The Trust Issue

Before you continue reading this post, let me make a disclaimer. I am not writing because I have a current issue on Trust with R. I am writing from experience. No sermons please!

One of the many issues I've had to consider in my relationship with R is the lack of trust. Not that I didn't trust him when we first got together, but... well, you all know what I mean. Now that I look back to the time when he was still my boyfriend, I can now say that there were warning signs there. I suppose I was just too blind to see. I remember once, during a routine visit to Makro Davao, one of the canvassers there (who used to work under me in Manila) approached me and said "hindi ok ang reputation nya dito, Ma'am". And I just shrugged it off.

You see, R practically worshiped the ground I walked on, and all that time, I felt I was the prettiest woman alive. Really! Ha! Heck, I knew he was a hundred times prettier, but I felt really loved and adored. He took care of me. I now see that it was probably his M.O. - the way he'd fool women to think they were "the one and only." Haay, how naive of me!

I remember that a few years into our marriage, when he came home from Qatar, I found pictures of him with this girl JM (hmmm, maybe I should write about his other women... that should be interesting! Don't you agree, DN-S?!). She was a flight attendant for Qatar Airways. That was the only time R ever apologized for being with another girl. The many affairs after, he either denied, called them ugly or pretended like he didn't care. Ok, ok, so I was stupid. At least I can say I've been there and done that, right? Nyar.

But yea, the marriage just broke into pieces after the first incident. My trust just crumbled, and although I was working on rebuilding the trust, I just wasn't really able to. Ah! I still remember those nights when I'd follow his car. He used to drive a yellow Civic which was pretty easy to spot. How pathetic that I did that, no? And who can forget those times I'd try to catch him with someone or find something he had hidden! Nyar. It wasn't fun. I can tell you as much. And I know better now.

So what brought on this post? Nothing much. I was just having merienda with one of my friends and she was telling me how she'd openly check her hubby's mobile phones for any signs of womanizing. Every. Single. Night. A trust issue brought about by a recent breech of trust. How can one live like that no? I reflect on my past behavior and I can only shudder. One of the main ingredients to a healthy marriage is trust. You lose it, you lose one of the foundations you had built your relationship on.

R wasn't a great liar (he still isn't one). But I am a good actress. I can pretend everything is fine and dandy. I can wear a mask everyday, if I must. But I cannot lie to myself. I knew it in my heart that the charade had to stop, I was just too scared to take the first step.

Today, I am happier. I look back and I still feel sad it had to end the way it did, because I really did feel loved and I knew we had something great there. But this had to happen because trust never made it back to the marriage. He lies like there isn't a God, and it's just too much. I may have been stupid before, but that was because love masked my doubts.

I look at others who are currently in the same situation I was in, and I want to shout "wake up!" or "use your head." I am not saying one should give up on a marriage without trust. All I am saying is Trust is essential. You both have to want to work on it. In R's case, he obviously didn't care. It reached a point where I was resigned to the fact that he was a womanizer and I just didn't care, too. In the years that we were together, I sacrificed a lot for the marriage - thinking of my kids and family. But how does one go on living with someone who only thinks of himself? How I wished he'd ask for forgiveness then and worked on rebuilding whatever trust was lost! But no. He just didn't care if I trusted him or not. That was when I knew it was time for goodbye.

Lesson learned, I guess.