Anger and Trust
Devin Example: Person A finds a credit card receipt in Person B’s car. The receipt is for a hotel in the city where A & B live together. A fears the worst, that B met someone at the hotel. When A asks B about the receipt, B replies, “Oh, that. It’s my co-worker’s receipt from the other day.” A doubts B’s story, especially since A’s name is the one on the receipt. So A waits for B to tell A what was really going on. At this point, trust is already damaged of course. After some more concerned questions from A, B tells the truth. B admits that the friend used the credit card as a favor since the friend forgot to bring a credit card and had just run out of checks. B didn’t use the hotel for anything improper. When A asks B why B lied, the response is, “I didn’t want you to get mad”, or “I thought you would get mad”.
In this case, Person B was innocent of the worst, and basically just made a financial decision without informing or consulting the other. Person A did not know that at first, but could tell something was being hid and lied about. Deceit and dishonesty are much more harmful to trust than anger over a questionable financial decision. Anger can come and go relatively quickly compared to the time it takes to rebuild trust that was lost.
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Great post - you’ve captured something that is difficult to think through when you experience it in a relationship -
Often, Person A is made to feel “crazy”, “distrustful” or “neurotic” for asking questions when they sense that something is not right~
“Person B has lied, but not about the things that Person A feared~
In the end, damage is done to the relationship and to both people in it because each one now feels worse about themselves and the level of honesty in the partnership.
It is now insignificant that the initial “infraction” was small - the damage that was done is now much larger because of the quality of the interaction that occurred~