[OffRoad]

Vulnerability and trust are two different things. Vulnerability says I'm going to see if you are worthy of my time or if we can connect or if I can help you in any way. You do not have to trust to be vulnerable, just be willing to accept whatever happens. You don't have to trust any one else. Now if you want to say you have to trust yourself, that you can handle whatever comes to you, that makes sense to me. 

[Sunandshade]

This is such a beautiful discussion about trust. We all came to this point with different trust styles based on personality and life experiences, it’s so hard to generalise! For me, I have only a few close people I trust, and I trust them completely. MLC has been a painful loss of innocence for me. I’ve thought about it a lot though, I could close myself off from trusting anyone, or try to be true to myself and not his choices ruin what it special about me. I’m a work in progress.

Going back to the original discussion about reconciliation likelihood, I wanted to add my 2cents. I agree with many others that situations vary and there is no one path that leads to reconciliation, not staying not leaving. Your MLCer ultimately has to find his/her own way out. I took a slightly unusual path in that I left my MLCer. It’s possible to say I dropped the bomb. He had been monstering for a good year or more, it’s been a mess. He increasingly was behaving like a single man who did not want any responsibility at home or to be part of our family. He was irresponsible with money! Well, to cut a long story short, I got a new job far away and took our kids and left! This was before I knew about OW and he never asked for divorce either (she was textbook affair down and had been in place 8 months before I left), he was just checked out. For me leaving spares me and children a lot of damage I think. It took him one year from our leaving for him to crash and burn, dump OW And humbly arrive on our doorstop and is recovering with us, totally engaged with kids and our life. It’s still a slow process. One thing to know is that I was not bound by any legality issues such as property rights or even traveling. He gave me no money! I could stand on my own fortunately, it’s been tight but possible. He knows I can survive fine without him, yep very aware of that.

[Standing Strong]

Vulnerability and trust are two different things. Vulnerability says I'm going to see if you are worthy of my time or if we can connect or if I can help you in any way. You do not have to trust to be vulnerable, just be willing to accept whatever happens. You don't have to trust any one else. Now if you want to say you have to trust yourself, that you can handle whatever comes to you, that makes sense to me.

This is soooo interesting....... so you're saying that you can be vulnerable without trust? That would be a very interesting thought to me as I always believed in the inverse.... you must trust to be vulnerable. If I don't trust someone, they can't hurt me because I'm not vulnerable (that's just me).

Could you explain more?

-SS

[gman242]

I think being vulnerable, means being open and emotionally available, but I also think there's a limit until trust has been established.

For me, for instance, if I'm on a date with someone, I look to see how much they're willing to reveal about themselves or if they willingly offer information without being prompted.

A good example is explaining how xw and I came to be divorced. I can comfortably explain what happened and my thoughts and feelings about that. Someone who is equally vulnerable would be be able to do the same and would offer it willingly. It helps build trust and establishes a repoir. Someone who isn't willing to be vulnerable wouldn't say personal things or explain or explore them with you.

Granted you to want to keep all that on a shallow level. You don't want to go off the deep end, because I don't think that's appropriate early on in any kind of friendship or relationship. I think there's a scale of depth and intensity you're willing to show someone else that grows with time.

Someone has to be willing to vulnerable early on, but it takes two, from thereafter to build and grow the trust. Two people have to participate. When you have only one, you don't have trust. You also have to be careful, because there are people that can make you feel validated and like you have trust and vulnerability, but you don't.

[Thunder]

Good answer, Gman.   

[Standing Strong]

That makes a lot of sense. Very cool G-Man 

Not how I operate, but that makes a lot of sense.

-SS

[Jackolar12]

Thank you all for your contributions to my thread, it’s been very enlightening and I’ve established now that Wallowers can be more difficult to handle than runaway Mlcers because of their proximity. Both types behave inappropriately and both types monster and have affairs.

The only differences I see after our discussions is for some as yet unknown reason they don’t want to leave which is mystifying.There have been many other interesting conversations that stimulate me and I hope you too.
Kind regards
Jack

[Couragedearheart]

Vulnerability is risk when you can’t control the outcome.

To build trust requires vulnerability in small measure over and over until trust is established.

Furthermore vulnerability is never measured in the length of disclosure.

It may be really vulnerable to say I’m scared or I don’t know something.....vulnerability is about how close and person the information being shared is.

The proper response to vulnerability is always validation, first and foremost

[gman242]

I think at it's core, vulnerability is more about revealing and the exposure of ones inner self to other people.  I don't think that's related to outcomes, because one may not be intended or needed when one is vulnerable.

It's important to validate people when they're vulnerable yes. It's considered socially strange not to, but that goes back to what I was saying that someone may be validating your vulnerability and not being vulnerable themselves. People that do that can often inflate your self esteem with the person while they are also collecting details about you and your life while they reveal none about themselves.

I've found that people that do that are more likely to use what you say against you, since they hold all the cards and you know nothing about them.

[AlvinTheMaker]

I think definition of vulnerability varies a lot based upon the perspective. Personally I'm huge fan of Brene Brown's books/teachings.

For me vulnerability is learning to put my minds walls and defences down conciously. Trust is basically just one of those defenses our minds have. The thing that controls our trust (and all other minds defences) is fear; and I think most here have learned the hard way that very few good things come when and if we let fear run our mind.

It is possible for anyone to learn vulnerability (the same way we can change any of our thinking). It takes a shift in mindset (basically reworking those old fear based beliefs), it takes time, and it takes certain kind of courage. But it is also very awesome and rewarding IMHO. 

Alvin