Dear Mandy:

I’ve been in a relationship for about a year. The beginning was more amazing than anything you could imagine. I felt like God answered all of my prayers and created this amazing man.

After the first few months, though, we began having trust issues over small things like people from the past or social media. This is dragging our amazing relationship down into the gutter. 

I would love if you could provide a little insight on how to trust, let go, and not sweat the small stuff.  I believe you should love and appreciate every single person in your life who makes you smile; however, I feel as if I’ve gotten off track.

Kaitlyn

 

Dear Kaitlyn,

First of all, don’t be so hard on yourself. When you say “I feel as if I’ve gotten off track,” you take responsibility for all the problems in the relationship when really you can only be responsible for your part. And it sounds as though both of you are battling these trust issues, so it’s an issue that both of you need to work together to fix. Which I think you can do, if you really feel like this is the real deal and worth making some changes to put your relationship back on a more positive path.

I would like you to consider this, and be really honest with yourself: Is this guy trustworthy? Has he ever given you any reason to doubt his honesty or fidelity?

I’ve been in an unhealthy relationship where the guy lied to me constantly and completely took advantage of my trust, so I can speak from experience and tell you with certainty that if a man is being truly deceptive and shady, it will be very, very clear. It won’t show up in the form of a simple Facebook post on his wall or a tweet to another girl. And if you can honestly say that he’s never done anything to make you feel like he’s been unfaithful … what’s with the constant drama? And I’m not just pointing the finger at you, I’m looking at him, too.

If you guys are in love and have mutual respect for each other and are both solid in your commitment to the relationship, why are you letting all these little things come in between you? I would urge the two of you to sit down, have a nice, long, REAL talk and get really honest with each other. Talk about what bothers you about the other one (you tweeting other guys, him being friends with his ex-girlfriend on Facebook, etc.) and see what you can do to reasonably address the other person’s concerns. Then mutually make the decision to NOT let these things come between you anymore.

It’s going to take discipline and it’s going to take effort on both your parts … but if this relationship is worth having, it’s worth fighting for. It’s worth biting your tongue when you want to make a jealous comment. It’s worth not letting something as silly as a tweet to another girl cause a fight. And it’s definitely worth taking your eyes OFF the rearview mirror and putting them on the windshield; because if you both keep staring at the past, eventually the relationship will crash.

Most of all, if you really have found true love, real love … focus on that. Celebrate that. Realize how rare of a miracle it is to find someone who fits you and accepts you and loves everything about you, flaws and all … and all the other silliness will fall away.

In the end, all that really matters in this whole equation is not what you share with other people on social media or what you shared with exes in the past … but what you share with each other in the here and now. Appreciate the beauty of each moment as it comes, and every moment after will take care of itself.

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