Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Trust - a discussion

28 replies

mastercress · 12/03/2011 13:51

OK, so here?s the deal IMHO.

If Party A does not trust Party B, for whatever reason, then Party A needs to make a considered decision. And I think the choice, albeit very black and white, is stay and get over it or leave.

If there is a complete lack of evidence, I would strongly advise not to go looking for it anyway. You don?t trust them, that?s the point. Looking for it is only going to make you look like a mental health case if there?s none to be found or, if you do find some, it will just prove what you thought anyway so you may as well save yourself the pain. And Party B will not thank you if there is no evidence ? it will royally piss them off and they may well leave you anyway.

Agree? Disagree?

OP posts:
lazarusb · 12/03/2011 16:15

I agree. My ex repeatedly asked me to 'prove' that I hadn't slept with someone who was a good friend of mine. He looked for ways to distrust me. Silly stuff. Once accused me of having an affair with my brother.
It was one of the many things that led to the end. No point flogging a dead horse. Either move on or move out.

zikes · 12/03/2011 16:26

Trust issues and insecurity can be worked through, and it may well be worthwhile, especially if there are children of the relationship.

JoinTheDots · 12/03/2011 16:33

Lazarusb with your brother?!?

Mastercress I agree, but feel sorry for those people who struggle with trust, as they may never have a long lasting relationship if they cannot get over it and therefore have to leave everytime

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 12/03/2011 16:38

Agree.

CheerfulMe · 12/03/2011 17:01

I'd tend to agree, yes.

Rohanda · 12/03/2011 17:12

I think faith and trust are unavoidably intertwinned here. Trust is certainly the bedrock of any relationsip of any sort, personal or professinoal - you need to trust the other parties to act in a consistent way.

Whilst I am not a God-squaddie in any way, the bit in the Bible where Jesus is in Gethsemanie the night before he dies ( I think) and he wants to challenge God to his word, God replies "Never put thy God to the test" I know that here he isn't just talking about Jesus-God, he is talking about how humans relate to each other.

As zikes says, trust issues ( and faith) can be worked on and improved. (in the end Jesus goes willingly to the cross with renewed faith the following day).

wotnext · 12/03/2011 17:19

It depends on the sittuation really.

If some one is insecure this could manifest itself to paranoia & distrust, in this case i think it can be worked on with re-assurance, openness, patience & time.

If someone is or has been dishonest/unfaithfull then there is good reason for the distrust & why would any one put themselves through that? iykwim,

FrottageCod · 13/03/2011 13:31

I am living this at the moment, well have been since about 2004 and feel as though my life is just a waste of time. I will elaborate one of these days under a name change. Feel so sad about it all.

garlicbutter · 13/03/2011 14:51

I don't see it as cut & dried. I am a trusting type of person - far too trusting in my past - but XH behaved in ways that made me feel extremely insecure. I didn't trust him, rightly as it turned out, but he insisted the problem was my suspicion. He demanded trust. Thus, he would agree with the OP but did nothing to deserve trust.

Thinking about it, I feel trust should be earned; it's not a right. It is horrid to live with somebody who is pathologically mistrustful, however that can be overcome with therapy (and trustworthy behaviour!) I hated being like that, people who always feel so afraid must be in torment.

This "You should trust me" malarkey is often used as a weapon of control.

lazarusb · 13/03/2011 20:10

Join the dots Yes, he was a fuckwit of the highest order. It just wore me down. Trying to prove that something that didn't happen, didn't happen is impossible.

sufficient · 13/03/2011 20:28

Rohanda, the bit you're thinking of is Satan testing Jesus in the desert. He says if you throw yourself off this temple you know God will send his angels to catch you. Then Jesus replies 'it is written do not put the Lord your God to the test'.

In the Garden, Jesus says If it is possible take this cup from me, but not my will but yours be done.

Rohanda · 13/03/2011 21:16

Ah, thank you v. much, sufficient. I knew I wasn't much of a God-squaddie!
but yes, the message is the same.

Original poster
mastercress · 14/03/2011 09:49

garlicbutter, I don't know what your situation was like but the weapon of control statement is also true the other way round. The untrusting party can try and control the behaviour and movements of the untrusted party by being suspicous and making it known. I don't feel that the untrusted party should change their behaviour. If they're not trusted, then there's something wrong and the relationship needs help or to end.

Like lazarusb says, trying to prove something didn't happen didn't happen is really difficult, if not impossible. If the trust isn't there, I don't feel that the untrusted party can do much to provide reassurance.

OP posts:
WhenwillIfeelnormal · 14/03/2011 12:02

As a general rule, I agree that a lack of trust is pernicious to relationships and that continued invasions of privacy damages both the snooper, the other party and the relationship generally.

However, if there is behaviour that is causing suspicion and turmoil and this is the first time a perfectly rational, non-paranoid person has felt such doubt and enquiries have been met with a denial, despite the aberrant behaviour continuing, then I would now always advise someone to find another way of verifying or contradicting what they are being told.

IME, someone being deceived and having their choices in life denied, or in worse cases, the presence of gaslighting, has a far more deleterious effect on mental health than snooping.

If no evidence can be found, but the person still feels that their security is threatened and that the original suspicious behaviour is harming the relationship, then better to take the decision to leave, because ultimately, no proof is needed to decide that you don't feel loved and nurtured in a relationship.

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 14/03/2011 12:13

Some people are paranoid and jealous, some people are habitually dishonest. I think as WWIFN suggests, if the jealous one has never felt or behaved like this before, or if the snooped on partner has not being up to anything s/he shouldn't, then it's the other partner with the problem. But with any type of 'relationship issue' if the same things happen in all your relationships then it's you who has a problem.

Anniegetyourgun · 14/03/2011 13:04

Can I tell my favourite story here, yet again? Can I? Can I? Oh please...

Party A did not trust Party B. Friend C thought that A was very wrong and controlling, and that her lack of trust would be more likely to drive B to have an affair. As it turned out, B was having an affair. With C. But C's point was that if only A had been trusting she would not have found out and then she wouldn't have been upset, so it was all A's fault. I will never, in a million years, get my head round that one.

I've been the untrusted party too, and bloody wearing it was. After some 25 years of being accused of either being up to something or planning to be, I eventually made a half-hearted attempt to do something worth being suspected of, kind of hoping this would encourage Party A to leave, but he wouldn't. He just hung around making "so I was right all along" noises. So I ditched the silly affair idea and just went for the straight divorce.

The trouble is that people who are irrationally jealous need to be rational enough to know they are being irrational, if that makes sense. They won't go for therapy if they sincerely believe it's the rest of the world that's out of step.

WinkyWinkola · 14/03/2011 13:59

Annie, did your Party A and Party B and C really happen?

Anniegetyourgun · 14/03/2011 14:06

They most certainly did. C is a very good long-standing friend of mine (notwithstanding our different views on some matters).

WinkyWinkola · 14/03/2011 14:35

C IS STILL YOUR FRIEND? And yes, I'm shouting!

Anniegetyourgun · 14/03/2011 14:47

I know, and you want to hear her politics...

There are reasons. We've been there for each other when it really mattered, and all that stuff. It's a popular moral dilemma, What Would You Forgive Your Best Friend (you stand by them if they committed a bank robbery but not murder, sort of thing, and I think this offence is nearer to bank robbery than murder!). I can only plead that sometimes good people do bad things.

WinkyWinkola · 14/03/2011 20:14

Yes but does this good person recognise she did a Bad Thing?

How do you know she won't have an affair with your next significant man?

Anniegetyourgun · 14/03/2011 20:34

She doesn't, and I doubt she ever will. Too deeply mired in self-justification IMO. B did the same to her, eventually, after A threw him out, and she still didn't "get it".

Please, spare me another significant man. I've done with all that crap, forever I hope. But if I couldn't trust a man not to sleep with my friends he wouldn't be significant anyway.

WinkyWinkola · 15/03/2011 10:51

Anniegetyourgun, I think you should have!

SpringchickenGoldBrass · 15/03/2011 16:25

I wouldn't dump a friend for behaving like C either. I would probably tell her I didn't agree with her assessment of the situation, but to me it wouldn't be that big a deal in the long run. Remember that the one most at fault in the situation is B, after all.

WinkyWinkola · 16/03/2011 10:24

Seriously? You wouldn't dump a friend for having an affair with your husband/partner? Obviously the man is most at fault but does a friend have no responsibility to a friendship?

Swipe left for the next trending thread