Love, Trust, and Betrayal

[pameladlloyd]

Today has been a contemplative day, as the incident yesterday, coupled with posts in a few other journals, triggered some unpleasant memories, some involving past relationships, some involving friendships that continue, but with reservations. (Strangely, it's the latter category that holds more pain for me, now.) Plus, the stories I've been working on recently involve some pretty intense family dramas.

All of this has gotten me thinking about the relationships between love and trust, and love and betrayal, and how that effects writing about characters and the ways they love those around them. Not just couples in love, but also the love that exists between parents and children, between siblings, and between friends. Even the love that some people are capable of feeling for strangers.


Now, personally, I tend to see love as something that should include trust, but that's not the way it always works in real life.

I'm thinking about the way parents love their children, even when their kids have done some really stupid and wrong things. Of course, some parents reject their kids for things they've done, and sometimes what the kids did isn't even something anyone else would thing was wrong. (I'm aware of one woman who didn't speak to one of her sons for ten years or more after he decided to include his stepmother, with whom he'd grown up, in his wedding, and asked his mother if she would please not disrupt the wedding with her anger toward his stepmom. Note, that his dad didn't even meet his stepmom until well after the divorce.)

And I'm thinking about the way kids can love their abusive parents, even idolize them. Or not, as the case may be.

Then, there are romantic relationships, which may be founded on solid friendship and trust, but may be based on excitement, or the way someone laughs, or some quirk, or the way the love interest reminds the lover of someone else (ex lover, parent, first grade teacher, what have you).

So, will all this thinking have any impact on my writing? Probably not directly, as I tend to work from a more intuitive perspective, especially when it comes to characterization. But, in the end, everything I experience, everything I ponder, will surely eventually inform my writing.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I think it's complicated friendships that that have had more long-term pain for me, too... if something continues, then you continue to deal with it... I do think things can come better in the end, but it's a long, long process...

...Yes: how is it that in some cases, kids can idolize abusive parents, and in some cases they don't? Or in some cases, someone can be crushed by a betrayal (or some other thing) whereas for other people, it's a blow that shocks them into awareness and some better thing?

When it comes to people's emotions and how they react, I always remind myself that people are very, very, very different. Interesting and marvelous that that's so, but also bewildering, very bewildering...

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Yes: how is it that in some cases, kids can idolize abusive parents, and in some cases they don't? Or in some cases, someone can be crushed by a betrayal (or some other thing) whereas for other people, it's a blow that shocks them into awareness and some better thing?

I think part of the answer to that is biological. We're programmed to experience love (we need to feel that we're receiving love and we need to express love), so even when a child is abused they may incorporate what has happened into their conception of love. Plus, except perhaps in the most toxic of cases, abusive parents still love their kids. Since there's a fair body of evidence that suggests that abusers were often abused themselves, these parents may either not understand what they're doing, or may be unable to control their impulses.

Come to think of it, the emotional content is not really much different for adults in abusive situations, with the main difference being that kids are totally dependent on their parents and usually have no way out, unless there's someone else to step in.

I do think it is possible for betrayal to occur outside of the context of abuse. For one thing, people often have conflicting loyalties (for instance, to one's parents and one's friends/lovers/SO/spouse, or between friends, etc.), which may put them into situations in which someone winds up feeling betrayed. My two best friends for some years had known each other and been best friends for many years. Then, one fell in love and got married and the other couldn't handle it. I wound up feeling a bit in the middle in that situation and had to lay some pretty strict ground rules, but our friendship was never the same.

When it comes to people's emotions and how they react, I always remind myself that people are very, very, very different. Interesting and marvelous that that's so, but also bewildering, very bewildering...

Which is part of what makes being a writer so interesting, as it's part of our job to try to really understand what's going on inside of people, even people whose reactions are very different from our own. Now, if only all the insight we pour onto paper could help us in real life. :/

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Regarding abusers--yes indeed: most people, even if they're violent and sometimes cruel do have love in them as well. And I see what you mean about the parallels between abusive parents and abusive partners.

And regarding betrayals, yes indeed again! Just because one person feels betrayed doesn't mean the other person intended to do any betraying.

One person on my friends list has been posting about a gradual thawing in feelings in her family--people who have been cold to each other for ten or so years, but now things are changing... that sort of thing gives me hope. Even when people swear never to talk to one another again, time is so long, things really can heal. They don't, always, but the possibility exists. I cling to that! (Not that I have any particular case in mind, for myself, but I always feel like I'm likely to be in need of forgiveness...)

And yes--why can't being perceptive as an observer of human nature translate into perceptiveness in one's daily life?! Or... sometimes you can perceive things, but if you're me, you end up following the same old patterns of behavior--not necessarily the best ones...

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Or... sometimes you can perceive things, but if you're me, you end up following the same old patterns of behavior--not necessarily the best ones...

Yes. There is that, too. I can remember, as a teen, being really impressed by a character in a novel, the protagonist's mother, who was always calm and serene, no matter what was going on around her. I had this ideal in my head, that that's the kind of mother I wanted to be. Ah, well. My kids love me anyway.