He Loves, But Doesn’t Trust Me

Dear Agatha,

I am 26 years of age in love with a man who would be 29 this year. Our relationship is five years old. There is no questioning the fact that he loves me as much as I love him. He is equally caring.

But the problem is that he doesn’t trust me one bit. He believes that any boy or man that calls me on my phone is either my boyfriend or daddy.

Expectedly this is causing major hiccups in our relationship as he finds it extremely difficult to believe any word I say. He once told he finds it difficult to trust any woman because he considers women generally untrustworthy

Agatha, I have never cheated on him and will never do it. Tell me how to go about earning his trust and stop all these instances of misunderstanding between us.

Do you think he will marry me? If so, would the marriage last since he can’t trust any woman on this earth?

Queen.

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Dear Queen,

I am not a soothsayer, so I lack the power to say if he will marry you or not.

However, from his attitude towards you, it is clear there is an experience from his past which is making him unable to completely trust any woman again in his life.

This is what you should find out if you really desire this relationship because there is no way love and mistrust can exist side by side in a relationship. It is either he believes sufficiently in your person to accept everything about you or doesn’t.

Your first task is to go back into his past. Not just his relationships, but to his childhood. What type of relationship exists between his mother and him? If he classifies women as being generally untrustworthy, it means he doesn’t trust his mother as well. So, the problem goes beyond what you are looking at to something you cannot handle on your own without information from him or anyone close to him.

When a man finds it difficult to trust a woman, then there is a painful memory or incident in his past that is embossed and embedded in that part of his memory only he can reach. That memory has gathered so many cobwebs to the extent he thinks he has forgotten all about it but is unable to progress from the point of the incident.

Because it is a memory so etched in the deepest part of his heart and has erected blocks to make it harder to find, you have to learn to apply caution and wisdom to get him to talk about it. This is the time you must deploy all your feminine charms, prowess and tact to get him to talk about this incident.

Prepare for resistance and stubborn refusal to visit that incident. Don’t be deterred because it has nothing to do with you but as a result of inner struggle to open a very old wound he thought he had wrapped up nicely.

His reluctance would be more difficult to break if the issue has to do with his parents’ relationship. This sort of issue requires absolute patience so you must have plenty of it if you really love this man and hope to spend the rest of your life with him.

Frankly you are the one who has to do the most work in this relationship of getting him to learn to trust. So, are you prepared for the challenges of nursing a broken trust back to life? Mind you, a broken trust is the most important challenge in a relationship. Whereas a broken heart can be mended when true love flows in, trust takes more than love to mend. In his own way, he may indeed love you but without the concomitant trust to lay the right foundation, you may end up disappointed at the end of the day.

Whether it has to do with his family or former relationship, he needs your understanding as well as support to be able to heal properly. While it is not a case of you pretending to be who you are not, it is going out of your way to be nice so as to elicit his confidence.

The faith to allow the feelings that brought you both together sprout solid roots.

One way you can do this is by being absolutely open about your past, male friends, engagements as well as movements. Let every chapter in your life be opened for him to browse through anytime he wishes. Don’t wait for him to ask questions before giving him answers.

Refuse to be frustrated by his constant quest to know the identity of all your male callers. If possible give him the phone to talk to them if that is what would make his develop the right trust in your person.

Always have it at the back of your mind that whatever caused his insecurity in women cannot evaporate within days. It could take almost forever but if you learn how to be patient and considerate of his feelings, he will eventually forget all about the time of his pains.

Encourage and court his friendship because it is easier to trust a friend than a lover. So work on the quality of your friendship to help improve the quality of your relationship.

If you two are still having the problem of trust after five years of staying together, it shows that your relationship lacks the help of trust to pull it out of the point you started with.

The danger of all this is that in the last five years, the relationship has not grown beyond your starting point. It is dangerous for you in particular because this man hasn’t given you any solid commitment to anchor your desire to be with him for the rest of your life. Rather all he has done is to make you understand in very unmistakable terms that he doesn’t trust any woman including you.

I tell you, it isn’t going to be very easy getting him to change but if you are determined as well as have the ability to treat him like a baby, you will end up being happy eventually with him.

Good luck.