When people show you who they are, trust their actions, not words

When I ran into Brittany tonight, she seemed subdued. She’s normally bubbly and happy, but it was obvious that she was miserable.

There were other people around at first, so I couldn’t ask much about what was doing on. I just leaned over and asked, “Are you OK?” She quietly mouthed, “I’ll tell you later.”

When the place had cleared out, she came and sat with me. Then she explained what her boyfriend had done Saturday. It’s a long story, but he was intentionally cruel and mean to her. He had laughed about it Sunday and taunted her. But when she threatened today to break up with him, he alternated between begging her not to and angrily threatening her if she did.

Brittany acknowledged what we were both thinking. I had warned her about this man after he did something similarly cruel and nasty to her nearly a year ago. I had warned her then to get away from him — because she had discovered who he really is.

But Brittany had given him another chance. And when similar things have happened over the months, she’s done the same thing. She chooses to believe his convenient words of remorse instead of his actions.

People eventually demonstrate who they really are. Always. When people demonstrate what they are — through their actions — believe them. It’s idiocy to pretend that people are going to be something other than what they’ve shown you.

Brittany hasn’t learned that lesson yet. And it’s a lesson that I’ve been really slow to learn, too.

Until someone hurts you or breaks your trust for the first time, you are that person’s victim when he or she does dishonest or dysfunctional things that hurt you. But after that person has demonstrated what he or she really is, the responsibility is on you when the person does the same thing to you again and again.

That’s a rather complicated way of saying, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

When you allow someone to demonstrate again and again what he or she really is, you have to blame yourself. Don’t ask for sympathy from others — because it’s your own choices which are hurting you. You have become the enabler of that person’s ugly or dysfunctional behavior.

Sadly, I can understand what it’s like to be in such a position. When I’m committed to someone, I’m slow to finally say, “You know what? This is who she really intends to be. This is who she is.” I’m prone to seeing the best in someone I love, so I have a tendency to hope that someone will learn from mistakes — and I often overlook that fact that someone doesn’t really understand why she’s hurt me.

Everyone who’s ever “done you wrong” has an excuse for his or her actions which harmed you. The person might be delusional or dishonest. The person might be downright mean and evil. There’s also the possibility that he or she might be partially right about some of those justifications.

But whether the person is right or not — or malicious or not — it’s still your responsibility to keep yourself emotionally safe and to protect yourself from further harm.

Almost every time I see someone doing something which I want to criticize, I can see some way in which I’ve been guilty of something similar myself. So I often have to turn my critical words on myself. I have to ask why I’m so quick to see what others are doing wrong — and so slow to correct my own similar errors.

When we hold onto people past the point at which they’ve shown us who they are, I think it’s frequently because we’re trying to be consistent with what we’ve committed to. We’ve said, “I love this person,” and so we believe that best about that person. And we keep believing that his or her actions will eventually match the words we’ve heard. And we don’t want to believe that we could have been so unwise as to fall in love with someone whose values are so warped or whose behavior is so dysfunctional.

But it’s OK to change your mind and your actions when you realize what a person really is. It’s perfectly acceptable to admit you made a mistake about a person. It’s in your own best interests to give up on someone who has shown you that he or she will never match the idealistic things you believed in the beginning.

A wolf can pretend to be a sheep for quite a long time. The wolf can dress himself up to look the right way. The wolf can act a lot like a sheep when times are good. But when the wolf gets hungry, he’s going to hurt or kill some sheep. He can’t help it. That’s who he is.

Until a person shows you that he (or she) is a wolf, it’s reasonable for you to be surprised and hurt when the evidence comes out the first time. Nobody can blame you for not knowing this if the evidence hadn’t been there.

But once a wolf has shown you who he really is, you’re just asking for trouble — and you’re asking for that person to hurt you and to hurt others — if you’re not wise enough to break the spell and get out of the way.

I hope Brittany is going to learn this and get away from her wolf. And I hope I’ve finally learned it for myself, too.