We live in a world where we are continuously surrounded by media in some form or the other. This is what gives us the unrealistic expectation of love and relationships. Our expectation of love doesn’t come from our parents or family, it is based on the fiction we see in movies, television, and books. This is what makes our perception of love unreal and naïve. However, this naivety lasts only until your first major heartbreak. It is only after that the reality of the situation starts to hit that you tend to realize reality is far from what media portrays. It is important to have standards so as to not end up settling but we also need to be mindful and realistic on what we expect from love and relationships.
I was that person once. Young, naïve, and living in my own fantasy of what love means. Then something fantastic happened, I fell in love or at least I thought I did. It felt amazing and magical somehow at the beginning like I own the world and nothing can go wrong. It was at that exact time when reality hit and things went down south. I didn’t understand what had happened, I mean there’s always a happily ever after in TV right? Well, that is not the case. I was hurt, confused and jaded in a certain sense. I told myself that if this is what love feels like, I never want to fall in love ever again.
Then, the inevitable happened; I fell for someone again. I was scared of course. I didn’t want to get hurt again. I was guarded but I eventually gave in and it was at that very moment that I saw my trust being broken.
Trust is like paper, once it’s crumpled, it can never be perfect again.
A woman with trust issues is a woman who has heard the promise ‘I will never hurt you’ too many times with actions that showed otherwise. It feels like having trust issues is like one of the biggest roadblocks you can face in your life. Not only are we always skeptical about trusting people but we start to become negative in our head too. We have a constant fear that a certain person is going to break our trust and hence we never let them in. We have closed our hearts off and this could stop someone who is right for us from coming into our lives.
You may think we are rude, cold, distant – but really it’s just our defense mechanism to protect us from getting hurt again.
A woman with trust issues is like an onion, you need to peel her one layer at a time; you can’t just cut through with a knife and expect to be in. Rather than being excited at a prospect of a date or meeting someone new, we are skeptical about it. We always want to take things slow because we want to gauge what your true intentions are. It’s not fair to anyone but we are a product of our past experiences and we will continue being this way until someone shows us a reason to feel otherwise. You need to understand that we weren’t born with trust issues. You may not think our past was a big deal but the baggage we are carrying is what is putting us down. We don’t need you to fix anything; we just need you to be supportive while we are trying to fight ourselves. Our hearts have been played with, we have been cheated on, and we know how shitty it feels. So rest assured, if we are in it with you, we will give you all we have.
That being said, there are a few things you can do to get someone with trust issues to actually trust you.
- First and foremost, make sure your intentions are genuine. If not, please don’t waste your time and ours. Over a period of time we have become very intuitive on who we should and should not trust.
- Learn to be patient with us. We will take our sweet time until we are sure about you. You will need to make the first move because we are going to be cautious for a while.
- If you actually care, take the first step. Don’t sit around and expect us to do it.
- Listen when we talk. I know guys aren’t good listener but at least try. We will surely acknowledge the effort.
- Please be honest with us. Understand that we were lied to a lot and it will always hurt. You really don’t want to be the person to add to our pain.
- Actions do speak louder than words so please complement your words with actions.
- Please don’t break our trust again. It has been a hard enough for us just to get ourselves to trust you again so don’t be that person who makes us doubt our judgment again.
I truly believe that you only need that one guy to make you realize why it didn’t work out with anyone else. Be that guy. It’s harder than you can imagine for a person with trust issues to start trusting again, so when she says ‘I trust you’, please don’t make her regret it.
Featured image via Osmar Vasques on Pexels
Thank you so much for writing this as it has really helped me understand
What trust issues are