Consistency; The Unsung Hero

After being lied to, cheated on, stolen from, and emotionally battered in tons of relationships, I remember asking my therapist,” how am I supposed to trust a guy I’m dating without checking up on him to see if he’s actually telling the truth?” I just figured that if I did that a few times and they had been telling the truth, they were good! I could trust him! But no. Turns out that was NOT the best way to go. Who knew?!?

My therapist responded with: “Good communication and consistency.”

So why consistency? We are creatures of pattern. The way we cope with different situations becomes predictable. If you can stand back enough to observe your own behavior, it’s quite interesting what you find out about yourself. Side note: this is one of the benefits of meditation. It’s a training to quiet the mind that allows you to observe. But my point is that with time, who we are always returns. I think the hardest part in finding a good partner is having the patience to allow consistency of patterns to be established.

One of the last relationships I jumped into that crashed & burned showed me why consistency really is the key to establishing and maintaining trust

One of the last relationships I jumped into that crashed & burned showed me why consistency really is the key to establishing and maintaining trust. This guy was actually the first decent person I had dated in a while. I was at least far enough in my co-dependency recovery to pick partners that were somewhat emotionally stable, had a career, had hobbies, etc. However, I later found out he needed validation from other women. I saw signs of it about 8 weeks into the relationship and practiced my first attempt at a firm boundary. He came back and actually agreed with what I was saying. He even offered to decrease the intimacy in the friendships that were inappropriate.

I was shocked! I didn’t have to ask for anything. He knew what needed to change and he communicated it clearly to me. It went like this…He would not be alone with them anymore (and then camped alone with them by accident for 4 days two weeks later). He also said he wouldn’t text with them unless it was in their large group (but then did it anyway and decided it was actually conditional). One minute he was calling them condescending names, and the next they were his best friends. Sounds consistent, right? Not to me either. It wasn’t. In the beginning, I didn’t see these behaviors; I think he was originally getting all of his validation from the newness of our relationship. But it’s so easy to understand how we really just go back to what we know and who we are.  

News Flash! I did too! But thankfully because I was looking for consistency with him, I actually became aware of what my patterns were as well. I could see where my work was by the way I handled the situation. It was a lot of self-reflection, meditation, and therapy that really helped me work through my patterns to change them.

How do you get yourself to a life that you’re so excited about, taking it slow would be easy?

If you want to protect yourself, and actually build trust with people, then have the patience to watch and understand people’s patterns before you get into a serious relationship with them. Get to know how they consistently cope with life and different situations. It won’t be something they do all of the time, but most of the time. We don’t judge a batter by their ‘at bat’, we judge a batter by their batting average. If a new person is rushing you to get in a relationship, it’s okay to say you need more time. Typically, the other person will want to go slow, too, if they are in a healthy place. They also will want to see what your consistency looks like.  

Speaking of…If getting to know someone over a longer period of time sounds scary to you (like it did to me 2 years ago) then that might reveal where your work is. How do you get yourself to a life that you’re so excited about, taking it slow would be easy? What fears would you have to overcome? If you tend to find yourself in relationships really fast, is it possible that the relationship is the main way you’re bringing joy to your life? Security? It was for me. I had to really explore who I was alone and without the influence of a relationship to find out how to fill my own needs. I needed to see what I truly enjoyed and what I liked to do so I could create a life I was excited about all on my own. It made it much easier to sit back and take the time needed to get to know someone.

By changing my mindset about what it really takes to get to know someone, I could relax a little. I was super busy doing things I now knew I loved anyway. I knew it was going to take a while to get to know someone, so no need to micro-analyze everything they did, especially in the beginning. Consistency and time would tell. This mindset led me to my healthiest relationship ever. We got to know each other for about 6 months as friends before anything happened romantically. I can tell you this…I genuinely felt like I had a very good idea of who this person was when I chose to invest my time and love in him as a partner, and I was right. I trust him completely because consistently he has shown me I can.