T.K.O- Trust
Trust and betrayal, two very powerful words, and when used together they do not acquire a positive outcome but rather a bitter, hurtful handful rage of emotions.
Isn't it funny how our thoughts work (the way we think)? Not only do our thoughts affect how we feel but also dictate what mood we are in. Our thoughts become an overwhelming physical energy that we allow ourselves to create whether for good or bad. The thing we need to do is to be aware of those thoughts so that we are in charge of them rather than having our
thoughts be in charge of us. For example, if your partner betrays you, and all you can think about is "he is the worst person in the world and I am the poor victimized party", not only will you be blinded to all the things leading up to the betrayal but you will also be blinded to many of the roads leading away from it. Therefore you will be locked inside a prison of your own making!
I got to admit, I have struggled a lot to learn and accept that part of trusting means that it can many times comes hand in hand with betrayal. I trust to the point of having faith in my partner. Faith to include: this person will never hurt me, this person will secure my heart in his hands and protect it from everything and everyone (including himself), that I will be put first no matter the circumstance. I trust that he won’t make me cry or cause me pain. But trust is not always like we expect it to be. Sometimes for instance a relationship can get so stale that some form of betrayal or a major eye opener needs to take place in order to wake up the marriage/relationship. I know that long term relationships often fall into the "comfort zone" we get to the place when our image or pleasing the other person no longer matters. We allow the every day life to take first place in our life, leaving our partner to feel "taken for granted".
Maybe that is why men seek to find someone else to pay attention, or woman begin to seek other man’s compliments, with our without the intention to cheat but rather to find that missing aliment that they had when the relationship started.
Now comes the dangerous part, take for example, a married couple grows apart, and the relationship becomes "stale". Then the bored husband begins to be too "playful" or "friendly" towards someone else maybe even with someone from his work, thinking their partner will never find out but the partner does find out. The wife has caught on to what has happened and betrayal takes place. Especially when the wife has been totally faithful and has never disrespected the relationship in that kind of way. Does it matter that the partner to blame was not unfaithful per say. Meaning he did not sleep with another woman or touched her (men always say that). But they might have crossed the line. After all crossing the line can signify anything. Cheating is not always sleeping with someone, it can be as innocent as private emails, or anything that is concealed to the other party it is a form to me of betrayal of trust. After all if it does not mean anything then why hide it?
The hardest questions after a betrayal is asking yourself are you willing to trust enough to continue to love in the face of betrayal. Is that relationship worth saving and if so are you willing to forgive? All hard questions to face. Each answer is unique to each individual circumstance, depending on the level of betrayal, the relationship status, kids etc.
A really close friend of mine told me once, if you are going to forgive then you must forgive and forget and never talk about what happened again. Otherwise it's better to let him go, if you cannot let "it" go. That really got to me and as I contemplated about it more I realize she was right. Sometimes we say "If I let it go and forgive him and not bring it up no more, its like saying that what he does is ok" so we want to keep him on the hook to remind him of what he did and how he hurt us. But at the same time in order to keep him on the hook we have to stay there with him, suffering and in pain because you want to remind him that he hurt you over and over, and in doing so you cannot allow your self to heal.
Personally when I have been betrayed in the past (I am talking pre marriage, I was always lucky enough to pick all the cheaters) I would clam up and hold everything in. I was reluctant to tell anyone about my pain (besides my sister [who has been my best friend since childhood]). I would hold on to the situation and re-enact it in my mind as to punish myself, thinking I was to blame for being cheated on. I would put on a tough face for everyone (which was really hard) but I was hurting inside.
Nowadays I believe that you should just let it out, talk to people about it, if you don’t have someone to talk to then just write out your feelings (like I am doing with my column), just let it out, don’t hold back your feelings, they will only fluctuate into a monster that will attack you when you least expect it.
Learning to trust again can be challenging but very worth it. Me, I took a chance and whether I get hurt again then that is a chance I am willing to take. I would rather have or try to have a happy marriage knowing that we are a strong family and that my kids have a happy household than to be bitter and end something not knowing if it could have worked out and destroy my family because of my insecurities and for not taking a chance to be loved or risk getting hurt once more. (That does not mean that I will have a flawless marriage, all it means that I am willing to fight for my marriage, and not give up on what God
joined together)
Like I said every circumstance is different depending on the level of betrayal. My wound did hurt a lot emotionally for months and is still lingers in my thoughts every now and then, but compared to cheating and other forms of betrayal mine is one I can forgive and a wound that has begun to heal and will close up through the passage of time.
If it is worth it to forgive then do anything and everything to make your relationship work. If it is not worth it then let that person go, why keep them around so that the both of you can be miserable. Let it go and move on, or stay and fight for what is yours (not fight literally, unless you both are into that stuff and that is a whole different subject).
If you have any comments or questions feel free to contact me at laangel1727@yahoo.com
Angel
Isn't it funny how our thoughts work (the way we think)? Not only do our thoughts affect how we feel but also dictate what mood we are in. Our thoughts become an overwhelming physical energy that we allow ourselves to create whether for good or bad. The thing we need to do is to be aware of those thoughts so that we are in charge of them rather than having our
thoughts be in charge of us. For example, if your partner betrays you, and all you can think about is "he is the worst person in the world and I am the poor victimized party", not only will you be blinded to all the things leading up to the betrayal but you will also be blinded to many of the roads leading away from it. Therefore you will be locked inside a prison of your own making!
I got to admit, I have struggled a lot to learn and accept that part of trusting means that it can many times comes hand in hand with betrayal. I trust to the point of having faith in my partner. Faith to include: this person will never hurt me, this person will secure my heart in his hands and protect it from everything and everyone (including himself), that I will be put first no matter the circumstance. I trust that he won’t make me cry or cause me pain. But trust is not always like we expect it to be. Sometimes for instance a relationship can get so stale that some form of betrayal or a major eye opener needs to take place in order to wake up the marriage/relationship. I know that long term relationships often fall into the "comfort zone" we get to the place when our image or pleasing the other person no longer matters. We allow the every day life to take first place in our life, leaving our partner to feel "taken for granted".
Maybe that is why men seek to find someone else to pay attention, or woman begin to seek other man’s compliments, with our without the intention to cheat but rather to find that missing aliment that they had when the relationship started.
Now comes the dangerous part, take for example, a married couple grows apart, and the relationship becomes "stale". Then the bored husband begins to be too "playful" or "friendly" towards someone else maybe even with someone from his work, thinking their partner will never find out but the partner does find out. The wife has caught on to what has happened and betrayal takes place. Especially when the wife has been totally faithful and has never disrespected the relationship in that kind of way. Does it matter that the partner to blame was not unfaithful per say. Meaning he did not sleep with another woman or touched her (men always say that). But they might have crossed the line. After all crossing the line can signify anything. Cheating is not always sleeping with someone, it can be as innocent as private emails, or anything that is concealed to the other party it is a form to me of betrayal of trust. After all if it does not mean anything then why hide it?
The hardest questions after a betrayal is asking yourself are you willing to trust enough to continue to love in the face of betrayal. Is that relationship worth saving and if so are you willing to forgive? All hard questions to face. Each answer is unique to each individual circumstance, depending on the level of betrayal, the relationship status, kids etc.
A really close friend of mine told me once, if you are going to forgive then you must forgive and forget and never talk about what happened again. Otherwise it's better to let him go, if you cannot let "it" go. That really got to me and as I contemplated about it more I realize she was right. Sometimes we say "If I let it go and forgive him and not bring it up no more, its like saying that what he does is ok" so we want to keep him on the hook to remind him of what he did and how he hurt us. But at the same time in order to keep him on the hook we have to stay there with him, suffering and in pain because you want to remind him that he hurt you over and over, and in doing so you cannot allow your self to heal.
Personally when I have been betrayed in the past (I am talking pre marriage, I was always lucky enough to pick all the cheaters) I would clam up and hold everything in. I was reluctant to tell anyone about my pain (besides my sister [who has been my best friend since childhood]). I would hold on to the situation and re-enact it in my mind as to punish myself, thinking I was to blame for being cheated on. I would put on a tough face for everyone (which was really hard) but I was hurting inside.
Nowadays I believe that you should just let it out, talk to people about it, if you don’t have someone to talk to then just write out your feelings (like I am doing with my column), just let it out, don’t hold back your feelings, they will only fluctuate into a monster that will attack you when you least expect it.
Learning to trust again can be challenging but very worth it. Me, I took a chance and whether I get hurt again then that is a chance I am willing to take. I would rather have or try to have a happy marriage knowing that we are a strong family and that my kids have a happy household than to be bitter and end something not knowing if it could have worked out and destroy my family because of my insecurities and for not taking a chance to be loved or risk getting hurt once more. (That does not mean that I will have a flawless marriage, all it means that I am willing to fight for my marriage, and not give up on what God
joined together)
Like I said every circumstance is different depending on the level of betrayal. My wound did hurt a lot emotionally for months and is still lingers in my thoughts every now and then, but compared to cheating and other forms of betrayal mine is one I can forgive and a wound that has begun to heal and will close up through the passage of time.
If it is worth it to forgive then do anything and everything to make your relationship work. If it is not worth it then let that person go, why keep them around so that the both of you can be miserable. Let it go and move on, or stay and fight for what is yours (not fight literally, unless you both are into that stuff and that is a whole different subject).
If you have any comments or questions feel free to contact me at laangel1727@yahoo.com
Angel
Labels: angel
posted by Marie at 9:47 PM
2 Comments:
The problem with being human is that we're all so damn fallible. We mess up all the time, we're imperfect and self-centered, and yet we find it hard to forgive those qualities in others. I doubt there are many people who intend to betray their spouses, just as few murderers plan it out ahead of time. Crimes of passion, indeed.
And then there's the issue of just what betrayal means to each individual. I remember reading about this study (and I'll spare you the statistics as I can't recall them off the top of my head), which addressed the differences in the reactions of men and women to various "betrayals" (my/your term). Basically, the gist of it was that men were much more concerned with their wives' sexual fidelity, while women were more offended by emotional infidelity -- a close non-sexual friendship between their husbands and another woman was more disturbing than their husbands cheating sexually.
When something as simple as that can be interpreted in two such divergent ways, it's amazing that human beings can get along as well as they can. Kudos to all who are willing to invest the effort to make their relationships work even after potholes and pitfalls -- as long as their partners are willing to do the same.
A lot of things will make more sense if you make two basic assumptions:
1. People -- men and women, young and old, loving and sadistic, maladjusted and normal, kinky and plain vanilla -- are all basically looking for the same thing: love and acceptance. They just go about it in different ways.
2. People are not nearly as evolved from animals as we would like to believe.
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