Many of us have found our way to single parenthood by walking through a minefield of betrayed and battered trust issues. On the road to becoming so independent and self-sufficient, we may have “learned” that we really cannot trust anyone else. In our determination to be dependable and responsible in taking care of our child or children, we may have told ourselves that we really cannot trust anyone else. One of the challenges of rebuilding a life as a single parent is to learn how to grow from this place, and start the process of learning to trust again.
I can only write about this because I definitely wrestle with this one! Having taken a great many risks, and put my faith in people who were really inappropriate, I have developed a rather calloused skin when it comes to trust. I am one of those single parents who came to believe that the only person I could rely on to care fully for my children and my family was me—no white knights, no benefactors, no anyone or anything but me. This isn’t all bad, of course, as that independence and strength can really be a good thing. But, learning how to trust is a key developmental task too. Or for many of us single parents, re-learning how to trust.
I think that we need to give ourselves time to work on our trust issues. This isn’t something that we can remedy or change over night. For me, I know that I don’t want to pass on my “trust stuff” to my kids—I don’t want them to absorb all the hard lessons I’ve endured that would keep them from being able to open up and trust other people. After all, I really want their lives to go differently than mine! As a process, I don’t think we can just jump in and start swimming—it might start with finding good, trustworthy friends, and living and working in an environment that fosters trust. By taking our time and working on the process, we can start to learn how to trust appropriately and behave in a way that attracts trustworthy people to us. We may have learned some hard-won lessons, but we can take these to help us re-learn how to trust others—instead of shutting out the rest of the world forever.
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