé abruptly left me, I had a decision to make about trust. His actions had shown me that people can surprise (and devastate) you at any moment. It would have been easy for me to deduce that it is ridiculous to fully trust anyone. I would be asking for trouble. But then I realized that if I didn’t let myself trust again, the main person I would be hurting was myself. Because I would be giving free reign to all my anxieties and insecurities. I would be encouraging my brain to always be on its worst behavior searching for clues that probably don’t exist.

As I evaluated my options, it seemed like I was left with two scenarios:

1)    Never trust. Never feel safe. Remain hypervigilant at all times.

2)    Trust completely and allow for the possibility of another shocking betrayal.

While neither option seems great at first, you’ll notice that only one of them has the word “possibility” in it. In the first scenario, I am guaranteed to be unsettled, closed off and exhausted. While in the second one there is simply a risk of a bad outcome--not a guarantee. I realized that I would rather take a leap of faith and open the door to a fulfilling and trustworthy partnership than do everything in my power, including self-sabotaging the intimacy of my relationships, to avoid being hurt again. 

Trust is a complicated and complex topic. Some people have histories that make trust far more difficult—or even impossible—to give. But if you are at a place in your life where the fear of being hurt is the only thing holding you back, I encourage you to take the leap. Both the leap that this other person won’t intentionally hurt you and the leap that if they do, you will be able to heal. We only have one life (that we know about) and spending it with our guard up is grueling. I don’t think we need to automatically trust everyone or everything, but if we can get to a place where we trust our partner(s) and a few close loved ones, we get to reap so many benefits.  We get to relax. We get to share our full selves. And we get to go to bed without worrying that something terrible might be happening at a wedding thousands of miles away.

xoxo,

Allison

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