Expectation, Reality, and how do you re-establish trust?

A common question early in this journey, and one that continues to come up, is how do you re-establish trust?

That was the discussion topic in my S-Anon meeting this week.

The consensus in the room, expressed in many different ways, seemed to be that one's notion of trust is forever changed by betrayal this deep. "Those of us in this room no longer have that dream, that fantasy, of completely trusting."

The answers that did come...

"I'm learning how to trust myself."

"I trust the process."

"I trust my Higher Power."

Nobody said, "I trust my qualifier exactly as much as I did before."

The point being, for me, that the amount of trust I'd placed in Husband before was not appropriate.

It's not reality-based thinking to expect that humans will be perfect at anything. 

Humans are flawed by definition.

A healthy adult is prepared to maintain wholeness, and to take appropriate action for self-preservation, in any event. Betrayal by loved ones included. A healthy adult does not give away that power to another.

One can have expectations that "my [fill-in-the-blank] would never lie to me." But if one isn't prepared to maintain wholeness and take actions for self-preservation were that lie to happen, one might find oneself in a bad (painful, traumatic, apocalyptic, etc) position.

Being human, and therefore not perfect, we all find ourselves unprepared at times. That's an opportunity to grow.

Another point that came up is that it's appropriate, given past events, to expect that someone who has lied to you must re-gain your trust over time. They must earn your trust. That's appropriate. They don't have your trust because they've shown they don't deserve your trust.  That's appropriate.

Expecting you to trust them on their timetable instead of your own because it makes them feel bad to be considered untrustworthy...well, that's...how shall I say it...how about this? That's a natural consequence of their actions and not for you to control. (I started to say "that's just TOO BAD!" but decided that was less helpful.)

Right now, the natural consequence of Husbands recent lies is that I've pulled away. "What do you expect?" I asked him. I recently realized that not responding according to his expectations doesn't necessarily mean I'm unreasonable or passive aggressive or unwilling to forgive. It just means that my response and his expectation were different. Period. Anything else is just meaning that he or I have added.

(Can we just redefine expectation to mean a fantasy about the future? That would be so helpful.)

What causes fear (for both of us I think) is when expectations aren't met, because that introduces the unknown.

As creatures programmed for survival, nothing is worse, nothing is less tolerable for human beings, than the unknown. I suspect that developing that capacity is the reason I'm here.

Flash of insight, as sometimes happens

It dawned on me that I've been putting off my 4th step for a long time because I've been worried about getting it right. I've been looking for the perfect format - a symptom of my perfectionism I thought. I asked Husband and Mom to go down a list of possible flaws and pick out the ones they felt characterized me, so that I could see where they overlap. Therein must lie the answer to what is wrong with me, I felt.

But I've realized that a large part of looking for the right format, and also for input, is that I've not trusted that I can do it accurately by myself. I'm worried about blind spots, about an inability to be honest with myself about my flaws, about missing something important. And this comes from my inclination not to trust myself when it comes to me. I've always looked to others to define me - to tell me how I'm doing in the world - and this is another manifestation of that.

And as I look at how others have defined me, I'm starting to see that sometimes what they think they see is just their own issues. I've done the same.

I've decided that I'm going to define what my flaws and strengths are. I may not get it 100% right, but I'm going to trust that my Higher Power will give me the clarity to see what I need to see right now. And that will be good enough.