Trust + Vulnerability => Love

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After participating in recent discussions about love, relationships and emotions, I must admit to becoming fairly obsessed with the topic. It is, after all, considered one of the fundamentals features of being a human being.

A profound moment came when I read Vetivert’s posting on love where she said “we're back to my Venn diagram..<snip>.. the intimacy of a relationship is the amount of trust you have of, and vulnerability you allow yourself with, the other person”.

This has led me through a process of further self-examination and contemplation of what love is and why people fall in love. All I can say now is that this has led to an epiphany which is now keeping me awake when I should be soundly sleeping…

Think back to you’re the people you have felt most comfortable with. Maybe they were parents, siblings or friends. What characteristic about this relationship made you feel “good”? I propose that these good feelings were those of safety. One feels good in a relationship when one is safe enough to be themselves without fear of rejection, judgment or ridicule.

With a parent, this might go all the way back to the womb. Many people talk about the safety of the mother’s womb and the true love that represents. The mother is the ultimate source of nourishment, warmth and reassurance. But then we are literally thrust into the world – torn from this safety, pulled from our source of love. From that moment, we begin learning that even the safety of the womb is not inviolate.

For some of us, our mother’s behavior early in life can further lead to our feelings of hurt and abandonment, bringing us to conclude that everybody will ultimately hurt us – that we are safe with nobody. Unfortunately, along with these feelings of safety, so goes our ability to love. We build walls around our hearts to protect ourselves. We drive off people who seem to be gaining our trust for fear of being hurt again. And these fears are supported when we are hurt deeply, usually during our teen years, when we first start trying to love again by exposing our innermost self to someone, only to have them carelessly tear our hearts from our chests and grind them under the heels of their callousness.

And so most of us enter our 20’s totally numb or filled with anger and hate. Hurt so deeply that we retreat completely into ourselves. We lash out ourselves, acting coldly towards others and with cynicism burned in to our cores… It is truly a horrible, destructive cycle that leads to self-loathing and utter isolation. Many people take their fears and angers to their grave.

Somehow, people do overcome the odds and find love from another along with the ability to love back. These are truly blessed people. Light seems to radiate from them. Daily setbacks mean little because they have found true peace - once again, they truly are safe.

So how does one become one of the lucky few to create real love? What, is “real love”? What is “romantic love”? How does one help someone to enjoy being in their company?

Notice I said create love. I do not believe that on finds love, as one must actively create love with another person. However, one may find a person with whom they create love.

If the goal of creating love between two people is to build an intimate relationship – i.e. the intersection of trust and vulnerability, then one must take risks by allowing oneself to be vulnerable. This is why falling in love can be so terrifying. After all the hurts we’ve suffered, how can we expose our most sensitive spot? How can we yield this power to another?

Often we form a losing situation by waiting for the other person to show their vulnerability. We tell ourselves: “I’m not going to be the one who says I love you first! What if they don’t feel the same way”? All the while, the other person is hiding behind their own fears, awaiting you to show your trust. The result is a stalemate. What could have been a beautiful relationship falls apart as true intimacy fails to develop.

But what if you dare take that risk, shed your fear for a moment, and expose your heart? What if you take action, showing the other person your love through your trust? If they truly care for you and they are able, then they will reciprocate and a love will grow out of this trust and vulnerability.

This however is no guaranty of a lasting love. Think about your failed relationships that at first seemed so promising. What happened? Chances are that a trust was violated and the vulnerability was closed. Few things kill a relationship so fast as the violation of trust.

There are those people who are stuck in vicious cycles of drawing people in then driving them away, reinforcing their belief that others cannot be trusted! Unfortunately, much of the time, such thoughts and actions are deeply subconscious, trapping the hapless victim in a lifelong cycle of destroying relationships.

By becoming cognizant of one’s emotions and reactions to others, one can greatly reduce the chance that they will be the person responsible for the demise of a relationship. By stopping oneself from making that nasty comment or behaving in an unjust manner, one can maintain the trust and in doing so build love in the relationship. By consciously making an effort to build trust every day, one can strengthen the relationship. And with practice, this becomes habit, deprogramming oneself of the destructive patterns that have lingered a lifetime.

Remember that there are multiple facets to love. It is more than simply being nice. There is the vulnerability. In order to nurture love, one must expose themselves, truly trusting the other person. Recall those trust building exercises where you fall into the arms of another person. Remember the free-fall terror as you dropped? Or do you remember the bliss you felt, knowing that they would catch you?

Love incites the same feelings. If the trust is there, then there will be no fear. If it is not, then one will be terrified. Unfortunately, one must usually learn trust through example. One must allow their partner to catch them (metaphorically) many times before the trust becomes natural and the fear leaves.

All this boils down to a simple sentence: Mutual Trust and Vulnerability builds Love.

Thank you for allowing me to share these thoughts. I hope reading this helps some of you circumvent much of the pain I experienced learning these difficult lessons. May you all build love in your relationships.

you made my breath catch in my throat, astro...

i'm glad i've sparked off an epiphany (and slightly sorry i caused you a sleepless night). again, you have expressed what i've been thinking for years (i, too, spend an awful lot of time thinking about relationships) with clarity and conciseness.

a bit to add...

...and by forgiving ourself and the other for slips - we don't always get it right. forgiveness and understanding. i am extremely good at understanding why someone does something awful to me (and i've had plenty of practise), so much so that sometimes, i have to remember that my feelings on the matter count too - it's all very well forgiving the other for outrageous behaviour, but i have feelings too, and have to learn to respect and value myself enough so that i can see that their behaviour is inappropriate or even unacceptable. i'm still not great at this, btw.

thanks for another thought-provoking (and lump-in-the-throat-inducing) post, astro! are you sure we're not twins?

Great point VV. How could I write something like that on love without talking about forgiveness?!

I definitely did this too. I would make all sorts of excuses for the other person while they walked all over me. At one point, when the Offspring song, self-esteem was big
([url]http://www.lyrics007.com/Offspring%20Lyrics/Self%20Esteem%20Lyrics.html"[/url])

I was involved in almost exactly that relationship! When I finally listened to the song, I beat myself up a bit then told the woman that I wanted a relationship, not just sex. It was something of a turning point in my relationships.

I think that we all have to be ready to walk away from bad relationships. There is "understanding" and there's being a doormat. The difficulty I had was that I couldn't comprehend that some people just are evil. Instead, I would project my own innocence onto them, telling myself "oh, I know deep down they are good people but they're having a bad day today." Of course, these people also tended to be terribly manipulative - pushing my buttons so as to make me feel guilty for getting upset with them. argh!

Perhaps it's an AS characteristic to be too trusting because of our difficulties in reading people? I know that in business relationships, I'm always getting taken advantage of by unscrupulous contractors. My wife can pick out a con-man from a mile away while I'm thinking "oh, he seems nice". My lack of perception on people's true personality is amazingly bad and has cost emotionally and financially.

It ain't easy!

p.s.
probably not twins. My wife's a teacher (librarian) though, so there is a commonality...

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It says somewhere in the bible that perfect love casts out fear, and I've felt bad about this because I felt afraid of people no matter how much I loved them. Part of that was due to the autism I didn't know about, of course; Donna Williams mentions an example where meeting someone you like causes your brain to think you're scared...

I've spent the past decade trying to figure out fear. There are so many different kinds. There are the various kinds of "fake" fear you get from stories: "the one lays a hushing spell on the imagination; the other excites a rapid flutter of the nerves" (C. S. Lewis, "On Stories"). There are things that can get labeled as fear that aren't really that bad; awe, for instance. I learned a lot of my fear vocabulary and understanding from Lewis (remember in the Narnia stories when the children meet Aslan, and they feel scared and glad at the same time?).

Before the theory, there was the experience. When I was a teenager, the friend I still love the most used to tell me scary stories, and tease me (nice teasing not mean teasing) with that awful thing, eye contact, and that other awful thing, touch. (It's curious how easily some people can find out your weaknesses.) This is how I learned about love and trust being connected. I apparently needed an exaggerated version of the thing to "get it"; it took me a long time to figure out that what I felt was trust/vulnerability. (Which doesn't quite mean I don't often experience it as some kind of fear... which is okay though...)

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