When you first meet
The process of trusting another person kicks off from the moment we meet someone we’re attracted to. Without even realising it, we’re scanning for clues we can trust them. Will you text when you say you will? Do you really look like your profile pic? Do you follow through on our plans? Do you genuinely like me? Can I count on you? Should I take a leap of faith?
The trouble is, we’re too dazzled by emotions and hormones in the early stages to give those questions our full attention. To be fair, relationships would never work if we all started out looking for the worst in each other.
A lot of clients have said that although they’d heard early warning bells, they brushed them aside, deciding it was too soon to tell and everyone deserves “the benefit of the doubt”. One man said he could remember his new girlfriend’s rage at a waiter when their meals took longer to come out than promised. “It was weird; she was so angry. I remember thinking: ‘Whoa, cool down – you’re way too mad over this,’ but I let it go. I didn’t want to cause a scene … And she was also damned hot – you know what I mean?” he smiled, sort of sadly.
I did. Sex is always a big drawcard. A decade later – divorced with three young kids – he was struggling to put his life and mental health back together, after spending years with a woman he could never rely on. “She was all over the show,” he said, “and it was
