|
|
Trusting In Love!
How You Can Restore Sexual
Trust
by Riki Robbins, Ph.D.
Trust is
the foundation of love. Yet how do you build
it? With monotonous regularity you hear your
friends and colleagues say, "You can't
trust anyone anymore."
Almost every popular magazine you open has an
article about how couples cheat on each other.
Yes, a majority of married men and women do
have sex with someone beside their spouse at
least once. And most of them keep it a secret.
So what should you conclude? That you're crazy
if you trust your partner? Absolutely not.
Ultimately
you have to trust someone you love. When you
doubt the truth of everything that your
partner says, you end up feeling crazy. When
you have sex and you have reason to believe
your partner's been unfaithful, you feel
turned off and upset. Mistrust can make you
both physically and mentally sick. To have a
healthy approach to life you must believe in
someone and something.
Believe in
Yourself
Romantic
and sexual trust are difficult to establish
because they involve both you and another
human being. To build a foundation of trust
you must lay the bricks at the bottom first.
Before you can trust other people, you must
choose to believe in yourself. This means
knowing yourself, feeling comfortable with
yourself, believing you will act in your own
best interest, understanding you are capable
of protecting yourself from danger, and having
confidence in your good judgment. If you
already know, love, value, respect, and
appreciate who you are, you probably have all
five of these crucial attitudes. You can say
to yourself, "I know you, I feel safe
with you, I can take care of you, I can rely
on you, I believe in you" — and mean it.
You realize that your primary and fundamental
loyalty is always to yourself. You know who
you are. You have integrity toward yourself.
Integrity
means wholeness. It requires spending time
going within to discover and embrace the inner
you. Self-knowledge takes courage. Sometimes
you may not like what you find. For example, I
realize that I have strong masculine traits.
Although I am a petite, feminine-looking
woman, I am also highly independent, motivated
to achieve, and gifted with a strong sex
drive. So I don't fit into the traditional
stereotype of a woman. Knowing my own
strengths and weaknesses enables me to believe
in myself. I have confidence that I can
establish trusting relationships with people
who appreciate my uniqueness.
Trust Your
Intuition
To believe
in yourself also means to connect with your
intuition. Trust is a feeling. You can't
describe it exactly, but you know it when you
have it. Your inner voice speaks to you and
you listen: "This is a good person; trust
him" or "Watch out for that person;
she's dangerous". Even if other people
tell you something opposite, you don't pay
attention to anyone else's voice but your own.
You have to honor what's inside. "Follow
your gut", as a psychiatrist friend once
said to me.
Once I
answered a personal ad that began,
"Lovable Lion. Well educated, passionate
man seeks..." He and I spoke on the
phone a couple of times and then met at a
restaurant. It turned out that "Lovable
Lion" (a Leo by horoscope) was tall,
handsome, and charming, and we had a
delightful dinner together. Afterward he asked
if he could come over to my house for a drink.
What should I do? I was extremely attracted to
him, but I was also aware that he weighed
twice as much as I did and could knock me down
with one karate chop. My inner voice said
loudly and clearly, "He's safe", so
I trusted my instincts and agreed. As we
walked up the steps toward my front door I
told him about my hesitation. He replied,
"Of course you trusted me. You wouldn't
have invited me over otherwise." I've
experienced this "instant trust"
with other lovers as well.
Many
couples intuitively trust in each other from
the moment they meet. One pair experienced
this trust so powerfully that he proposed
marriage (and she accepted) on the first date —
after
they had been together
less than six hours. Countless other couples
have had sexual relations, confided deeply
personal secrets, or been emotionally open
right from the start. The seeds of trust
germinate and grow when there is powerful
initial bonding.
Trust
is a Risk
You
deliberately choose to trust. Just as you can
decide to betray someone, you can also decide
to give that person your loyalty. Sometimes
it's difficult to know what's the right
choice. In a world of romantic and sexual
chaos, how do you know whom to trust and when?
You don't want to follow your impulses
blindly. Before you make a decision to trust
someone you love, you ask for divine guidance,
assess the facts, and — most important — follow
your intuition.
Trust is a
risk. You feel attracted to someone. What
shall you do? Of course, you can always walk
away. Or you can let down your guard and say,
"I feel comfortable with you. I want to
be sexual, to reveal my inner self, to be
vulnerable, and to offer my unconditional
love." Now you are taking a leap of
faith. You don't know the outcome. When you
decide to trust someone you open yourself up
to joy — and to potential danger.
If you've
been betrayed, you can either decide that you
can't trust anyone or you can continue to take
leaps of faith. If you choose the latter, then
be sure to protect yourself. As Ravi Dykema,
publisher of Nexus, a popular New Age
newspaper from Boulder, Colorado puts it,
"If you were about to get on a ship and
you knew that there was a better than even
chance it would sink, wouldn't you interview
the captain first? Wouldn't you make sure the
life boats were in shape and have a working
life preserver with you just in case there was
a disaster? The same is true in romantic
relationships. If you know that there's a one
out of two chance that your marriage will end
in divorce, then it makes sense to protect
yourself financially, sexually, and
emotionally." Always have a fallback
position just in case a betrayal happens.
Ultimately,
trust requires you to move toward love and
away from fear. You choose to stop being
afraid of the consequences of trusting someone
and to start connecting deeply with that
person instead.
Why do we
fear to trust? Because as soon as you let down
your guard, you allow another person to gain
control over your life. If you have sex with
someone you give them the power to hurt you as
well as to give you pleasure. They may infect
you with a sexually transmitted disease,
withhold their body, refuse to indulge in your
sexual fantasies, or betray you. If you let
them know exactly how much money you have,
they may pressure you to share it with them.
If you expose your emotional vulnerabilities,
they may ridicule them, or put you down. Or if
you share your fears with them, they may use
this information to manipulate you. To give
away control to someone else is an act of
courage.
Trust
Takes Time
So how do
we ever manage to trust each other sexually or
romantically? It doesn't happen in a day. Even
when deep intuitive bonding takes place right
from the start, you still have to stop, look,
and listen. You can't create trust like you
make instant coffee. It takes time.
Over a
period of weeks, months, and years, you test
your partner to find out if he is trustworthy.
First there are small tests: "Will you
stop flirting with that secretary at the
office who has an obvious crush on you? It
bothers me when you kiss her on the cheek in
front of me." Then there are medium-sized
tests: "When I work late, will you resist
the temptation to go to a bar? If you do, will
you go home alone?" And there are big
tests: "Will you keep your agreement not
to have sex with someone else when you're away
on business trips? Will you tell me the truth
if you do?" Each time you ask questions
like these, trust will either grow or die — depending
on how your partner answers them.
The problem
with trust is that it's dynamic, not static.
People change. Some become more trustworthy,
and others become less so. The partner you
married who always told you where he was, kept
his promise to let you know when he was
sexually restless, and shared his erotic
fantasies freely may be different now. An
addiction, a new philosophy of life, or a
change in sexual preference may have moved him
in a whole new direction. He may be telling
white lies, black lies, or simply ignoring
your questions completely. There are no
guarantees.
Negotiating
Trust
One way you
can measure your partner's trustworthiness is
to negotiate — and renegotiate — agreements
about controversial sexual or romantic issues.
For example, you may both decide not to openly
flirt with other people while you are out for
the evening together. If your partner
repeatedly disregards your agreement, you
renegotiate it. Perhaps it's unreasonable to
expect both of you not to flirt at all; as
long as no overt sexual overtures are made you
can both play and tease a bit. If after
several renegotiations you partner still keeps
breaking agreements, you have a warning: Trust
between the two of you is weak. It's a gift;
take it as such.
Sometimes
you don't find out that your partner is
untrustworthy until the stakes are much
higher. Andrea, a newspaper reporter, promised
Bryan, a supermarket produce manager, that
they would live together. She made this
promise right after Christmas, and he believed
her. But after several overnight visits, she
changed her mind and decided that they should
keep separate apartments; she realized that
she needed her own space. Unfortunately,
Andrea waited until Easter before she told
Bryan about her change of heart. He was
shocked at her betrayal: "I trusted
Andrea that our relationship would go in the
direction we had agreed upon and it
didn't."
Trust and
Respect Go Hand in Hand
One reason
betrayal is so painful is that it indicates a
fundamental lack of respect. I can only betray
you if I don't value you, if I don't hold you
in high esteem, if I don't honor you, and if I
don't consider your feelings as important as
mine. After each of my mega-betrayals I asked
myself "Could he do this to me if he
really respected and loved me?" Each time
the answer was clearly "no".
Conversely, you lose respect for someone who
betrayed you. That's why it's difficult — if
not impossible — to allow yourself to be
emotionally vulnerable and to have satisfying
sex afterward. You can't be intimate with
someone you don't respect.
Two people
who trust each other share their nonnegotiable
issues. They tell each other what they will
and won't put up with. Each will be inclined
to respect the other's limits, not because
they fear the repercussions of violation but
because they are bonded by mutual respect. If
they put their feelings into words they would
say to each other, "You are very precious
to me. I want our relationship to last. I will
do my best to be worthy of your trust so you
can be relaxed and confident with me."
Or, as good friend of mine said to me
recently, "Trust me that I will never
deliberately do anything that would hurt you,
be unloving, or be disrespectful."
 This article
was excerpted and reprinted with
permission from Betrayed! How You Can Restore
Sexual Trust and Rebuild Your Life ©1998 Dr Riki
Robbins. Published by Adams Media Corporation.
http://www.adamsonline.com
Info/Order
this book
Another
article by this author:
The
Four Stages of Trust.
|
|
Categories |
|
|
|
Most
Popular |
|
|
|
Community Links |
|
|
|
Latest
News |
|
|
|
Donation |
|
|
|
Subscribe Free
|
|
|
|
InnerSelf Market |
|
|
|
Advertiser |
|
|
|
Advertiser |
|
|
|
Syndication |
|
|
|
