Why Trust Issues Can Ruin Even The Strongest Relationships

I read a lot of advice inquiries on forums, in private messages, and in emails from people who are dealing with boyfriends or girlfriends with trust issues, or they have trust issues themselves. One that is consistently common goes something like this:

“I love my boyfriend and our relationship is good, except for the fact that I have problems with trust because my ex cheated on me. Now I don’t want my current boyfriend going out to his best friend’s bachelor party.”

The circumstances may vary, but the concept is the same: She loves him, but because her ex cheated on her, she fears this guy will too. As a result, she easily becomes jealous, possessive, and controlling and uses the pain from her past as an excuse for this behavior.

I see this constantly and it’s disappointing every time. It was especially painful to witness with an old acquaintance of mine. She was cheated on by a guy she was with before I really knew her. She broke up with that guy of course, and stayed single for several months. During her time of being single, her and I met and I listened to a few good rants about this guy.

It wasn’t too much longer before she started seeing someone new. Clearly, she was still hurting and not over the last guy, because everything this new guy did was rationalized into how he was probably lying and cheating. She drove herself crazy trying to interpret his every word, over-analyzing his every move and it didn’t take long before she was flat out accusing him of screwing around.

That relationship didn’t last of course, as he grew tired of her accusations and drama. He was loyal to her, but it took her a long time to see that. She later regretted treating him so horribly.

If you are in a relationship and you still have trust issues from a previous relationship, then why would you enter into a new relationship?

You don’t need to be giving anyone else problems with your baggage.

It’s a different story if you are trying to regain trust in someone from being cheated on by that person. In that case, they would owe you some cooperation for a limited period of time so trust can be redeemed.

However, if you are with someone and you don’t trust them for something someone else did to you, then that is your responsibility to work it out by yourself, no excuses. You do not get to punish anyone for the mistakes of another.

Your trust issues are your own problem to sort out, so leave your innocent partner out of it.

You might want to think about letting your partner know you need space and time to deal with these issues, just so they are unaffected during this time. This will also be better for you in the long run. Don’t be like the girl I used to know.

It’s time we all start taking responsibility for our problems.

If you are with someone whose partner doesn’t trust you because of something that happened with someone else, you don’t have to take that. Stand up for yourself. Let them know you won’t be punished when you haven’t done anything wrong. If they aren’t going to do anything about it, then you can by removing yourself from the situation. If you are loyal, it’s not your responsibility to fix their trust issues, but it is your responsibility to refuse to take any of their shit.