I heard a story from my therapist once about betrayal. It was something her Professor and mentor had shared with her as she was studying for her masters to become a therapist. He relayed a story about a couple that had come to him for marraige counceling. They had been married for many decades. The were there because the husband had been unfaithful to his wife. She described how she felt to the therapist like this: “this betrayal is the single worst thing i have ever experienced in my life”. On the surface, you might be thinking, yeah, that sounds like a pretty common response to an unfaithful partner. What made her declaration that much more clarifying as to the weight that betrayal has on someone was that the two people in this couple were Holocaust survivors. Let that sink in. His betrayal hurt her more than being in a nazi death camp.
Checking the many corners of the internet will give you many definisions of betrayal, I chose the one below from dictionary.com:
- the act of disappointing a person’s trust, hopes, or expectations
- failure to keep or honor a promise, principle, cherished memory
The definition of “Betrayal Trauma” that is found on wikipedia is as follows:
A trauma perpetrated by someone with whom the victim is close to and reliant upon for support and survival. The concept was originally introduced by Jennifer Freyd in 1994. Betrayal trauma theory, addresses situations when people or institutions on which a person relies for protection, resources, and survival violate the trust or well-being of that person.
My earliest experience with betrayal was through my parents splitting up. At the time I wasn’t aware of why they decided to get a divorce. It wasn’t until many years later that I had the chance to sit down with my mother and father and understand how the marriage ended. The divorce itself was a betrayal to be sure, but the bigger betrayal with it didn’t occur to me until I became a father.
My father’s promise to myself and my brothers was that he would stay in our lives by showing up weekly to see us and take us to dinner. A promise that would so regularly be broken that we eventually just lived our lives as if there was no expectation of a visit. That lesson was one I would take with me into adulthood.
I was married in my twenties to a woman who was a great friend in college. After many years of marriage counseling, I left the marriage. It had lasted 10 years. I decided to leave the marriage because I didn’t feel like it was working for me. For years and years after the divorce, I would say to others when asked that I wanted to show my son a healthy father who loved and who was loved in a way that would inspire them to hopefully find healthy relationships. I never considered that I was betraying that marriage and that fatherhood. But I was.
I want to be clear here before moving on, leaving a relationship that is toxic or abusive is not what I am talking about here. Every person in a relationship needs to feel safe first. If you are in an abusive relationship, please reach out for help.
In my instance, two things were true at the same time. I still believe I was right to seek out a more compatible relationship for myself. And by doing that, I did break a spoken promise to my partner, and an unspoken one to my son. That is betrayal.
The relationship I was in following that one lasted twenty-one years and produced two boys. It also ended with betrayal. This time, it was my partner betraying me with other people.
With a little hindsight, I can say now that she, like me, had a right to seek out a reality that matched her better. The difference here, and one that caught me totally by surprise, is that since these two boys were older, both well into their teens, they had powerful feelings about this new reality. They were both very hurt and sad. A sadness that, to this day, hasn’t completely healed. They were able to speak to that betrayal, whereas my firstborn child was not.
As adults, especially in a time where everyone wants instant satisfaction, we all forget sometimes that we are linked together. Our actions have ripple effects on others. Ending a relationship with a person changes reality for not only two people but for their entire support system of friends and family. Depending upon how long the relationship lasted, the regulation can take a long time, sometimes never reaching a point of true balance.
So what do we do? The lesson that I have learned by watching my father and mother’s relationship end, ending one marriage and having another end, is that we should all be transparent. Just tell the truth.
What if my father and/or mother had just sat down and said, look, we got married as kids, things have changed, I really loved our time together, but now it’s time to move on, instead of cheating?
What if I had sat down with my first wife and said, look you and I are really good friends, but I need more, and this marriage isn’t working for me. Instead of pining over another?
What if my wife had sat down and said, I know I have been telling you that I’m in love with you, but honestly, I don’t want to be monogamous, and instead of hurting you, I think we should end this relationship?
I’m not pretending that in each case there still wouldn’t be hurt, and it would still end up being some sort of betrayal, but there would be so much more honesty from which to move forward.
Instead, each of us who has betrayed, has to live with it, and each of us that has been betrayed has to learn to trust again. And that’s the truth for children of broken marriages as well.
Ana Nogales did an online survey in 2009 of the effects of infidelity on children. She surveyed 800 adolescents; these were the results:
- 88.4% felt angry toward the cheating parent
- 62.5% felt guilty or discomfited
- 80.2% felt that it influenced their attitudes toward love and relationships
- 70.5% said their ability to trust others had been affected
- 83% stated that they feel people regularly lie
- 86% reported they still believe in monogamy
More than likely, as humans, we will all end up betraying someone. It’s one of the many flaws of being human. My intent in writing these words is to just pass on my experience in the hope that it inspires somebody to be the best version of themselves that they can.
The gift of this experience to me is to better understand what it is to be a supportive parent during this time. It has also made me sometimes wish I had a time machine to go back and do things “better” for the sake of everyone involved. I will close with this advice. Live the life you want, and be aware of how your choices affect others. My grandmother was my favorite person in the world when I was little. She taught me to be kind. when each of you chooses the life you want, be honest and kind.
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