Week 7 - Post 1

I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to people and offer second chances without losing my trust in the person. I recognize that we’re all just human and that mistakes are inevitable. I also tend to reserve my trust for a very small group of people in the first place. When he or she violates that trust after a second or third chance and I do lose my trust in him or her there is almost nothing that can be done to earn it back. They’ve demonstrated a pattern that I can’t look past. The same thing happens when my trust is violated so severely that it only takes one instance.

Many years ago I was in a relationship with a much older guy named Sean. It was an open relationship, something I’d never even heard of before meeting him. The basic concept was that we could be involved with other people so long as everything was open and honest, talked about in advance and that our relationship came first. I’m sure that you can see where this is going to end up, and the more conservative readers probably feel that that’s the inevitability of such a relationship. Perhaps, I’ve know people since to be quite happy with them, but I learned that they’re really not for me.

So, as expected, Sean eventually violated the rules and cheated. One weekend, on his way to go camping with friends while I stayed home to work on a school project, he called me asking for permission to see where things went with our mutual friend Katie. She had just been summarily dumped after an 8 year relationship and he had always had a crush on her. It was too spur of the moment for me, and she was not someone I trusted on that level, so I said no. It was fine to comfort her, spend time with her and flirt with her, but not sleep with her. His eagerness also struck me as wanting to swoop in and take advantage of her vulnerability which really bothered me.

When the weekend was over he returned and told me that he stuck to the limitations I had given him. But the next day, over chat with Katie and Sean, details leaked out over the course of the day with him denying and lying about them at every step. She said that she was sorry about what happened and when I asked Sean what she meant. He said that there had been a kiss. She then apologized for them “fooling around” and Sean told me it was merely cuddling and such. Things went back and fourth several more rounds before it finally came out that it was actually unprotected sex that they had had.

At the time I wasn’t as clear on my limits for forgiveness so there were a few weeks where we discussed at great length what could salvage our relationship. In the end though, nothing could. The series of lies that played out showed me someone who was purposefully deceiving me, I couldn’t trust that person. He later married Katie and they have a beautiful daughter. I thought perhaps that everything had worked out the way that it was supposed to. However, it wasn’t long before he did the same thing to her and they’re now divorced.