A
male
age
30-35,
*oost
writes:It's been a few months since I've been on here and really appreciated the mass of advice I got last time. After months of secrecy and lies about who she was meeting and speaking to I plucked up the courage and dumped here. Her excuse being that she saw me as more of a friend. Why she needed to see other people I do not know. My question is: how can I now begin to trust people once again. She knew I'd been lied to before an did the same as others before her have done. I have to admit I have given up completely. Any advice on how to get back to normal would be great
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male
reader, Boost +, writes (17 December 2013):
Boost is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks for the advice. I would like to meet someone new, but I'm just useless at doing so I'm not that keen on approaching random people so anyone I've ever dated has been a friend or someone a friend knows
A
female
reader, llifton  +, writes (17 December 2013):
 I feel your pain, friend. I once was exactly where you are right now. I got so jaded and bitter after being lied to and cheated on for so long, that I just gave up. Every relationship I got into, I began to expect being lied to. Know what happened? Self-fulfilling prophecy. I expected to be lied to, and that's exactly what I got.
Problem is, we can't carry baggage into new relationships like that, or we are just asking for a repeat of the same problems. Make sense? For so long, I expected every person on the planet to be a liar and a cheater, that when I finally found the right person for me, who wouldn't cheat and lie, I damn near ruined it by pushing them away with my unfair assumptions.
So my advice to you is to somehow just learn to let it all go. You just happened to have met a handful of rotten eggs. But there are so many wonderful ones still out there who won't treat you that way. You just have to learn to separate each bad experience from the next person that comes along. surest way to ruin a good thing is by bringing up the past you had with someone else. Don't let someone new pay the prices for what one or a few shitty girls did to you. After all, it wasn't her fault they acted poorly, was it?
Take some time out and try to just let the past be the past. I know how hard this is. And it's so much easier said than done. It took me a couple years to let it all go. But I'm living proof that it IS possible. And good people are out there. You just have to be in a healthy enough frame of mind to be able to be with them. I finally met the right one.
Good luck, friend
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A
female
reader, Ciar  +, writes (17 December 2013):
 I second what Honeypie said. Give yourself time, ease into it slowly and learn to recognize red flags and take appropriate action much sooner.
The key isn't so much learning to trust others but learning to have faith in yourself that you'll do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.
I also agree that you should not bring up past hurts to future lovers. We've all been rejected, betrayed or humiliated at some point and your pain is no different from anyone's else's. Talking about the past keeps you locked in the past and no one wants to be on probation for someone else's sins.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (17 December 2013):
 How do you start trusting again?
Slowly.
If you met a girl and start dating GO SLOW. Don't BRING up the past trust issues constantly, because IT IS NOT her fault.
YOU HAVE to remind yourself that you CAN NOT hold a future GF/friend RESPONSIBLE for what some chick did to you in the past.
Just like people who got cheated on can't EXPECT ever person they met or date to cheat. Life doesn't work that way.
BUT, you can also remember what red flags you encountered before and the be cautions if you see them.
Living your life in FEAR of trusting people will only make you miserable.
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