Rebuilding Trust?
- Thread starter SweetErika
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No, you sound very, very human. It is very easy to say or write "you have to forgive the other person", it is very, very difficult in reality to do so, and I hope my post didn't make it sound like it was easy. There are people in my life I cannot forgive, even though I know it is healthier for me, I have a mother in law that though she is no longer in our lives, I feel nothing but hatred and anger towards, realizing what she did not only to screw up her own life but our own, and it is the kind of anger that could lead someone to kill others...(and no, I am not one of those people, if I was I would have been in jail a long time ago with her..). So obviously we all can have problems with that. I have been with other people, though in some cases it is easy because they have truly asked for it and showed repentance, though there are some I have forgiven who reminded obstinate SOB's until the day they died....
One thing I suggest? First things first, forgive yourself. One of the things I have found is that part of the anger and such at the person we feel has wronged us is anger at ourselves for letting it happen, and often that gets turned outward towards the other person, adding to the pain. A person can convince themselves they can't forgive the other person, when what they cannot forgive is themselves. I know of someone, an acquaintance of a friend, whose wife was sexually assaulted by a friend of his and he was not surprisingly obsessed with the guy who did this.... the problem was he couldn't get beyond it, and in the process was driving his wife away from him because he couldn't let it go, for among other things it was a constant reminder to her, who had her own issues of guilt and such (even though she was pure victim)....it was ugly and in the end it had little to do with the rapist and more about the hubby. Basically, he felt guilty because a)he couldn't protect his wife, who he was truly crazy about and b)because it was his friend he felt like he brought it upon his wife, he couldn't forgive himself. It took a damn good therapist and a lot of work but he was finally able to get to the point where at the very least he could be there for his spouse, help her and help her feel the love she needed, so she could move on (they had a fantastic therapist).
I think too religion has something to say for this, beyond the forgive us for our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.......A writer on comparative religion and later the minister of a church I belonged to for a bit, both said that reading the Jewish scripture is interesting, because unlike Christian writings, with Christ as a perfect being/person, their heroes are flawed, and it is an important lesson I think, because it tells us that even the best of us, even the best we might see of ourselves, has flaws, are not godlike. When you forgive another person like that, you are recognizing that basic thing, that they are flawed, that they are quite frankly human, but more importantly, you can look inside yourself and see the same flaws, the same things, that might have caused that person to transgress against you. Again, not saying it is easy, but the old greek adage "know thyself" is not just a bromide, it also can allow us to understand others, see the flaws we have and realize they too have them, that we are capable of doing similar things. If you understand that, it can make it easy to forgive.....but it takes work, because emotions don't listen to your brain. My mother in law has dementia, hasn't really been in our lives for more then a few years, yet I still hate her, still feel what she did to us, I know it doesn't make sense, but deep down the anger is still there, I haven't been able to let it go, and yes, it hurts me and it also hurts my relationship with my spouse, so I am not judging or saying 'just let go', it isn't that easy.
If it is something that is really burning you up, hurting you, then I urge you to find a good therapist to work this through, there are a lot of techniques that might help. One suggestion, find someone skilled in a technique called EMDR, it can help you get to the root of things faster then other methods; can't guarantee that, but having used it and seen what it did for myself and my spouse for some pretty heavy stuff, might be worth a shot. Counsellors and therapists are trained to help you find the answer, and letting go does help
Noor
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No, you sound very, very human. It is very easy to say or write "you have to forgive the other person", it is very, very difficult in reality to do so, and I hope my post didn't make it sound like it was easy. There are people in my life I cannot forgive, even though I know it is healthier for me, I have a mother in law that though she is no longer in our lives, I feel nothing but hatred and anger towards, realizing what she did not only to screw up her own life but our own, and it is the kind of anger that could lead someone to kill others...(and no, I am not one of those people, if I was I would have been in jail a long time ago with her..). So obviously we all can have problems with that. I have been with other people, though in some cases it is easy because they have truly asked for it and showed repentance, though there are some I have forgiven who reminded obstinate SOB's until the day they died....
One thing I suggest? First things first, forgive yourself. One of the things I have found is that part of the anger and such at the person we feel has wronged us is anger at ourselves for letting it happen, and often that gets turned outward towards the other person, adding to the pain. A person can convince themselves they can't forgive the other person, when what they cannot forgive is themselves. I know of someone, an acquaintance of a friend, whose wife was sexually assaulted by a friend of his and he was not surprisingly obsessed with the guy who did this.... the problem was he couldn't get beyond it, and in the process was driving his wife away from him because he couldn't let it go, for among other things it was a constant reminder to her, who had her own issues of guilt and such (even though she was pure victim)....it was ugly and in the end it had little to do with the rapist and more about the hubby. Basically, he felt guilty because a)he couldn't protect his wife, who he was truly crazy about and b)because it was his friend he felt like he brought it upon his wife, he couldn't forgive himself. It took a damn good therapist and a lot of work but he was finally able to get to the point where at the very least he could be there for his spouse, help her and help her feel the love she needed, so she could move on (they had a fantastic therapist).
I think too religion has something to say for this, beyond the forgive us for our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.......A writer on comparative religion and later the minister of a church I belonged to for a bit, both said that reading the Jewish scripture is interesting, because unlike Christian writings, with Christ as a perfect being/person, their heroes are flawed, and it is an important lesson I think, because it tells us that even the best of us, even the best we might see of ourselves, has flaws, are not godlike. When you forgive another person like that, you are recognizing that basic thing, that they are flawed, that they are quite frankly human, but more importantly, you can look inside yourself and see the same flaws, the same things, that might have caused that person to transgress against you. Again, not saying it is easy, but the old greek adage "know thyself" is not just a bromide, it also can allow us to understand others, see the flaws we have and realize they too have them, that we are capable of doing similar things. If you understand that, it can make it easy to forgive.....but it takes work, because emotions don't listen to your brain. My mother in law has dementia, hasn't really been in our lives for more then a few years, yet I still hate her, still feel what she did to us, I know it doesn't make sense, but deep down the anger is still there, I haven't been able to let it go, and yes, it hurts me and it also hurts my relationship with my spouse, so I am not judging or saying 'just let go', it isn't that easy.
If it is something that is really burning you up, hurting you, then I urge you to find a good therapist to work this through, there are a lot of techniques that might help. One suggestion, find someone skilled in a technique called EMDR, it can help you get to the root of things faster then other methods; can't guarantee that, but having used it and seen what it did for myself and my spouse for some pretty heavy stuff, might be worth a shot. Counsellors and therapists are trained to help you find the answer, and letting go does help
I have read about EMDR, and have considered using it for Post Traumatic stuff and pain, esp now since all sorts of flashback stuff I haven't had to deal with in years seems to have resurfaced recently probably due to unexpected surgery that left me feeling violated. I have been working through it and its better, but I would love to totally lose any connection with it.
About men getting angry about stuff that happens to their partners to the point where it affects the victim, it has happened to me. I was attacked, fought back and got away from about 6 drunk guys without getting raped but I was bruised, angry as hell and truly freaked out. My bf at the time seemed more interested in finding the guys and killing them than taking care of me. I of course wanted to kill them too, but I called the police instead.
My BF at the time said he felt that way because he felt it was his fault that he didn't met me at the tube station when I took the last train, and I only took the last train because he decided rather late that he couldn't pick me up. I understood that, but it seriously felt more like he was pissed because his property was threatened and damaged. I forgave him.
If EMDR works as well as it did in our case, I would highly recommend seeking out someone trained in it. It was developed for PTSD (the pioneer worked with vietnam era vets originally) and I have direct proof through my spouse, who suffered incestuous abuse for many years as a child and adolescent, and EMDR helped bring it to the surface and allowed healing to start (has taken many years, which might be the subject of a post of my own
. I can tell you it may not be pleasant, it can be like a sledgehammer compared to straight talk therapy, at times I literally had to support my sweetie out of the therapists office, it was that bad...but it is effective IME. I kind of understand where you BF was coming from, though I would be more inclined to think of him being angry at the guys who did this, not because you were his property, but because guys are still brought up where you fight for the things that matter to you..unfortunately the male owners manual doesn't include worrying about piecing your loved one back together.....first instinct is to get the bastards who did this. Put it this way, if the SOB who had done what he did to my sweetie ever had come back to this country (he left around the time we met), I would be very much inclined to want to throttle him, piece by piece, or have someone do it, especially since courts and the criminal justice system still apparently don't believe it is such a big deal *sigh* (just ask advocates trying to get laws changed getting rid of the statute of limitations for those who molest children or who cover it up....).
AdjectiveNounVerb
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No, you sound very, very human. It is very easy to say or write "you have to forgive the other person", it is very, very difficult in reality to do so, and I hope my post didn't make it sound like it was easy. There are people in my life I cannot forgive, even though I know it is healthier for me, I have a mother in law that though she is no longer in our lives, I feel nothing but hatred and anger towards, realizing what she did not only to screw up her own life but our own, and it is the kind of anger that could lead someone to kill others...(and no, I am not one of those people, if I was I would have been in jail a long time ago with her..). So obviously we all can have problems with that. I have been with other people, though in some cases it is easy because they have truly asked for it and showed repentance, though there are some I have forgiven who reminded obstinate SOB's until the day they died....
One thing I suggest? First things first, forgive yourself. One of the things I have found is that part of the anger and such at the person we feel has wronged us is anger at ourselves for letting it happen, and often that gets turned outward towards the other person, adding to the pain. A person can convince themselves they can't forgive the other person, when what they cannot forgive is themselves. I know of someone, an acquaintance of a friend, whose wife was sexually assaulted by a friend of his and he was not surprisingly obsessed with the guy who did this.... the problem was he couldn't get beyond it, and in the process was driving his wife away from him because he couldn't let it go, for among other things it was a constant reminder to her, who had her own issues of guilt and such (even though she was pure victim)....it was ugly and in the end it had little to do with the rapist and more about the hubby. Basically, he felt guilty because a)he couldn't protect his wife, who he was truly crazy about and b)because it was his friend he felt like he brought it upon his wife, he couldn't forgive himself. It took a damn good therapist and a lot of work but he was finally able to get to the point where at the very least he could be there for his spouse, help her and help her feel the love she needed, so she could move on (they had a fantastic therapist).
I think too religion has something to say for this, beyond the forgive us for our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.......A writer on comparative religion and later the minister of a church I belonged to for a bit, both said that reading the Jewish scripture is interesting, because unlike Christian writings, with Christ as a perfect being/person, their heroes are flawed, and it is an important lesson I think, because it tells us that even the best of us, even the best we might see of ourselves, has flaws, are not godlike. When you forgive another person like that, you are recognizing that basic thing, that they are flawed, that they are quite frankly human, but more importantly, you can look inside yourself and see the same flaws, the same things, that might have caused that person to transgress against you. Again, not saying it is easy, but the old greek adage "know thyself" is not just a bromide, it also can allow us to understand others, see the flaws we have and realize they too have them, that we are capable of doing similar things. If you understand that, it can make it easy to forgive.....but it takes work, because emotions don't listen to your brain. My mother in law has dementia, hasn't really been in our lives for more then a few years, yet I still hate her, still feel what she did to us, I know it doesn't make sense, but deep down the anger is still there, I haven't been able to let it go, and yes, it hurts me and it also hurts my relationship with my spouse, so I am not judging or saying 'just let go', it isn't that easy.
If it is something that is really burning you up, hurting you, then I urge you to find a good therapist to work this through, there are a lot of techniques that might help. One suggestion, find someone skilled in a technique called EMDR, it can help you get to the root of things faster then other methods; can't guarantee that, but having used it and seen what it did for myself and my spouse for some pretty heavy stuff, might be worth a shot. Counsellors and therapists are trained to help you find the answer, and letting go does help
I do see a therapist, but I don't think I've had anything happen in my life that was severe enough to warrant EMDR. A verbally & emotionally abusive mother coupled with bullying at school isn't heavy enough to cause anything like PTSD.
Forgiving myself is more challenging than forgiving others, though, you're right about that. It's easier for me to see my own flaws than other peoples' most of the time, and I was raised to believe that all flaws are intolerable.
Unfortunately, I get nothing out of religion. Even the innocuous ones have a spiritual element, and spirituality has a glaring "we're playing make-believe!" aspect to it for me. Plus as atheists go I'm more Yossarian than Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, if you've ever read Catch-22.
Yep, of course I read catch 22
.As far as religion goes, it can be read without all the trappings of belief,there is a lot of wisdom in religious teaching that doesn't really require a belief in a deity as such, it is as Joseph Campbell said in "The power of Myth", that these are powerful even though they aren't 'true' as such or Jung with work on archetypes....EMDR can do a lot more then pull out trauma, it can help you see into yourself as well, if you want to figure out why you cannot let go it might help. I used it with things not related to trauma, with trying to figure out who I was and so forth, and as a technique it can help unlock things I found, hence my suggestion. It isn't a magic pill by any means, and I think I was actually referring it to another poster
AdjectiveNounVerb
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Third-party acts?
I had a thought late last night. How do you control the way your trust level for one person is affected by someone else's actions? Not just "Cathy's given me no reason to be suspicious of her, but because Aliah and Bethany betrayed my trust I am, how do I stop?", which is the obvious concern, but is there any way to use someone in building or rebuilding trust for somebody else?
I had a thought late last night. How do you control the way your trust level for one person is affected by someone else's actions? Not just "Cathy's given me no reason to be suspicious of her, but because Aliah and Bethany betrayed my trust I am, how do I stop?", which is the obvious concern, but is there any way to use someone in building or rebuilding trust for somebody else?
Your thought reminds me of a story my therapist told me years ago. She was lesbian and told stories of when she was first out and enjoying doing a lot of things...she was into the leather scene (it was why I originally went to her, dealing with bd/sm in a relationship..turned out to be the non issue compared to everything else)...anyway, one time they were doing a kind of pub crawl with friends of hers, and some gay motorcycle guys had offered to be their transportation (hopefully they weren't drinking), and one of the members of her group was like "I can't ride on the back of a motorcycle with one of those guys, those are men and I was assaulted by a man", and her response to the woman was none of those guys had assaulted her...and it is kind of the same thing when someone else does something to you who is similar to someone else. It is more likely that a person who has had a spouse cheat that they will be more suspicious of a new one, and so forth. If a female friend of yours from a group of women you know does something to betray trust, it is very easy to attribute that to others in that group of women, assuming they are 'all the same'...
Okay, so how do you get over that? My take is when that happens you have to look at the person in question and think about your relationship and see if you ever saw anything that would make you suspect, based on that, that she was the same as those who betrayed you? More importantly, in her actions with the others in the group, if that is the case you are talking about, did she ever show you instances where she went along with the group in doing something, seemingly mindlessly? I realize it is easy to say "everyone is an individual' but that isn't always true.
If others have somehow betrayed you, did you talk to the third person about this, and see what she thinks about it? Was she aware? Does she distance herself from it, or does she laugh it off? Basically you need to put your logical mind to work then use that to work on your emotions. Maybe best way is to talk to her about it, about your feelings of betrayal, and if she is a good enough friend or close enough to you, to talk to her about your feelings towards her, that you feel you have lost trust but that you know it doesn't make sense..talking it through, if you are close, should be something you are able to do.
I went through that a long time ago, I had a group of female friends who kind of had adopted me when I first was going out 'fully presenting' on my now aborted transition from m to f....anyway, having people I could go out with and such was important, and they had been really helpful and protective, until one night, I went out with some of the gals, for dinner and drinks, and they basically, maybe because they had been drinking, ended up outing me (I suspect some people knew but still), they thought it was kind of funny, and for where i was at the time, it was devastating.....took my therapist some number of months to get me willing to go out again after that one. Anyway, I cut myself off from all my 'adoptive sisters', I wouldn't talk to them, I was really upset and angry and hurt, to say the least (I kind if wonder if my blood at the time hadn't been full of estrogen, but was rather T based, what I might have done, stupidly, in rage...).
I lost total trust with the whole group because of what those idiots did. One of the things I realized was I was creating a self fulfilling prophesy because though they tried to get in touch with me, I refused to talk to them, I wouldn't give them the chance even to talk to me about it, despite having my therapist telling me I should, and that I also should confront the ones who did it to me, because I was letting their stupidity hurt me and re-enforcing that rather then getting it out there. I was assigning blame to the group for the actions of the few even though the others weren't present.
What I think finally broke through to me was I was hurting myself by not talking to the others, by hiding behind my feelings towards the ones who did it, probably because I was afraid I would find out they were just as bad (not logical, since they tried and tried to get in touch with me......if they were just as bad, they would have laughed it off and said screw her about me...). If you lose trust in someone else because of the actions of others, the big piece is admitting to yourself that you are hurting yourself more then anyone else by doing that IMO (all it is, not judgement).
In my case, when I finally had a sit down with the women who I had shut off and talked to them I realized among other things, they didn't know what really happened (the women with me that night had lied and said I just freaked out for no reason, didn't bother to mention things like calling me "he" or by my male name deliberately, among other things..) and when they found out they demonstrated I could trust them, they completely broke off their friendship with the women who had done this (and these were long term friendships, in many cases longer then mine with them) and they otherwise showed they cared about myself and my well being (and later was proven, they helped me through some rough spots, and also remained my friend when I decided to back off transition for very real reasons, and a friend to my family). I think you need to talk to the person you are having trust issues with and tell them why and give them a chance to show you they are still the person you think they are, it is not only fair, it is also only going to help yourself.
It also helped that with their help and with the help of my therapist I was able to confront those who had betrayed me, to let them know what they did was inexcusable from someone who claimed to be friends, and maybe they actually understood why what they had done was wrong (I don't really know, they were defensive, one of the saddest things was one of them saying something like "friends can kid with each other"....and not understand that was not kidding......), but it helped me realize in contrast that they were the fucked up ones and how different my other friends were that I had shut off.....
Don't know if that helped, but I wanted to share that.
Okay, so how do you get over that? My take is when that happens you have to look at the person in question and think about your relationship and see if you ever saw anything that would make you suspect, based on that, that she was the same as those who betrayed you? More importantly, in her actions with the others in the group, if that is the case you are talking about, did she ever show you instances where she went along with the group in doing something, seemingly mindlessly? I realize it is easy to say "everyone is an individual' but that isn't always true.
If others have somehow betrayed you, did you talk to the third person about this, and see what she thinks about it? Was she aware? Does she distance herself from it, or does she laugh it off? Basically you need to put your logical mind to work then use that to work on your emotions. Maybe best way is to talk to her about it, about your feelings of betrayal, and if she is a good enough friend or close enough to you, to talk to her about your feelings towards her, that you feel you have lost trust but that you know it doesn't make sense..talking it through, if you are close, should be something you are able to do.
I went through that a long time ago, I had a group of female friends who kind of had adopted me when I first was going out 'fully presenting' on my now aborted transition from m to f....anyway, having people I could go out with and such was important, and they had been really helpful and protective, until one night, I went out with some of the gals, for dinner and drinks, and they basically, maybe because they had been drinking, ended up outing me (I suspect some people knew but still), they thought it was kind of funny, and for where i was at the time, it was devastating.....took my therapist some number of months to get me willing to go out again after that one. Anyway, I cut myself off from all my 'adoptive sisters', I wouldn't talk to them, I was really upset and angry and hurt, to say the least (I kind if wonder if my blood at the time hadn't been full of estrogen, but was rather T based, what I might have done, stupidly, in rage...).
I lost total trust with the whole group because of what those idiots did. One of the things I realized was I was creating a self fulfilling prophesy because though they tried to get in touch with me, I refused to talk to them, I wouldn't give them the chance even to talk to me about it, despite having my therapist telling me I should, and that I also should confront the ones who did it to me, because I was letting their stupidity hurt me and re-enforcing that rather then getting it out there. I was assigning blame to the group for the actions of the few even though the others weren't present.
What I think finally broke through to me was I was hurting myself by not talking to the others, by hiding behind my feelings towards the ones who did it, probably because I was afraid I would find out they were just as bad (not logical, since they tried and tried to get in touch with me......if they were just as bad, they would have laughed it off and said screw her about me...). If you lose trust in someone else because of the actions of others, the big piece is admitting to yourself that you are hurting yourself more then anyone else by doing that IMO (all it is, not judgement).
In my case, when I finally had a sit down with the women who I had shut off and talked to them I realized among other things, they didn't know what really happened (the women with me that night had lied and said I just freaked out for no reason, didn't bother to mention things like calling me "he" or by my male name deliberately, among other things..) and when they found out they demonstrated I could trust them, they completely broke off their friendship with the women who had done this (and these were long term friendships, in many cases longer then mine with them) and they otherwise showed they cared about myself and my well being (and later was proven, they helped me through some rough spots, and also remained my friend when I decided to back off transition for very real reasons, and a friend to my family). I think you need to talk to the person you are having trust issues with and tell them why and give them a chance to show you they are still the person you think they are, it is not only fair, it is also only going to help yourself.
It also helped that with their help and with the help of my therapist I was able to confront those who had betrayed me, to let them know what they did was inexcusable from someone who claimed to be friends, and maybe they actually understood why what they had done was wrong (I don't really know, they were defensive, one of the saddest things was one of them saying something like "friends can kid with each other"....and not understand that was not kidding......), but it helped me realize in contrast that they were the fucked up ones and how different my other friends were that I had shut off.....
Don't know if that helped, but I wanted to share that.
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