Not long ago I ran a post in which I listed the wonderful things my husband does for me, and what I had needed to change in my life to be ready for such a loving relationship.

I got this thought-provoking comment:

What about the kind of addict/narcissist that treats you like an absolute queen and then, a couple (of) years down the line, all the facades break down and their addictions and resentments and manipulation and emotional abuse rear their head in a split second and everything you ever thought about them was an absolute lie? I thought I had found a good one and broken the pattern of abuse. I thought I was finally letting someone treat me well and not in turn chasing them away. I absolutely do not trust my own judgment anymore.—S.

I thought that, since we’re on the whole romantic relationship tangent, I might as well go all the way. Not only is this topic relevant to anyone who wants to be loved, but also to writers who fear revealing themselves on the page.

Do you remember Anita Shreve’s novel, The Pilot’s Wife?  After the sudden death of her husband in a plane crash, a woman discovers that everything she had believed to be true about her marriage was, in fact, a lie.  An airline pilot, the man had been keeping another wife and child in London.

I thought about that story for ages. For one, it seemed to confirm my belief that NO ONE, least of all those closest to us, can be truly known or trusted.

Secondly, I was fascinated by how the protagonist chose to deal with so astounding a betrayal because I’d been broadsided by such a bus years before.

Six months after we’d married, my then-husband announced that he was going to take his former girlfriend as his second wife. (When you’re a Muslim, according to him, you get to do stuff like that.) To make matters worse, I hadn’t seen it coming.

Those of us raised in alcoholic households have trouble trusting our instincts and perceptions on a good day, let alone after getting hit by a ballistic missile out of left field.

When you’re constantly told that white is black, that the sun is the moon, that everything is A-OK, when clearly it is anything but, your internal radar system gets totally fucked up. If you can’t trust the dials on your dashboard, your ability to gauge a situation or another person, it’s much safer to assume the worst, to hold others at arm’s length, or to chase them away altogether.

That’s called survival.

It’s also hard to trust others, as you know, S., when you can’t trust your self.  It’s hard to know if you’re getting an accurate read of someone else when you know how adept you are at obfuscation.

People like us were trained to hide our true selves–our desires, thoughts, and feelings. We were taught to be amenable, cheerful, compliant, particularly when we were thinking the most horrible thoughts.  To make ourselves more loveable, we adapted; we pretended to be the kind of person others seemed to want.  Until we eventually forgot who we really were, and lost all touch with reality.

We’re professional fakes, our lot. Is it any wonder we assume that everyone else is as well?

I hated living my life that way, S, pretending all the time. Forgetting who I really was.  Disconnecting from myself, and others. Distrusting. Viewing those across the table from me as potential enemies intent on sliding in under the wire and using my weaknesses as a bludgeon.

More than anything, I want love and connection. I want it SO bad, S. I want people to know the real me. I want people to love the real me. And how can I get what I want most of all if I refuse to offer up my true, vulnerable self? If I close myself off behind my impenetrable wall? If I treat everybody like a Trojan horse simply because I’ve been hurt so badly before? 

Where would that leave me?

Sometimes I lay awake and marvel at my blessings.  I can’t get over how good I’ve got it. And then I think, what if I wake up one morning to discover that Walt isn’t the man I thought he was? What if I find him naked in the hot tub with some luscious twenty-year-old?  What if I open our bank statements and discover he’s blown our life savings on the ponies, or on heroin? I’ve been sandbagged before. What if it happens again? Because I’d be a fool to think it couldn’t.

But, I’m willing to risk placing my trust in someone who can utterly wipe me out.  Because I know too well the alternative, and I can’t go back there again. I won’t.

Brene Brown puts it this way in Daring Greatly:

I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.  With that definition in mind, let’s think about love.  Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow—that’s vulnerability.  Love is uncertain.  It’s incredibly risky.  And loving someone leaves us emotionally exposed.  Yes, it’s scary and yes, we’re open to being hurt, but can you imagine your life without loving or being loved?

So how do you trust again, S, when you’ve been smeared across the pavement? When you have placed your heart in the hands of someone untrustworthy and paid the price?

You start by becoming trustworthy.  You start by paying attention to what you really, think, and feel. By expressing those things out loud, even when you risk putting off other people. You insist on being real, as messy as that may feel.

And you start paying attention to your instincts.  Playing with them, testing them, verifying them. Because they’re stronger than you think.

Until you repair your internal radar system, you may want to seek the perspective of a wise outsider. Someone who gets the deal. Someone who can tell you when you’re stupidly ignoring the signs; when you may be way off base.

You trust again because you have no alternative, S.

It’s the people willing to risk it all—in life, art, and business—that reap the rewards. They get to live big. They get to have what they want.

And let’s not kid ourselves; sometimes you will call it wrong; you will fail. And you will live.