Closeness doesn’t guarantee trust, regardless of family, friend, or community status. Trust must be earned.

Boundaries don’t end relationships—they invite healthier possibilities for mutual recognition and growth.

Chosen family also requires trust maintenance. Lasting intimacy always depends on acts of mutual recognition.

“You’re best friends.”

These are some of the reactions we hear when a relationship (as we know it) ends. It’s as if the appearance of closeness—the assigned role of family, “framily,” or friend—is enough to presume a deep intimacy between people, a trusting bond that is expected to withstand any rupture.

But proximity and trust are not the same thing.

The feeling of intimacy can be found quickly. People dive into the deep end of shared experiences, identities, and communities every day without a second thought. But true intimacy requires trust.

And research reveals that trust can’t be simply wished for, implied, or presumed. It must be earned continuously (Kelly, van der Werff, and Freeney, 2025).

One of my therapy clients, whom I’ll call Sasha, first discovered this distinction only after many years of presuming intimacy with her family of origin.

Sasha spent decades of her adulthood learning to set boundaries with her mother, father, and two brothers. She was never physically abused by them, but growing up she frequently experienced a damaging disruption to her process of finding and being herself. Whenever she expressed hurt, anger, disappointment, or desires that conflicted with those of her family members, she was made to feel guilty and ashamed for having those feelings in the first place.

A few of the statements she would hear, to keep her “in her place,” included:

“Other people have it worse.”

“At least you haven’t been kicked out of the house!”

Studies show that, like Sasha, many people who grow up in “good enough” families still experience chronic invalidation—if not gaslighting—that is damaging to their sense of self and relational trust (Kuo, Fitzpatrick, & Uliaszek, 2022). Instead of learning that their feelings matter and that they are worthy of being held in mind by others, they are taught that staying in the relationship (with family, friends, partners, a community) at all costs is what matters. And since “other people have it worse,” they are guilted into suffering in silence (Wang, Fang, and Pan, et al., 2026).

When Sasha became........

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