How Can We Trust Love If Someone Can Leave Us Tomorrow?

Steps on Learning To Love When Nothing Is Guaranteed

Photograph by vjapratama on Pexels

As I write on topics such as chasing your fantasy of someone, navigating unavailability, and seeking secure love over otherwise unhealthy attractions. I’ve seen a couple of questions come up about how we can guarantee someone will be good to us, or when a good time is to know we can trust and invest in someone else.

In fact, a lovely reader of one of the above articles left the following comment and question she has so kindly allowed me to reference here. I did leave a brief response at the time but thought her question deserved an article of its own — given the depth and time needed to really dive into it.

To me, she wrote,

“If someone who is potentially interested today might vanish or lose the interest tomorrow. How can I trust this other person? How do I know when, from what moment it is reasonable to emotionally invest if everything changes tomorrow. Will I have to face a different reality? Is it actually worth it to invest?” — Maria Kolosanova

And what a great question to ask. To reflect, in the article she was commenting on, Stop Chasing After Your Idea Of Someone. My main message was to stop investing in fantasies of how we wish someone else would be when our reality is telling us they are anything but that.

I fear so many of us remain tied to romantic partnerships for longer than we should because we’re stuck in a state of hope over who they may HAVE been — and sadly aren’t anymore. Like Snow White waiting for our first love kiss, we have to call an end to our daydreams and fantasies and wake back up to reality.

But to your comment Maria, I see a valid question; how can we trust that the person we are with, or hope to be with, won’t lose interest in us? And is it worth us even investing our time in that person if there is potential they could change their mind tomorrow? Even if they’re showing great qualities and signs of secure partnership, why invest when they could change their mind?

I like this question because it’s something I grappled with for some time in unraveling some of my ex-habits in dating.

For today’s article, I’ll break down Maria’s answer into two parts; firstly — how can we trust in someone’s love of us if there is potential for them to lose interest tomorrow and secondly, at what stage is it ok for us to invest, if at all?

1. Having Courage To Love In The Face of Pain

To put it simply, to love — to truly love, is to be ok with the reality that pain may come.

And that is a reality, after all. We can’t guarantee that someone won’t love us tomorrow — we can make sure that we choose people who minimize this potential, as I’ll expand later on, but we have very little control over how someone else chooses to think, feel, and act in accordance with us.

Often also, it’s our need to control the outcome of love that pushes us into maladaptive behaviors that threaten our authenticity. These behaviors can look like suppressing true parts of ourselves that people could otherwise love — like our passions, should we fear being judged and ultimately rejected.

We may also people-please in other ways, and lower our boundaries so as to negate conflict in the hopes someone will stay around. Even the avoidant person, who hides their emotions, does so out of fear of rejection that would mimic their early childhood experiences.

In sum, no, we can’t control someone else, nor can we hope that we can change ourselves to keep someone else around, either. You can try, but in my experience, a lack of authenticity often loses out in love. We’re then left not only on our own but with the knowledge we abandoned ourselves.

In this, to step into love is to be courageous; to acknowledge that pain may come, but that it is a part of life. I would even argue that it is the depths that we love that equals our potential for pain. Those who guard themselves in love — be it through emotional withdrawal or people-pleasing, block their authenticity in ways that ultimately sabotage it. On vulnerability, I love this quote by Brené Brown, the popular American professor and writer.

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” — Brené Brown, Rising Strong, 2017.

There is another point on this we need to discuss, however, that will allow us more comfortable doing this.

A Reliance On Ourselves: Being Ok With Not Being Chosen

In order for us to truly dive into love, and be ok with the potential for future rejection, we have to also be ok with ourselves. Many of us, as I have before, seek the comfort of a relationship to make up for the lack of comfort we feel within.

And it’s this internal discomfort that then creates a heightened risk in love. After all, if we aren’t chosen or are ultimately rejected, what will that mean for us? What if I do put my all into someone and ultimately lose?

To that, I’d firstly say that to love doesn’t mean to give our all to someone. When we do so, yes love will become a risk because what else do we have to come back to? This is the hallmark of codependency.

None of this is to say that we can negate any pain that love may cause. We can’t. If we truly love someone, we will hurt when it’s lost. As humans, we attach to others be it in a “healthy” way or an “unhealthy” way. Regardless of how that occurs, we will hurt when we lose it. After all, experiences such as breakups are known to cause withdrawal symptoms similar to those of cocaine users.

What I am saying is that it’s better to have a strong base in yourself and love someone than it is to not. When we have courage, when we have self-love, and when we believe ourselves worthy of the love of another, at least then in its potential downfall we can be there for ourselves. Love can come with a heightened risk when we have repeated experiences of losing ourselves in its throes. Then it will be more painful, and take much longer to heal from.

“The only person you can now or ever change is yourself. The only person that it is your business to control is yourself.” Melanie Beadie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself, 2018.

2. Making Sensible Choices That Minimise Our Risk of Pain

Whilst we ultimately don’t have control over how someone thinks, feels, and acts around us, we have to be sensible when it comes to choosing the right kind of people, who aren’t glaring red flags.

Being courageous and taking the risk of love doesn’t mean running into glaring headlights and being run over. No, it means making a rational decision on who you choose to be with based on the person that they are, and how they make you feel.

And a key point there — making rational decisions. Unhealthy dynamics can spike our anxiety and excitement levels but that doesn’t mean they’re good for us. In fact, if someone is stonewalling, gaslighting or otherwise displaying signs of disinterest — please take note of this, and either call them out or leave them behind. Moving on from a habit of dating unavailable people to dating people who promote a more secure attachment can be difficult. You can read an article I wrote below on my experience and lessons I learned.

3 Lessons When Moving Out of Insecure Attachment and Into Secure Love

Ultimately, I feel like we all know when someone isn’t good for us, and it’s down to us to continue learning more and assessing as we go along. It’s worth noting that people can display all the signs of commitment early on and then start to lose interest. Again, it can happen — and we can’t guarantee that all people will meet us and want to stay with us forever.

“People unfold,” says Natalie Lue, host of the Baggage Reclaim podcast, and therefore can change as we get to know them. It’s a shame when it happens, but the worst we can do under these circumstances is hold onto a fantasy of what this person used to be like. You will meet people who unfold and maintain honesty, openness, and commitment. These are the people to choose.

Thank you for reading this article. If you have any questions you’d like to ask in relation to any of the above or have thoughts/experiences of your own in relation to this, feel free to leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you. Please leave some claps if this resonates with you, and follow Above The Middle for frequent articles.

Thanks as always.

Joe