It is an interpersonal trauma that shatters your reality – the way you viewed your life and the people closest to you.
It causes feelings of profound devastation – numbness, inability to trust, shame, shock, self-blame, or withdrawal. But it also leads to outbursts of anger and rage, irritability, anxiety, unhealthy eating patterns, or an increased need to control everything.
Instead of a safe haven in times of stress, you now perceive your relationship as a source of danger. You feel victimized and out of control, perhaps having an overwhelming need to strike back and get even for the pain and humiliation you’ve been subjected to.
In short, betrayal trauma immobilizes your coping strategies. But your erratic behavior neither helps you to face the truth nor find relief.
What can you do to start moving on?
Taking the First Steps to Face the Truth and Find Relief
Step 1: Handling your emotional reactions
One of the first things you must do is give yourself a moment to breathe and face your feelings. No, you’re not crazy for feeling completely out of control. What you’re experiencing is normal. It’s a fitting response to the intense trauma you’ve suffered and the loss you feel.
After that, you can start working on regaining control over your emotions. Obviously, you can’t change what happened, but you need to take responsibility for how you handle the problem. While compulsiveness may give you temporary relief for your anxiety, to put yourself back together, you have to confront your feelings constructively. You must look deep beneath the raw emotions and understand what they’re telling you.
Clearly, you need someone to talk to, who will listen and be supportive. A professional counselor can often be of more help with this step than anybody else. Once you’ve acknowledged and recounted your feelings, they will actually begin to dissolve.
Step 2: Facing the reality of your situation
The reality of the matter is: people will fail you. Even those closest to you, who you trust the most. Denying it does not help. Blaming yourself does not help. Only accepting that fact and dealing with it can bring you a step closer to finding relief.
To face the truth, you must understand the many complex reasons why people betray others – in general, and in your particular case. For that, you need to be willing to take a very close look at all the personal, marital, and social factors involved. The more information you have, the better you’ll be equipped to take the next step.
Step 3: Making a deliberate decision
The biggest mistake you can make is not take your time. A quick decision is often unduly influenced by unstable emotions. Rather, think long-term. Be sure that you can live with your decision over time without starting to second-guess yourself. What you may see as correct now could haunt you later with regret.
Hence, deliberately consider if you should stay and rebuild your relationship or leave. Explore your options thoughtfully, based on your unique circumstances, priorities, and needs, to avoid an impulsive and unprocessed decision. Again, a counselor can be invaluable for helping you sort out your choices.
Whatever you decide, understand that if you stay together yet never address the betrayal, you’ll only create more problems down the road. However, also accept that leaving means you’ll have to work hard on rebuilding your own life. Don’t fall into the trap of attaching yourself too quickly to another person in an effort to “heal” your hurt.
Once you’ve successfully taken the first steps to face the truth of the betrayal, you’re well on your way to find relief. Of course, there’s still much to do, but you’ve begun laying a good foundation to overcome the trauma of betrayal.
