Love
Doing living love - Part 2
28/11/08 15:32
Falling in love feels amazing. It’s like being on the best drugs ever. There’s a rush of endorphins, a longing for the other, an overwhelming desire for them. We crave to be close to them and in their company. There is a strength of erotic and romantic passion that feels out of this world. Adrenaline pumps round our bodies, our heartbeats increase and we see beauty everywhere.
Someone wrote to me: “People crave for love. They die for it; they even kill for it. They steal for it, they lie for it, they long for it, they ache with passion; they can even cheat and betray for it.”
No, they don’t.
What my writer was talking about was not doing love, but falling into madness. Mad, obsessive love makes for good stories (my writer was an author) but it does not lead to a sustaining, living love.
There are similarities between falling into this kind of love and the psychological illness, mania. Mania can heighten feelings of connections to others and may make the person suffering from it feel a sense of the interconnectivity of the universe. Someone who is manic may feel a sense of euphoria; they may be hypersexual. All of these elements of mania are at least vaguely related to what is generally associated with the behaviour of people who are “in love”.
Then there’s infatuation: “Infatuation is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love; addictive love. Usually one is inspired with an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone.” (Wikipedia)
Infatuation is an exaggerated view of a person and the adoration of that person as a result of this idealised view.
Infatuation does not provide any safe basis for a close living love either.
Personal attraction can be very powerful; it’s also something of a mystery. No one properly understands how and why we are attracted to another. Sadly, I’m not sure if attraction is such a reliable guide to the possibilities of love either. I believe that emotional decisions made on the basis of attraction can be as dangerous as those based on romantic passion and infatuation. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be negative or a killjoy but I speak as someone who in my life has been attracted to those with whom I haven’t had any chance of finding happiness many times over.
I have a whole compendium of my own relationship mistakes. I have made many mistakes in my life that it would be far too easy to attribute to misjudgements about attraction to someone else. I’ve needed to look at those and understand them too. These misjudgements are my very own. I take complete responsibility for them.
I’m going to give these more thought. Some early mistakes were doubtless attributable to a loveless, abusive childhood. I know I sought out the love and approval of others to make up for the love I never had. In making mistakes, I have made them both ways. I have been as blind to those relationships that offer the potential of strong love, as those that might be destructive and harmful.
It’s been love by trial and error for me, and there have been a lot of errors. To have no childhood frame of reference for experiencing love, is sometimes as daunting as finding one’s way across the Sahara without a map and compass.
This has been a two-edged sword too, since I’m not stupid, and often I’ve been aware of the mistakes I was making. In knowing that I made mistakes, I sometimes withdrew from intimate relationships altogether. I decided I couldn’t take another risk. I couldn’t bear the thought or prospect of another relationship failure. The fear of failure has sometimes meant I stayed in unhealthy relationships for to long since I could not bear the prospect of failing again. Generally I withdrew from these relationships with a bruised soul and a bleeding heart. I felt terrible guilt in failure as well as the pain of loss.
This can become something of a cycle. The cycle can run over years. It may look like I’ve recovered from a relationship, and I’ve probably more than recovered. Fear has kept me away from the prospect of seeking a love relationship again, until loneliness and desperation has propelled me back into one again.
Loneliness and desperation is the worst possible basis of entering a love relationship.
Finally, at my relative mature age, I believe that at last I’ve found a solution. It’s like drawing my own map and building my own compass. It’s the only way I know. It’s very simple too but it takes a lot of effort. Maybe everyone knows this truth already. Fine, but why didn’t anyone tell me? I’m sure others must be in this same boat as me, so I’ll talk about it here.
In order to move to a safe, secure loving relationship with someone else, I need to build a state of deep loving intimacy with another prior to our making a commitment to stay with each other. That might sound too daunting to some, I know. It’s not really, since one can make commitment an explicit intention of intimacy. It’s good to know the journey one wishes to embark upon before you buy the tickets!
“Creating intimacy is realising and expressing our inmost self in relationship with others, and supporting them in expressing their inmost self with us. Expressing our inmost self can mean revealing our feelings and needs, our dreams and hopes, our fears and joys and worries, our creative insights, our secrets and our pain . . . all the inner, personal aspects of ourselves. It does not matter at all, for the purpose of intimacy, whether we express "positive" aspects of ourselves such as joy, love, attraction and excitement, or "negative" experiences like fear, sadness, shame or anger. They all count. The important thing is that what we are expressing be personal and real…Intimacy is the deep honest personal sharing between people.”
Intimacy for me is also a place of personal responsibility, being valued and valuing the reality of another for who they really are. It’s a place of personal affirmation and acceptance. It’s a place without judgements and without blame. In intimacy, I can show my vulnerability openly and without fear.
So that’s the story for me. I feel it’s safe and okay, since intimacy for me goes hand-in-hand with the other sustaining feelings in love; those around trust, respect and caring. I don’t feel there’s any way of being dishonest, duplicitous or avoidant in intimacy, since those acts in themselves will undermine intimacy as much as they undermine trust and respect.
This is not necessarily the stereotypical development pattern of a love relationship as psychologists set it out, but it’s the one that’s right for me. Most see commitment as being the stage in love following erotic and romantic passion. I love a bit of passion too, but as part of that I will wish to gain deep intimacy, if that’s not possible I’ll abandon ship. Love without intimacy is no love at all. Better to feel a short pang of hurt in a state of passion than a wrecked life and marriage a few years down the tracks.
The section that appears in italics is from an article entitled “What is intimacy” that I first wrote for publication in March 2002. It’s taken me this long to learn its lessons!
Someone wrote to me: “People crave for love. They die for it; they even kill for it. They steal for it, they lie for it, they long for it, they ache with passion; they can even cheat and betray for it.”
No, they don’t.
What my writer was talking about was not doing love, but falling into madness. Mad, obsessive love makes for good stories (my writer was an author) but it does not lead to a sustaining, living love.
There are similarities between falling into this kind of love and the psychological illness, mania. Mania can heighten feelings of connections to others and may make the person suffering from it feel a sense of the interconnectivity of the universe. Someone who is manic may feel a sense of euphoria; they may be hypersexual. All of these elements of mania are at least vaguely related to what is generally associated with the behaviour of people who are “in love”.
Then there’s infatuation: “Infatuation is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love; addictive love. Usually one is inspired with an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone.” (Wikipedia)
Infatuation is an exaggerated view of a person and the adoration of that person as a result of this idealised view.
Infatuation does not provide any safe basis for a close living love either.
Personal attraction can be very powerful; it’s also something of a mystery. No one properly understands how and why we are attracted to another. Sadly, I’m not sure if attraction is such a reliable guide to the possibilities of love either. I believe that emotional decisions made on the basis of attraction can be as dangerous as those based on romantic passion and infatuation. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be negative or a killjoy but I speak as someone who in my life has been attracted to those with whom I haven’t had any chance of finding happiness many times over.
I have a whole compendium of my own relationship mistakes. I have made many mistakes in my life that it would be far too easy to attribute to misjudgements about attraction to someone else. I’ve needed to look at those and understand them too. These misjudgements are my very own. I take complete responsibility for them.
I’m going to give these more thought. Some early mistakes were doubtless attributable to a loveless, abusive childhood. I know I sought out the love and approval of others to make up for the love I never had. In making mistakes, I have made them both ways. I have been as blind to those relationships that offer the potential of strong love, as those that might be destructive and harmful.
It’s been love by trial and error for me, and there have been a lot of errors. To have no childhood frame of reference for experiencing love, is sometimes as daunting as finding one’s way across the Sahara without a map and compass.
This has been a two-edged sword too, since I’m not stupid, and often I’ve been aware of the mistakes I was making. In knowing that I made mistakes, I sometimes withdrew from intimate relationships altogether. I decided I couldn’t take another risk. I couldn’t bear the thought or prospect of another relationship failure. The fear of failure has sometimes meant I stayed in unhealthy relationships for to long since I could not bear the prospect of failing again. Generally I withdrew from these relationships with a bruised soul and a bleeding heart. I felt terrible guilt in failure as well as the pain of loss.
This can become something of a cycle. The cycle can run over years. It may look like I’ve recovered from a relationship, and I’ve probably more than recovered. Fear has kept me away from the prospect of seeking a love relationship again, until loneliness and desperation has propelled me back into one again.
Loneliness and desperation is the worst possible basis of entering a love relationship.
Finally, at my relative mature age, I believe that at last I’ve found a solution. It’s like drawing my own map and building my own compass. It’s the only way I know. It’s very simple too but it takes a lot of effort. Maybe everyone knows this truth already. Fine, but why didn’t anyone tell me? I’m sure others must be in this same boat as me, so I’ll talk about it here.
In order to move to a safe, secure loving relationship with someone else, I need to build a state of deep loving intimacy with another prior to our making a commitment to stay with each other. That might sound too daunting to some, I know. It’s not really, since one can make commitment an explicit intention of intimacy. It’s good to know the journey one wishes to embark upon before you buy the tickets!
“Creating intimacy is realising and expressing our inmost self in relationship with others, and supporting them in expressing their inmost self with us. Expressing our inmost self can mean revealing our feelings and needs, our dreams and hopes, our fears and joys and worries, our creative insights, our secrets and our pain . . . all the inner, personal aspects of ourselves. It does not matter at all, for the purpose of intimacy, whether we express "positive" aspects of ourselves such as joy, love, attraction and excitement, or "negative" experiences like fear, sadness, shame or anger. They all count. The important thing is that what we are expressing be personal and real…Intimacy is the deep honest personal sharing between people.”
Intimacy for me is also a place of personal responsibility, being valued and valuing the reality of another for who they really are. It’s a place of personal affirmation and acceptance. It’s a place without judgements and without blame. In intimacy, I can show my vulnerability openly and without fear.
So that’s the story for me. I feel it’s safe and okay, since intimacy for me goes hand-in-hand with the other sustaining feelings in love; those around trust, respect and caring. I don’t feel there’s any way of being dishonest, duplicitous or avoidant in intimacy, since those acts in themselves will undermine intimacy as much as they undermine trust and respect.
This is not necessarily the stereotypical development pattern of a love relationship as psychologists set it out, but it’s the one that’s right for me. Most see commitment as being the stage in love following erotic and romantic passion. I love a bit of passion too, but as part of that I will wish to gain deep intimacy, if that’s not possible I’ll abandon ship. Love without intimacy is no love at all. Better to feel a short pang of hurt in a state of passion than a wrecked life and marriage a few years down the tracks.
The section that appears in italics is from an article entitled “What is intimacy” that I first wrote for publication in March 2002. It’s taken me this long to learn its lessons!
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Doing living love - Part 1
27/11/08 18:39
Last year and early in this one, I wrote a lot, tens of thousands of words, about what I believed love was and what it might be. It was a very personal account to which I should have appended the words “for me” at the end of every sentence!
I read the works of tens of other psychologists who had studied and written about love too. My big question was about what emotions needed to be present in order to sustain a loving relationship beyond that first rush of romantic and erotic passion, which wonderful though it is, may diminish and fail to support a long-term love relationship.
It made me chuckle earlier today as I had cause to read my very first, short post on love, where I was not asking what love was, which is the question that has preoccupied me and I feel I have answered as best as I am able, but how do we sustain loving relationships? I failed to answer that question in all those thousands of words. I am nothing else if not fallible.
I may have been guilty of creating an impression, that misled others too, for it’s tempting to believe that if one shares a set of beliefs about what love is with another, it may be possible to find love with that person. So it would be like, we both value the same things in love; I want “trust, caring, intimacy, companionate (committed and deep supportive friendship) love, respect, humour and some healthy excitement from time-to-time” and so do you. We both value the same beliefs about love and we can share those; therefore we can find love together.
I’m simplifying what I wrote to a great extent. I could have made that an eight-word list, right? I wrote thousands of words. It wasn’t that simple.
Sharing beliefs about what love is and what it might be with another is very different from being able to make a sustaining and loving relationship. Understanding what love is and might be is very helpful, but it ain’t the same as getting down and doing it!
I’m going to talk about some of my basic beliefs about doing love now as there’s a big distance between thinking about what it is and doing it!
I like to start with a big bang! In talking about love, especially in talking about ‘unconditional giving love’ that I also believe in, I deliberately played down the importance of sex. So do you believe that sexual incompatibilities can be fixed? Do you believe that sexual disappointment isn’t such a bad problem when there is so much good about the rest of your relationship? You do? I’m sorry. You’re probably wrong.
About fifteen years ago, I did some marriage and relationship counselling for a while. Two big problems came up over and over. They were sex and money. With money, it was usually a matter of inducing some consensus about how a couple operated with money. The difficulties around money were often more about relationship power and communication than anything else. I could work with that usually unless someone was bent on using money like some emotional heavy artillery. It did strike me that difficulties about sex and money often went hand-in-hand.
Some sexual difficulties were about innocence and ignorance and those were soluble in most cases. But the toughest difficulty was where there was an imbalance of sexuality and sexual interest between one person and another. One can learn sexual technique and improve one’s skill as a lover. Sex therapy, however, does not create or increase sexual interest or desire. The key word is imbalance. There may be no difficulty if one partner has no interest in sex and neither does the other. But if one person has a very strong interest in sex, and the other doesn’t, then the partner with the strong interest will rarely be able to forget it.
I’ve concluded I might be a big baby! I really love physical intimacy. I love touches, caresses, hugs, cuddles and kisses…and sex too. Also, in case you’re wondering, I have, as I’ve written before, a monogamous disposition to my intimate personal relationships. It’s the way I am and it’s non-negotiable. It’s an important compatibility indicator for me.
Young children get depressed, and may get sick or even die without physical intimacy. So how and why do we as adults ever get to believe we’re so different and leave such a fundamental part of ourselves behind so often in order to be “grown up?”
Next there’s something I’ve never seen written about much before. I don’t truly understand why. Maybe it has been written about before and people say what I feel in different ways.
I’ve really messed up here in the past, so it’s a lesson that’s cost me an awful lot of pain. It’s about knowing, understanding and feeling at ease with another’s core life values, attitudes and beliefs. Like all acts of intimate understanding it takes much time and effort to comprehend these in another.
It may not be at the top of your agenda when you’re in some hormone-driven erotic, manic romantic state either.
We all have beliefs and values about the world. They run very deep. For example, I have an absolutely passionate interest in personal development and growth, and also in learning. It says all sorts of things about me, how I might be in the world, and what matters to me most. I’m very open and enjoy communicating my feelings and emotions that I do with ease. Many people find these qualities attractive, even though some are very different in their outlook. To be happy in life, I need to be with someone who shares these same values and attitudes. It’s not enough for another to be awed by them, then later, find that they require far more effort than they are prepared to invest. Awe is no substitute for intimate mutual respect and caring admiration for another. Awe can easily switch to fear and contempt.
I’ll say a little more, since this point is so important (to me, and perhaps to others too).
The sharing of passions and interests is I believe a real bedrock of loving personal relationships, but they do not have to be the same. I love human difference, and difference may be an important point of growth. I’ll go one step further; I love to celebrate human difference. If someone else was the facsimile copy of me, there would be no development, no life and no growth. I’d atrophy and die of boredom. The point is still the same in a way, since difference in order to be tolerable needs to fall within the ambit of my personal values. My values underpin who I am, and yours do too.
There are some words I can’t quite grasp here. It’s the most important point and I can’t find the words. I’ll try. Love for me is a lot about the active interest and positive participation in the life of another, cherishing who they are for what they are, accepting their being without exception, valuing their wellbeing, wanting and enjoying them, sharing everything including their fear, shame, guilt, anger and sadness.
The psychologist, Scott Peck talked about discipline and had none, many of us (especially Americans) talk about “work” but it’s not that either. Love really doesn’t come easy, and in my next posts I’ll include more cautionary lessons I’ve learned. Living love is not easy. It’s not fate, romance or hormones. It’s not self-sacrifice either. It is a conscious caring act of will.
But there’s much more, later…
I read the works of tens of other psychologists who had studied and written about love too. My big question was about what emotions needed to be present in order to sustain a loving relationship beyond that first rush of romantic and erotic passion, which wonderful though it is, may diminish and fail to support a long-term love relationship.
It made me chuckle earlier today as I had cause to read my very first, short post on love, where I was not asking what love was, which is the question that has preoccupied me and I feel I have answered as best as I am able, but how do we sustain loving relationships? I failed to answer that question in all those thousands of words. I am nothing else if not fallible.
I may have been guilty of creating an impression, that misled others too, for it’s tempting to believe that if one shares a set of beliefs about what love is with another, it may be possible to find love with that person. So it would be like, we both value the same things in love; I want “trust, caring, intimacy, companionate (committed and deep supportive friendship) love, respect, humour and some healthy excitement from time-to-time” and so do you. We both value the same beliefs about love and we can share those; therefore we can find love together.
I’m simplifying what I wrote to a great extent. I could have made that an eight-word list, right? I wrote thousands of words. It wasn’t that simple.
Sharing beliefs about what love is and what it might be with another is very different from being able to make a sustaining and loving relationship. Understanding what love is and might be is very helpful, but it ain’t the same as getting down and doing it!
I’m going to talk about some of my basic beliefs about doing love now as there’s a big distance between thinking about what it is and doing it!
I like to start with a big bang! In talking about love, especially in talking about ‘unconditional giving love’ that I also believe in, I deliberately played down the importance of sex. So do you believe that sexual incompatibilities can be fixed? Do you believe that sexual disappointment isn’t such a bad problem when there is so much good about the rest of your relationship? You do? I’m sorry. You’re probably wrong.
About fifteen years ago, I did some marriage and relationship counselling for a while. Two big problems came up over and over. They were sex and money. With money, it was usually a matter of inducing some consensus about how a couple operated with money. The difficulties around money were often more about relationship power and communication than anything else. I could work with that usually unless someone was bent on using money like some emotional heavy artillery. It did strike me that difficulties about sex and money often went hand-in-hand.
Some sexual difficulties were about innocence and ignorance and those were soluble in most cases. But the toughest difficulty was where there was an imbalance of sexuality and sexual interest between one person and another. One can learn sexual technique and improve one’s skill as a lover. Sex therapy, however, does not create or increase sexual interest or desire. The key word is imbalance. There may be no difficulty if one partner has no interest in sex and neither does the other. But if one person has a very strong interest in sex, and the other doesn’t, then the partner with the strong interest will rarely be able to forget it.
I’ve concluded I might be a big baby! I really love physical intimacy. I love touches, caresses, hugs, cuddles and kisses…and sex too. Also, in case you’re wondering, I have, as I’ve written before, a monogamous disposition to my intimate personal relationships. It’s the way I am and it’s non-negotiable. It’s an important compatibility indicator for me.
Young children get depressed, and may get sick or even die without physical intimacy. So how and why do we as adults ever get to believe we’re so different and leave such a fundamental part of ourselves behind so often in order to be “grown up?”
Next there’s something I’ve never seen written about much before. I don’t truly understand why. Maybe it has been written about before and people say what I feel in different ways.
I’ve really messed up here in the past, so it’s a lesson that’s cost me an awful lot of pain. It’s about knowing, understanding and feeling at ease with another’s core life values, attitudes and beliefs. Like all acts of intimate understanding it takes much time and effort to comprehend these in another.
It may not be at the top of your agenda when you’re in some hormone-driven erotic, manic romantic state either.
We all have beliefs and values about the world. They run very deep. For example, I have an absolutely passionate interest in personal development and growth, and also in learning. It says all sorts of things about me, how I might be in the world, and what matters to me most. I’m very open and enjoy communicating my feelings and emotions that I do with ease. Many people find these qualities attractive, even though some are very different in their outlook. To be happy in life, I need to be with someone who shares these same values and attitudes. It’s not enough for another to be awed by them, then later, find that they require far more effort than they are prepared to invest. Awe is no substitute for intimate mutual respect and caring admiration for another. Awe can easily switch to fear and contempt.
I’ll say a little more, since this point is so important (to me, and perhaps to others too).
The sharing of passions and interests is I believe a real bedrock of loving personal relationships, but they do not have to be the same. I love human difference, and difference may be an important point of growth. I’ll go one step further; I love to celebrate human difference. If someone else was the facsimile copy of me, there would be no development, no life and no growth. I’d atrophy and die of boredom. The point is still the same in a way, since difference in order to be tolerable needs to fall within the ambit of my personal values. My values underpin who I am, and yours do too.
There are some words I can’t quite grasp here. It’s the most important point and I can’t find the words. I’ll try. Love for me is a lot about the active interest and positive participation in the life of another, cherishing who they are for what they are, accepting their being without exception, valuing their wellbeing, wanting and enjoying them, sharing everything including their fear, shame, guilt, anger and sadness.
The psychologist, Scott Peck talked about discipline and had none, many of us (especially Americans) talk about “work” but it’s not that either. Love really doesn’t come easy, and in my next posts I’ll include more cautionary lessons I’ve learned. Living love is not easy. It’s not fate, romance or hormones. It’s not self-sacrifice either. It is a conscious caring act of will.
But there’s much more, later…
Moving on - Part 2 - A matter of trust
20/10/08 14:53
In my last blog, “Moving on - Part 1”, I talked about trust in perhaps what was a rather ingenuous way. I’d like to explore trust a little more, and hope you might join with me in doing that! Writing for me is often about exploration of thoughts and feelings rather than the presentation of firm ideas. It’s a journey with lots of diversions en route!
I’m always curious about etymology; the word trust probably came from a number of Germanic roots that meant comfort, confidence, consolation, faithful and help. Its origins go back to the twelfth century and before. The word, “trustworthiness” did not appear until well into the industrial revolution in the early nineteenth century.
Trust exists on a number of levels. At its most basic level, it might mean belief in the honesty of another. On the next rung up the trust ladder, it might mean a sense of faith or belief in another’s honesty, reliability, competence and benevolence. This is elementary trust.
Trust is not a virtue, since criminals might trust each other and there may be, “honour among thieves.”
I do not believe that anyone is wholly trustworthy or honest in this way, either to others or themselves. We are all faulted and fallible.
Without the notion of trust, ideas of betrayal and forgiveness could not exist.
Betrayal is also a central motif of Christian religion. God allowed his son, Jesus, to be put to death on the cross, where he uttered the words, “father, father, why hast thou forsaken me?” Is that not the ultimate betrayal? Jesus was betrayed by Judas, by the denials of Peter, and by his sleeping disciples. I’m not a Christian, but I do nevertheless believe that Christianity, like all religions, contains powerful archetypical images that uphold its wide appeal. Is not the story of the crucifixion about the ultimate untrustworthiness of humankind? Perhaps the power of that story is not about the absurdity of the resurrection and the ascension, but in Jesus’s return to those who he loved without rancour or bitterness, that he rose above that unfaithfulness without blame. Perhaps one might extend a notion of the crucifixion to signify not physical death, but the pain of human frailty as manifested in primal betrayal.
I am not sure if there is any greater betrayal than that experienced in child abuse. It is the ultimate crime and the ultimate betrayal. It is an exercise of brutal power by an abuser over an innocent and helpless child. It is corrupt and corrupting. In the last resort, the child may feel that their powerless complicity is an act whereby they betrayed themselves. The weight of guilt and shame carried by the abused victim often causes them to betray themselves over and over again through self-harming behaviours that may include their engagement in other abusive relationships later in their adult life.
I have no difficulties in extending elementary trust to anyone. I am not paranoid and I extend that trust to others freely in the course of my adult life. As one of my friends commented, if I am let down by that trust, it is the failure of the other, not me. Trust of this type is at the centre of all human relationships, including those at work. It is empowering of others too.
What moved me to tears in “Moving on, part 1” was not any issue around elementary trust, but a deeper feeling about something that I might call intimate trust. Intimate trust is the deepest act of human understanding. The work of creating intimate trust is, as I wrote earlier, “realising and expressing our inmost self in relationship with others, and supporting them in expressing their inmost self with us. Expressing our inmost self can mean revealing our feelings and needs, our dreams and hopes, our fears and joys and worries, our creative insights, our secrets and our pain . . . all the inner, personal aspects of ourselves. It does not matter at all, for the purpose of intimacy, whether we express "positive" aspects of ourselves such as joy, love, attraction and excitement, or "negative" experiences like fear, sadness, shame or anger.” Intimate trust is the loving act of entrusting someone else with your feelings, your inner being and your emotional and physical welfare. It is knowing that another will be there for you at a time of your deepest need, that they will not walk away and leave one suffering when their loving care matters most. Intimate trust carries with it no judgments either. It is accepting of mortality. It is the deepest form of trust, I believe.
In some ways, intimate trust has less to do with honesty that is the most common connotation of trust. Perhaps, it has more to do with the etymological root of the word, something that is a faithful, loving and accepting helpfulness. Intimate trust is an act of love, but not all that is taken as love in our world carries with it that sort of trust. A love without intimate trust is one that I would find very difficult to sustain. I have never found this intimate trust in my life so far; I have experienced love of sorts, but I doubt that I have yet known true love. I recognise that there are people who care for me very deeply nevertheless.
I have made great progress in healing. I am, at least, able to extend intimate trust and love to myself. I know I could extend it to others too. That may be the biggest step in my journey. It may be the only one. I don’t know. To develop intimate trust completely means that one experiences it through positive reinforcement in a way where it becomes an experience that overwhelms one’s earlier experience of abuse. I may be crazy but I remain hopeful…I am also cautious and watchful, as I have no desire to experience primal betrayal again.
I’m always curious about etymology; the word trust probably came from a number of Germanic roots that meant comfort, confidence, consolation, faithful and help. Its origins go back to the twelfth century and before. The word, “trustworthiness” did not appear until well into the industrial revolution in the early nineteenth century.
Trust exists on a number of levels. At its most basic level, it might mean belief in the honesty of another. On the next rung up the trust ladder, it might mean a sense of faith or belief in another’s honesty, reliability, competence and benevolence. This is elementary trust.
Trust is not a virtue, since criminals might trust each other and there may be, “honour among thieves.”
I do not believe that anyone is wholly trustworthy or honest in this way, either to others or themselves. We are all faulted and fallible.
Without the notion of trust, ideas of betrayal and forgiveness could not exist.
Betrayal is also a central motif of Christian religion. God allowed his son, Jesus, to be put to death on the cross, where he uttered the words, “father, father, why hast thou forsaken me?” Is that not the ultimate betrayal? Jesus was betrayed by Judas, by the denials of Peter, and by his sleeping disciples. I’m not a Christian, but I do nevertheless believe that Christianity, like all religions, contains powerful archetypical images that uphold its wide appeal. Is not the story of the crucifixion about the ultimate untrustworthiness of humankind? Perhaps the power of that story is not about the absurdity of the resurrection and the ascension, but in Jesus’s return to those who he loved without rancour or bitterness, that he rose above that unfaithfulness without blame. Perhaps one might extend a notion of the crucifixion to signify not physical death, but the pain of human frailty as manifested in primal betrayal.
I am not sure if there is any greater betrayal than that experienced in child abuse. It is the ultimate crime and the ultimate betrayal. It is an exercise of brutal power by an abuser over an innocent and helpless child. It is corrupt and corrupting. In the last resort, the child may feel that their powerless complicity is an act whereby they betrayed themselves. The weight of guilt and shame carried by the abused victim often causes them to betray themselves over and over again through self-harming behaviours that may include their engagement in other abusive relationships later in their adult life.
I have no difficulties in extending elementary trust to anyone. I am not paranoid and I extend that trust to others freely in the course of my adult life. As one of my friends commented, if I am let down by that trust, it is the failure of the other, not me. Trust of this type is at the centre of all human relationships, including those at work. It is empowering of others too.
What moved me to tears in “Moving on, part 1” was not any issue around elementary trust, but a deeper feeling about something that I might call intimate trust. Intimate trust is the deepest act of human understanding. The work of creating intimate trust is, as I wrote earlier, “realising and expressing our inmost self in relationship with others, and supporting them in expressing their inmost self with us. Expressing our inmost self can mean revealing our feelings and needs, our dreams and hopes, our fears and joys and worries, our creative insights, our secrets and our pain . . . all the inner, personal aspects of ourselves. It does not matter at all, for the purpose of intimacy, whether we express "positive" aspects of ourselves such as joy, love, attraction and excitement, or "negative" experiences like fear, sadness, shame or anger.” Intimate trust is the loving act of entrusting someone else with your feelings, your inner being and your emotional and physical welfare. It is knowing that another will be there for you at a time of your deepest need, that they will not walk away and leave one suffering when their loving care matters most. Intimate trust carries with it no judgments either. It is accepting of mortality. It is the deepest form of trust, I believe.
In some ways, intimate trust has less to do with honesty that is the most common connotation of trust. Perhaps, it has more to do with the etymological root of the word, something that is a faithful, loving and accepting helpfulness. Intimate trust is an act of love, but not all that is taken as love in our world carries with it that sort of trust. A love without intimate trust is one that I would find very difficult to sustain. I have never found this intimate trust in my life so far; I have experienced love of sorts, but I doubt that I have yet known true love. I recognise that there are people who care for me very deeply nevertheless.
I have made great progress in healing. I am, at least, able to extend intimate trust and love to myself. I know I could extend it to others too. That may be the biggest step in my journey. It may be the only one. I don’t know. To develop intimate trust completely means that one experiences it through positive reinforcement in a way where it becomes an experience that overwhelms one’s earlier experience of abuse. I may be crazy but I remain hopeful…I am also cautious and watchful, as I have no desire to experience primal betrayal again.