I’ve come to understand that background, friends, reliability, caring behaviours or attitudes (i.e. empathy) can be hidden, faked and superficial. His friends are the most wonderful people, he has a very good job, is highly achieving and the only person in his environment I could analyse as ‘a bit off’ was his father, but NEVER could I have imagined what my ex would be capable of doing. For months I asked myself if I was making this bigger in my mind than it actually was. I’ve come to realise that checking with friends/family on the issues in the relationship only made me question myself more. I always considered myself a strong person with fairly high self-esteem, I could never have imagined how he would manipulate me, trigger me and ‘push my buttons’ without me knowing/seeing what was going on.

I now question every single interaction, discussion I had with him, what was real and what was the ‘effect’ he was trying to have on me. I just don’t know.. It’s mind-boggling, a true ‘cognitive dissonance’.

So as for trust; from now on I will be very, very wary with anyone.

I certainly understand your response to being taken in.

My guess is that you do have reliable judgement in some things.

I am very in favour of staying safe in relationships. This may be abnormal but I think it is sensible.

If you have thought about ways to become independant and perhaps improve your judgement, and your happy to say what they are (in general) I’d like to hear.

Thanks for your comment.

Liselotte

Maybe I should do a post specifically on financial dependence and independence. It can certainly be an emotionally intense subject. My partner and I find government rules about this particularly infuriating.

I’ve always been independent and find it hard to depend on others, financially at least. I don’t think I’ll ever want to give up my own income and have to stretch out my hand to a husband for money.

Emotional dependence is easier. I’ve come to accept that I need to feel close to someone, and that I need this person to do certain things that make me feel cared for. In the past I’d wait for the person to read my mind, but now I agree with you that if I ask and he agrees, it’s as good as him initiating the action. Because he could easily not agree to do it, so the agreement does count.

Nice, thoughtfully written article.

My intention in the article was to say that acknowledging our dependence means that we don’t need to expend the energy in pretending we aren’t dependent. I may not have said this clearly.

It sounds to me that you are in a very difficult place right now. I guess we can never guarantee that we won’t be taken as a fool again (only do what we can to minimise the chances). I guess that’s not very comforting.

I understand that contemplating being dependent on someone else can be very anxiety-provoking. I hope you have the space to listen to your feelings and arrive at a decision that you are happy with.

Thankyou for your very personal comment.

My approach is to trust my feelings, be kind to myself, take things one step at a time. Of course others are more intense and like a quicker pace than I.

The comment you make about your level of dependence catches my attention. I think my friends are reliable in different ways and for different things. It has helped me to be clear what these are (that Davey will never be tidy, that Dawn will always be late and so on).

Thanks for your comment, you raise very important issues I think.

So this is the only thing I take exception to in the article, that dependence on others is relaxing. To me, it’s an awful lot of work right now to consider what I would lose by depending on this other person. I think I do need space. I’m tired of working that hard only to face possibility of being taken as a fool again.

Maybe once that trust is established if ever, but I thought I had that before. Now I’m skittish.

The quandary is that although I need to accept a certain level of dependence I attach maybe too high priority on reliability of others? Am I seeing this right?

If I am asked by someone to date and depend on him and no one else, should I not be too concerned with his apparent interest in other women? I say I am no fool, but not sure if he cares one way or the other. He just says I don’t trust him. He’s right. So as far as healing from betrayal during my marriage goes,I am having a tough time allowing the relationship with my “friend” to develop, if I am just having trust issues without valid proof of his unreliability.