This article, on the one hand, is a continuation of the experiment (already successful thanks to the participation of Zhenya and marias), and on the other hand, it will be something like the center or root of a series of articles about betrayal. Its meaning is fully stated right in the title. But in order to understand it deeper and more specifically, it is worth describing the events themselves... building a story. Collect it from scraps of unpleasant memories. I see this work as somewhat similar to a private detective's investigation. And it is in this form that I would like to offer it to your attention. Of course, you can immediately look at the end and find out who this criminal “really” is, but this will not be sporty on your part.
The story described is completely fictitious, all coincidences are accidental. And not a single rabbit was harmed during filming.
Betrayal is everywhere, and nothing can be done about it
Here the imaginary therapist simultaneously experiences a wave of pity and empathy for such a lonely and abandoned client (“we all need love and care, without them a lot of things lose meaning”) and a certain fear of suddenly being among those whom he so sincerely and involuntarily wants to raze to the ground . The therapist pauses, puts on an imaginary helmet and places another one next to the client (you never know), and asks: “Has your attitude towards the world always been so hopeless?”
If the client was able to express his attitude towards the world and felt heard, then he has a certain amount of free attention and interest... “Did someone hear me? Who is there? Strange... oh, the helmet is a good thing. It really is safer. At least I won’t hit you in the head with a brick or a bat from behind.”
And after a while, when the client has settled down and feels relatively safe, his interest and attention switches to speech. In particular, to the question “Has it always been this way?” And after another infinitely unpleasant time, the client’s answer emerges: “Well, my attitude towards the world did not appear out of nowhere (more details here), before I was more open and trusting, but people betrayed me so often and painfully that I lost hope. And the most offensive thing is that those closest to me betrayed me in the most difficult moments of my life... would you trust people after that?!”
How to identify a traitor?
Few people thought that betrayal could be prevented at the stage of flirtation or romance. The main thing is not to miss obvious signals. No matter how hard a man tries, he will not be able to hide this from you. First of all, the ability to betray is manifested in behavior and attitude towards you. The person begins to withdraw, then frequent problems or business trips at work will appear. Once you notice this in your man, do not be afraid to admit to yourself that he may have betrayed you.
I was betrayed by those closest to me in the most difficult moments.
“Ok!” the psychologist thinks to this: “Now, to help the client, you don’t need to change the whole world completely, the task has become a little easier and more specific - communicating with the closest people in difficult moments.” And then he notes to himself: “One day, if our work goes deep and the relationship with the client becomes trusting, something may happen to me that almost without exception happened to all the client’s loved ones. I wonder what exactly happens at such a moment...?!” And already out loud: “What exactly do you call betrayal?”
And the client seems to be waiting for this question... He told himself the story of these betrayals many times, with a trembling in his voice, with a muffled cry, with cold hatred: he told it to himself and got even more worked up, he told it to others and was faced with either counter-accusations or with weak-willed consent and accession. He talked about what these closest bastards and creatures are. How much of the most valuable thing the client did for them throughout his entire previous life. How much effort did you spend on them? How many joys did I deprive myself of for the sake of them? But as soon as the client got into a hopeless situation and in this case decided to ask for help, and the most basic request, easily fulfilled... and even then these loved ones refused. Such a small thing, and still a refusal, as if the relationship with the client was worth less to the “close ones” than the dirt in the nearest ditch. Only the last creatures do this, and the place for these last creatures is right in the ditch where the client once picked them up and where there is so much dirt that is so valuable and dear to them. Let them live there again for a year or two, really appreciate what’s what, and then crawl back, not going anywhere... and then the conversation with them will be completely different than before. You have to pay for everything! On this comforting note, the client, for the first time in a long time, straightens his shoulders, breathes deeply, and feels important in his own universe. And he relaxes a little.
Does age play a role?
It’s one thing when a person betrays you in your youth, it’s another when you’re 40 years old. Life has already settled down and seems reliable. But it is not over, but on the contrary, it is in full swing. Of course, betrayal brings pain at any age, but at 40 a person already has life experience and wisdom, manages his problems and difficulties. At this age, there are probably already children whose support will not let you fall to your knees.
If you were betrayed by a person at the age of 50, then all that remains is to forget him and let him go, because you have already lived half your life, you are already a philosopher in this area. A woman at this age still attracts men with her beauty and wisdom, especially if, despite her age, she takes care of herself, dresses well, puts on makeup and does her hair. Perhaps right now there will be a desire to go on a trip, or learn a language, or enroll in some interesting courses. The children have already grown up, you are free and independent, so you need not to miss this moment, you need to start living for yourself.
I now believe in our work. And I don't want to think about the fact that it will be in vain. I'm confused.
Client: “Are we going to work?... oh again... oh well, so be it. Yes, if we end now, I will feel bad. I don't know what to do next. Well (makes a grimace), are you happy?”
Therapist: “I saw how you got angry to hide your helplessness... neither of you brings me joy, but you have now taken a serious step forward... and how do you feel?”
Client: “Most disgusting! I can’t do anything, and you’re sitting there and don’t want to help me. I'm angry at you!
Therapist: “What exactly are you angry about in me?”
Client: “Yes, any normal person in your place would agree with me and help to the best of his ability. And you're kidding me. Only the last bastards behave like this... and, it seems, therapists.”
Therapist: “Well, as far as I remember, your relationships with normal people don’t go well. Still, what do you need help with when you say you're angry?
Client: “I’m scared to show her, because after that I’ll be left alone.”
The process of dealing with grief due to betrayal includes 5 stages
- Stage of denial and shock. A person simply cannot believe what happened, especially if the betrayal is unexpected. Reaction: emotional excitement, or vice versa, emotional coldness, inhibition.
- The stage of aggression, the experience of resentment, anger. Often aggression and anger are directed at the person who cheated, who left, who “abandoned”, or left their loved ones.
- Stage of guilt. The person blames himself for what happened, his “bad behavior.” A person may also experience remorse for treating the person who cheated poorly and paying little attention to him.
- Stage of depression. Depression, apathy, irritability, decreased social activity - all these are manifestations of depression. Life can lose all meaning; a person tends to “drown out” his pain with alcohol and other “antidepressants.”
- Acceptance stage. No matter how hard a person experiences betrayal, acceptance of the loss gradually sets in. This stage is characterized by the restoration of the usual course of life, once again falling into its groove. Life acquires purpose and meaning.
You are destroying my faith in you. I'm furious about this and I'm scared.
Therapist: “It’s really scary to be alone with your anger and who knows what else.”
Client: “We don’t know what else... What do you mean?”
Therapist: “You’re afraid of something.” What could it be?"
Client: “If you can’t help me, then no one can. I will be left completely alone with this (voice dims and slows down), my jaw clenches and a lump forms in my throat. It's kind of cold. I’m very small now and my hands are shaking and my legs are weak.”
Therapist: “Can you intensify this feeling even more, tremble more, shudder, squeeze your throat and... breathe?”
Client: "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... it starts to sting in the eyes and the pressure has risen greatly."
Therapist: “It’s the tears that come, but you don’t let them go. This happens when it’s scary and painful.”
The client lets out sobs, breathes deeply and hides his head in his knees, after which the sobs develop into loud sobs, fragments of phrases are heard and his body shakes in convulsions. Some time passes... He freezes, straightens up and looks ahead with unseeing eyes, staggering slightly.
Uncertainty undermines self-esteem
The most insidious part of ending a relationship is the erosion of your self-confidence. Psychologist Cherly Chong warns against falling into the trap of comparing yourself to someone your partner cheated on you with. Viral thoughts can arise on their own that someone else is better than you, wittier, more beautiful. Chong argues that such self-torture not only does not alleviate the pain, but also aggravates the situation. Treason is always the decision of the one who did it. And you cannot shift responsibility for this act onto the partner who was deceived. He cannot push him to this or become the reason for this. Because the final decision to act is made by the one who changed.
I was left with nothing. And feelings of emptiness, fear and pain covered me completely.
Therapist: “What’s wrong with you now?”
Client: “I remembered how I wanted to go to the zoo with my parents when they were arguing, I asked them about it, and they promised to do it tomorrow and closed the door on the other side, and then continued to shout at each other... soon after that they divorced, and they never remembered their promise. And I waited... and now I’m still waiting. But that will never happen again.” Here he takes a deep breath and straightens his shoulders... for the first time in many years without the help of anger and indignation. “I want water... hot... no, better tea! You have?"
Therapist: “Yes, a cooler with hot water is there, and a bag of vooon is there. You can do it for yourself.”
The client pours himself some tea and drinks... the therapist allowed himself to become slightly unfocused and go into his memories, both are silent and in no hurry. Some time passes like this. The client perks up.
Cheating undermines trust in future partners
When the reason for separation is the betrayal of a partner, the resulting feeling of betrayal destroys the relationship. The ability to continue physical and emotional communication is hindered by the loss of trust. Any deception is perceived quite painfully and leads to the relationship losing its former connection.
Dr. Gary Brown (a family therapist in Los Angeles) explains what a partner feels when he finds out about his other half's infidelity - anger, shame, resentment, embarrassment, humiliation and self-doubt, confusion and fear. It becomes especially difficult when the realization comes about broken promises and failed joint plans. At such a moment, it feels like the time spent together was wasted.
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I expected that I would have a family. Now the first person has appeared in my family - myself.
The client, continuing: “I expected that my family would recover and everything would turn out to be just a nightmare. And when I became an adult, I also looked for people who would play along with my expectations, who would join my expectations that this would happen someday. Now I see that by caring for others until I lost consciousness, I was actually trying to restore the family I had lost. And I didn’t notice the needs and pain of my loved ones behind this super-desire. They were not as sweet with me as I imagined. And overfed with unnecessary care, they exploded because of my small request and ran away. It's a shame this happened. How could I not notice this?
Therapist: Good question. But before moving on to it, I would like to go back to another question, the answer to which was never answered. What will remain with you if our work stops right now?”
The client, grinning: “And you’re not ashamed to burden me like this, give me a break at least a little!”
Therapist: “Okay, do you need strength to answer?”
Client: “No, you’re just annoying me with this question. I definitely didn’t expect such a gift as a result of my work, and I can’t even bring myself to say thank you for the pain that returned.”
When friendship is better than nothing
After a breakup due to cheating, many people cannot let anyone near them for a long time. Well, since you have started a new life, then there is a chance to start everything from scratch. Psychologists recommend taking a closer look at your surroundings and looking among your acquaintances not for a potential spouse, but for a friend. In most cases, this option is ideal because no one crosses the boundaries of each other’s personal space. Simple communication and maintaining friendly relations can become the basis for the emergence of warmer relationships. Time in this case is the best medicine.
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At this point I will interrupt the dialogue and tell the story from a third person in chronological order.
- The child is faced with some unbearable problem related to relationships with adult loved ones and finds himself helpless.
- Relatives are busy with their own showdowns and so that the child does not disturb them, they promise something comforting in a hurry.
- There is a strong quarrel and rupture between loved ones.
- The child is terrified and clings tightly to the fantasy that loved ones promise.
- Gradually, the conflict dissolves, is forgotten, pushed into the far corners of memory by all participants. Fantasy is increasingly at odds with reality, the child loses faith that his problem will be remembered. And the child also has no choice but to forget this nightmare.
- It is impossible to directly remind a child about his needs (so as not to remind him of the conflict), so he guesses and manipulates. He thinks that since the promise is not fulfilled, then he is doing something wrong. He tries to become better, to be an exemplary child. Suppresses all the feelings that are uncomfortable for loved ones and turns into something attractive to them.
- The child grows, and from time to time, in difficult moments of his life, the remnants of locked emotions from that conflict come out again along with the promised fantasy.
- The grown-up child remembers with pain that he must fulfill his promise, and his anger at this betrayal grows. He feels like a thing, and blames his loved ones for this. But he doesn’t talk about it directly, as long as he controls himself.
- At some particularly difficult moment, his anger breaks through and is expressed in a demand to give back what was promised. People can be completely different. But for strong anger this does not matter. The world must, and all who live in it, must be aware of this duty.
- Our hero wants a relationship and is looking for those who are ready to accept him as a thing with pain and anger hidden in it (ignore them). And finds them.
- The hero takes care of new loved ones, wastes himself and usually does not receive anything valuable in return. The care of loved ones about him does not lead to a solution, because no one is aware of his true needs. The strength of both sides is slowly melting away. The tension is building up. The burden of expectations and promises is growing.
- And one day there is an explosion.
- People who began a comfortable relationship with a person who made himself a convenient thing in every possible way, “unexpectedly” encounter a lot of anger and “in surprise” break off contact with the enraged “suitcase.” They expected comfort, but what they got was great danger... it’s better to stay alive with the label of a traitor and curses than to stay with such an explosive person... life is more expensive.
- The former child, meanwhile, is experiencing a repetition of the first breakup with loved ones and is convinced that his picture of the world is becoming harder, more painful and colder. He becomes embittered and alienated.
- After several cycles, the hero begins a new relationship immediately with tests of betrayal, with a demonstration of his anger, and naturally becomes convinced of the correctness of the forecast: people do not appreciate, understand and do not love him.
- Attempts to start a new relationship end up as useless. A person is left alone with his betrayal and pain. The point of expressing your needs is completely lost.
- The problem is obvious, there are no other people nearby, and there is no one to pin it on. If in such a state enough despair and determination accumulate, you can go to a psychologist.
Cheating on a loved one
Betrayal by a partner gives rise to very painful experiences, and asking a psychologist how to survive the betrayal of a loved one worries many people. The fear of betrayal worries every person. Feelings of betrayal, heartache, resentment and emotional shock are very common.
Cheating can be experienced as a catastrophic event that radically changes the attitude towards a partner.
Feelings of suspicion, mistrust, jealousy, anger, helplessness and emptiness arise.
Before there is an opportunity to understand what happened and understand the reasons, it is necessary to transfer all these feelings, and it is very difficult to do this alone. Here the help of a psychologist is needed.
In the first phase of experiencing the betrayal of a loved one comes anger at the partner, a feeling of irritation and disgust towards him, and fear of contracting some kind of sexually transmitted disease. It often happens the other way around, when a person is haunted by doubts about himself/herself, uncertainty about one’s own worth, feelings of guilt and thoughts about “what provoked my partner to cheat on me,” as well as “clinging” to a partner.
But, as a rule, anger and disgust are constantly replaced by guilt and fear of losing the relationship and what is valuable in it. This is the psychology of betrayal and jealousy.
Then, a person who is faced with the betrayal of a loved one is often haunted by an obsessive desire to find out all the facts of the betrayal:
- How long does the relationship last?
- When did they start?
- When did they meet?
- Who else knows about this?
Images and pictures pop up in your head that create suffering. If there are children in the family, then they are often haunted by worries about them, about the consequences of separation for the children. A partner will always be haunted by jealousy after adultery.
During this period, it is extremely important to share your experiences with a specialist.
Empathy and a holistic understanding of conflicting feelings, on the one hand – affection, love for a partner, and on the other – severe pain, resentment and anger, helps to reduce internal painful experiences and “throwing”, and begin to think rationally about what happened, as well as those consequences for relationships that involve cheating.
It is important to understand that, despite all the pain, cheating is not something that will inevitably destroy a relationship. The period of acute experience of betrayal is not the best moment for making a decision about separation and divorce. Often the cheating partner experiences fear of losing the relationship with his wife/husband, wants to maintain it and is tormented by a strong sense of guilt.
In this case, if a decision is made to maintain the relationship, then, as a rule, certain steps are necessary on the part of the partner:
- ending a relationship with a lover;
- making sincere apologies (sometimes multiple);
- taking steps to restore and strengthen trust.
It is important to understand what caused this to happen in your relationship:
Conflicts in relationships
Often the cause of cheating is hidden conflicts, dissatisfaction, and anger at a partner. Sometimes such a reason can be the difficulties that accompany the birth and upbringing of a child, and a change in relationships as a consequence of this. Cheating in this case may be a way to avoid resolving these conflicts, or a way to “get back” at your partner, to express your anger and resentment towards him.
Difficulty integrating love and sexual feelings
Many people have difficulty experiencing both love and sexual attraction to the same partner. Then sexual desires are satisfied “on the side.” Behind such splitting (love separately - sex separately) there are often deep personal problems.
Fear of intimacy
Many people, especially people with the so-called schizoid and narcissistic personality types, may be afraid of emotional intimacy with a partner. They may feel fearful if their partner is particularly seeking intimacy, and may defensively distance themselves from their partner. For such a person, other relationships become something of a buffer between him and his partner.
- Such affairs are usually short-term and serve as a defense against the fear of being consumed.
- However, in extreme cases, multi-year parallel relationships can occur.
Low self-esteem
Doubts about one's own masculinity or femininity can push a person to confirm his attractiveness.
Personal crises
For example, when facing a midlife crisis, a person may experience depression, depression, a sense of emptiness and finitude in life, and then a romantic relationship may be a way to protect against such feelings.
Sexual addiction
People prone to such addiction, like all addicts, have very little control over their own impulses. When faced with emptiness and heartache, they protect themselves from it through sex with different partners.
Orgasmic satisfaction brings temporary relief from anxiety, but then feelings of shame and remorse set in, and these cycles of compulsive sexual desire - shame are constantly repeated.
Random cheating
These are, as a rule, one-time events that happened as a result of momentary attraction or alcohol intoxication, and they would not have happened if the person had not been “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Other possible reasons for betrayal:
- A man can betray under the influence of alcohol.
- Lack of responsibility. A person who does not want to help his loved ones in trouble, does not want to try on other people’s problems, simply runs away from them, even abandons his parents and his pregnant wife.
- A person who was nearby only because of benefits, in particular financial ones, can betray.
- Callous and cynical people easily betray themselves. This is especially true of egoists.
- A man can easily cheat on his wife when he believes that he must make all the women around him happy. Often this manifestation is typical for people with high self-esteem who consider themselves better than everyone else.
In any case, it is important to understand the reasons for what happened - be it family conflicts or the personality traits of the partner himself. In most cases, the two are intertwined, and the help of a good psychologist is required to sort it out.
Usually during this period a decision is made about whether it makes sense to maintain the relationship and cope with the crisis, or to break up with each other.
Note from an imaginary supervisor to an imaginary psychologist
p.s. only for psychologists
Well, yes, a very expressive story. A story with a lot of emotion and meaning. Any client with a similar problem will want to follow this path and find peace of mind and the will to live again. Everything is clear, predictable, safe. And everyone is happy... as long as the real events in the consultations correspond to what you saw in your imagination in the scenes between the imaginary client and therapist. Until a real client is faced with the fact that all his life he has been playing other people’s games for the sake of other people’s unnecessary imaginary prizes. On the eve of such a moment, it is better to take off the imaginary crown of the therapist and keep an imaginary helmet with a red cross on hand, otherwise there is a risk of forgetting about the crown in a hurry and pulling the helmet right over it. The safety and stability of the therapist is the primary concern of the therapist. Only by feeling your boundaries can you help someone else find their boundaries and the security within them.
