Trust

O

ur resistance to this kind of openhearted generosity arises out of our fear of exploitation

.

We say to ourselves:

“If I give her what she wants every single time, I will never get what I want. She will take advantage of my generosity, and I will end up a slave to her every whim, and never get my needs met!”

My response to this is:

 

If that is true, then you should know it

before

you get involved!

 

When I was younger, I went out with a woman who openly said that she expected me to pay for our outings. “A man’s generosity is financial; a woman’s generosity is composed of… other things,” she said seductively.

I was somewhat alarmed by her perspective, but I decided to give it a shot. I did pay for our outings, without complaint, and then waited for reciprocity.

It never came, and the relationship ended. I was sad, but never looked back.

Closure and Self–Trust

To achieve true happiness and peace of mind, we must come to a

resolution

about each relationship in our lives – what is commonly called “closure.”

“

Closure” is the achievement of

self-trust in our own judgment

. Fundamentally, we never really trust others, but rather only ourselves. It was not this woman that I needed to trust, but my own judgment about her proposition.

When we doubt, generosity always provides certainty.

In my 20s, I was involved in a long-term relationship with a woman who wanted to get into the filmmaking business. After watching her struggle for some time, I decided to write and fund a movie for her. We did end up making the movie, which did quite well.

A month or two after we had finished making the movie, I asked her to reread an unpublished novel of mine that she had criticized, and give me suggestions for improvements. She half-heartedly agreed to do so, but week after week went by and she never picked up the manuscript.

Eventually I confronted her on this, and explained my hurt feelings and mistrust of her capacity for reciprocity. She replied that the reason she had not read my novel was because I had not “motivated” her to do so. Naturally, I responded that she had not “motivated” me to spend a small fortune making a film to further her career, but rather I had done so out of a desire to help her!

This relationship

also did not last for very long after this interaction.

I am by nature more cautious than generous, and I do find trusting others a challenge. In the above cases, though, generosity was the most liberating approach I could have conceivably taken. If I had hedged my bets in either of these relationships

, and given 1% more while waiting for 1% more reciprocity, I would never have achieved certainty.

In relationships

– particularly romantic relationships –

generosity creates certainty

. Giving 150% of yourself – even beyond your own “comfort zone” – quickly highlights any deficiencies in reciprocity from your partner.

When I first met my wife Christina

, her capacity for love and devotion far outstripped my own. I had been somewhat scarred in the romantic trenches of my youth, and it took some time for my own heart to open up to match her generosity. I did openly talk about my difficulties in this area with her, however, which helped alleviate her concerns. “I am trying to open my heart as quickly as possible,” I said, “because you certainly deserve my full affections, but I am having trouble matching your openness.”

In the same way, if I owe monetary debt, but am temporarily unable to pay it, I am morally bound to inform my creditor of the situation, reaffirm my commitment to pay, and work like hell to get hold of the money

.

Hedging

Couples get continually stuck in the tug-of-war of conditional reciprocity – “I gave you a back rub, now you owe me sex!” – which always creates more and more resentment. Not only is such “generosity” totally undercut through the expectation of reciprocity (“I’ll take out the garbage if you do the dishes”) but the degree of mistrust that is communicated by this sort of “grudging giving” is overwhelmingly insulting at its root.

If I told you that you were my best friend, and you asked me to lend you $5,000, and I said to you:

“Let’s just start with $5, and see where it goes from there,” would you feel elevated by my response?

Of course not. You would be insulted.

“How can you call me your best friend, and not trust me with any sum larger than five dollars?”

“

Well,” I might reply, “some people in my past never paid me back.”

Here we run into a fundamental problem, which is at the root of countless relationship

discords.