Trust Fall

2014

I don’t know if I fit the qualifications to be a poster child for “Daddy Issues”, but I certainly have them, and they certainly affect my life and my relationships.

I trust no one.

And I don’t know if it counts that I say I trust certain people “as much as I can”. What is that?!

It makes me feel broken. I am very aware that there is a leap that I cannot make in the deepest of my personal relationships. A leap that says “Okay, you love me, you’re a decent human being, and you are a consistent source of honesty..I have no reason to believe that now or in the future, you will devastate or hurt me.”

In almost 33 years, I have not been able to make that leap.

Early on, I am sure I tried. But I also know that I learned quickly that it was best to stay on my side of the cliff in most situations. When it came to the adults in my life, I learned that I couldn’t trust them to protect me, and I couldn’t trust them to listen or validate my feelings. Not only does that impede the ability to even want to leap but it made me so sensitive to what probably falls more into the category of simple human mistakes, but that I take as deeply personal offenses against me and use them as reasons not to trust.

Where I may have had personal relationships before, they never evolved to a point where I would have to really depend or trust them for anything. My trust became a constantly moving goal line – changing from one day to the next. And I understand completely why my husband is frustrated. And going gray.

Every marriage has trials and uncertainty and if there was a solution that my husband could execute to fix a problem..he would do it and has done it, consistently. He tells me every day, multiple times, how much he loves me…and every night when he comes to bed, he thanks me for being in his life and for loving him. He is (usually) all patience in human form…and he provides me the safest place, physically and emotionally, that I have had in years.

But I don’t know how to trust. Any of it.  I don’t know how to not feel like I am about to get clobbered, like my house of cards is about to fall. I expect him to hurt me in *some* way…and I drive myself fucking crazy because at times, I feel I spend more energy searching for that way..instead of relaxing into what he tries to show me and give me every single day.

I have concluded that he is filling a cup with a hole at the bottom..and that hole represents all of the things I have to repair in myself: my fear of abandonment, my inability to feel safe, my feelings of being unworthy, the lack of trust in myself. My not so sneaking suspicion is that I project all of those things onto him and cast a shadow on the beautiful gift of his love.

I’m learning. Every day. I have to breathe deep, every day. I have to remind myself that I cannot control what I cannot trust..nor should I have to.

I have to fix my cup.

Oddly enough, when it comes to an actual, physical trust fall; I fall..and my husband has never let me hit the ground.

That is probably a better place to start than most.