August 2008 Archives

How much trust should you give a person at the beginning of a relationship, especially since you can be misled?

I used to think that when I entered a relationship, the way to handle trust was to give it until the person did something that proved to me he or she couldn't be trusted. So I'd keep getting burned all the time. I'd trust the person, thinking this was the way not to bring previous baggage into the relationship, but that person wouldn't have done anything to prove he was worthy of me placing my trust in him. In hindsight, the process now seems backward.

Also linked to trust, honesty is a huge issue in relationships. Just how honest should we be? And how much honesty is too much in a relationship?

Unlike trust, honesty is an issue which calls for us to make critical judments based on the nature of a specific set of circumstances and variables. Trust has more to do with absorbing and relying on a certain set of beliefs which we take on faith. It is based on an inner certainty and outer predictability, two factors basic to trust which a respected psychologist named Erik Erikson proposed was how infants learned to first establish this feeling.

His example was universal. Trust is a child's first social achievement, when he or she is unable to see its mother yet remains unperturbed. The child trusts because it is certain of its mother's presence--the outer predictability. Without this certainty, says Erikson, the feeling of trust cannot exist. It is the same dynamic in a love relationship.

But back to honesty. More subjective, due to a certain set of circumstances, being honest is often a value judgment that we make. To be honest means preparing for certain consequences. When we are either honest or dishonest, other people are often affected by what we choose to disclose--or not. the rightness or wrongness of our choice, however, may be excused or explained. Sometimes, it is a matter of diplomacy. We may choose to lie to spare someone pain.

If you think about it, we can trust someone who we know has been dishonest. Why? Because we trust that they are not always liars. And, when they do lie, we feel they must have a very good reason. Our basic ability to trust them, then, is not affected.

Honesty is not a state of being. Really, it is an act which may be selfless or selfish. We may wish to disclose certain facts to a partner or wish to have him disclose certain facts to us for many reasons. These facts may or may not be relevant to our relationship with that person. Our desire for honesty may simply be motivated by selfishness; we simply want the satisfaction of knowing the truth.

If we are the ones who disclose because we say we want to be honest, there are reasons for that which may not be totally altruistic. Maybe we're trying to lay a guilt trip on someone or simply dumping emotional baggage from a previous relationship on the new person who came into our life.

Before being honest in this way, however, ask yourself these questions: What is it that I need to be honest about and why?

Baggage. The very word sounds cumbersome, a burden that becomes too heavy to hold, too awkward to carry. Think of going through life having to tote baggage around. It can seem like an exhausting obligation, a load that's wearisome to mind, body and spirit. Now, apply it to relationships.

All of us have a suitcase we drag around with us. The number of items inside make it either light or heavy. If we're aware enough to continuously empty its contents as it starts to fill up–with the resentments, grudges, fears and disillusionment of our past experiences–the result is that we come closer to letting go of the past and moving into a brighter, lighter future.

One of the most difficult things to do, letting go of the past entails dropping our bags and learning to take things and people as they come and go in our lives. How often have we judged a whole gender by the actions of a few people with whom we've negatively interacted?

Easy to do, even for the most conscientious among us, passing judgment on others is a way of protecting ourselves from making the same mistakes again. We vow not to allow ourselves to be so open, so vulnerable next time–no more cheaters and liars, shady characters who mean us no good.

Often, we think we've moved on, made positive and productive strides in our approach to relationships. The worry, the doubt and the fear, however, remain. What if we make another wrong choice? What if our partner is not who or what he seems? What should we watch for that will let us know what he's planning to do next?

Caught up in the fear of intimacy, which we all experience after love goes wrong and sours our outlook on relationships, we remain rooted in the past, too afraid to move into the future. Sometimes, we become so fearful that we completely miss the wonderful things that come with letting ourselves experience a new relationship.

Determined to never again be played for a fool, we choose not to risk having someone get close. Sure, we may date, meet a lot of new people and seem to be having the time of our lives, but are we truly alive?

Inherent in the structure of interpersonal relationships, risk goes hand in hand with the possibility of experiencing new and wonderful things when we connect intimately with another person. Perhaps, the answer lies in slowly allowing ourselves to fully heal after we suffer through the death of a relationship we hold dear. Depending on the severity of the situation, healing may, indeed, take a very long time.

Different for all of us, the amount of time it takes to heal after a relationship ends may be perceived as an inescapable phase of that same partnership which must be experienced for us to prepare ourselves for the possibilities of love that lie ahead.
As your bags begin to empty, then, you will usually find that you are more open to taking the risks that come with opening yourself to loving someone again. It's been said that there are no guarantees in life. In love, too, it seems that this is very much the case.

Are you ready to unpack your bags?