everybody has their opinion when it comes to secrecy and transparency.
I totally agree. And I don't think it's really a matter of behaviors (not talking about cheating) being right or wrong. It's a matter of what people are comfortable with. To feel comfortable, it sounds like you need a lot of transparency on the part of your partner. And, to feel comfortable, it sounds like he needs more privacy. At least right now. That doesn't make either of you wrong. It doesn't mean he's trying to hide something or that you're trying to control him. Although both of those things could be true.
You know, when you've had one too many experiences with people whom you trusted implicitly (parents, partners) go to insane lengths to lie and cover up, your sense of "no big deal" kind of goes out the window.
I get that. It's why it's hard to trust my T. If someone's being nice, it usually mean they want something and it's a trick. It's hard to entertain the possibility that there are trustworthy people out there. It's also hard to get past the idea that the world won't literally come to an end if the person somehow lets you down. But the actual fact is, it won't. I totally understand you about how this works and I'm going to guess you're SO would too, if he heard it that way. (He's probably going to lose track of the idea and go into survival mode if things go south.)
That's part of what makes this so hard. Once a person starts to get triggered (either of you, in this case) the rational part of your brain quits running the show and the lizard part takes over. For both of you. That's not a PTSD thing, it's a human thing. It's just that the threshold is different with PTSD.
Yes, I think his idea of it is me asking one too many questions, which then sounds to him like I don't believe him, which will cause ^^
You might be right. It really is probably something he needs to think about carefully. It may not exactly be "one too many questions". It might be something like getting asked versions of the same question over and over, with no way to answer it that will bring the questions to an end. I say that partly because that gets to me, big time. Where do you go from there? How to you escape? Everyone needs some kind of "right answer", you know? So, sometimes if the person you're talking to doesn't understand, it can come off the same as if they don't believe you. It's a perception thing. It's real and needs to be addressed somehow.
Mind you, me asking questions isn't because I don't believe him. It's because I genuinely want to understand.
That's fair. It can, sometimes, come off like you're going to keep asking until you get the answer you want. And, I don't mean YOU as a person, I mean anyone who keeps asking and asking once you think you've answered. This is tough, because he may, honestly, not be able to explain himself to you in a way that works for you. Not because he doesn't want to, but because he literally can't. (He could be messing with you too, but you've made him sound like a pretty decent guy.)
So here is what I proposed: I won't talk about myself or how I feel, and I won't ask any questions. I will let him talk and not jump on what he says. His answer was "yeah, that may work."
Actually, I don't think there's a chance in the world that would work and I think he said what he said because he thought it was what you wanted to hear.
You HAVE to talk about how you feel and I can't imagine you not asking questions.That's who you are and what you need in this situation. Pretending otherwise isn't going to work. For either of you. Now, letting him talk and not "jumping on what he says" is something else again. Some people do have a tendency to interrupt and not wait to hear the whole answer etc. That might be something you could work on, yourself. But I think asking you to not talk about how you feel or ask questions isn't going to work, and he knows that. Which brings up another thought, for me. I've BEEN in conversations where my partner makes that kind of promise. As things played out, what it meant was they were running out of patience with the situation and were saying anything they could think of to get me to stay with the situation. To ME, and this might be a PTSDish way of reacting, I knew that what they were proposing wasn't going to work, it seemed like "a trick". (Which means something a little worse to me than it does to most people.) So, FOR ME, when I hear someone making those kinds of promises (promises I know they can't/won't keep) it kind of sends thing south right there. It seems like a lie. Even if they don't MEAN it that way, and often they don't.
Well, that's the tricky one. It really depends on how he answers.
Fair enough. That right there is an answer that I, were I in his shoes, would be comfortable with. Because it's honest. It opens discussion to the next step. "Let's talk about what we each need here and see if we can come up with some ground rules that will work." Maybe you can, maybe you can't, but you have the conversation and find out.
As I say ^, there is a certain manner of conversation that feels sincere, honest, and open.
Because he broke my trust. Not other way to turn it.
I'd like to reword those statements a little.
It seems more accurate to say "There is a certain manner of conversation that feels sincere, honest, and open TO YOU." There are going to be different conversations that feel that way to different people. There are going to be specific things that YOU interpret as trustworthy and they may not be the same for everyone else, even to other trustworthy people. True?
And, it's true that your perceive his behavior as breaking your trust. And, if you had an agreement that he was going to show you text messages like that one (as an example, because that's all that incident really is is an example), but if he'd agreed to show you messages and then went back on that agreement, I'd agree that he broke your trust when he broke that promise. If there was no such agreement, then I'd agree that he did something that caused you to be suspicious of him. In a way, this trust thing is like "making someone happy". You CAN'T exactly MAKE another person happy. That person picks their own feeling. They might be happy because of something you've done, but you can't force them to BE anything. You might intend for them to be happy and yet they aren't. Likewise, you might intend for them to trust you and they don't. You might intend for them not to be angry with you, and yet they are. He did what he did and you trust him less because of it. That doesn't, necessarily, mean the behavior was wrong, just that it produced the response that it did. He can't control your reaction to stuff. (Even if he wants to. Which can be scary.)
who is acting in not so trustworthy ways.
"Who is acting in ways that YOU PERCEIVE as untrustworthy." :) No value judgement there. It's your perception. Might be accurate, might not be. It's just information.
I don't think you have to feel guilty for not trusting him. You have reasons. They're perfectly valid. He's got reasons too and they are, likewise, valid.
As an example of a different way of looking at this. If my ex-husband, or another SO had deleted a message like your guy did. Exact same situation. It would have attracted my attention, because it seems odd. I'd have made a mental note of it and waited to see if a pattern developed. Because, to ME, there are a lot of reasons that might explain the behavior. "Cheating" is only one of them. And, in the end, if it turned out he'd been cheating? Then dump the bastard and move on. Nothing more, or less than that. (Because I really DO hate being lied to and you only get to get caught doing it once. No second chances, if it's something major.) But, to ME "lying" and "hiding something" aren't the same thing.
If I remember right, your SO had a really bad experience with a T, which left him not wanting to take a chance on therapy, ever again. You might explain to him that your own trust issues are kind of like that. (I think they probably ARE kind of like that.) I honestly think the two of you would have a better chance of sorting this out if you had a competent third party (couples T, in other words) to guide you through it. You both bring baggage to the table that's going to make it hard to see the middle ground, even if you're both trying to.
My T likes to say that we all have our own road map of reality. Some are more accurate and up to date than others and he encourages working to be as up to date and accurate as possible. But, in the end, they are only road maps, they are NOT "reality", and they will all be different. That doesn't make them right or wrong. Mine might be in black and white and yours in full color with illustrations. They are different and we'll handle the world we navigate differently as a result. You and your SO are GOING to have different road maps, because you're different people with different experiences. Doesn't mean either of you is right or wrong, although at times one of you might be operating from a more accurate map than the other. One of the interesting things about the world is, we never, absolutely for sure, know what someone else's map looks like.
thank you for being so patient with me and talking me through it
You're welcome! I'm only doing it because you seem like you're willing to keep trying to work through it yourself. (Besides, I'd really like to believe that some relationships actually work out. I'm a sucker for a happy ending. :confused:)
