The paradoxical proposal against distrust

When mistrust settles into a relationship, it is very difficult to recover the lost feelings.. It is easy for suspicion to turn into obsession. If it happens between friends, it is relatively easy to take some distance. But what happens when it happens in a couple? If we ask questions it seems that we are going to make the person feel accused. We may even be afraid of offending, but then how should we react?

The trust formula has many variables that we have not yet precisely calibrated. Sometimes we place all our peace of mind in a person we have just met. On the contrary, our coworker with whom we have been working for six years may still not project that feeling of certainty to us. Distrust seems at first glance to be the simplest path to follow, at least the one that protects us the most.

If we chose several people at random and asked them What is trust and what is distrust, we would surely find more common points in the second than in the first.. Distrusting the unknown would be the best thing to do if we followed our survival instinct. Trusting is complicated. There are many ingredients to control depending on the emotions, the intensity, the situation and the people around us.

The time of mistrust

Voluntarily choosing to trust someone takes effort. It’s something conscious. It is a personal bet that we make, leaving aside the feeling of control. We leave our emotions and our behavior in the hands of another person’s future behavior. That is why it is easy for it to break and be difficult to recover, because there are many ingredients that are susceptible to failure.

Counting all the problems we can have when relating, perhaps the most complicated is distrust in our partner. If a friend or family member fails us, it will hurt and the tendency will be to distance ourselves. We will start by avoiding intimacy until we reach emotional distance with that person. Once the spiral of thoughts or feelings of lack of confidence begins, it is difficult to stop.

It is inevitable to think that people always do things for a reason. Sometimes our way of thinking is conditioned by what are known as cognitive distortions. In them we find thought divination, future divination and generalization.

That is, the moment we believe that they have failed us, we give motivation to that person (usually bad).. On the other hand, we will make a projection of the future where that person will fail us again. If he already did it once, why isn’t he going to do it a second time?

Depending on the degree of “betrayal” we have experienced, we will react in a more or less extreme way.. In the end, the wheel of mistrust will have been set in motion. We avoid that person, we move away, we distance ourselves. That is, we enter a dynamic that drags us to the end of that relationship, unless we consciously try to stop it: a goal that is not easy.

The virus in the couple

Unlike in other types of relationships (family or friendship), as a couple we cannot take that path. There is an emotional coexistence where feelings do not follow patterns or rules. On the other hand, there are contrary forces that push us in opposite directions: from love to distrust.

Once we begin to distrust, covert battles begin. The secret actions and suspicions. Right now the easy thought when talking about distrust in a partner seems to point to infidelity. Nothing is further from reality. Distrust can be included in many of the routines of our day and week. We can bet on our partner in many ways, with our family, with their work, with our friends, with theirs, etc. And they can fail.

Suspicion often tends to lead to obsession. The space shared by both is strewn with hidden mines for the other person. He or she will not know what is destroying the relationship. In the end the spiral becomes a path of reproaches where we go from 0 to 100 in less than a minute.

Antidote or vaccine?

Communication is the key word. Distrust is a sibylline virus that settles in the relationship between two. He can remain crouched and silent and at the most unexpected moment appear exploding everything. Rebuilding these relationships is very complex. The antidote once inoculated is difficult to integrate into our feelings and emotions. There are components of overload of responsibility, search for perfectionism, feeling of guilt and doubts about how to amend the situation on one hand and on the other. It is not impossible, but it is an arduous path.

Everything seems to indicate that the vaccine is better than the antidote. That is to say, the ideal is to work on what is common with the couple, but also not to overlook the little things that ultimately affect us. Couples who have a shared space for complaints are the ones most likely to have a healthy relationship.. Although it may seem incredible, there is even mathematical evidence related to this hypothesis.

The mathematician Hanna Fry in a conference shows in the form of an equation a formula that can help us understand why it is positive not to ignore a suspicion. The most important point in the equation is how the two members of the couple influence each other.. For this influence to be present, communication must be continuous. The couples with the best prediction of the future do not ignore what seems like nonsense, but rather they are continually “balancing” the relationship, often automatically or unconsciously.

Surprisingly, understanding and compromise are not the foundation of a couple. It is true that they are essential, but in the end if we do not communicate in situations of mistrust they will not be enough for our relationship to advance. The most important thing is to take care of common spaces for dialogue (regarding small everyday problems) and mutual influence.

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