Another Way to Look at Trust

My brother shut the car door on his hand one day when he was five. I felt his pain. About a week later, he again. shut the car door on his hand. Once again, I felt his pain, and then I wondered if he had somehow forgotten how much it hurt the first time. His accident taught me to be very careful with that car door!

When the same thing happens again and again, we start to predict its recurrence. As in the example, "I've been cheated on before so I'll probably be cheated on by (this new love)." We trust that it's going to happen this time because it "always" happens.

I knew a couple once whose husband loved NCAA basketball. Every March he disconnected from her life. She could count on it--March Madness came first for this man. She could trust that given the choice to do something with her or watch a ball game this man would find a way to watch that basketball game. His bracket was riding on it! When a behavior occurs with consistency, we may "trust" that it will happen again given a set of circumstances.

Years ago, I worked with a woman (we'll call her Mary) who made up stories about what other people allegedly said. Mary would tell me that (a colleague) said some negative thing about me. Mary wanted me to get upset and say something negative about this colleague. Then, she could run to the other person and repeat what I said. Because I respected Mary professionally, I took a little while to realize what game she was playing. After two incidences, I realized what was probably going on.

I stopped reacting to Mary. Just to confirm my hunch, I approached the colleague, and told her what I'd heard. She was genuinely horrified. I knew my instincts were correct. I could trust that Mary was lying when she attributed a mean comment about me to the colleague.

I still had to work with Mary. I just didn't believe a word she said when she was speaking negatively. I also thought much of what she said in general was an exaggeration. She could never hurt me again once I trusted that she would lie to me. She could only hurt me if I believed her.

Of course, you can't choose your co-workers, but you can choose your lover. If honesty is important to you--and I believe it's an essential ingredient in an intimate relationship--you don't want to be intimate and vulnerable with someone you can trust will lie to you. Maybe you can be in a romantic relationship if you can trust that they'll pick March Madness over you, though. After all, the NCAA basketball tournament is time-limited, and nobody's perfect!

You want to choose your boundaries and let others know what those limits are; so they can decide if they can live with those expectations.

Here are some ingredients I believe are critical to intimacy:

• openness, honesty, transparency
• emotional safety
• trust
• respect
• love
• kindness
• thoughtfulness
• mutual goals
• mutual values
• mutual interests
• an ability to admit mistakes
• a desire to choose more effective behaviors
• an ability to feel regret and remorse when you've harmed others
• the ability to share.

 What will you add to this list? Let me know!! You can reach me at amodonnell@successworksunltd.com. Thanks for reading and commenting!