Is complete trust between a woman and a man possible? Having had my trust violated after 32 years of marriage I'm sure that it's not wise anyway. Would the women here care to discuss this?
Men and Trust
Sun, 2012-07-01 13:10
#1
Men and Trust
Sun, 2012-07-01 13:52
#2
Timebandit
I'm sorry to hear that you're going through a bad time, Esther.
I think trust and its parameters and relationship specific. I have complete trust in my partner, both on a marriage and a business level (we work together). I trust my kids' godfather deeply as well, both as friend/chosen family and as a caregiver to my kids. Not that both of them will make decisions or do things I'd rather they didn't. Intention plays into it, too, I suppose.
People do screw up. Sometimes that can be a violation of trust. Hard to say, it really depends on the specific circumstance.
Mon, 2012-07-02 06:48
#3
The answer for you will probably be "No" for the next while. After my separation from, well, I'll be polite, someone I don't trust, I didn't think I'd ever trust any man again. My perception was completely coloured by my terrible experience. But eventually, after being on my own for a while, getting out from under his thumb and the misery of living with him, enjoying life and freedom as a single person who didn't have to answer to or depend on anyone, I started to get over those feelings. Not completely. But enough to, little by little, accept men into my life who I could trust as far as I was comfortable, and over the years, more and more barriers came down.
Not trusting is a defence mechanism that I think comes in handy after a bad experience. It makes you wary, makes you not fall in love with the first guy that comes along after your bad relationship, helps you really judge whether a guy you get to know is the real deal. It makes you go slow and get to know people. It gives you the warning bells you need to weed out the creeps, semi-creeps, and incompatible guys.
But eventually, there will be men you can trust. You'll just have a much longer vetting period, that's all - and that's a good thing!
Tue, 2012-07-03 21:14
#4
I think an important thing i learned from going through two relationships where trust was lost is that trust was lost only with those two people. I try not to project my past relationships onto new people, and think i'm better at recognizing character now and can weed out the kind of people that i can't trust in my life...i learned a great deal from those two relationships.
The other thing i tried to do was hold myself to account and realize i made some terrible decisions to stay in those relationships when i could have/should have bailed much sooner...in other words i saw the signs early on but chose (in a love stupor) to ignore and pretend it was nothing when i should have reacted and got out of those relationships early on and saved myself the pain of the breakup of a long term partnership.
Tue, 2012-07-03 21:48
#5
hindsight is 20/20.
i find your post makes me uncomfortable. smacks of sidewipe blamming the victim. or saying men have issues of trust too. i am going to stop there because i am sick to death of men inserting themselves into it and basically saying "this is what men do you should too".
Wed, 2012-07-04 00:30
#6
i was just trying to help by relaying my personal experience with being cheated on. it sucked and it really hurt at the time, but i learned from it and am really happy with where i'm at now and what it taught me about relationships. When i was going through that, it would have been nice to know that everything was going to be fine in time and that these kinds of things happen to a lot of people but on the flipside there are lots really great people out there too.
but i did blame myself in part because i saw the signs early on and chose to ignore them instead of just admitting that this person was likely to cheat on me or mistreat me and not worth investing myself in. Would have saved myself a lot of suffering, but now that i've learned that lesson i choose my relationships more carefully and i'm much happier for it.
Wed, 2012-07-04 10:54
#7
fair enough. though i'm not sure it applies to this situation given it happened after 32 years. 32 years is a lot different than even 5 years.
that's how long my parents have been together and it would seriously fuck up the family and my mother if my father after those many years would step out cause he is having a midlife crisis and thinks he's 20 again.
ya'd think after 32 years there would be enough respect to at least leave if you're unhappy enough to want to fuck around. if that's what happened in this instance.
Wed, 2012-07-04 11:51
#8
What Michelle said.