By Michael-Eric Markland
Me: My first instinct is to say “stay the hell out of my stuff”, but I am conflicted on the issue because as a person, I too, have a natural curiosity about my partner. However time and experience has taught me to temper both sides of my emotions. Yes; stay the hell out of my stuff but feel free to ask me questions. I have decided that I am not going to search my partners belongings; I have chosen to ask questions instead. It provides the other person a blank page: to lie or answer truthfully. You can’t stop me from doing whatever I have made up my mind to do, Nor can I stop you from doing the same. I believe that my only hope for creating a healthy happy relationship is to invest some trust in it. The issue of trust–as a basic necessity for a happy relationship–is bigger than Michael Jackson’s Thriller album.
Trust is embodied in the concept of Respect; respect for your privacy as an individual and the courtesy to reciprocate that same respect–no less. No disclaimers allowed. It is in our basic instinct to mistrust the unknown and fueled with curiosity and natural inquisitiveness, we are damn near doomed to fail at abiding by this rule. The fact is if you are that curious then you and your partner may need to come up with a set of rules that suit you both with customized parameters to suit your particular circumstances. Some people are harmlessly curious as opposed to the irrepressible snoop: can’t stay out of anybody’s business. You can never surprise this one; he or she never gives you a chance.
Here’s the thing; without trust in a relationship you have nothing, without the right person to trust in you have nothing. How many ways can I say it; without trust you have nothing. If you cannot trust you cannot have a successful relationship.
When you are left alone in your partner’s private zone with his/her personal effects, is your first instinct to search? observe? or make notes to ask questions about what you see or perceive? Or to hell with it: “I need to know”
In this age of smart gadgets and multiple passwords to decipher, a real snoop is drawn to a cell phone like a mouse to cheese. Imagine the insurmountable urge to break in and discover all those juicy unmentionables?
Can your partner leave you alone in their car without you going through the glove box and the center console looking for clues? Clues to what? What are you looking for? I believe there are people who deliberately search for PAIN and HURT. In other words they will not be satisfied until they find something that stabs them clean through the heart or crushes their fragile ego. This is the conspiracy theorist; there has to be something to find; something to catapult them into the pain zone so that they can well up and burst like a dam, overflowing their eager tear ducts and flooding the insecure heart with sorrow. So sad.
I’m going to say it aloud; “I have a problem with people going through my stuff without my permission”
Raise your hand if you don’t.
Liar!
We all do.
We are designed to receive Love, Respect, and affection but the true test of who we are in our relationship is how much we can reciprocate the affections we need for ourselves. Putting someone else’ needs for love and respect as high or above ours is a major challenge; people aren’t built like that. That skill set comes only with experience and maturity.
Maturity plays a major part in our ability to allow the other person the God-given divine singularity of their own mind. We are created with the ability to hold our thoughts private and the luxury of choice to share them or not to; that is a fact. And until we are able to respect each other’s God given rights to this privacy–as much as we respect ours–we will always have a problem with our relationships–intimate or otherwise.
Maturity comes through experience and or exposure, unfortunately many of us have not been sufficiently exposed to environments that encourage the maturation of our stronger more troublesome emotions. I believe only failure can teach us adequately, the importance of observing certain basic laws of happy, interdependent cohabitation. So go ahead, follow your instincts; search, violate, fail; learn.
In the end, it remains our responsibility to examine the importance of our own need for privacy and to learn to allow the other person the same respect. Develop trust, practice abstinence; live, trust and prosper.
However, I am sure you nosey-posey’s won’t heed my advice, so happy hunting.
Cheers.
