Experiencing a betrayal in your intimate relationship can feel like you were sucker-punched, like the floor just dropped beneath you and the blood is draining from your system. You might feel rageful and disgusted, dumbfounded, confused or despairing. Even if you feel vindicated for having held suspicions that may now be confirmed, a betrayal in your significant relationship is a devastating hurt that can lead to cycling through many of these feelings and more.
Different Types of Betrayals in Relationships
Although affairs and infidelity are the most widely recognized type of intimate betrayal, there are many other types of behaviors that can shatter trust and be just as painful and devastating.
- Emotional infidelity
- Lying about or concealing an addiction to substances, gambling, online porn or shopping
- Hiding money or other assets
- Lying about one’s past
- Concealing a secret family
- Misrepresenting one’s professional role
- Slandering or speaking disrespectfully about a partner
- Withholding support, not having one another’s “back”
- Withholding parts of yourself, not sharing your truth
- Emotional or physical abuse
Human beings are complex and so relationships can be complex and layered. When a breach of trust occurs, no matter how or what, it’s important to recognize the toll it can take on all involved in the relationship.
The Initial Impact of a Betrayal
While the betrayed may feel utterly sickened, the betrayer can be overwhelmed with guilt, shame and remorse. Both can experience intense emotions and bouts of depression, anger, anxiety and constant rumination and fixation on what happened.
When that trust has been broken in such a painful way, knowing what to do next and if the relationship is at all repairable can be the hardest questions to contend with.
Some other questions, you and your partner may face include:
How do we come back from this?
Do I even want to stay in this relationship?
How do I trust them or anyone again?
How can I be trusted again?
What’s wrong with them that led them to this?
Do I even feel like I know who they really are?
What’s wrong with me that they betrayed me?
Is there something I could have done differently to prevent this?
What will others think when they find out?
How will I tell my family, friends, co-workers etc?
Each of these questions deserve time and space to be explored sensitively and gently, and in due time. Since the initial discovery of a betrayal can be traumatizing, it’s important to remember the basic steps to follow in any traumatic situation.
First and foremost, seek safety and support. In the case of a relationship betrayal, seek out and surround yourself with people and environments where you can feel safe and secure, comforted and not judged.
Second, while your body may be overwhelmed and your thoughts are spinning, try as best as you can to simplify your days and focus on your basic needs of safety, feeding yourself and trying to rest and sleep as best you can.
And lastly, the immediacy of learning about a betrayal is not a time to make any large life-changing decisions. Seek safety and allow time for the dust to settle before making life altering decisions. While the inclination may be to make a break or end things, which may be called for in some situations, it is advisable to resist making any major life decisions while the reverberations from the initial blow are moving through you and throwing your world off balance.
Deciding Whether to Stay or Leave After Betrayal: Key Factors to Consider
After the initial blow of a betrayal comes to light, ambivalence and uncertainty about whether it is wise and healthy to continue in the relationship is common to emerge. How do you know if your relationship is worth saving?
While friends and family looking on from the outside may offer their advice about what they think you should do, ultimately the decision rests with you and your partner, as you are the people who will be most vitally affected.
When faced with ambivalence and uncertainty about the future of your relationship, some factors to consider include:
- What is at stake in terms of your mental health and well-being. It’s not about what is right or wrong or so black and white such as “they lied, they don’t deserve me”, this is the time to reevaluate what you need most to feel and be mentally healthy and supported. Does this relationship support your personhood and sense of self and ability to grow, evolve and flourish or not?
- What you value in one another and the relationship you have built together deserves to be recognized and honored. Whether you stay together or not, one misstep need not rewrite the entire history of your relationship.
- The degree of shared willingness and capacity to work on trying to repair and heal from the hurt. When one partner is unwilling to save the relationship, that can be yet another layer of devastation and for the more willing partner.
- The history you share together and what you do know about one another can help shed light on the betrayal. People don’t usually enter into a committed intimate relationship with the desire to betray, lie, hurt or harm one another. Sometimes bad choices and behavior are born not only from the betrayer’s mental state but from the dynamics and circumstances of the relationship that need to be recognized.
- Legalities involved if married and have children, a business, and other joint creations or shared endeavors can impact the decision to stay together or not. My experience as a couples therapist for over two decades has shown me that when people stay in a relationship out of fear – fear of being alone, fear of what others will think, fear of breaking apart the family and the impact on the kids, and fear of changes in lifestyle for example – and not for a true want and intention to heal and grow together, the relationship has a lower likelihood to thrive or continue in a healthy way.
How To Rebuild Trust After a Betrayal
While there is no quick fix for rebuilding trust in your relationship after a betrayal, there are many different factors necessary for the process including: raw honesty, accountability, empathy, open-mindedness, compassion, forgiveness and time.
If you and your partner have decided to try to work on repairing your relationship, it will be beneficial to create a plan together for rebuilding trust. Establishing and clarifying needs and expectations around personal space, access to devices and accounts, communication styles, frequency and depth are important in charting a course forward. Whereas one partner may want to communicate daily, another may need space and meet only at specific times and at a specific place. Consider the following in making this plan:
- Find a neutral, safe and nonjudgmental space to meet together. Meeting in your home or shared living space may be charged and activating for you both. Meeting in a neutral but private space to begin this work is important. Many people choose to meet with a couples therapist and try couples counseling, some may choose to meet at a friend’s house, with a pastor or spiritual guide, or have regular meetings together in a quiet park.
- Prepare to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The truth can be terrifying and hard to hear or understand. Yet, there is no healing that can happen without full revelation of the factors and feelings behind the betrayal. Sharing the truth of your feelings is not the same as sharing details about the event. Not all betrayed parties want the details of the betrayers’ encounters, they just want to understand the truth behind the why and motivation that led to the betrayal.
- Take accountability for your feelings, choices and actions/inaction. Explaining why you hold a certain feeling or made a certain decision is not the same as making excuses and can’t be heard as such. It’s absolutely essential that each partner takes ownership of what they bring to the relationship in terms of their feelings, perspectives, trauma history, strengths and flaws and everything in between.
- Listen with curiosity and cultivate empathy. To empathize means to feel with the other, to imagine what it’s like being in their skin and feeling what they describe. When we are truly empathizing with another, we are not defending our position or disagreeing with “how they may see things” or accusing or name-calling. Bringing true curiosity and empathy to what your partner needs to share can help to deepen and strengthen your connection.
- Express sincere apology and remorse. It is incumbent on the betrayer to not only take full accountability and responsibility for the choices they made that led to the breach of trust, but it is also important to express sincere remorse for having done so.
- Take corrective actions. There is no room for empty promises and good intentions can only go so far when trying to rebuild trust. Taking steps such as ending relationships with certain people outside of the relationship, providing open access to cell phones, emails and accounts, sharing locations and removing any barriers to transparency are necessary to prove a willingness to heal and move forward in a new way.
- Forgiveness takes TIME and requires validation and evidence. Forgiveness is an energy and act of the heart to soften and open up to another who you felt hurt by. It cannot be forced, only intended to be offered and nurtured and cultivated. While forgiveness may come easier to some than others, it is a necessary practice for any relationship to strengthen and thrive.
In Conclusion
Relationships are complex, layered and dynamic entities formed by different people who bring their own personal histories, strengths, gifts, trauma histories, imperfections and flaws that mix all together into a unique blend
When trust is broken, it can be tempting to end things. While devastating and painful, such breaches of trust don’t always have to signify the end of the relationship. Instead, such painful situations can provide an opportunity and opening for the relationship to strengthen its bond and deepen the connection between partners and move into new, healthier territory for all involved. Healing from infidelity and other betrayals is possible. It takes time, intention, hard work and a lot of patience, yet it is possible to rebuild and strengthen a relationship after a betrayal.
*A note to the reader – while this article is written with the language deference to the traditional definition of a couple being a romatic, committed relationship between two people, the messages and principles and suggested practices also apply to non-traditional committed romantic relationships such as throuples and polycules.
References:
Field, T. (2017). Romantic breakup distress, betrayal and heartbreak: A review. International Journal of Behavioral Research & Psychology, 5(2), 217-225.
Gobin, R. L., & Freyd, J. J. (2014). The impact of betrayal trauma on the tendency to trust. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 6(5), 505.
