Its Life Is A Priority

Love is a living thing.

Trust is too.

But I have had trust and love issues.

I used to think it made me a bad person; to not trust people who gave me no reason to not trust them. I accepted it and owned it with shame. I even went through periods of being in denial about it. It became really noticeable and hard to navigate in my romantic relationships. I hated to think that I was so untrusting. But there it was. The feeling was there. And it always came up in times of conflict. My last two relationships were especially tricky this way. One of them lasted 8 years. The other one lasted 3 years. But in both of them I felt untrusting of my partners. And I didn’t understand why. They felt that I had a hard time trusting them. And they would call me out for it. And I would deny it, because I couldn’t understand it.

They would argue that they gave me no reason to not trust them.

They didn’t cheat on me. They didn’t lie to me. They were trustworthy partners.

But if we are being truthful, they did lie to me. But they usually came clean about the lies. They showed guilt and remorse for having lied to me. So this should have restored and built up trust. And in some ways, it did. But it also made me wonder sometimes if I was hearing the truth, or not. Because I had also come to learn about why they had lied to me. And it was always for the same reason. Every time. With both of them.

It was to avoid conflict and confrontation.

Being honest takes courage. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable. And being vulnerable with your partner takes trust. You must trust that your partner will not get upset with you. That they will receive you with compassion and care. That you will not be attacked for being honest about something potentially controversial or even hurtful. You must feel safe with your partner.

And this is where trust starts to work both ways.

For what I have learned is that my trust issues stemmed from feeling unsafe. I recently came across a video from a guy who talks about relationship issues and solutions. In it he says:

“Trust is so much more than confidence that your partner isn’t going to cheat on you. Trust is confidence that your partner is there for you when you need them; that they care about you. They care about what you need to feel safe, loved, appreciated and desired. That they think you’re important enough to respond to with kindness and compassion. Trust is faith that when I need them, if I reach for them during a vulnerable moment, that they will be there for me. I can count on them. They are my person. Trust doesn’t require perfection, just consistency. If we truly want to say that we love someone, we should want them to feel like they can trust our words and actions, right? They have confidence in as a partner that we will move in the direction when they are hurt or in pain. Especially if we unintentionally caused it. The way this shows up so often is in our conflicts.”

I realized that what I was feeling in both of those relationships was that I was not ‘safe, loved, appreciated and desired’. I mean yes, at times I did… but not consistently. And this is FUNDAMENTAL to a healthy foundation of trust in a relationship. My partners would on occasion receive me with hostility when I approached them with vulnerability. They would be inconsistent with warmth, desire, loving care for my feelings, and they would both make me feel like I was not a priority. Or feel like my feelings were not a priority. And it was because of this, that I felt untrusting.

I simply did not feel safe.

I wish I knew then what I know now about this. If I had, I could have advocated for my needs better. I also could have given voice and reason to what I felt, in understanding it better. And that would have empowered me to make healthier choices for myself. But as it was, I was unable to do these things. And so I went through the painful moments and motions of self-defeating behaviours and situations, trying to pour faith into places where I felt unsettled. And it came at great personal cost.

It cost me a lot of calm… and sleep.

And when I tried to ask them about what I was feeling, or why, I was met with defensive anger, hostility and accusations that I was attacking their character. And this in turn worsened my state of trust. It made me feel very unloved and unwanted and like I was such a bad person for these things that I was feeling. And all I wanted really, was to understand and to feel better about the things I didn’t understand.

We must all learn to know and understand things about ourselves better. And in that pursuit, we must learn to trust ourselves. If something doesn’t feel right, we must believe that there is a reason for it. And that reason may not be because there is something wrong with us. It could just be that there is something wrong with a situation.

And if there is going to be trust between two people, they must trust that each can be vulnerable and open with one another; that the other will not reject or abuse them for their feelings. For their love is like a plant. And as a living growing thing, it needs to trust it will be cared for. It will receive warmth, water, light, love and nourishment.

It will not be left alone, to whither and die. But rather, it will know that it is safe and cared for and its life is a priority.