To Trust or Not To Trust After Betrayal?

“He took away my ability to trust.”

So said I to Dr. K. (Couples Counseling Might Not Work!) during a December session. How would I ever trust someone after such a deep and long and disgusting betrayal? The mere thought of it made my heart lurch, then tighten, as if readying for the punch of a lifetime. I will not allow this to happen to me again. And the best way to insure that is to not trust in anyone. I will stand on my own two feet. And if I want to hold someone’s hand at some point, I’ll hold it…loosely. So I can snatch it back without losing any skin at a moment’s notice.

And that hand-holding might happen, oh, around 2015, if I can shed the armor by then.

I fancied my future self as the female version of the “Most Interesting Man in the World”, the Dos Equis beer spokesman. You know, the one of whom it has been said, “He is the life of parties he has never attended.” And, “He’s won trophies for his game face alone.” Or one of my top ten favs, “He speaks fluent French, in Russian.”

You just get the sense this guy isn’t tied down. Unless he asks for it, but I don’t see him as the submissive type. If one of his gorgeous ladies takes on the bus boy during the interlude between the amuse bouche and the escargot, he’d pay the cab fare to send her on her way and order a Prosecco for the one that would take her place before the last snail shell was robbed of its inhabitant.

The Most Interesting Man in the World isn’t interested in commitment, and the only one he needs to trust is himself.

That would be me one day. No commitment, no trust. I’ll be totally safe. Free to make friends, have fun, and focus on my children, who I can trust completely. Except with knives. Or being alone in the garage. Oh, and I can’t trust them to not walk on the couch. But these are minor issues compared to being completely, grandiosely and massively lied to for four years. I can handle some couch-walking.

So how was it that I felt comfortable inviting a man I had met once into my home the night The Genius and I told our children…um, something about Daddy moving out? I tuned in to my soul and asked if it was cool. Soul said yes. I trusted my intuition. It felt right.

Whoa. I looked at my core. I wrapped my arms around my waist. I squeezed my eyes closed and welcomed the tears that flowed down. My smile was broad and thrust forward and up to the sky. I could feel. Really feel what was going on inside me.

Was this all it took? I had to stomach 1,460 days of lying to be opened so wide that I could feel reborn…with about six new senses? I’d sign up for that tour of duty again in a beat.

Since my last dance with the full moon I hadn’t paused to take note of how I was feeling inside. Or if I was feeling. Oh, I was feeling, alright. It was as if someone built an addition on my body, right in the center. A new level where I could experience my emotions without having to thrust them down deep, telling them to hide in case they’re exposed to someone who would use them against me, including myself. The mat at the door to this new floor of me didn’t say ‘Don’t Look’, it said ‘Don’t Fear’. I could venture in and sit, inviting all these beautiful emotions to lay with me while I stared up at the stars with a quiet mind to just feel. I felt totally safe.

I knew my emotions wouldn’t devour me whole. They just wanted to be seen, heard and felt. Our relationship was no longer uncomfortable, and I came to understand how important it is to sit with them and let them be. I think they like my company.

So, I opened the door to my home and in walked Mr. Jackpot. The dog was at peace. With a glass of wine in our hands, the conversation whipped around bends, climbed hills and lingered at the pretty spots and the ugly ones just the same. We covered a lot of ground that night. And then we hugged. Both needing a solid squeeze from a person without an agenda.

If Mr. Jackpot and I had met as single people, pre-Genius, we would have been immediately submerged in the kind of delicious turmoil that surrounds instant chemistry, and subsequently up-ended. But we’re not blinded by the glittery shine of newly spawned lust anymore. Thank Venus. This new kind of (let’s not use ‘relationship’) encounter isn’t desirous of being labeled, or sat upon an assembly line to be bolted together to look like some form we’re all comfortable seeing.

We’re two people on the Blue Marble who are paralleling each other, took note, and now get to learn from each other.

I was about to learn how to fly. For real.