Tag: fluidity

The fluid nature of trust

One of my clearest memories from childhood is walking barefoot on the gravel driveway at the farm I lived at until I was five. I remember the way I had to step slowly so that the gravel wasn’t painful on bare feet.  I had gotten out of the car and was walking around it to go up towards the house, and one of my parents was still in the car.  I remember distinctly as I walked in front of the car, making sure I had my hand on the hood the whole way around. It wasn’t for balance, it was because I rationalized that if I had my hand on the hood, they couldn’t run me over.

Now my parents have never been abusive.  In fact, they have never so much as hit me, my household was one where spanking was never an option and I’m glad for it.  I had absolutely no reason to fear that my parents would out-of-the-blue decide to run over their small child, but for some reason that was a fear of mine at that young age.  Not even a fear really, I don’t think I really felt a fear of anything at that age, it was just a vague concern that I wanted to prevent by having my hand out to steady the car at all times.  Aside from the fact that this indicates to me that my young child brain was not as good at being rational as I thought (because how the hell is my hand on the hood going to in any way prevent someone from running me over if they wanted too?), this is something I have thought about often and wondered if I had trust issues.

As a preteen and then young teen, I liked to say that I was very un-trusting.  That someone had to work hard to earn my trust, and if they done fucked up then that was it, trust wasn’t coming back.  Honestly though, that didn’t mess up with my experiences.  I often depended on people in ways that left me disappointed, and my intense heartbreak when people I was close to didn’t measure up to my expectations, shows me that by that point I had started investing a lot of trust in the few people I was close to.  But I didn’t want to be seen as someone trusting.  Was that just edgy teen angst, or did it reflect back on my strange childhood relationship with trust and unrealistic concerns about being hurt?

Thus followed a good many dysfunctional relationships, I was a bit of a hot mess, and not very self aware.  I thought I was self aware, because honestly compared to my peers I certainly did more introspection.  I would ask acquaintances and strangers in high school about things like what they thought of themselves, how they would describe themselves, their passions and dreams, what motivated them, what they would change about themselves if they could, and so on.  Many were unable to answer and admitted they had never thought about any of that, they were just living day to day.  Thinking back, maybe they weren’t comfortable giving those kind of answers to a quirky quiet kid who was suddenly badgering them with personal questions.  A lot of folks I accosted did seem genuinely confused that these were even topics to think about though, and I was left feeling like I was clearly so much more self aware and far beyond my years in philosophical thought.  So, I represented myself as such, and fucked up a few close relationships because of how much I did not know that I did not know.  I was good at seeming wise, but I barely knew myself, I had only scratched the surface of what I thought on a regular basis, and was not good at understanding and dissecting my motivations, or working through what I felt.

Fast forward through trauma, abuse, and the drunk years, and you have who I’ve become in the past four years or so.  I pause often before I speak, and try to really dig deep into my own thoughts and history and motivations.  I still have not figured out if I have trust issues, either in being too trusting, or not trusting enough. I know that the way I trust has adapted and become much more healthy, I feel, through my exploration of polyamory and relationship anarchy.  When you have multiple relationships and no one person carries the burden of being expected to meet all your needs, you trust different people for different things.  When relationships do not need to check off specific boxes of all being romantic, sexual, etc, you can tailor what you expect and depend on folks for even more to the specific individual.  With labels and prioritization of relationships mostly off the table at least as a standard, I find it is much simpler to base trust on the unique dynamic I have shaped with someone, rather then on an idea of what trust should be as an all encompassing thing.

The way I trust now is a circumstantial thing, it is adaptable, it is fluid.  I base expectations on what people tell me they can do, and what they show me they can do.  If someone tells me I can trust them to be supportive, but they consistently disregard my feelings and are not present to listen when I need help, I try not to react with anger or betrayal.  Instead I re-evaluate my trust in their ability to do what they say.  They are no longer categorized in my mind as someone who can be supportive, instead they are someone who wants to be supportive but often falls short, and my expectations change.  I also may be less trusting about other things they say they can do, but it is not a judgement meant to disparage them, it is an awareness that they are probably not quite aware of their abilities and limits when they communicate what can be expected of them.  There is no concept in my mind anymore of absolute trust, there is just a continued assessment and re-assessment of what the people in my life say they are capable of, how that matched up with what they show in their actions.  I do need a baseline level of trust in key needs, security that I am physically safe with someone, that they strive for honesty in their communication and are often successful, that they make every effort to take commitments seriously and don’t make them casually and with a disregard for their abilities.  But what I can trust people to do and be is variable.  I don’t think I have trust issues now, though I don’t buy into having the faith in people, the magical “complete and absolute trust” that I hear lauded as an ideal.  Trust is given in equal measure for what is provided in return, and those things need not be great or numerous for me to be content, it is just a descriptive for what I can expect and what I cannot.

Prescriptive versus Descriptive relationship titles

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about labels and titles in a relationship.  I know I’ve talked before about titles in this post but that led to me thinking about my particular relationship with titles, how I feel about them and why.

I’ve discovered, or already knew but confirmed, that I do not like prescriptive titles.  I do not enjoy getting close with someone and deciding -we are going to be this word to each other specifically, that is just what it is-.  I don’t like being someone’s boyfriend, I’m not keen on the idea of being someone’s spouse, except in the case that it’s necessary for the legal benefits it confers (and that would have to greatly outweigh my hesitation there). I don’t like the decision that myself and another person have confirmed that because we right now have a certain dynamic shape, that we now are -that- and intend to continue being that for the long term with all it implies. Prescriptive titles often come with specific expectations.  In monogamy for example, the boyfriend title would come with the expectation of sexual fidelity.  In polyamory, I’ve had folks who expected that because I was their boyfriend, I would drop everything to be with them when they needed someone at 3AM.  I mean sure, I usually will do that, but sometimes I will not, sometimes I need my fucking sleep as much as you need me to listen about your latest problem with your other partner.  And the fact that I’ve been told “that’s what a good boyfriend does” as though having this word means that I can either be succeeding or failing to live up to the title, but they do not feel their friends are equally failures for not being there at that time, that makes me shy away from those.

I may often take the boyfriend shape, but I do not want to make it official in a way that heaps the constant expectations on me, especially the subversive hidden ones that don’t get discussed, that most people never even realize they have. The other thing with prescriptive titles is the idea of a break up.  When you’ve made a big decision that you and someone else -are- this thing, this word, then deciding it no longer applies is a whole ordeal.  People tie up a lot of their identity in being someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend/lovefriend or wife/husband/spouse.  To suddenly change that is often traumatic for most people, they feel they are losing a part of themselves.

I do like descriptive labels.  I like discussing with someone the words that seem to describe our dynamic.  Not one word, words plural.  There is no one I would consider a partner who is not also a friend.  As a relationship anarchist, I don’t consider friend to be a lesser descriptive word, simply a different one. Partner to me implies a connection that shares a possibility of romance feels, and a greater likelihood of physical intimacy.  Friendship is platonic for me for the most part, though there have been some exceptions.  Partner also for me is something that I use sparingly, for people that have a level of longevity and intertwinement in my life or an intent for such that is more constant and steady then most of my platonic friendships.  That is not to say friendships don’t have that, but for example there may be a financial intertwinement in my friendship as I give a friend money to fix their car one time, but one of my partners and I share finances monthly in taking care of the needs of our cats.  The thing with descriptive titles is we use the ones that are suited to the time and situation.  I’ve spoken of Kelev before, a person who holds a very central roll in my life.  We often cohabitate, we have pets, we share sexual intimacy, we got to each others doctors appointments, we share a bank account, there is a lot of levels of intertwinement there.  Sometimes when we’re joking around at the grocery store and elbowing each other while exchanging sarcastic remarks, and we run into a person I knew from one of my times in college, I might introduce him as my best friend.  It conveys the dynamic we are sharing at that time, it gives the information necessary for that interaction and is most accurate to what we are sharing in that moment.  If I go with him to the doctor and the nurse gives me a questioning look when I follow him back for a procedure to hold his hand, that “who the fuck are you look?” because people don’t expect two masculine presenting people, especially of such varying ages, to be together, I say “I’m his partner”.  It conveys what I need to at the time, that by their normal ideas of societal privilege being centered on one main romantic relationship, that I deserve to be there, I have that right.  If I say I’m his friend, I’m usually asked to wait behind, despite him wanting me there to offer comfort, and my comfort is just as effective regardless of what word we gave them.  It doesn’t matter that the intimacies we share that are tied to partnership for how I define it aren’t relevant in that moment, it’s the word that makes the most sense to convey who we are to each other in the way they need to understand.

With descriptive labels, when the dynamic transitions in a way that one of the words no longer applies, it often just falls from usage more naturally.  Since we’ve discussed that we are using words as they are relevant, though ones that we have consented to and feel apply, if the dynamic shifts and a word drops from relevance, it also just drops from usage.  Often there is a discussion, I love communication and being open and checking in about ALL the things ALL the time, but I’ve found it is less of a traumatic change.  Also in regards to expectations, I’ve found this leads to less unrealistic ones.  With descriptive labels, what we are doing is allowing for actions to occur and the words to follow, rather then deciding on the words and changing our actions to fit them.  That usually negates the problem of “your actions aren’t measuring up to this word we’ve decided we are”.

Another thought I had that crystallized this for me was related to my focus on honesty and authenticity.  I had a titled partnership with someone in my life that I recently untitled.  I realized that the title, regardless of whether pressure was put on me or not from the other person, did come with some unspoken expectations of behavior.  I was not measuring up to those, there were things I simply did not feel a want to do regularly or consistently enough that the word partner made sense to me.  Like I’ve said, some of the associations I have with the word partner, even as a descriptive word but especially as a prescriptive one, is a certain constancy or consistency. When I was not acting in the way that partner implies to me, in a dynamic where partner or boyfriend was a prescriptive title we had decided upon, I felt inauthentic.  It felt like I was lying to refer to that person with those words at a time where I wasn’t fulfilling the expectations of that dynamic.  I was not meeting many of the needs and wants that person looked for in a relationship of that sort, so with the title, I either was a shitty partner, or I was using a word that was quite dishonest to what we were.  My response was to recognize that and un-title things.  Thankfully I tend to relationship in all forms (platonic, romantic, sexual, partnership, friendship, lovefriend, queerplatonic, etc) with people who are accepting of fluidity and change, so this was received in a compassionate and understanding way.  We spoke of how we would use descriptive labels with others to describe things accurate to how they were with us in that moment or in such a way as was relevant at the time.

Now I understand that this may seem like splitting hairs.  Does is really make a difference if you are using a prescriptive or descriptive title?  Ask most people (especially a monogamous or hierarchical polya person) how they would feel if their partner were to remove that official label and the expectations that came with it, and no longer be obligated or beholden to that role.  The same people who say that it doesn’t make much difference, are in my experience often quite upset at that suggestion.  Words have power, and so do the contexts we use them in.  My goals are to have flexibility in my relationships, to allow for fluidity and for each dynamic to stretch out into whatever role is most comfortable and makes the most sense at the time, and to live an authentic and honest life. So, I take how I give those words power and what power I allow them to have over me, very seriously.