Ben and Leah met on campus at the University of Arizona. Every time he walked out of his Intro to Astronomy class, she was sitting on the steps outside waiting to go into her next class. He couldn’t help but notice her. “She always had her head in a book. She never looked at me once. If she had, I would have said hello, but she was always reading. This went on for five weeks. I knew everything there was to know about the top of her head and her shoes, but that’s it. I didn’t even really know what she looked like or what color her eyes were, but she drew me in. The way she could focus, the way she was always there, it made me so curious about her. She became regular part of my week, but she had no idea I even existed. I tried bumping into her once as I went down the steps, just a slight jostle, and even then she just mumbled ‘it’s okay’ when I apologized, and didn’t look up.

“I kept thinking about her. Not just on the days I had that class, but every day. Who was she? What was her name? What was she reading?”

One day Ben just decided enough was enough and when class let out, he sat down on the steps next to her.

“He sat really close, too close, like our shoulders were actually touching,” said Leah. “I was reading Sartre for my philosophy class. It was dense. Philosophy is no joke and I was struggling. I was annoyed at first, and I lifted my head up and there he was with the biggest smile on his face, like we were long-lost friends or something.”

Ben remembers the look on Leah’s face. “I was just so happy to see her whole face and her big brown eyes, that I completely forgot I was a stranger to her. She wasn’t a stranger to me, but she definitely looked annoyed at first.”

Ben finally introduced himself and asked her what she was reading. “I didn’t want to blow my chance to talk to her, so I kept asking her questions. I didn’t really give her a chance to end the conversation. She doesn’t have a rude bone in her body, lucky for me, so we talked for about twenty minutes until she had to go to class.”

“For the rest of the semester, before every class, we talked for twenty minutes,” said Leah. “Just talked. About everything. He never asked me out, he never asked for my number, he just sat on those steps and asked about my life. It was kind of weird now that I think about it. Finally I asked him out on a date. I think I shocked him.”

“She definitely startled me, but of course I said yes, and here’s the thing,

I was already in love with her before our first date, before our first kiss, before anything physical.”

“He was just steady. He was always there. Always smiling and asking me questions about my life. One day he noticed I was cold and he gave me his sweatshirt, and then didn’t ask for it back before he left. I can’t explain it, but that little thing made me trust him. He made me feel safe in this weird way I didn’t know I wanted to feel safe in. And it’s been that way ever since. We’ve been together now almost five years, we’re planning on getting married, and I don’t think I’ve ever trusted anyone more in my life.

And it all has to do with those conversations on the steps. He always showed up for me and he still always shows up for me and he notices when I need something, even sometimes before I consciously know what I need. He’s my best friend and the love of my life.”

When Ben and Leah went on the Trust & Commitment Date, they discovered they had very different experiences of what commitment looked like in their families growing up. Leah explained that for her, trust is about feeling safe and about how attentive Ben is. “My parents were divorced and my mom was kind of a wreck emotionally. She didn’t really pay attention to me or interact. She was tired all the time. She didn’t have the bandwidth to take care of me emotionally. I was devastated when I didn’t make the cheerleading team, and she was nowhere to be found. It sounds minor, but it hurt. My dad wasn’t around either. Books were my comfort. I just lost

myself in books. So I guess trust for me is about follow-through and paying attention. Do you do what you say you are going to do?”

Ben’s parents never divorced, but their commitment was all about their belief that God meant for them to be together. “They were together and our family was together, but I wouldn’t ever see them spending lots of alone time with each other. Everything revolved around the kids, and going to church, and their routine. I remember watching them not talking to each other, and thinking I’m never going to be like that. They were faithful sexually,” Ben added, “but I don’t know how committed they really were to each other as people if you know what I mean. I did see my dad checking out other women at times, and that was strange.”

BEN AND LEAH DISCOVERED THEY HAD VERY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES OF WHAT

COMMITMENT LOOKED LIKE.

Ben found it enlightening to go on the trust date. “I never knew about the cheerleading team, but it makes sense. I know how important it is that I show up when I say I am going to, and once I had to break plans we had to go camping, and now her reaction makes sense to me.”

“I didn’t react well,” laughed Leah. “But we both realized after having this conversation how much more trust is about than just not cheating on each other, which is the simple way to think about commitment and trust. It’s just giving your word on something—whether it’s a big something or a little something—and being true to it.” “And she never did give me my sweatshirt back.”

CHOOSING COMMITMENT

In a relationship, commitment is a choice we make every single day, over and over again. We choose it even when we are tired and overworked and stressed out. We choose it no matter what attractive person crosses our path. We also choose it every time our partner makes a bid for attention and we put down our book, or look away from the television, or up from our smartphone, or stop whatever it is we’re occupied with to acknowledge their importance in our life. This acknowledgement may call for just a smile or for a conversation, but whatever it calls for, we authentically try to deliver. When we make our relationship a priority by showing that it’s a priority, we build trust and demonstrate our loyalty far beyond any words we say in our wedding vows. What the Love Lab found is that it is the small, positive things done often that make the most difference and build that cocoon of trust and safety in our relationships.

So what does true commitment mean? The most obvious meaning is that we resist possibilities with other people. We’re faithful sexually and faithful emotionally to our partner. We maintain boundaries in our relationships outside the marriage. The late Dr. Shirley Glass, one of the world’s leading experts on infidelity, wrote a book entitled Not “Just Friends.” Her expertise really boils down to windows and walls. When you’re married or otherwise committed to a partner, ideally what you do is create a wall around the two of you with an open window between you.

This wall around the two of you separates you from others in terms of your deepest emotional and physical connections. What Dr. Glass found in her research is that when people, especially people who are unhappy in their relationships, start confiding in another person about their relationship, they are opening up a window to this outside person. And when they keep this new platonic or emotional relationship secret from their partner, they start building a wall between themselves and their primary partner. There can’t be walls between you if you’re going to have long-term and lasting trust, commitment, and loyalty. And windows to a close friend (whether of the opposite sex or the same sex) outside your relationship can quickly become doorways, and that’s when affairs happen. It’s not impossible to have friends like this, but you have to be aware of your boundaries, and it’s a huge red flag if one of you starts keeping secrets from your partner about any new friendship. Then you are building a wall between you that disrupts your commitment to one another.