Most people see trust as what others do.

I don’t.

At least not most of it.

Maybe 1%, maybe 10%, to me, is what people do. The actions they take, their word or their truths.

The rest, that 90% or 99%? That’s all me (or all you).

Trust is trust in yourself. Your ability to handle whatever someone offers you.

And when you don’t trust, you don’t believe you can take what they might throw at you. Your worry is not their lies, but your reaction to their lies. Your hurt, your betrayal, your heartbreak.

Trust is a deep dark mirror of your fears.

I wrote back in 2017:

Trust: I can count on this person to meet my needs before their wants, at least while with me.

• My need to feel safe before their desire to get off.
• My need to feel heard before their instinct to defend themselves.
• My need to connect on an intimate level before their excitement for edge play.
• My need for the truth over their fear of… whatever.

And that is still true-ish.

But I’ve realized that the TRUST is not about them. It was never about them. It’s about me, and my ability to accurately assess these things in others.

To not second-guess myself.

To handle whatever comes my way, sure, but also to avoid most of the bad things through honing my instincts and paying attention to what people show me about themselves.

I was writing something else this morning, when I typed a series of words that stopped me in my tracks, and made me write this instead.

I wrote:

If you set the intention to love and trust your partner as you do yourself, and to know that they will do what’s best for themselves and that they believe what is best for them is also good for the both of you, and whatever you have together.

AND—and to me, this is the important bit—to believe for yourself the same thing. Because if you know, deep down inside, that what you want and do is NOT what is best for your relationship, but that you’re going to do it anyway, then you will never trust another person to accomplish that.

It hit me.

When we lie to ourselves, we will never be able to trust others. When we actively deceive ourselves, it affects our ability to recognize when others deceive us.

AND, it also affects our ability to recognize when others are telling us the truth.

Because we can’t even tell when we are telling ourselves the truth.

HOLY FUDGEBUCKETS, Y’ALL!

I mean, I’ve been heading in this direction for a long time.

In 2021, I wrote “Do You Trust You?” About this, but although it was a step closer, it was still missing THIS.

(https://datingkinky.com/blog/healthy-boundaries/do-you-trust-you/)

And earlier this year, I said:

It doesn’t matter that I don’t really trust them, though.

Because I have strong boundaries.

But It’s not really because I have strong boundaries. That’s true, but not THE TRUTH.

I can trust others because I trust me. And I don’t have to trust them if I trust me and my ability to handle whatever they can dish out.

And if I don’t trust them, then it’s up to me to search inside myself for what I think I can’t handle

And what I Amy or Amy not be able to handle is based partially on what I think they are capable of, which is where most of us place 100% of trust.

But I don’t.

Because what someone is capable of, I cannot know. I can only guess at what they WILL DO in interactions with me.

And when I don’t know them, I have to rely entirely on myself for all the possibilities, including them being an axe murderer, right?

And when I do know them, they could STILL be an axe murderer…but I trust myself to have sussed out that while that is possible, it is not probable, and all of the greatest probabilities that I can map out in my mind are absolutely things I can handle.

And when that happen, I trust them.

Sure, sometimes I’m wrong about the probabilities.

But, so far, I’ve never been wrong about my ability to survive and grow (and thrive), no matter what has been thrown at me.

And that is the core of my trust.

And the foundation of my relationships.

What are your thoughts?

Do you feel that trust is more about you than about the other person?

Or am I full of it? LOL!

Or perhaps there is even more to it than I am seeing?