How Betrayal Evokes Life Transitions Part l

Among the many emotional pains we encounter in life, those caused by betrayal stand out as some of the most damaging.  This is because betrayal encompasses a host of violations including interpersonal expectations, morality, trust, safety, comfort and much more. These violations can cut so deeply, they will change who we are…but that doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.

Why is betrayal so devastating? 

In order for someone to feel betrayed, trust must have existed beforehand.  When people are in a relationship, any type of relationship-be it a romantic relationship, a friendship or a family relationship, we establish some basis of trust.    That does not mean the person with whom we are in a relationship is trustworthy.  More accurately, we trust what we believe we can expect of the other.  When a betrayal occurs, we not only lose faith in the one who betrayed us, we lose faith in our own ability to discern who we can or can’t…or should or shouldn’t have…let into our more vulnerable, emotional spaces.

The Evolution of Trust

As trust is building, we begin to construct unconscious assumptions. These assumptions evolve from societal, religious, family and/or personal values.  These values encompass expectations of loyalty, honesty and morality that are translated into codes of conduct and behavior. While there are certainly universal expectations, many such expectations vary between individuals.  If you asked people if loyalty, honesty and morality are expected in relationships, most people would unequivocally answer “yes”.  This is where the problem arises.  What do each of these attributes mean in each individual?  They can be surprisingly different.  You might be asking yourself “how can this be”?  “We all know what honesty, loyalty and morality are”.  However, the caveat is-individual experiences, personal histories, psychological defenses and emotional justifications can warp what we believe are universal truths.  The resulting shift in the definition of these concepts creates fertile soil for betrayal.

The Aftermath of Betrayal

People who are devastated by betrayal will find themselves confronting these assumptions as they process the circumstances that have evolved.  The painful laments I have heard in both my practice and my personal life include reflections such as “I never believed this person would hurt me this way”, “What did I do to deserve this?”, “I always thought this was the one person I could trust”, “I believed this person would have my back” or “I thought I knew this person”.

We can see in these statements that betrayal not only hurts because of the injustice suffered but it can shatter a person’s confidence in their own judgement and self-worth as they question how they allowed themselves to be blindsided.  Their confidence in shaken in themselves and extends into an a compromised ability to believe in others-not simply limited to the one who betrayed them.

Typically, people conceptualize betrayal as a catastrophic event…and it is, but unlike most catastrophic events it often does not appear suddenly.  More often betrayal unfolds quietly over time as the knowledge of subterfuge or dishonesty is revealed.  It takes time to digest the reality of what has taken place because it forces a person to reevaluate all they believed was true about the other. 

Getting To The Other Side

Recovering from a betrayal is a process-a process that takes time and effort. This process has several components including understanding, healing and reorienting ourselves  so that we can begin a new chapter in our lives. Understanding means we need to understand both ourselves and the other-how we ended up in this situation.  In order to trust again, it’s necessary to understand if we ignored warning signs that the other showed, if we dismissed truths that were available to us or if we, perhaps subconsciously, allowed our desire to keep the other in our lives to transcend our instincts to take caution.  If any of this is accurate, then what happened and why? 

Once we have worked through that, and it’s not easy to do so, we can begin the process of healing.  First we forgive ourselves.  This requires ridding ourselves of the “should(n’t) statements-I should have seen…, I should have left when…, I shouldn’t have…,I should have known better.  We are all products of our own histories and we are allowed to live our lives with and without mistakes, errors of judgment and chances taken.  Forgiving ourselves is part of nurturing ourselves.  When we are hurting the most, that is what we need the most.  Self-blame becomes self-punishment and that is not what we need, especially when we are already hurting.

Next comes reorienting ourselves.  This first step in this process is acknowledging that the most painful experiences in life can offer us lessons that allow for the most growth.  This does mean we should seek out or embrace painful experiences so we can grow.  It means that encountering emotional pain is a part of living.  We can choose to live in the misery of the pain and accrue victim status with every encounter or we can choose to learn from it. 

What can we learn?  We can learn where our strengths and weaknesses lie and how to maximize the one and minimize the other.  We can learn how to protect ourselves and increase the volume of the quiet internal voices telling us to take caution.  We can learn that we can not just survive but can reconcile pain and overcome the devastation it brings.  We can also learn about the fragility or the damage that others carry and how it can impact ourselves.  At this juncture, we need to seat ourselves emotionally in the healthiest places we can find, with the healthiest people we can find…even if that means sitting alone with oneself and learning to nurture her/himself until we are ready to face the world again as a new version of ourselves.