Together as One

Isn't it hard, knowing who to trust? The easy way out, in your mind, seems to be to avoid giving trust to anyone. But from first hand experience, that is never the way, and almost certainly does not help. There are a wide number of reasons why you may not feel up to trusting anyone ever again, there are plenty of reasons why you may feel the world is against you.

As a bit of insight, I am going to give you a look in.

I was abused. It took me a good long while to be able to come to terms with the fact, and to even admit it to myself. After it all came out, I tried my luck. I dated a girl. I dated a guy. And in relationships with both sexes, I found a constant issue. My trust issues. I was half honest with them at the beginning, I told them the baseline story — I was 16, and he was 53, he took advantage of my vulnerability. Of course, it was a brave thing to do, risking something I had just found, by sharing my morbid past, but I knew they needed to know. I convinced myself that it wasn't so important that they knew the sordid details — who would ever want to hear those? I certainly didn't want to relive the brutality of it all.

In particular, a guy I dated from October 2016 through to April 2017, was the most difficult. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't explain my behaviour away. I couldn't explain exactly why I flinched every time he raised his hand, because he didn't know that I knew the feeling of a black and blinded eye oh too well. I couldn't describe the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever he touched me sexually, because he couldn't hear the sordid names he called me, echoing around his head, like I did. He couldn't understand, simply because he didn't have the insight. He knew the title, and not the story. Not that this fact made any of his actions ok, throughout the relationship he was not particularly nice. It was too late to explain anything to him, and that is when I realised — I shouldn't have to. If he was the right person to tell it to, the right person to confide in on a particularly hard, dark night, then I would have done so already. If there is not trust in the first place, there will never be 100% trust during, or at the end. I ended it, and although he disagreed, it was the best thing for us both.

I met my current boyfriend in June 2017. I'd like to say that I decided that this one would be different, but I didn't. He made that decision for me, and I followed on with it. His eyes were honest, and little by little, I told him everything. No matter how painful, or frightening, I spilt everything to him. I had little expectations — I didn't expect to feel so empowered and relieved at my past being lifted from my shoulders. August brought more issues for me — another person broke my trust. With abuse, comes dissociation. With the help of that, I pushed the event subconsciously to the back of my mind. I was able to do this until I saw him again, and I felt all of the terror, and guilt come flooding back all at once. All I really knew was that something had happened with this man, and my mind remains blank, although I knew the basis of what had happened. The only thing that kept me going was my boyfriend, and I thought we had hit a bump in the road. One we may not be able to overcome. But I was wrong. Because we have so openly talked about everything, we were able, to a certain extent, to talk about this — or at least as much as I could remember about it. He didn't blame me, and I didn't blame myself. But he blamed himself, because he felt like he hadn't protected me. But we both came to a conclusion in unison, that the only one to blame was the predator.

The bottom line is, any partnership can overcome anything if they have two determined souls to team up. There are key tips to overcoming things such as this:

The first one is to talk. No matter how difficult, and how careful you feel you have to be, the best thing you can be is honest. There needs to be a safe space in order to talk. Come to an agreement with your partner, where you let one another talk, without judgement. You need to listen to each other in order to do your best to understand their point of view.

Do not let it change you. Not the partnership, not you as a person, and definitely do not let it change the way you treat the other person. Just remember how you treated them before a situation like this arose, and remember how you felt about them before this. You still feel the same, although the circumstances may have changed.

And lastly, this may sound stupid. Try to take it in a positive light. Think of it in the sense of strengthening, rather than weakening. This is something that can prove the strength of love, and of the relationship. This is something that will show whether they can support you right.

Together in unison.