Having grown up in a ‘fragmented family’, Richard learned many things. One of the lessons he learned was the important of appearances. His family often stressed the importance of ‘appearing’ to have it together.
He learned that no matter how chaotic things really were in the family, he always needed to ‘keep up appearances’.
Keeping up appearances meant dressing like all was in order, acting like all was in order and keeping the yard mowed and kept up like ‘all was in order’. The yard was not only mowed, it was of a uniform height, all the bushes trimmed in straight lines and even the trees were perfectly straight. Everything was orderly and appeared ‘perfect’.
Although Richard had learned the importance of appearances, he also learned the dark truths about trust. He learned at an early age that you can not trust people.
He learned that you always have to wonder what the agenda of others were and had to be on guard against being taken advantage. He learned that he could not trust his parents, he could not trust women, and he could not trust those close to him.
He learned various ways to test people to see if they were trustworthy. At first it was just one or two tests he screened people with. Over time, it became a series of tests, re-tests and follow up tests.
He never knew when someone would let him down, abandon him or take advantage of him. He knew he had to protect himself. To keep these things from happening, he had tests that covered each potential threat.
On the outside, he always had it together. Even though people trusted him since he looked trustworthy, the truth was very different. Although others trusted him, he didn’t trust them.
He was cautious about what he said or being vulnerable. Being vulnerable was too high risk for getting hurt. He knew the hurt of trusting people who were close to you. He felt let down by those close to him. They always seemed to disappoint him.
That distrust of others spilled over into his relationships. He was always cautious about getting close to women, so he kept them at a distance. It was as if he kept all the relationships in boxes.
Women were scary for him. He never knew if he could trust them or not. He needed them in his life, but was not sure about how much he could trust them. They may leave him like his parent did.
One of the blind sides of his distrust of others was that it led to an intense self-focus. He was always thinking about himself and his needs. Since looking out for #1 was important and others could not be trusted, he found himself having several affairs.
His distrust of others included his wife. He couldn’t trust her to meet his needs, or so he thought. In some strange twists of fate, the lessons about maintaining appearances also helped him find lovers.
It was a self-feeding problem. The very tools he used to cope with his distrust of others actually fed into his affairs.
Richard’s trust problems from his childhood ended up contributing to problems in his marriage as well. It was hard for him to see that his inability to trust others was in any way connected to his affairs or his marriage problems.
It could be that trust issues may be contributing to your problems as well.
If trust is an issue for you, you’ll want the video “How Can I Trust You Again?” If you grew up in a fragmented family, or one where substance abuse was predominant, you likely have trust issues.
This video guides you in rebuilding a trust that last, with concrete steps you take in doing so. Order yours today and put an end to the uncertainty of distrust.
Best Regards,
Jeff
5 Responses
I don’t doubt that this issue is one very clear dynamic in how people end up betraying their spouses….However I wonder if it is also that they know they are liars and so they project that upon others.
My husband’s family seemed to value honesty but in one instance I recall that I did not agree with was how they kept the true condition of his mother from her. She was diagnosed with inoperable cancer.
To me their effort to keep from ‘hurting’ her with telling her the truth was really destructive. In trying to protect her they did not give HER the opportunity to discuss her own various feelings . I understand from talking with nurses who are in relationship with dying patients , that they KNOW that they are dying ….so it seems I was correct that in my husband’s father and brother and himself not willing to be ‘negative’ by way of letting her know that they knew …silence kept her from being able to express her possible thoughts and fears .
This was one of the things that I have later viewed in retrospect of how my husband was taught that lying was ‘OK’ if it was for a ‘good ‘ reason.
Also I remember discovering that prior to our marriage …being engaged…he had a private lunch with an old girl friend and did not clue me in on it.
When I found out I politely confronted him telling him how inappropriate it ws for him to have this lunch , alone , in his parents home…and he was surprised since he did not have anyone more than ‘friendship’ with this woman at that time any more.
NOW I see that I should have realized his attitude about keeping friendships and contact with past girl ‘friends’ …but with whom he had had sex with …was something he had been taught was the ‘civil’ way to behave with past lovers.
This seems to also be the way he wants things to go with me.
This idea that breakups, and divorce or separation should be ‘civil’ among ‘grownups’ and somehow that is a sign of maturity and real love …is one of the things that has led to him having women as ‘friends’ even after marriage when he found that he did not have satisfaction with all aspects of what marriage is !
Even after D DAY I asked him why he did not leave me and go on an marry the OW he said that ‘she was not the complete package’ …and so I am now thinking that neither was I !
I asked him if he thought God made a mistake when His solution for the dilemma that was ‘it is not good for man to be alone’ …..GOD only supplied Adam with ONE woman! Now I know that Eve was as close to perfection of womanhood possible ..at least before the Fall …however she was deceived….Hmmmm so even EVE was not ‘the complete package ” for a man who apparently feels he isentitled to MORE women …because ONE isn’t sufficient in his mind,
Frankly NO ONE who gets married is the ‘complete package’ as my husband put it …but GOD makes the man and woman ONE flesh …HE has joined them upon the man’s request to God to whom all belong …been ‘ bought with a price , we are not our own’ …..
God did not seem to think any man NEEDED more than one woman…though fallen man seemed to acquire multiple ones….doesn’t make it right or “essential’.
In my view and further study and paying attention to the instructions specifically given to men and to HUSBANDS….if they will do what GOD told them to …ONE woman for life will be MORE than enough to keep him occupied …and even happy IF he is obedient and willing to DO what it takes.
It takes a REAL MAN to satisfy and be satisfied with ONE woman for life.
Immaturity and boys not being initiated into true manhood has left us with generations of men who are really ‘boys’ with some kind of pass ….’boys will be boys” should never have come into the culture …not to long ago males were considered MEN around the age of 13 ….or at least challenged through training , instruction and conditioning to live as protectors as well as providers of women and children….
Now it seems many are without any idea of how weak and foolish they appear when demanding they get anything their think of …and at anyone’s expense.
Sad times.
The ‘father of lies’ …has deceived ….
When people say ‘ The heart wants what it wants’ they fail to realize that GOD has weighed in on that ..
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Psa 119:9 BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
Zaza,
A common dynamic in dysfunctional families is the taboo on trusting along with a taboo on honesty. The Don’t trust, don’t talk pattern is reinforced in many family interactions. They also do not do well with addressing emotions. They can label them, but do not talk about them. It is too scary to do. In order to avoid the hurt, they resort to playing games and keeping secrets.
Many spouses carry that baggage with them into their marriage.
Your husband’s tendency to maintain connection with the former lovers has all the earmarks of a pattern. It is also a sign that he may have issues with closure. By keeping those relationships ‘open’ (e.g. not closed), he never has to deal with ending/separation. He never has to be his own individual. He always has these strings connecting him with past lovers, like an umbilical cord of connection. Those kind of connections are unhealthy and need to be severed, but you already know that.
Thanks for the reflection on this . He will not do what he will not do. He is his own god …so only those consequences that touch HIM will possibly cause him to change this …but since it involves other CHILDREN …it is difficult for him and thus they remain one of his strongest excuses for living apart.
Not a happy solution for those who he SAYS he ‘cares’ about.
Zaza,
You do not have a happy solution, or even a righteous solution. He may genuinely believe he ‘cares’, yet be oblivious to what real care and commitment is about. Real care includes commitment. He may be operating under a definition of care that only includes feeling some emotional connection. There is a big difference between the two. The kind of ‘care’ he uses is often found in marketing (e.g. slogans like “Kohl’s cares”) which is a far cry from a Biblical sense of caring or even the legal sense of ‘parental caring’ which includes commitment and providing.
This watering down of ‘care’ is another example of how ‘progressives’ have changed the meanings of words, and thus confuse communication between people even further.
I agree. In the records of Jesus speaking of his body and those who were spiritually blind thinking the “temple ” he spoke of raising up being the building they revered so much…or when his disciples took his words about John to mean he would stay alive until His return ..when what he SAID was ” what is that to you if I will that be tardy til I come and they passed around the idea that John would live until the second coming
They heard through the veil of flesh….it is how people who are not born again and without the spirit of God can read the Bible and not SEE…understand what it is saying.
This disinformation and deceit is one of he clearest indications Jesus Christ told us would be the spirit of the end of the age….deceitful doctrines and blindness….
As you know the “mystery of iniquity” or lawlessness is a SYSTEMATIC effort of the God of this age to wipe out the Truth of the Word …respect and true worship for God among believers even is now normalized within the church as many do not know scripture and Gnostic practices of mysticism has become prominent in practice from pulpits on down
God proclaimed ” My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, they have rejected me….”
The ploy from Eden on has been to distort the Word of God and to distort WORDS in people’s understanding of them is one very effective way to dilute and destroy the effectiveness of truth
Also people’s interest in even reading it let alone trusting it is damaged more and more as what they feel and experience in their flesh is defining for each individual what is truth TO THEM
The golden rule is no longer of use in the minds of those who live by flesh. This makes the receiving and accepting of lies that please the flesh very easy
Generations now have been raise with indoctrinations of children outside the view of parents who themselves have been led by the life piper of the idea that parents are not equipped to teach and train children the way the society trained “experts” have been qualified to
The dogma has been “we know what’s best for your children and we are “trained professionals”
Having gotten my credential in1972 I recall little real equipping to actually teach and a lot more of what I now realize was credentals to “facilitate behavioral objectives”
The insidious told to usurp the God given ordination of fathers who were commanded by God to teach and train up their children in all that God gave us to know for His glory and our good
Now we have the very population that was prepared to fall in step with the agenda of the social engineers inspired by various people who themselves admit having been instructed by channeling spirits!
So what’s to be surprised?
It is indeed vexing but those who believe what they have been trained to believe by government schools and media have no equipping to think otherwise and don’t even realize the great gulf between what is true according to the Lord and what has transpired in a few generations toward the receiving by the ecumenical world the greatest usurper of all the. anti Christ
Redefining the truth has always been the tool of the father of lies😡