No, I Totally Trust My Partner, Except For This Thing

[joreth]

It's kind of amazing how often saying "when you say 'I trust my partner but don't trust other people' it really means that you don't trust your partner" results in other people responding with "that's not true, I totally trust my partner!" and then proceed to give examples that can still be traced down to "I don't actually trust my partner". It's just that sometimes that lack of trust isn't rooted in reality.

I mean, "I totally trust my partner 100% because I absolutely know without a shadow of doubt that they would never cheat but I feel strong emotions anyway" only means that you don't actually trust your partner, you just have no *reason* to distrust your partner - you just feel that insecurity inside your head because of you.

Really, any "no, I totally trust my partner, but..." means "I don't trust my partner". If you trusted them, there is no "but". You can *mostly* trust someone, like trust them enough to get on with life and not be upset over things, but at some point, your trust runs out.

Like, I don't actually *distrust* my partners to be honest about their STI statuses, but I still want to see their paperwork because I have experience that tells me that not everyone has the same understanding of STI tests as I do (I actually had a partner who swore up and down that he got tested for "everything" even after he showed me his paperwork and was surprised a couple of years later to learn that he had never been tested for HSV, which I knew because I read his paperwork).

That means that my trust is conditional. I trust, but only up to a certain point. That point at which my lack of trust kicks in may be entirely in my head due to my own experiences and not because of anything my current partners have done to earn that lack of trust. But I'm owning that this is where my trust for my partners stops. Trust can be gradient and can apply unevenly to different circumstances.

"I trust my partner but..." means you don't trust them, at least not about that thing or after a certain point. But the number of people who, upon hearing that, respond with "that's not true!" and then proceed to list exactly the point that they don't, in fact, trust their partners, is kind of amazing.

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*inspired by this post: I Trust My Girlfriend. I Just Don't Trust Other Guys.

Comments

[belenen.livejournal.com]

I definitely don't trust that any two people have the same definition of any word or concept. One person's flirtation is another one's cheating; one person's careful is another one's careless. I don't think trusting someone for anything beyond good intentions is really useful, and certainly trust without defining concepts, goals, and boundaries is useless.