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.
The effects of betrayal include shock, loss and grief, morbid pre-occupation, damaged self-esteem, self-doubting, anger. Not infrequently they produce life-altering changes. The effects of a catastrophic betrayal are most relevant for anxiety disorders, and OC D and PTSD in particular.
A betrayed person may experience:
Hypervigilance or feelings that nothing is safe. A sense of inadequacy or embarrassment. Shame or self-blame. Decreased self-esteem.
anger, rage, sadness, bitterness, regret, disappointment, fury, embarrassment, shame, grief, and sorrow are just a few of the painful responses to betrayal. “Raw” reactions can be normal, for there are few things in life that are as painful and torturous as betrayal.
A traitor is someone who betrays the trust another person has put in him, and the adjective traitorous describes this tendency. It is traitorous when a double agent sells her country's secrets to another government: and the traitorous person risks spending her life in prison or even being executed.
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.
“The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies, it comes from those you trust the most.” - Author unknown.
The first is excessive ambition, greed, lust or passion. When a person cannot control is overcome with these vices, he's liable to betray. A drug addict will betray the trust placed on him because his addiction is overpowering. It is greater than any sense of loyalty, integrity or honesty he may have.
Experiencing betrayal, a form of emotional abuse, can cause various post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares and impaired sleeping, depression, anxiety, brain fog, distrust, dissociation, are common. Betrayed partners often feel as if their reality has been shaken to its core.
Abuse experienced in childhood is one of the most common causes of betrayal trauma. It can include physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse.
Recovering from betrayal trauma is not something that can be done in a day or two. On average, it usually takes between eighteen months to three years to absolutely recover, especially with a lot of help and moral support.
Even if it doesn't feel like it at the moment, the pain of betrayal will eventually fade, and you'll be able to leave it in the past. The betrayal doesn't have to end your otherwise great relationship, though.
Infidelity is the betrayal our society focuses on, but it is actually the subtle, unnoticed betrayals that truly ruin relationships. When partners do not choose each other day after day, trust and commitment erode away.
Betrayal hurts because someone you love and care about chose to hurt you. When you have put such a large emotional investment into a person and only for them to turn around and cause you suffering, you feel as though you lost a part of yourself. This feeling of heartbreak is normal for a short duration.
Betrayal trauma differs vastly from other types of trauma because it involves not just the experience of abuse but also the experience of being betrayed by a key relationship, such as a parent, caregiver, guardian, significant other, or other individual who is relied upon for support and safety.
How we deal with those mistakes is what we can use to show our partners just how much we care about them. So yes, you can love your partner and betray them. Or be loved and feel betrayed.
Betrayal trauma is a type of trauma that refers to the pain and emotional distress that occurs when a trusted institution, loved one, or intimate partner violates someone's trust. Betrayal trauma may occur alongside things like gaslighting and lead to anxiety and depression.
While experiences may vary, people commonly go through several stages after learning of their partner's betrayal, whether it be an emotional affair, hidden pornography use, or a sexual affair. They include shock, denial, obsession, anger, bargaining, mourning, acceptance and recovery.
From Freyd (2008): Betrayal trauma occurs when the people or institutions on which a person depends for survival significantly violate that person' s trust or well-being: Childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse perpetrated by a caregiver are examples of betrayal trauma.
Someone who betrays others is commonly called a traitor or betrayer.