Facing Betrayal and Not Losing Faith

Why does betrayal hurt so much?

Listen in: Facing Betrayal and Not Losing Faith

Everyone experiences betrayal at some point in their lives. It is one of the deepest wounds – if not the deepest – that someone can experience. Why does it hurt so badly and cut so deeply? When you are betrayed, you are violently opened up to what you fear the most: being abandoned. The consequences of betrayal are deep and significant, and even life-altering.

In this next episode of our series, Facing Reality and Not Losing Faith, Lynn and John will look at the many effects of betrayal, the types of betrayal you may experience, and ways to face betrayal without losing your faith.

How Betrayal Affects You

You are designed for connection, which is your deepest need. If you are disconnected, you feel very deeply that something is not right. When you have a connection with someone that makes your world feel right and stable, and they betray you, you are violated. Caught completely off guard. Abandoned by someone you thought you could trust.

When you are in a relationship with someone, like a family member, friend, or co-worker, what happens in your brain over time is called “bonding” or “attachment”. You develop a shared sense of reality that is predictable. You believe that you know this person, and that they know you. And in that knowing, there is a belief that this person can be trusted.

As that trust develops, you feel safe with them. You share your thoughts and feelings with them. They see your strengths and your weaknesses. Over time, with repeated interactions, you make plans and decisions based on what you know to be true about that person.

Now imagine that everything you thought you knew about a person turns out to be a lie. Imagine that in your time of great need or vulnerability, this person that you depended on abandons you. Imagine that all of the time, energy, commitment, perhaps finances, and future plans you’ve made with someone are called into question, and you realize that they aren’t who they said they are. They have kept a secret from you or been unfaithful.

When you’ve trusted someone and they betray you, there is a huge price to pay. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, relationally, sometimes financially, it can have major ramifications in your life. Common responses to betrayal are loss of sleep and appetite, altered daily habits, anxiety, grief, depression, and despair. You may feel shocked, disillusioned, and distressed.

Added to the abandonment of betrayal is the sting of shame – the sense that you are not worth the other person’s loyalty or honesty. Sometimes betrayal is very public and known, but even if it is a private betrayal, it feels public because all of the relational connections you’ve had with the person who betrayed you are going to be impacted. In betrayal you are left alone, and you may feel obligated to explain to others why the relationship has changed. 

Types of Betrayal

1. Marriage

Perhaps the most acute sense of betrayal comes in marriage because it holds the possibility of the most vulnerable and meaningful connection we can possibly have on this earth. It is designed to mirror our intimacy with God. Marital damage is not impossible to navigate, but in many ways it is permanent. The relationship will never be the same.

The brain chemistry that takes place in marriage and in the sexual arena creates intense emotional bonding and attachment. When you are betrayed in a marriage it is a tearing of that bond, not unlike the severing of a limb. If attachment is the center of the tear itself, think of “betrayal” as the instrument - like a dull knife, or tearing open a package with your hands instead of scissors...it’s an ugly wound.

It takes years to repair the tearing of betrayal and it will now occupy a central part of your relationship. That said, the relationship can emerge from betrayal as an even stronger relationship than before the incident, but it will never look the same. How much the marriage can heal will depend on the attitude and repentance of the betrayer, and the willingness of the offended party to open themselves up to trusting again.

2. Friendship

Another area where we can experience betrayal is with friendships. This can be anything from being excluded from a social gathering, to finding out someone that you trusted has been gossiping about you, to discovering manipulation and dishonesty. Different levels of friendship result in differing levels of betrayal:

Low monitoring friendships are those in which a lot is shared – there is a focus on going deep, lots of BFF language, more enmeshed…there is a “low bar” for monitoring what is shared….”oh, we share everything”. When these friendships are broken there is a lot of hurt and it can be messy and ugly. The tearing of the relationship tends to leave lots of jagged edges.

High monitoring friendships are those in which not much is shared from the heart - there is a “high bar” for monitoring what gets shared.  In this type of friendship you might know what your friend prefers to order when you go out to eat, but you know nothing of their dreams or core desires for life. When these relationships change the hurt is not as deep and the tears have smoother lines.

3. Parent/Child Relationship

Just as we have described the depth of wounding through betrayal in a marriage relationship – you will feel a similar wound with a parent/child relationship. There are two key differences:

First, the parent/child relationship is developmental – it’s cast in wet cement. Children are highly moldable and impressionable, and those impressions last a lifetime. In a marriage you have adult resources to draw from, or relief in the form of divorce or “starting over”. A child does not have these same resources.

Second, it’s hard for a child to name betrayal because in their minds, mom and dad would or could never betray. Why? The child idealizes mom and dad, and mom and dad can never be wrong….so if you cannot accept and name the behavior it is going to be difficult to heal from the wounding of it.

How to Keep Your Faith

The experience of betrayal in any of these categories is often a reason, if not the reason, why you may lose faith. Distrusting God, rejecting God, holding God in contempt because the hurt runs so deep. Part of why betrayal strikes at your core is because you are oriented towards justice – you have an innate sense of right and wrong. When you are betrayed, you almost feel as though you can’t go on until justice has been served.

As we go through this series, we are going to turn to the Psalms because that is where we find many examples of voicing the pain of what betrayal feels like. We start with Psalm 35, where the psalmist beseeches God in the midst of being torn apart from people who he could no longer trust:

Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life;
let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me.
Let them be like chaff before the wind,
with the angel of the LORD driving them on.
Let their way be dark and slippery,
with the angel of the LORD pursuing them.

In Psalm 41, the psalmist asks the Lord to sustain him, to deliver him, protect him and restore him to health. He recognizes that this needs divine intervention because the pain is so deep:

Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely,
the one who shared my food, has turned against me.
Lord, have mercy on me.
Make me well again, so I can pay them back!

Later, in Psalm 42 and 43, the psalmist repeats this phrase three times:

Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
the help of my countenance and my God.

There are a few takeaways from these Psalms:

1. When your soul is grieved by betrayal and is plunging into despair, no matter how many enemies you may have - real or perceived - remember that God is your friend.

2. When the pain of your betrayal will not be silenced because the hurt runs so deep, seek comfort in the fact that everyone’s hurts will be brought before God, who is the perfect judge and will bring perfect justice someday. You can leave your case before Him. Most betrayals in life will not be resolved with the offender having a contrite, repentant heart. There are going to be many “cold cases” or “unsolved mysteries” that you must leave at the feet of Jesus.

3. When you experience betrayal, it is an opportunity to grow in wisdom. This is one “benefit” (if you can even call it that) from being betrayed. When you are betrayed in a relationship, or someone turns out to be untrustworthy, you can learn more from the pain and hurt than any class you can take, or any book you can read on understanding human nature and relationships.

In other words, your brain has the ability to grow not just in knowledge, but in wisdom. Once you decode or decipher the way a manipulator or a liar or a betrayer operates, the more prepared you will be to avoid being re-manipulated, and not be dumbfounded when you see someone continue to be manipulative.

Our friendships and relationships will eventually fade as we grow older, and ultimately, we will stand before God, alone. He is our most enduring relationship, and He will never betray us or abandon us. This knowledge brings the psalmist, and us, comfort, as he says in Psalm 13:

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.