Hello everyone. Today’s Temitope’s birthday. She requested a birthday favour and since that’s what friends do, I decided to make her happy. She asked me to write about whether it was possible to love someone without trusting them.
I think the answer is yes and no. I wish I had someone to take up the other side of the argument with me but since this is a blog post I have to argue against myself. Sighs.
No. It is not possible to love someone without trusting them. Trust is like sitting on a chair with that relaxed abandon. To love someone means to trust them with your heart. You have to give something when you love and before we humans do that, we have to be sure the recipient of the gift is not going to take our precious gift (heart) and dash it to pieces, or even worse use our vulnerability against us. So refusing to trust me is withholding your heart from me. You don’t love me love me like that (Nigerian English).
I beg to disagree. Yes, it is possible to love someone without trusting them. To trust means to believe in, lean on, cast yourself on someone. The smart person should be able to judge the weight a loved one is able to carry and not put more weight on them than they can bear. Why would you trust a small child with providing your three square meals? Why would you trust your engineer husband with sewing your clothes? Why would you lean your entire soul on a fellow human being? The full weight of the human soul is too great to be laid on any other soul. Please, they are not Jesus Christ. “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
I’m sorry but if you love me as an equal partner you will treat me as you want to be treated. This same Jesus you claim to be serving said to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. I’m your lover! Your heart neighbor! We share the same bed, no one could be a better definition of a neighbor. So what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You are the foolish one if you chose me as an equal partner but are certain I cannot handle your heart or your truth just as well as you do. By lying to me or hiding the truth from me, you do not protect me, you betray me (Harvey Specter, Suits, the series). That’s not loyalty and comradeship, that’s superiority, inherently placing yourself above me and in the position to save me from emotional ruin, without my asking for that matter. Thanks but no thanks. Carry your love to your friends you trust outside.
For the last time, allow me explain why I can’t honestly say I trust you completely, even though I love you completely. To trust you completely is just setting us up for hurt. No one is perfect. Even you do not trust yourself completely so you avoid situations you feel you will not be able to handle. If you can do that for yourself (because you love yourself and do not want to be burned) then let me love you like you love yourself. It’ll be easier to forgive you this way when you mess up. After all, I wasn’t expecting you to be perfect in the first place. Please let’s not make a big issue out of this. It’s what we all do unconsciously. So please allow it.
What do you think? What side of the argument do you support?
“My husband’s not home; he’s away on business,
and he won’t be back for a month.”
(Prov. 7 vs 19-20, The Message)
19th Street 