Always Jumping

I make mistakes. I jump to conclusions, rarely good ones. I understand that this is a human characteristic and that I am not, cannot expect to be perfect.  What I find harder to understand is that I jump to the same conclusions, sometimes even with the same people over and over and over again, even when I repeatedly discover that I was wrong.   Over and over I find myself believing, reacting, mourning even, some slight, some insult, some betrayal, only to discover over and over that it never happened.  That I have, again, misunderstood.   Somehow, the dishonest relationships of the past insinuate themselves into the relationships of the present, convincing me that this friend, this acquaintance, this coworker, will behave, has behaved, the same as someone in my past.   And later I realize that if my feelings were hurt, it was my own fears that hurt them, and not the friend at all.  I am reminded, again, how important it is to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but it is a constant struggle for me to give people the freedom to actually betray me, or not, without jumping to that conclusion on my own.