Living in the “House of Un-trust”

Case Study #2

Living in the “House of Un-trust”

It’s Unfortunate when someone feels that the people around them have failed them in one way or another and it leads them to believe that no matter what they do to redeem themselves, it’s just too late and not worth the effort.  Trusting someone in your life is earned throughout the term of the relationship.  It’s sometimes automatically given but quickly taken away.  To really trust someone with all your heart and soul comes only after years of working on that particular relationship or even patterns that have been previously set.  To better understand this theory, the theory itself must be explained by example.

A man meets a woman and for the first time he realizes that she will be the one he is going to marry.  Yes, Love at first sight.  Who knew?  Anyway, they spend about 5 years dating and getting to know one another and they decide to get married.  This man, after being in terrible relationships, has taken the 5 years to begin to trust again.  He trusted his fiancé with anything or anybody.  She could do him no wrong.  After the marriage and a few years later, the couple falls into a rut and the woman strays.  She finds comfort in another man and cheats on her now husband.  Not knowing what to say to her husband, she continues to make him believe that she is still in love and that he is the only one.  Of course, the husband doesn’t realize anything until the relationship begins to falter.  She starts to have secret conversations away from the husband and decides not to be as intimate as she used to be.  Now begins the paranoia.

He begins to investigate and finds that she in fact has strayed and anything she says could be an outright lie.  The trust has gone down the window.  Even if she admits to the relationship, the husband no longer believes her.  She, of course, explains that nothing sexual has happened but her “Friend” was there for support in areas that her husband wasn’t.

When she says that nothing happened should the husband believe her?  Good question but the answer is will he?  Everything that she has said is a lie.  So now she can do no right.  Now he also starts to question the areas in which she told him she loved him.  How about those late nights at the office or business trips she took?  How can he believe anything she has said?  Now after she left him she realizes that she truly loves him and made and error.  The problem is that now regardless of her actions of redemption he does not trust it.  Is she here because of necessity or because she truly feels remorse and loves him?

He, on the other hand, has looked into his soul and decided to forgive her and take her back, however, will their relationship get stronger or will it fade away?  Can he ever trust her again?  That’s where the healing begins.  Sometimes a person can be placed in a situation where trust is forced upon them.  A person always has a choice in life and trusting someone is one of them but what happens when you have the choice of trusting them or going crazy and getting more paranoid?  I guess what I am basically saying is that to trust again is to let go and move on.  The persons involved need to let go and understand that you can’t change the past.  Learning to accept what has happen and make a choice to progress in any situation is not as easy as it sounds.    It is important that the problem be identified and talked about.  With the person you have lost the trust or some neutral party that will make you think, accept and move on.

Life’s experience will get you to a point in your life where mature responses are the only responses.  Conditioning is the key.  Raised in a family where it’s okay to cheat, the children will grow to be cheaters themselves.  They know that the party that has been cheated on will always forgive and accept the consequences of their decisions.  That faithful wife will be there until she can’t anymore.  That husband that has been made a cuckold will accept and move on.  Now the tables will turn when the cheating spouse decides to be faithful and the victim plans revenge.  Where has the trust gone.

In order to make things work, revenge has to be taken out of the equation.  I can come up with at least two sayings that work.

1.   “Burn me once, shame on you.  Burn me twice, shame on me!”

2.   “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

There is no way of saying its okay to enact revenge.  I guess it would be up to the individual and what his/her needs are when they do it.  To trust someone after they have burned you can be done but they must earn what they have lost with you.  Time usually heals all wounds but how long?

If a child is being raised to hear “NO!” every time he asks for something, does he asks for anything or does he just take it?  Of course, the child is filling his needs by taking it even though he has been conditioned to ask first.  The constant denial of his requests leads him to find other means of achieving his set goals.  By denying him you may feel he hasn’t earned it but what happens when he never earns his requests/rewards.  He takes it anyway and continues on.  This action is not usual for children but the fact of the matter is that conditioning can be hazardous to your children’s health.  Especially if the child has ADD/ODD.  To clarify ADD is Attention Deficit Disorder and ODD is Oppositional Defiant Disorder