in

Dating : Trusting You to Love Me Back

h2>Dating : Trusting You to Love Me Back

How Brene Brown and Cary Grant Helped Me Trust in Love

Photo by Ryan Holloway on Unsplash

“I learned that one of the most vulnerable parts of loving someone is trusting that they love you back, and I need to be generous in my assumptions.” (Brene Brown, Rising Strong)

So much of Brene Brown’s work resonates with me, but this one quote gave me pause. I’d been struggling with this idea. Honestly, I’d just been struggling. A classic over-thinker, I am guilty of creating every worst-case scenario in my mind in order to mentally prepare myself for anything that could go wrong. I had finally dealt with my feelings about being single and adapted to that life when I tripped and fell headlong into love. I didn’t plan it. I tried to resist it. I failed spectacularly.

Beautifully and spectacularly.

It was beautiful. Falling in love with him wasn’t one moment. It was a series of moments. The first time his eyes met mine, the first time our hands touched, the first kiss, every time he made me laugh. I could go on. Loving him has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. In a life that I love, that’s a big statement.

I don’t have anything against love. It’s just that my experience of it has been hearing love but feeling neglect, manipulation, or even emotional abuse. Or loving and not having the feeling returned. Or loving and leaving or being left behind. Of attachment and co-dependence that felt like love. I didn’t experience toxic love because that’s not a real thing, but I certainly experienced toxic relationships. So, tell me how I’m supposed to love and trust that I will be loved back.

I should explain. I don’t think that my partner doesn’t love me back. I think that he does. But I have a hard time trusting he will stay in love with me and continue to choose me.

I was deep into over-thinking this and generally struggling with feelings of insecurity when I picked up Rising Strong by Brene Brown, a book I’d borrowed from my partner months ago and had only half-finished. I mean no disrespect to her work, but I read fiction faster than I ever read non-fiction. The bookmark remained in its place, I remembered what I had read, so I picked right back up to where I left off. It was at the part where she talks about the delta, and it’s one of my favorite parts of the book. It wasn’t long before I was reading these words:

“I learned that one of the most vulnerable parts of loving someone is trusting that they love you back, and I need to be generous in my assumptions.” (Rising Strong)

It stopped me. I had to read it again. I sat with those words reverberating through me. If I love him, and I do, I have to be vulnerable enough to trust him to love me back, and instead of assuming meaning into every pause, I need to be generous in my assumptions.

I need to assume the best, not the worst, because this is the person I love, and I should trust him to love me back.

Let’s break that down a little further.

I should trust him.

I trust him not to cheat. I trust him to be honest with me. If all that’s true, why the hell am I sitting around thinking that there could come a time when he doesn’t love me? Why am I assuming it could be imminent? If I trust his honesty and trust his fidelity, I need to trust that he will let me know if anything changes.

There’s a great line in the film Notorious by Alfred Hitchcock:

“When I don’t love you, I’ll let you know.” (Notorious)

It always struck me as an odd way for Cary Grant’s character Devlin to tell Alicia that he loves her. But maybe it’s not. When we love someone, we should trust that if they don’t love us, now or at some distant point in the future, they’ll let us know. They won’t leave us wondering. Believing that is naturally hard for me because I was in a relationship where the one I was with stopped loving me and waited years to let me know. But this isn’t that.

I have to be generous in my assumptions.

I can’t trust him and assume the worst. That’s not trust. Being generous in my assumptions means that when we’re not connecting like we usually do I remember that he works hard, is a great father, and has many other commitments and interests that occupy his time. What matters is that he always makes time for me. I don’t feel like I’m last on the list, but I also don’t expect to be first.

I think that’s a mistake we make when we’re younger. We expect to be first. We expect that everyone we date should put us as the absolute top priority. But I don’t want him to put me in front of his child. We’re both parents, and we both prioritize our children. I love and respect him for being the kind of parent who makes his child a priority.

I also don’t expect him to put me before him. Self-care is an essential part of our lives. I expect him to take care of himself so that he can be a strong partner. I don’t expect him to sideline his own care every time I have a need. I, in turn, do my best to take care of myself so that I can be a strong partner.

Where I fuck up, honestly, is that I don’t always ask for what I need. It’s another thing Brown goes on to talk about. Asking for help when we need it is trust-building. Asking for what we need is a part of that. I expect us both to prioritize self-care, but I also need to ask for what I need.

I’m not last in his life, and he’s certainly not last in mine. There’s not a list lying around with the order of where we stand. But I don’t expect to cut line in front of him or his child, and he wouldn’t ask me to do that either.

When I’m being generous in my assumptions, I need to remember that having a need but not expressing it and then having feelings about not getting the need met isn’t him changing his mind or not loving me. It’s me not asking for what I need or not clearly communicating. Being generous in what I assume means that I don’t assume the worst because it suits the way I’m feeling. I assume that if he doesn’t love me, he’ll let me know, which means that he still loves me.

As I thought this out, something settled in me. I am loved. This person that I love loves me back. All the moments of the beautiful fall and all the moments of loving him since surged to the surface.

Trust has been a struggle, and I’ve been stuck in my resistance. Life is uncertain, but I don’t have to fight that. It’s not my job, and it wouldn’t do any good anyway. But the thing I have to remember is that he loves me now and I love him.

If I love him and trust him, I have to believe that he’ll do this one thing for me: He’ll love me back, and when he doesn’t, he’ll let me know.

Read also  Dating : Peeeeeeeeweeeey. Funny and stinky. Love it!

What do you think?

22 Points
Upvote Downvote

Laisser un commentaire

Votre adresse e-mail ne sera pas publiée. Les champs obligatoires sont indiqués avec *

Dating : How to Land Myself a Good Old-Fashioned Date

POF : Account keeps deleting?