Less Than 20 Minutes to Ask a Question It'll Probably Take a Lifetime To Answer

At what point should one know to trust someone? At what point is it okay for trust to stop? Is trust simply a feeling? Does it occur inside like excitement and fear?

Let me be less global, and a little more specific. If I have, say, a new girlfriend, and she doesn't necessarily seem to have really ever been that sad before, can I trust her with my own sadness? I guess, y'know, it would depend on her, but can hard and fast lines be drawn somewhere? I guess I'm even asking another question and calling it trust. Can she understand? Can I trust her to? Can I trust her to react the way I need her to, or at least to not react the way I need her not to? Is it even fair to ask for that understanding from her?

And can I understand her? If our issues and problems and ideas are (at least seeming to be) so different, can there be a common level bond?

I really like her. I have feelings for this woman and enjoy her company and, ahem, there's some other really great stuff, but what about the deep, down inside stuff? Because, y'know, I have a lot of it. I just do. I have a lot of pain. I've lost friends because I'm just too much to handle. And I'm not mad. With one friend in particular, I'm not mad she left: I'm jealous that she had the option to, and still wish I could apologize for dragging her into it.

Maybe that sounds self-depricating, but it's like the way it works with secrets. If I tell someone a secret, it's not mine anymore. It's simply not. It doesn't mean the people that tell it are bad people, it's just reality. People have their own ish and their own ties and their own reactions and if they're married or have a best friend or simply make a mistake, that secret is no longer in my control. And that's just the way it works. So, when I was having a particularly rough time and ran only to one person for help--partly because I was too scared to trust anyone else with any of it--and she got tired and had to go, well, I get that. It wasn't a reciprocal relationship. So, my question today is, if she doesn't have similar problems, can it be reciprocal? If it's not, is that okay? Does there need to be this trust? I do sleep with her. She hasn't really been brought in to the full scale of my emotions when I wake up terrified from a bad dream or nightmare, but if this continues, she will be. I'll start to need her to be. I lay awake next to her the other night clearly not capable of talking to her about it, because my bad dreams and nightmares aren't some monster, they aren't scenes from horror movies...they're scenes from my horrible past. I have to trust someone before I talk about my past, and I have to really trust someone before I show them the pain caused by my subconscious interpretations of it.

It's like the optimism/pessimism thing I wrote: pessimism works for her because things always seem to turn out better than she planned; pessimism doesn't work for me because things always seem to turn out worse than I had planned, so I might as well try to enjoy the positivity while I have it.

I don't know. I'm not feeling that emotional, just pensive. Where and how does trust occur? Can it really with me and her? The tidbits I've given her haven't necessarily been understood. Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe it's her desire to understand that matters and I can teach her. If she has that desire, and I'm too tired to even attempt teaching, is that wrong of me?

In my head I just return to the locks example and I don't know if it makes sense or not, but it's just where I keep going back.

Can I trust? How do I trust? What does trust look like in practical application? Can there be trust without understanding? Can there be understanding without trust? Can there be a (good/happy/successful/meaningful/etc) relationship without trust and/or understanding?

How do I just be myself?