“Trust is essential to the development of healthy, secure, and satisfying relationships”
You may read that and think - but of course. That makes complete sense. That’s a no brainer. If we don’t trust one another it will inevitably lead to arguments and upsets and create animosity within the relationship. But what if your ability to trust is fragile? What if one moment your trust is strong and the next it crumbles? What if it depends on a number of factors that sway wildly given the circumstance and the triggers? Let me share some very personal diary entries from a situation that occurred last week to give you some context.
I write this coming out of a particularly bad breakdown of self and in turn my relationship. My face is swollen from hours upon hours of crying and I am drifting through that after haze of trying to make sense of it all. I have been doing so well with keeping my breakdowns at bay, so the force of one this big has left me a bit stunned and more than a little ashamed. My partner has asked me to stay away from him and it’s taking everything in my power not to contact him again (I already have in a desperate attempt to be told it’s all going to be okay). As he so bluntly put it - this behaviour is not okay.
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There was a house dinner including a woman my partner speaks fondly about. In the days leading up to this meal, proclamations like ‘oh x is really sound’ or ‘it’s going to be great to have x back’ or ‘I really like x’ had bothered me but I knew deep down that these were my irrational insecurities and I kept them buried so as not to cause an unnecessary scene. At the communal meal I was feeling more than a little self conscious and as such I drank, and drank and drank some more, until the alcohol lowered my inhibitions and opened up the floodgates for poisonous and nasty remarks. Not behaviour I would demonstrate without alcohol clouding my judgment. I eventually ignored my partner and stormed off upstairs to get away from the group. My anxiety levels were through the roof.
He eventually came up to talk to me but with a frustration and an anger towards me that I really couldn’t deal with. From here it exploded into a vicious argument and I ended up leaving and hysterically sobbing in my car and begging him to come to me and help me for probably about 2 hours.
He never came.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wailed in my car. Screamed into space and smashed my head against the steering wheel, prayed to a God I don’t think exists. Anything to stop that unbearable aching.
He never came.
He says he will not stand to be treated like that anymore, that he has too much self respect. But all I could think was how can he love me if he won’t come and help me when he hears that much anguish and sadness in me?
How could he not come?
In hindsight, I should have brought up my worries when he first spoke of her - ‘I have some self esteem issues and when you mention how much you like x it sparks feelings of self doubt. I’m aware these are born from my own insecurities, however it would be really great if you could give me some reassurance and put the fires out before they grow into something ugly.’ But I didn’t and it did grow into something very ugly indeed.
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Why did I have such an extreme reaction to something most people wouldn’t even acknowledge?
In a nutshell because I have..
a chronic fear of rejection/abandonment
a negative sense of self and a positive view of others (manifesting in thoughts that my partner will leave me for somebody better)
problems with jealousy
“Anxiously attached individuals tend to worry that close others cannot be relied on and experience intense and chronic fear of rejection (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2003)”
These are all attributes associated with an anxious attachment style. Bowlby’s attachment theory is the notion that a person develops an attachment style in the early years of life, dependent on how consistent love, nurture and safety from their primary care giver is. I wondered if attachment style is more complex than this and could also be linked to experiences of child sexual abuse. I hypothesise that children who have been sexual abused are more likely to develop an anxious attachment style in their adult romantic relationships. The problem is that coping mechanisms for anxiously attached people can be disruptive and create self-fulfilling prophecies.
“When experiencing lower levels of trust, individuals behave in ways that emphasize protection from hurt and rejection rather than in ways that promote interdependence, which can result in further distancing from the partner.”
Attachment theory is a huge topic in the world of psychology and one that I will explore further in different posts, but for now please have a look at this nifty little table and click the link to read further.
Attachment Styles
Some of the articles I read:
Attachment & Women’s Coping With Sexual Assault
The Price of Distrust: Trust, Anxious Attachment, Jealousy, and Partner Abuse
What is Anxious Attachment?
The long-term effects of childhood abuse :: an
attachment theory perspective.
Adult Profiles of Child Sexual Abuse Survivors: Attachment Insecurity, Sexual Compulsivity, and Sexual Avoidance
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