Trust

Trust.  What an amazing word.  It truly can take years to build and only seconds to destroy it.  I used to be a very trusting person, to the point that I would basically set myself up to be hurt.  Circumstance, as it often does, forever changed how I would go about trusting people and in particular, men.  When I was 21 years old I entered into my first real relationship with a man who I will call Colorado.  It was the first time that I fell in love, the first time that I was intimate with anyone (sorry if that is TMI, but I really do have a good message to go with this little trip down memory lane).  For a year and a half I dated a man who I never really knew.  I gave my everything to him, and then my world crashed down on me when I found out that he had been married the entire time that we had been together.  Then, to add insult to injury, I looked back at the year and a half and with the perfect hindsight 20/20 vision that we often have and realized that there had been so many signs.  At one point he had actually called me by his wife's name and I brushed it off as just some stupid slip of the tongue.  I also never met any of his family and only very few of his friends.  I later learned that I had been the laughing stock of their conversations. 

After learning that Colorado was married I confronted him about it.  He did not deny any of it but just cried like the little boy that he was and told me how sorry he was (sorry for being caught, I am sure).  I told his wife and also made sure that she understood that I had no idea about her and that I ended the relationship immediately.  I later found out that despite all of Colorado's lies, his wife still stayed with him.  This is something that I have never been able to understand.

My relationship with Colorado began when I was 21 years old and ended when I was 22.  Fast forward to 2009 when I would have been 24 years old and also when I met the man who would become my husband.  I really did not even realize how much my heart had been damaged by Colorado.  Unfortunately, my husband is now paying for the mistakes that Colorado made. 

I am not going to use this blog to discuss details of my marriage as I do not think that is fair to my husband and family.  I will say that I have struggled with being able to trust my husband unconditionally.  Not because he has ever done something so terrible to have destroyed the trust in our relationship, but more because I never want to be hurt the way I was only a few years ago.  At almost 27 years old, I am finding myself in a position where I have to learn how to trust all over again.  Not all people are as deceitful as Colorado is and not everyone will make me the butt of their jokes.

For all of the women out there who have been scorned by a man, there is a prince charming out there for you.  Not all men will treat you badly, not even the majority of them.  There are men out there who will open doors, and their heart, to you.  There are men who will protect you, cuddle with you, and tell you that they love you every single day.  No relationship is a fairy tale; they all take work.  But, you can live happily ever after; I know that I am :)