Trust But Verify

Hello Everyone:

Someone finally came today to pickup most of the medical equipment.  Thank goodness.  I'm sure mum's looking down from heaven, saying to herself, thank goodness.  I know in life she just wanted to take all of it and toss it in the ocean.  Anyway, the rest of use go on with the business of life.  For me that means cleaning up my financial house.  It's not as bad as I thought it was but it does need work.  I'm still not sure I can trust my BIL but I really don't have a choice at the moment.  I don't think he'll try to conceal anything or mislead me but I've had a history of family members betray my trust.  One of those family was my mother and the other was the evil ex.  The evil ex has been out of my life for a long time but mum just passed away.  In life, she went behind my back, withheld information, and outright lied.  The worst part is she never once tried to make full amends to me.  Never once did she take responsibility for her words and actions, make an apology, or try to do better.  Now, I have no way of ever knowing if she truly regretted her actions.  Thus, I tend to look at any family member with a degree of suspicion.  I suppose I'll feel the same way about the Brit BF eventually but I hope not.  So far I haven't had a reason to be suspicious, then again, I'm not with him all the time or even in the same area code.  My sincere hope is that now that both my parents are in heaven, I can finally make a clean start of things and write a new story.  Part of writing that story is re-learning to trust family members.  My attitude is I trust you until you give a reason not to.  So far the BIL hasn't given me any reason not to but I still feel the need to proceed with caution.  Eventually I might relax my guard around him and other people.  For now, I trust but verify.