How much trusting is too much trusting?

I have always thought that trusting is essential for a healthy relationship to work but, have you ever wondered how much trusting is too much trusting? Is there a point at which trusting turns into ignoring? If so, are there any signs warning us about the danger of being not only trusting but naïve?

I started to mull over these questions the other day as I was sharing a coffee with one of my best friends. She came to me almost freaking out with her heart broken into a thousand pieces: after six years of relationship, four of them living together, her boyfriend cheated on her. And, even worse than the betrayal was the fact that she didn’t realize! She felt stupid and silly but, was it her fault? As she was speaking I felt almost as shocked as her because we are quite similar. I mean, she’s not the typical desperate woman who prefers lying to herself and live a fake relationship just for the sake of not being alone. She was just trusting the man she loved! So, was it truth that we shouldn’t trust our couples anymore? I couldn’t help but wonder, weren’t there any alert signals to imagine that ‘something’ was going on?

That question was eating up my mind and, for the first time in many months, the only thing that cheered me up was the fact of living in a small town. How could that be? You might be thinking, well, easy. As you all know in big cities nobody worries about their neighbour’s life -something I really miss!- however, in this situation the suspicious ability of gossiping -so trendy in my town- was of great value to my mind’s relief. If I’m not able to recognise when my boyfriend is cheating on me, at least, I can trust my neighbours’ capacity to spread news quicker than I usually like. That is, in small towns, neighbours might be the alert signals that you might need: their rumors and weird looks on you will let you know when something is going on. Of course this is not the best way to discover that your boyfriend is being unfaithful but, at least, you know you won’t be walking around the town for years without noticing it. But, is this the only way to find out? Aren't there any other signs?

After quite a lot of thinking, I just had to admit that there isn’t a magic formula to guess whether your couple is being unfaithful or not but, hard as it might be, we need to trust them to be able of having a nice, lovely and HEALTHY relationship. Do you want to find alert signals? Don’t forget the only important trick: WE MUST TRUST OURSELVES, our intuition, our hearts. My friend was cheated on, I can be cheated on, so what? Many women and men are and, isn’t it worthy to know that you have loved with all your heart? In love as in any other field of life you need to risk if you want to win, even if this means you might be hurt. How could anyone doubt about trusting? Definitely without trusting, there cannot be a relationship, not a real one. So, how much trusting is too much trusting? Easy, if you are wondering that, you are probably trusting too much. Listen to your heart, love, trust yourself and everything will be alright.