The key is this, find someone you can trust in principle, then find out in what can you trust them, in which field, in which sense, which dimension of your life, which area, then trust them.

But even though you trust them, be alert, be vigilant, not hypervigilant, but vigilant, be on your toes, people change, circumstances change, you change, changes in you may induce changes in him.

Always be with your eyes, with your eyes open.

There’s a big difference between being vigilant and being distrust.

I’m telling you to trust, and as long as you trust, I’m telling you to trust unreservedly and unheartily, but be alert for signs that your trust may be misplaced.

It’s like Theodore Roosevelt said, you know, carry a big stick, talk softly and carry a big stick.

The more often we successfully test the trust we had established, the stronger our brain embraces it, because our brain is pattern prone.

Our brain searches for patterns, apophenia, remember?

So we trust someone, and then there’s a test, and he passes it, another test, he passes it, the trust grows more solid, more firm, more irreversible, irrevocable.

Constantly, in a precarious balance, our mind needs and devours reinforcements.

Such testing, I would like to qualify myself, such testing of trust should not be explicit, because when it is explicit means you don’t trust.

When you test someone explicitly, when you set him up for failure, when you design, when you create circumstances in which he will be tested, that means there’s no trust. That is distrust, but the testing should be circumstantial.

In other words, life proceeds and continues as before. You don’t design a test, you don’t apply a test, you don’t set up someone for a test, but he is constantly on a test, he’s constantly being tested.

Not by you, never by you, by life, by life.

And you observe, you don’t observe with the hope that he will fail, with the intention of failing.

On the contrary, you observe because you want to reassert and reaffirm and strengthen your trust.

The aim of circumstantial, of life testing, is to enhance the trust.

But if you set up a test, if you test him on purpose, that’s in order to destroy the trust, that reflects distrust.

Your husband could easily have had a lover, your partner could easily have embezzled your mother.

And look, they haven’t, they haven’t. Life happened, they had the opportunities, and they didn’t take them. They’ve passed the tests, afforded them by life, not by you. They’ve resisted temptation, but the temptation was not engineered by you. It was just there, beyond your control, circumstantial.

And yet, you had observed, you were not blind. You didn’t turn a blind eye. You didn’t engage in confirmation bias. You’re alert with your eyes open all the time, not negatively. You don’t maintain a state of mind of, I’m keeping my eyes open because I don’t trust you.

On the contrary, your state of mind is, I’m keeping my eyes open because I trust him. Trust him. I want to see him enhancing, strengthening my trust. Trust is based on the ability to predict the future.

I said that we react not only to the act of betrayal, but also to the feeling that the very foundations of our world are crumbling, that our world is no longer safe, because it’s no longer predictable.

When we are betrayed, we are in the throes of death of one theory or one paradigm, in the birth of another theory, a paradigm as yet untested.

And here, there’s another important lesson. Whatever the act of betrayal, with the exception of our outright maiming, rape, murder, whatever the act of betrayal, the outcomes of betrayal are frequently limited, reversible, ultimately in the long run, and with the long view, negligible.

Naturally, when we are inside the betrayal, when we are in the throes of the betrayal, when it had just happened, we tend to exaggerate the importance of the event.

And this serves a triple purpose.

First of all, when we exaggerate what had happened to us, when we become a bit of a drama queen, it aggregates us. If we are worthy of such an unprecedented, unheard of and major betrayal, we must be worthwhile, must be important, must be truly special. That’s the foundation of paranoia. That’s the foundation of conspiracy theory.

So very often we are betrayed and we exaggerate the betrayal because it makes us feel important and special. The magnitude of the betrayal reflects on us, reestablishes the fragile balance of powers between us and the universe.

The second purpose of exaggerating the act of perfidy, the second reason for transforming a run of the mill misbehavior into something earth-shattering, stab at the back, is simply to gain sympathy and empathy, mainly from ourselves, but also from others.

Catastrophes doesn’t adapt. There’s so many catastrophes. There’s empathy fatigue, sympathy fatigue. People are tired to empathize and sympathize with other people.

In the modern world, everyone is experiencing like six catastrophes before breakfast. In today’s world, it’s difficult to provoke anyone to regard your personal tragedy and disaster as anything exceptional because it had happened to them six times before.

Finally, the third reason why we exaggerate is the greater and more unheard of and unprecedented is the act of treason, the less responsible we feel for what had happened.

The more we believe that there was nothing we could have done to prevent it.

That’s the foundation of the movement of empaths.

The message of the empath is, I have been 100% victim. I contributed nothing to what had happened to me. It’s not my fault, 1000%.

Things happened to me. I was passive. I was a magnet. I was an inanimate object. All this happened because of my personality, which is morally superior, sensitive, refined, amazing, delicate, etc.

Self-aggrandizing as a way to shirk and avoid responsibility or part responsibility.

This is not a way to live because you don’t derive lessons. It’s going to happen to you again.

So if you exaggerate the bad things that happened to you, it’s bad for you because this means you have fallen victim to forces which resemble forces of nature.

Demonizing the narcissist or the psychopath is transforming them into a force of nature. It’s like a tornado or a virus. Nothing you could have done about it. Amplifying the event therefore has some very self-serving and self-solving, self-soothing purposes.

But finally, this self-deception poisons your mental circulation, poisons the victim’s mind.

Putting the event in perspective goes a long way towards the commencement of a healing process.

No betrayal, no amount of betrayal stamps the world irreversibly. No treason, no cheating, no theft, no stealing, no criminal act.

Eliminate other possibilities, opportunities, chances, and other people. People have gone through Auschwitz and came the other end and carried on with their lives. And a few of them helped millions like Viktor Frankl.

Time goes by. People meet, people part, lovers quarrel, lovers make love. Dear, dearest and nearest live, intimate ones die. It’s the essence of time. Time reduces all of us to the finest dust. And our only weapon in the face of time, however crude, however naive even, against this inexorable process of not being, our only weapon is to trust each other.

The wise person know when to stop suspecting and to start to trust. There is a thin line separating the paranoid from the more, from the stupid. To suspect all the time is counterproductive and also idiotic. It inhibits, it retards, it falsifies reality testing, it consumes scarce resources to suspect all the time.

Paranoia prevents collaboration, prevents progress. It constricts one’s life, limits it. It’s a straitjacket. Constant distrust impairs one’s reality test, as I said. Constant vigilance is the long name for anxiety and fears induced by ignorance and honestly by stupidity. Paranoia is a form of grandiosity.

I have to repeat this again and again. It’s an narcissistic defense. I’m important enough to be the target of conspiracies and the epicenter of critical events and vicious people like my abuser.

Don’t be a narcissist. Don’t let your abuser transform you into a narcissist.

By rendering your abuser bigger than life, by making your abuser a demonic force of nature, you’re aggrandizing him but indirectly yourself. You are becoming him. You are confabulating. You are detaching from reality. You are beginning to inhabit a grandiose delusion.

At some point you have to say enough is enough. I’m willing to lay a bet on this new person. I’m willing to invest in this business. I’m willing to go on a trip. I’m willing to go on with my life.

In hindsight, you may again make a wrong decision. There’s no guaranteed life.

Of course, the next man you fall in love with could be your next abuser. There’s no guarantee. There’s no insurance policy.

But you have to keep trying. Any decision is better than a lifelong paralysis.

In love and to some extent in sex, we address. We remove protective layers. We expose vulnerabilities and weaknesses to other people.

And this information that we provide about the chinks in our armor, about our penetration and intrusion points, this information can and will be used against us. I’m not misleading you.

Even the most loving of mates, the most intimate of partners, at some point will use this information against you.

We must take this fact into account when we decide what to share.

But share, we must.

In a healthy relationship, secrets are an essential ingredient.

Not everything should be disclosed all the time.

Unmitigated and alloyed truth-telling is never a good idea. Coupledhood and intimacy wither on the vine of total openness.

And this is unwise to be totally open.

But not all secrets are created equal. Some information, if it is held back, if it is concealed, festers. It poisons any relationship. Fundamental issues have to be aired, tackled, dissected, resolved. Emotions and conflicts require communication, require closure.

Expectations and hopes must be expressed. Otherwise, you will never affect change. And in the absence of change, your relationship will stagnate and then it will die.

Behavior modification is predicated on good communication and you want to modify the behavior of everyone around you, your significant others.

Not every mood should be reported, I agree. Not every lapse and transgression need to be confessed, so-so-true. Not every fear should be articulated. You should let time, the great healer, do its job.

It’s all very true.

But you must decide to trust. Trust is a choice. It’s a decision. And it’s one decision you cannot afford not to make.

I will conclude by giving you a few markers how to tell a true friend from a fake friend.

A true friend supports you only when he believes that you are doing the right thing in your own self-interest and welfare. A fake friend supports you always, no matter what you do. That’s a fake.

A true friend respects you only when you have earned this respect, when you’ve earned his respect and when you act respectably. Respect must be earned and you must act consistently in ways that respect yourself, only when a true friend would respect you.

A fake friend respects you regardless of your behavior or misbehavior. He always respects you. Never mind what you do. Even if you disrespect yourself, he still claims to respect you.

A true friend trusts you but only as long as you prove yourself trustworthy, only while you do not put his trust to the test too often and only on certain issues, not on everything.

A fake friend trusts you with everything. Always. Never mind what you do.

To summarize, a true friend puts to you a mirror. He mirrors you. And in this mirror, you can see reality. You can see truth.

A fake friend also puts to you a mirror.

But in this mirror, you see your own reflection. You see only yourself. You see nothing else besides.

There’s no reality and no truth. This is grooming. This is love bombing.

A true friend loves you in the relationship. He loves you, even without your friendship. A fake friend loves himself in the relationship.

Oh, he loves the friendship itself, but never you.

With a true friend, you need never ask. What is he getting out of this relationship? Loving you is its own reward. What he’s getting out of this relationship is the privilege of loving you. That’s a true friend.

A fake friend, you should always ask. Why is he still in this relationship? Loving you is not the reward. What he gets out of you is the reward.

A good time. I don’t know. You pay for everything. Contacts, access, power, money, sex. That’s a fake friend. He’s in it for what he gets out of it.

Apply these standards to all your friends, spouses, mates, even children. Everyone around you who means anything to you. And you will be able to tell the fake ones from the true ones and try really to spend much more of your time with the true ones than with the fake ones.

And the true ones, you can trust. Trust them. Will they ever disappoint you? Of course. Will they ever hurt you? Guaranteed. Is it worth it? 100%.