Trust Issues

Trust Issues (Big Sister)

lovegame7, 19 writes...

I have never been able to keep any kind of a long term relationship with anyone. By that I don't mean a boyfriend, because I've never had one, more like a close friendship. I'm not exactly entirely sure that it's always my fault but I do tend to blame myself. Even from as early as elementary school I would change friends every year. Any one person that I would start becoming attached to would move and we would lose touch until I started high school really. That was when I started becoming best friends with one of the girls of the group I would hang out with. That group somehow ended up splitting up and me and Jane (we'll call her) started hanging out with a new group and became pretty close until a relationship ended that ended up splitting up the group, leaving me and Jane. We, by that point, were inseparable and hung out all the time with each other. Of course we had our issues but they weren't that major until she ended up stabbing me in the back. Even though we made up, sort of, I just couldn't get myself to trust her again and pushed her away. She really was my first true best friend. After that I became close with someone else but even though we have a lot in common, it's not the same kind of friendship. Then in college I became very close with one of my roommates who also ended up betraying me but we talked and were able to fix everything and moved past it. We lived together for the whole year and one major issue with the two of us was that we are completely opposite people and I noticed that she looked down on me for our differences. Now, our first semester of sophomore year has passed and we are practically strangers. Throughout most of my life there was always one person I knew I could count on, my cousin. We lived pretty far away and would only see each other once a year but we would talk on and off when we could to fill each other in on our lives. I ended up going to school with her so that we could be closer and see each other more. That ended disastrously when one night I was more drunk than I wanted to be and did some stupid things. When I told her what happened and was very clearly upset about it, crying and everything, she told at least 2 other people about it without my knowledge. Somehow the information spread to a lot more people that I still to this day have no idea know about it. She ended up telling me that she told people and we had a huge argument via text and she ended up calling me a psycho for being mad and I stopped talking to her for about 5 months. The only reason we spoke again is because my family was going to her house and we didn't want everyone to find out about it. All I wanted was a sincere apology and she told me that I should thank her ex-boyfriend for forcing her to talk to me again because I was so wrong for being mad. I was definitely not going to do that and she never apologized but we were at least on speaking terms. After that things got really weird when she started to leave me out of things she would plan with our mutual friends. She gave me every reason not to like her and somehow managed to take the people I was close to from me. We now have a mutual dislike for each other I think although for some weird reason she comments on my facebook statuses all the time and it feels so fake! My mom says the reason I can't keep friends is because I find flaws in people that I don't like and then push them away. All of these past events have definitely affected my ability to trust people. I'm afraid that I won't be able to keep a true friend, let alone a first boyfriend. What do you think of my situation? What can I do to fix this problem? PS. sorry I gave you my whole life story, I needed to vent some of it out

Ivette says...

I am really sorry you have gone through a lot of troubles especially when coming from friends and family members. In my opinion, I think it's better to not trust enough rather than giving your trust easily. You have to understand that trust is not given, it's earned. Sure, you may wonder why you might be so hard on some of the people on your life, but another key concept is expectations. How high or how low are they. Some people have very low expectations, a stranger may let them borrow a pen and they automatically think they will become best friends. Some people have high ones, and unless they share a mutual sense of the world with you, you will approve of having a chit chat. There are very both extremes, but where I am getting is that maybe you may have too high of expectations for those around you. Realize that people are only humans, they commit mistakes, they lie, they back stab you and they can make you upset. Don't let those mistakes vanish years of loyalty and friendship. Forgive but don't forget. You also have to understand that as much as you want a person to be and behave, it's very unlikely for them to do so. We can't control our friends actions, and we can't expect them to be a certain way because in actuality, that's not how the world works. This is why there are so many personalities and unique characters, everyone is very unpredictable. We sometimes can't control how people behave and I think this is your biggest letdown. Don't expect too much from them because chances are you will never be happy when they don't act how you think they should. Try to be more open-minded and understanding. Some people come with extra baggage that you shouldn't bother with and some people come with different quirks you will learn to accept and love. Sure, it is possible that not having stable friendships since you were small may have affected you in some degree, but please do understand that people are people. They do things that will make you cry and smile, laugh or yell, etc. Don't get overworked on what happened with your cousin, you were great friends before she committed that mistake. People make mistakes and I am sure if she had the chance to go back in time and not tell those two people about your dilemma she wouldn't have made the same mistake. Put yourself in others shoes in that case, this may help you shed some light and maybe try to understand why people do certain things. We don't really know why she told those people, she might have been stressed and venting off with them, or asking them for advice. Don't be fast to assume that she did things with ill intentions, or anyone that has done you wrong. The key here is to give people the trust they deserve and not expect too much out of them. I'm not praising you to turn into a doormat either, but maybe be more open and accepting to people and understand that they do make mistakes. It's just up to you if you decide to forgive them or not, and how much trust you want to invest in them again.

Tags: advice, relationships, big sister, friends, friendships, boyfriends, trust issues

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