In a comment to my last post, “To Lay Me Down” my good friend Survived Narc brought up a good point about holding back just a little, until you can trust. Which is really another whole blog, so here goes.

How do we give our all once we’re in love, but still, make sure we can trust before we allow ourselves to fall? That’s the question, for me, the big question.

Brene Brown, in her book Rising Strong, and her talk “The Anatomy of Trust” (http://www.supersoul.tv/supersoul-sessions/the-anatomy-of-trust) breaks down in plain, clear, logical language how trust is created. I’ve learned so much from her, and I think that I now understand how I was so betrayed by Scott. I trusted him for all the wrong reasons, and thus, allowed myself to love him unbelievably intensely and dangerously.

I don’t know how to balance the two. Trust and love. Him….I felt like I knew him, felt like I loved him before we even met. I assumed he was trustworthy, I assumed it because of all the wrong reasons. Because he told me “secrets” which he swore he’d never told anyone else, but turns out he had. He lied, so much that it boggles my mind, but I believed him. Mostly, because so many of the lies were unnecessary. He didn’t need to tell me that his ex girlfriend was married. It would have made no difference to me why they broke up, or how, or what she did. He just lied. Of course, if he told me that he was waiting for her to come to her senses, and come back to him, it might have stopped me. But after months, neither he nor I thought she was coming back. I foolishly thought he and I had something too, because of the lies he told me. Things like “I said I didn’t want to be in love with you, Deb, but I didn’t say I wasn’t.” “You scare me, because I have a lot of feelings for you, and I don’t want to be in love….” “in my own way, I love you too.”

Well, needless to say, I learned my lesson.

I think that while love and trust are two separate things, they go hand in hand if you want to have a strong healthy relationship. So while I stand by my belief that not holding back in a relationship, if I love someone, maybe I would temper that statement by saying, I would let that love grow much more slowly, in tandem with my trust for the person. Just, not jump in with both feet until, as Brene says, they have filled my marble jar. Filled it without periodically dumping all the marbles out of it.

Loving without trust is walking the edge. My heart is not strong enough for that any more. I want solid ground, which means, I will give my all, but give it appropriately for where the relationship is at the moment. I won’t jump in believing it’s more than it is. But I won’t hold back either. I’ll just stay in the moment, and let both love and trust grow simultaneously.

I guess my thoughts that I am willing to be vulnerable is still valid, because I am. I am willing to say “I love you” first. But if it’s never said back to me, ever, or always qualified, or quantified, then the relationship will stall, not for lack of love but for lack of trust.

I used to say love was a choice, to fall in love was a choice. I never felt like loving Scott was a choice. It just was, it was from the first time we met. I don’t know what that was, why it was. I still believe we have past history, in another life. He used to believe that too, though I’m sure he denies it now. But he used to read me, just like I read him. Even with the limited contact of the last 6 months, I have known every time I have heard from him, that I would hear from him before I did. Even if it’s just to have him call and hang up, leaving no message. Or to leave me a voice mail. But I do know that if I ever feel that love at first sight thing again, a big “Slow Zone” sign will pop up in my head. A big question mark, following the question, “Can you trust him??? I know now that I can love unconditionally, but not let that person in my life unless and until I can trust them.

It’s a balance….to love, to be vulnerable, to trust, to build trust. It’s all a balancing act. Complicated and simple. A conundrum, of the human condition, lol.