Nada and trust

[Guest guest]

One thing I came to understand after many years, was that I could never

afford to extend trust to nada. Like a dog that bit too many times, or

a child that persists in running into the street, I found I could always

depend on nada for the worst.

Did she make a promise to do something, or avoid doing something

destructive? Don t bet your ranch on it, because when the right

pressures arise she will do what she wants to do anyway.

One that really slapped me around was sharing a confidence with her.

Once, in a rather mellow and vulnerable mood, I opened up in

conversation to tell her about some feelings of jealousy about my dad s

second family, that is to say my half sisters. Now understand, at the

time, nada and dad had been divorced for over 30 years, my sisters were

grown women, and I was a grown man. I specifically told her, look, this

is just sharing a feeling. I don t want to do anything about it, not

until I m ready. Someday I ll talk to dad about it, but until I m ready

I don t want to share that with him.

She solemnly promised that it would just be between the 2 of us.

Perhaps she muttered under her breath, and NBC news. In any event , she

made a beeline for Dad, went into his business, berated him, told him I

felt horrible, greatly exagerated what I had said, and just started a

firestorm.

Dad brought it up to me to try and make amends, and I had the awkward

task of saying this is not something I m ready to deal with, and she had

no right to repeat that conversation.

The infuriating thing about it , and all the other betrayals of trust,

was that she was so smugly self righteous about doing it, because " I

just thought he needed to know. " Or that YOU needed to know. Or

whatever. I just wanted to rage at her , BITCH , it was not your

decision, and what you thought was trumped by the fact that you promised

not to share it, or that I asked you not to discuss it. And of course,

she was right, I was wrong, and she managed to feel hurt and betrayed

that I was angry at her betrayal of my trust.

Instead, what I did was say you have betrayed a confidence from me for

the last time. I ll never tell you anything again. I ve finally

learnded that I absolutely cannot trust your word. You will always do

what you want to do and justify it and lie and be self righteous. You

will always be convinced that what you want to do makes it right, no

matter what. So you are forever to me, the dog that bites, the kid that

runs into the street. I ll only tell you things that I would also tell

CNN or NBC.

Was that just me? ( ok, thats tongue in cheek. ) What are your

experiences with nada and betrayal.

Doug