Why betrayal is bad

A key part of marital friendship is taking responsibility when you make mistakes, whether those mistakes are small or huge.

This can be a bitter pill to swallow if you are the person who was betrayed. Yet it is a step that must be taken if the relationship is to be saved. Janice had to acknowledge that Robert, in his own way, felt hurt and betrayed by her turning away from him and neglecting what had been an important form of connection with her.

After establishing mutual responsibility, a big part of rebuilding trust is regaining a sense of control. Thus the betrayer must be willing to give the betrayed a sense of control, while the betrayed person must try to find that control. Avoid humiliating your partner. It will be tempting to watch your partner squirm at the end of a hook for making you suffer.

However, at some point you have to decide whether you want revenge or a relationship. Separate out complaints from criticism. Your relationship will heal more quickly if you communicate your complaints in a way that makes your partner motivated to re-establish trust. Shame, humiliation, and criticism are counter-productive because they cause the other to shut down, avoid, and retreat.

For example, try to see the affair as a terrible mistake, one which you may or may not have had some complicity creating. If, on the other hand, you see the betrayal as evidence of a permanent character defect, such as an anti-social personality disorder, you will be less likely to move toward forgiveness. Isolate the times that you talk about the betrayal. This can be damaging to both parties. Agree upon a time to check in on the topic every day for minutes.

The person who has been betrayed should make the decision about when to reduce the frequency of the conversations. Evaluate whether you have the capacity to forgive your partner. It is possible that the wound is too deep and that the betrayer too flawed to ever again be worthy of trust.

In order to determine whether you should work to restore trust in your partner, ask yourself: Is this a new behavior, or part of an ongoing pattern of untrustworthiness? You should also ask if your partner seems genuinely motivated to change, or just motivated not to feel guilty. Your hurt and angry feelings may make it difficult for you to read him or her correctly. However, there is nothing more precious to us than our ability to trust our perceptions.

You have the right to regain a sense of control, even if it infringes on the usual rules of relationships. After betrayal, it is legitimate to be able to look at phone records, emails, and cell phone logs in order to feel reassured that there is congruence between what your partner says and does.

That may seem radical, but all bets are off after a serious betrayal. Get help. As a result, betrayal begets isolation.

A betrayal may be especially damaging if it was preceded by other betrayals over the course of your life. In that case, you may be tempted to experience a recent betrayal as an expression of your fate, instead of plain old bad luck. What if you are the betrayer? Most people who have betrayed someone they love feel plagued by feelings of guilt, sadness, shame, or remorse. Your own capacity to hurt a loved one may also damage your own self-esteem and identity.

Take complete responsibility for your actions. No matter how driven you felt to have the affair, nobody made you do it. The more you blame your partner, the longer it will take him or her to believe that you are trustworthy and to want to forgive you. The only problem with this approach is that you may not come across many people willing to open themselves up to you.

Sure, you might end up with fewer friends, but at least you can count on them. Ultimately, however, you should always seek to balance the friendship. You know, make it an equal give-and-take. The best friendships are balanced. Feel free to contact me if you have a query.

Betrayal and close relationships We humans have certain needs that can only be met by forming close relationships and friendships with others. The challenge of friendship and betrayal One could live in a cave somewhere and totally eliminate the risk of being betrayed, ever.

The challenge of friendship and betrayal is this: On one hand, we want to get close to a person to have our companionship and intimacy needs met. How to protect yourself from betrayal Your friend is likely to betray you when they believe they have more to gain from the betrayal than from your friendship.

Here are some things you can do to reduce the chances of getting betrayed: 1. References Cosmides, L. Cognitive adaptations for social exchange. The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture , , Jones, W. Trust and betrayal: The psychology of getting along and getting ahead.

In Handbook of personality psychology pp. Academic Press. Rempel, J. Trust in close relationships. Journal of personality and social psychology , 49 1 , Rotter, J. It's a loss that can be especially debilitating. Forgive but not forget. William Blake said it is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

When you care about someone, you can't turn that off because you learn they have betrayed you. It makes for a difficult internal conflict.

Struggle to trust. Trust, once lost, is not easily found. Not in a year, perhaps not even in a lifetime. Once trust is broken it's hard to come by again. Experience everything differently. Old emotions and pain are always at close hand, waiting to remind you that nothing will ever be the same. So you learn to cope with them, control them, and censure them.

Hold on to doubt. Doubt causes great pain and kills even strong relationships. There are few things more toxic--and if you've been betrayed, doubt is probably a close companion. Live in sadness. This stage, however, is usually fairly short especially if the individual acknowledges the betrayal and the loss. It may be longer if someone has an issue with feeling anger; then they might want to try and dismiss the seriousness of the transgression or try to focus too quickly on forgiving the transgressor.

Once the betrayal and loss is fully acknowledged, the individual is likely to feel intense anger. This is a very delicate stage because this is when many things can go wrong in the process.

Primarily, it is critical to recognize that the emotion of anger is perfectly okay, but our actions that are influenced by anger may not be okay. For many people, when they are first hurt and react with anger, their inclination is to retaliate, to hurt the person who hurt them. There is nothing wrong with feeling this way, but it is best to not react during this stage. It is better to work fully through the stages of grief and then decide how you are going to react.

Even if it takes a number of months to work through the grief, it is better to wait than to regret rash actions. Now, this doesn't mean you have to be completely passive about your anger. In fact, it is okay to tell the person, "I am so angry right now that I can't think straight. Before I do anything I will regret later, I need some space to process this. Venting Emotions. During the time of anger, the betrayed person needs to vent. The tendency is to want to vent with the person who hurt you as a form of retribution.

However, it isn't really a safe way for you to vent. Therefore, it is only likely to lead to escalating anger. You need to vent to someone who will listen and validate your anger without feeding your anger.

For example, you want someone who will say, "I can understand why you are angry" but not someone who says "He's really scum. You should throw him out. If that's not possible, a minister or a therapist can help you through this process. Write Grief Letters. Another way to vent is to write out your feelings. You can even write a letter to the person who hurt you. However, it's not usually a good idea to send these initial letters to the transgressor because it may not reflect the final outcome for you.

A letter format is frequently helpful in working through the anger stage of grief because it feels as if you are talking to the person and able to vent without having to regret it later. This is also a good method for people who have trouble getting in touch with their anger.

Also, you need to recognize that especially if you aren't venting the anger, you are likely to misplace it, feel generally irritable and angry, and are likely to take it out on people who haven't really done anything to you. Finally, with anger, recognize that it is okay and necessary to release the anger physically. However, it is not okay to physically violate someone else.

Therefore, find a physical release such as hitting a punching bag or breaking old pickle jars in a safe way so as not to get hurt. As you work through the anger, you should begin to come to a point of sadness. The sadness is experienced when you begin to recognize the full extent of what you have lost. You begin to think about the good things in the relationship that you miss. You think about the shattered trust and knowing that you can never get complete trust back.

Once someone has violated our trust, we can get to a point where we can continue the relationship with them, but we will forever know that they have the capacity to betray us. During the time of sadness, you need to release those emotions just as you needed to release the anger. Again, you can write how you feel.