Anyone else unable to trust a partner?

[RiverRunning]

I trusted my first boyfriend. I thought the Heavens lit up on that guy. Turned out to be a jerk who was only out for himself - selfish, manipulative, childish, insanely jealous and possessive, you name it. Dumped him.

 

Met my second ex and thought he was, again, God. Compared to my first ex especially, he was a total gentleman: he offered to give me rides to places when my car broke down, ALWAYS insisted on buying lunch and dinner, asked me my opinion and considered my feelings.

 

Then his ex entered the situation. Holy Hell. And didn't leave the relationship for two years, nearly half a decade after they broke up. He lied to me from the start about talking to her, he obviously still had feelings for her because he rambled about how amazing she was practically 24/7, you name it.

 

I stayed with him for about 3 1/2 years. From then on, I never really trusted him again. He also had convenient lies about other things dealing with her (like telling me he had removed pictures of his ex from our shared desktop. Saved a picture later on. Folder was still there. Liar. Claimed he 'didn't know how to delete a phone number' when we were once sitting side-by-side and he was going through his phone. Sure enough, he still had her phone number. He went on to make a vain, pretend attempt to delete her number).

 

Part of me wonders what the point is. Every guy I've dated has been untrustworthy. Or maybe I'm the one who just can't trust people. I feel like this will follow me around for the rest of my life. After two bad experiences, I'm suspecting the next relationship will be more the same...yet another guy who's lying through his teeth.

 

Anybody else gotten through this sort of thing? Were you ever able to trust someone again? I feel like every romantic prospect on the planet, male or female, has some kind of serious baggage they can't wait to throw in my face.

[verhrzn]

A lot of people, I predict, will say that if you don't trust the person, you shouldn't be with them because they will never change into someone you can trust.

 

But the insidious thing about trust issues that you describe, and that happens with me, is that we start to seriously doubt ourselves, which colors our interactions with our partners. The other person actually COULD be 100% honest and trustworthy, but we would still doubt them because our own instincts can't tell up from down.

 

Here's my story: I dated a guy for 6 months. From the very beginning, there were trust issues because of stupid things he said and did. My instincts were screaming at me that he was untrustworthy... but literally everyone else around us (my friends, his friends) told me I was being overly insecure, and he was absolutely trustworthy.

 

It wasn't me distrusting him that mattered so much. It was me distrusting MYSELF. I was caught between trusting my gut, and trusting what everyone else said. It literally tore me apart, on top of my regular ol trust-and-insecurity issues.

 

Ironically, later on the situation was reserved: I was with a guy that everyone else (my friends, this board) was convinced was a distrusting scum, but my gut instinct told me that... no, they're full of it. The guy wasn't perfect, but once I dug through the surface crazy, my subconscious was saying "Yeah, trust him. Go with it."

 

So here's how I've dealt... by trusting myself. Even if that means flying in the face of advice, in either direction (the guy is amazing/the guy is scum.) Far more important than trusting your partner, I think, is trusting yourself. Learn to really pull apart what is insecurity, what is a flash of irrational emotion, and what is deep-down feeling.

 

I can kind of feel it physically... the irrational flash is all in my brain. It makes my head swim. It kind of feels like being blindsided.

The deep-down feeling, on the other hand, is at my core, down below my belly button. It feels steadying, grounded.

 

Now, my gut instinct was right about the first guy (he dumped me for someone hotter.) I don't know yet if my gut instinct is right about the other guy. It may turn out there's betrayal there. And that'll hurt, sure. But at least I can go into it knowing I acted honestly, and I held to my own feelings.

 

Being able to trust yourself, even if you fall, is what matters above all.

[FitChick]

Learn the difference between trust and being gullible. You picked the wrong men.

[Beetleguise]

I think 99.9% of humans are untrustworthy tbh.