trust

Very simply put: He’s it. He’s the one. And I still occasionally ask myself, am I crazy to put all my faith into one person? What if he meets someone else? What if I change and get bored all of a sudden? But those are other questions… of little importance to me now, because I trust. And that gives me so much peace of mind. No need to speculate about our future, snoop, worry, read statistics on duration of relationships, worry about how to appear to him, lie, be lied to, etc.

It’s strange that I was never specifically looking for this, but nevertheless fought for it the whole time. I didn’t even know how that condition I fought for so hard would feel like… my parents’ dysfunctional marriage certainly didn’t show me, my friends’ parents seemed to be from outer space anyway, and my friends weren’t so lucky in their relationships either. Cues from novels and films – but they only ever offered glimpses.

And oh we still fight. But we also always talk a lot.

Is it possible to celebrate this without sounding horribly smug? We have a hundred things still not figured out, things that may put a spanner in the works of this relationship. But here we are and our mutual trust is better and more important to our everyday well-being than I could have ever imagined. Peace of mind indeed. It’d be nice if I could learn to have as much faith in myself.

From today’s viewpoint it’s unfathomable what we were like when I first adopted this goal. Adversaries. Looking at us now, I wouldn’t think this iciness possible. We are best friends again, maybe more than we ever were before. We’re still not sure which paths to take in our lives, but we’re walking side by side and helping each other to find the way.

About 2007 and 2008 he himself has said, simply, “maybe I changed”. Commitment as the solution to commitment issues? Is that going to work long-term? And I’m not even sure if it’s a change I wanted, not when I suspect he’s simply been pushing those questions to the back of his mind. (And maybe so have I.) In any case, even though he didn’t ever say I was, I refuse to be held responsible for this “change”... meaning that to my knowledge there’s nothing about me that changed, so I didn’t “led him on”, and I also certainly didn’t do much to change him and didn’t ask him to become somebody he’s not. (Yeah, it’s weird to get worked up about this.) I just told him to make up his mind. But perhaps that’s something one has to do over and over again – confront those questions.

Other trust issues still to be resolved: the trust in my own abilities, the trust to be placed in friends and those who might become friends, in life in general. Step by step.

Trust, in the past weeks and months, has mostly been about creating a belief in myself – in my ability to get out of this impasse, vicious circle, I’m not even sure what it is. Still, on a night like this, my intuition, as in a faint whisper, begs for attention. Of course I know what triggers these thoughts and emotions… And I found myself thinking this morning how impossible it seems that anything like that could happen again. To us?

And isn’t it true that I’m the one who can’t let her go?
(I even thought about M. today for a minute!)

We are currently a bit under the weather. Jaded. Worn out. (I get all my metaphors mixed up.) Bad coughs which don’t allow for kisses, coming home late at night, all that. Besides that, we’re doing fine. And there are those very special moments on otherwise ordinary, unremarkable days, that fill my heart with joy. I’ve no reason to think that my luck will leave.

I should remember this: THIS is as good as love can feel. I wondered if it might be even better if our lives were different, with secure careers and a child and a real home et cetera, but somehow… I don’t think it could be any better than THIS: the love, faith and trust I have in this relationship and in this man. And in myself, as regards this relationship. How good it feels.

The knowledge that M. went to New York saddens me. I see so many parallels to my 26-year-old self… I went to New York too when I was 26 (the last of many times, and haven’t been since, which is hard for me to believe). Together with my boyfriend, and we also took pictures of us kissing on the Brooklyn Bridge. In love, young, happy, and pretty too, when I look at the pictures ;-) Life seemed good, full of promises. The range of choices has narrowed down so much. I look at her life and think: Where would I be without you, now? The heartbreak you caused? All of this doesn’t exactly make me envious, rather… clueless as what to do with my own life, where to take it. T. said something about living one’s life through others. A flippant comment, does he really believe that? Maybe correct in the past, but this is not it. I’m looking for clues, but don’t know in which places to look.

I posted this elsewhere before, but I think it belongs here.

No, I was wrong about that. He wasn’t trustworthy. It all came out two days later. One little thing ruined the big gesture – one egoistic moment, the impression that there truly is a “we”. I fell hard. It’s all intertwined. My trust in myself, my trust in my ability to create the life of my dreams, and my trust in other people.

I also thought about Kate Croy, Merton Densher. “Upon my honour”. What ever does it mean, in this age, same as more than a hundred years ago? You want the other person to be with you, you love him and want happiness and FREEDOM for him – but demand that sacrifices be made?

And yet, he so desperately wants me to trust him. For him it’s so clearcut at the end of the day: What I did was wrong, but what you can do now is only this: leave, or trust me.

Even if I did that, the biggest problem (if the others fade) is… that he might have newly created the problem. I don’t know.

Yes. We’re good.

It’s not such a big thing, but it’s a chance to see how good we are. Things will either get worse from here, with a wait, with doubt and suspicion. Or he’ll handle this well, all will be fine and we’ll get proof that we’re good. I’ll see.

I know how awful it sounds when people say, I don’t trust this person around my significant other. For it really is their partner who isn’t trustworthy then, right? (The other person is just a… symptom.)

But I began to suspect, sometime last winter, that maybe it’s not as clear-cut as this. And this is why I have decided to think that I don’t trust her. I trust him. But not her, and this is why I will say: don’t re-establish contact yet.

I’m sorry I told him something else two weeks ago and he’s rightfully annoyed with me for changing my mind all of a sudden, but it was a mistake, I can’t take it, chances are that it’s not gonna work anyway, so: no. I know I need more time to heal, I know he can deal with it, and lastly: I don’t care about her! (This is about us first and we can do without her.) Basta.

The “routinization process” ... trust? I guess it is trust, on a daily and very basic but nevertheless meaningful level when I: don’t worry, don’t spy, don’t go crazy about things I imagine (in contrast to things I know) to be happening. That’s where we are right now – we still occasionally talk about last year, for instance, and about “that” person, but I think it is about us now, and that there’s nobody else entering the picture.

So, there’s recently been a small exchange along the lines of: “If you get to know somebody else, like a new colleague, and find yourself thinking you could fall in love with her/him, what do you do?” Would it mean the end or first of all the downward spiral, again, of our relationship? Or would a decision be made to evade that new person, in order to save the relationship? Would that be the mature, wise thing to do? Or, if one’s slightly tempted, does it mean the relationship is past its prime anyway? It’s hard to decide.