Trust Issues

As an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, I have trust issues.  This is a reality for me--I have difficulty trusting people.  It's a fact of life that I can't change, and that I don't necessarily need or want to change.  I accept it for what it is and I deal with it, and I do my best to keep my difficulties to a minimum.  I recognize that I do have the problem and I work hard to make sure that I don't allow it to affect other people.  In other words, I don't let my difficulties in trusting you affect the way I treat you--I treat you as someone whom I should trust, even though there's something in the back of my mind that says that you will betray me or that you won't come through on your promises.

This is very hard to live with.  My mind is telling me constantly that no matter what I do, other people will let me down; therefore I have to take care of everything myself if I want it to have a positive outcome.  And unfortunately, many people in my life still continue to violate my trust.  People who owe my wife and me money aren't paying us back.  People who owe money to a trust that I control aren't paying the trust.  I accepted a job because I was promised something as a part of that job, but that something hasn't come through.  Overall, my experiences tell me that trusting people is a mistake, though my heart tells me that it's the best thing to do.

What do I do about this?  What can I do about this?  My wife and I are currently facing the possibility of bankruptcy--if we're even able to declare it--because other people aren't paying us what they owe us.  We've tried to be generous, we've tried to be giving, we've tried to be helpful, and right now those efforts are definitely haunting us, as virtually everything that we earn is going out each month to make payments to compensate for what the other people aren't paying us.  In short, we're screwed.  Even though we're both working extremely hard and earning decent money (not good--decent), we don't see any benefits at all from our work--at least, not financial benefits.

I usually feel like I'm treading water, and I don't know how it's come to this when the people we've trusted are so close to us.  We shouldn't be in this situation.  We're not big spenders, we buy all of our clothes either on sale or in thrift stores, we buy store brands and almost never eat out, we don't vacation at all. . . yet we're basically broke all the time because we're having to pay out money that other people aren't paying us.

What more can I do?  What more can we do?  How can I build trust in people--or develop it in the first place--when people keep betraying our trust and letting us down?

An answer:

This is very difficult to address, for there are so many different variables to be taken into consideration.  I know that sounds like a cop-out, but it is the truth.

First of all, don't get down on yourself.  The "Law of Attraction" people will tell you that these people are people that your lack of trust attracts people into your life who can't be trusted; therefore, they say, it's basically your fault.  But these people are family, not people whom you've "attracted."  What has happened has been the result of your willingness to be sharing, to be generous, and to be kind, and the people in your life--your family--have accepted that generosity but not lived up to the terms that they agreed to when they accepted it.

This is not your fault.  It is not your doing.  Some things in life don't have anything to do with you, but with other people.  This is a fact that the Law of Attraction people deny, and when they deny it, they're basically placing blame on you for other people's actions.

I think that one of the most basic questions that I can ask is simply this:  Do you trust me?  Do you trust that I will make sure that you're alright, that you don't starve, that you're not out in the street?  Do you trust that things will turn out okay in the long run, even if they look bad in the short run?

Me:  Yes, I do trust that, though it's difficult.  It's hard to trust the "long run" when the short run offers no real evidence that the long run will be better.  Our short run over the last three years has been full of loss after loss.  That's the bottom line.  We've really gained nothing at all, and we've lost a house, an RV, all of our credit, all of my retirement money, all of the furniture we had, and quite a bit more.  And through that loss we've dealt with tons of stress from creditors, and mostly because of loans that we co-signed on for family members.

So the short answer is, no, not really, because there's very little evidence that I can be trusted.  And I can understand that response.  Now, I can sit here and reassure you over and over again that things will be okay as long as you trust me, yet you've trusted others whom you love and the result has been very negative.  Therefore, you see only the possibility of a negative result if you trust me now.  Your major concern as I see it, though, is less about trust and more about how much you can take before you reach a breaking point.  How much work can you do without seeing any benefits before you're not able to continue working?  How many times can people let you down before you lost faith in them completely?

These are all very important issues, and I will address them.  Just not right now.  Right now it's very late and you're very tired, and since you're the one writing all this down, the best thing you can do is get some sleep.  This will also give you some time to process all that you've said, to think about it fully from several different angles.  Hopefully when you get back to this, you'll be able to be open to the answers that I give you.

I will talk to you soon.