It's Always Been a Matter of Trust .......

Have you ever been with someone you didn’t fully trust …. phone calls and texts at odd hours or a certain evasiveness when it comes to discussing personal matters? With regard to relationships, everyone wants to put their best face forward – especially in the beginning, which may cause one to ‘gloss’ over certain details contained within the past, or to even withhold pertinent information altogether. But such tactics are at best inadvisable, because as affection naturally tends to grow over time and manifest into something extraordinary, your partner can’t help feeling disgruntled once an unexpected truth inevitably surfaces, and such feelings of betrayal are difficult – if not impossible – to overcome. Consequently, you’ve managed to set yourself up for a fall despite all of your best efforts to appear ‘perfect’.

But the truth of the matter is ‘no one’ is perfect. More likely than not, we’ve all taken the wrong fork in the road a time or two in our quest to find everlasting happiness. Therefore, wouldn’t it be more prudent and wise to admit having made past mistakes before they have a chance to reveal themselves on their own, thereby serving to create the ‘undoing’ you were trying to avoid in the first place?

Because I place such a high premium on being honest, I have always more or less expected the same from my partner. As such I have ended up getting burned more often than I care to admit with my last significant relationship having left me over seventeen thousand dollars in debt due to his careless negligence and extreme measures to hide the truth. Oh well …. it’s only money, and that I can earn, but while I managed to keep my integrity intact, he sacrificed his by shooting it in the back as it walked out the door. It is in times like these I manage to keep otherwise predictable bitterness at bay by reminding myself, “Karma’s a bitch.” A man who willingly takes advantage of a woman who wholeheartedly surrenders both her love and trust hardly possesses the right equipment to call himself a man …. but I digress.

According to my time-honored tradition of choosing to learn my lessons the hard way, I’ve managed to come up with a few methods of determining whether or not your lover is telling the truth. When you choose to give your ‘whole heart’ and the love, honor and attention to back it up, it’s not necessarily considered sneaky or under-handed to put your partner to the test.

First of all, if you have reason to suspect dishonesty, then it might be judicious to discover the reason or reasons ‘why’ prior to coming unhinged. More often than not people are overly concerned about what others might think of them. Thus in an effort to maintain a ‘good reputation’ white lies and embellishments can become a force of habit that at times can even begin to feel like reality. Oftentimes, as a means of getting ahead, people tend to create a certain persona in their minds representing an ‘ideal’ they can only wish they’d lived up to in reality, and in this regard a foundation is laid and facts are inserted to support the claims that have at some point become real. They don’t perceive it as lying so much as living up to an expectation. However, the flip side of the same coin reveals an individual who has perpetuated lies in an attempt to control the narrative. Whether he or she tells little white lies, cheats, or hides money and the evidence of truth, the ongoing deception becomes a habitual form of coping with their relationships, and by the time their dishonesty is exposed, irreparable harm has been done.

More often, the true test of one’s moral character lies in the ‘little things’ or as is often said, “The devil is in the details.” For instance, do the call when they say they will? Or follow thru on a requests? Do they show support equal to that of your own, or is there an ongoing list of excuses for not ‘being there’?

Another cue is how they behave around others ….. are they considerate and respectful, the same endearing person you’ve always known, or do they speak ill of those not around? If so, chances are they will speak just as unfavorably of you when you’re not in attendance.

Another thing worth considering is do you consider your partner an ‘open book’ or an impenetrable vault? If someone truly loves you, then complete and total disclosure should never become an issue, but I find the true test of someone’s authenticity comes into play when they show themselves willing to introduce you to their friends and family. After all, these people know them better than anyone as those relationships run deep. If these ever important introductions are a natural progression to your relationship and accomplished with relative ease, then chances are good your mate has nothing to hide. Conversely if you’re being kept from these people for an extended amount of time, then your relationship is not as serious as you might hope or think.

Trust is the cornerstone of any important relationship. Therefore, without it you hardly have a strong enough foundation on which to build true happiness that will stand the test of time. Regardless of what point you are in your progression, you must know you can never experience the kind of real intimacy that leads to everlasting love absent of honesty and sincerity. Otherwise, it’s like trying to sustain the fires of passion without oxygen ….. it simply cannot be done.