The first pig built his house out of straw
Often here on this site discussions start about what to tell and who to tell and when to tell in the relationship. A recent thread was started about how one would NEVER tell. And my thought was that this relationship was not a very stable one if you feel you cannot share who you are.
I see relationships from many perspectives. Some people see them from only one. Often that perspective is selfish. I had equated relationships with equity. How as you start a relationship you put a little something into it and it grows with time. Each person in the relationship should put an equal portion into it. But some hold back while the other works to build it up. The person who is putting so much in, then gets devastated when they find that the other partner has been holding back a little just for themselves.
But most people know the story of the three pigs, or the homily of building your house on a rock. Relationships are like this of course. You need a strong foundation. But staying with the fable aspect of the three pigs, when you first meet you start building a home. Yes, it may start as a pup tent. You both know that it is just for temporary shelter. One or both will be able to pack it up and move on. Very little left at the site to even remind you it was there. But if you camp long enough in the spot you start to think about a permanent abode. Something a little more secure. It may start as a straw house, with the idea that “Hey if this doesn’t work, it was not a whole lot of work to build.”. Then maybe you move on to “sticks” which may be a little more solid but still has some gaps.
These temporary shelters are not solid. You know that if a storm comes up they could be crumbled (think about a 6 month commitment where you are still not sure you want to share the abode but it is nice to have room mate). If something should happen and you find you don’t like the arrangement, the straw or wood can be taken away and shared or destroyed. It isn’t a forever deal without a lot of repair.
But then you decide to build a stone house. Something you can rely on, something you both feel safe in. To do that you need a foundation. The more solid the foundation the more solid the house. We all have ideas of what each stone in the foundation should be. Most here would agree that one would be “love”. There are small love stones (gee I just want to see you naked and maybe later have breakfast) and there are big love stones (Gee, I cannot imagine what I would do with out you, you are my breath and life. Nothing short of murder would ever make me think about leaving you). Other stones can be finances, children, shared hobbies. Morality, beliefs, religion, attitude. There are many different ways to make that foundation more solid. As time goes on you can remodel or add on to the structure, but the foundation remains virtually intact. To finish this house takes a long time but with time you feel more secure about the house. You think more about adding on and less about how well it is sitting. You grow comfortable.
I think along with love, trust is another large stone. All the stones work together. Trust, love and whatever else you use. Trust is not truth. Truth can be less solid. There are things that your SO doesn’t need to know, like your first date and what you did, how you stole your sister’s underwear and used them for…well you fill that in. Not important. Even if you went through the phase of wearing female clothing but now you don’t, as long as you are sure that wasn’t what you saw in yourself. Omission may be just mortar here and can be chinked in later.
But trust. This stone is a major cornerstone. How you define trust may vary. You may be in an open relationship and you trust your SO doesn’t bring you a nasty disease. You may believe in total monogamy and trust your spouse won’t “cheat”. But trust goes even deeper. You trust your SO. Your SO trusts you to do right by them. Right now some are saying “But I am doing right by not telling her (him). She (he) could not handle this.” This actually, in my opinion, violates trust already. You don’t trust them to be adults and make up their own mind. The stone is wearing away. Part of this is you don't trust YOURSELF. You believe that you are not a good person or are not "normal" and you don't want anyone to see beneath the veneer. So you transfer this to your SO. After all if YOU can't accept yourself how can they accept you?
So you continue to build, you use the trust and love base and you build bigger and bigger. You rely on the stones to keep your house in good shape. But you don’t trust your SO still. They don’t know that you are wearing away that stone and they are content to believe the foundation is solid. Then one day, they notice the sand. Maybe you get caught. Maybe you get angry because you feel you cannot be you. Maybe you even decide to “cheat”. The stone crumbles. The house starts to fail.
Then you stand and watch as all the other stones start to fail, including the Love stone. Because you didn’t give trust a chance. Your SO sees all they have been doing building the house now on a shaky platform. If it was early in the process you lose a small bungalow, but after 10-20-30 years it is a castle. All supported on a weak trust. It is a huge crash right? Because when that trust stone starts getting chipped, it chips away faster and faster. After all if you keep something like this from your SO, what else have you kept from them? They start to ask and doubt. Because you see when they saw the foundation they saw stability. Now that is gone. The questions they would have asked before and you didn't have a lot of equity in the relationship are now huge.
So why can’t you trust your SO? You did early on right? You trusted them for everything. You trusted they would be there for you. You even trust them with your most sacred possession; children. But you don’t trust them with your feelings, who you are and what you are. You plaster the foundation with a facade. They don’t see the chink. You know it is there and everyday you wonder “is this the day it falls apart?” You see it coming and you know when it fails it will be complete devastation. They don’t even get the warning. One day they are in the castle they have built and the walls come down. Big walls. Not the walls that would have come down in the straw house or even the wooden house. Those walls only hurt mildly. These walls hurt deeply. There is a lot more weight now.
So the point (if you are still here) is, when you are building a relationship, it is better to be up front in most things so that the hurt will be less. So that you both don’t have a lot of things you have to carry away if the house collapses. So you can fold up your pup tent and move to a new campsite. It is a lot less traumatic than watching your castle crumble.
Love and trust are strong building blocks. Fear and lies aren’t.