Betrayal Is More Than Infidelity

Betrayal is an extremely painful & confusing experience.  The worst part is that it doesn’t come from strangers or acquaintances.  It comes from those closest to you.

Betrayal takes many forms.  Betrayal can mean being unfaithful to your partner or course, but it also can mean lying, hiding information that you need to know, prioritizing someone else over you when it should be the other way around or using or taking advantage of you.  It even can mean defending someone who has wronged you instead of supporting you.  Betrayal is incredibly painful,& no matter what form it takes, it can leave you feeling hurt & confused. That being said, you can heal from the pain of betrayal.

The most important step in healing from betrayal is to seek help from God.  When it comes to betrayal, it can be easy to feel like no one can understand what you are going through.  It is important to remember that God knows & understands every emotion that you are feeling.  He will not judge you for feeling hurt & betrayed, & He will be there to listen & provide comfort when you need it.  You can talk to God about your feelings, & He will provide you with the strength to cope with the betrayal.

It can also help to read God’s Word to receive comfort & guidance. His Word is full of stories of people who have gone through betrayal & have been able to find strength & solace in God. Reading these stories can help you to feel less alone & to understand that God is with you on this journey.

God is the ultimate healer & comforter, & He will be glad to help you to find the strength & courage to heal & to move forward.  Pray & ask God to help you to forgive, to heal, & to find the peace & strength you need to move on when necessary.

When you’ve been betrayed, it’s important to take the time to recognize & process your emotions.  It can be tempting to ignore your feelings or try to rush through them, but that is counter-productive.  Instead, allow yourself to really sit with your emotions, whatever they may be.  Don’t judge or criticize how you feel.  Just accept how you’re feeling & give yourself whatever time you need to fully process your emotions.  If you need to, write about your feelings in a journal, or talk to a trusted friend.

When it comes to processing your emotions, it also can be helpful to remember that it’s ok to be angry.  Anger is a valid emotion & it’s ok to express it in a healthy way.  It’s also ok to cry.  Crying can help to release some of the built-up emotion & tension, & is incredibly healing.

Another important step in healing from betrayal is to re-evaluate the relationship with the person who has betrayed you.  If someone has betrayed you, & then repeated that behavior even after knowing that it has hurt you or betrayed you in a different way, then it’s time to re-evaluate that relationship.  This can be hard, especially if it’s a close family member or friend, but it’s important to remember that your own wellbeing should always come first.  Always remember – someone who knowingly hurts you, especially repeatedly, doesn’t deserve your love & loyalty.

No matter what form betrayal has taken, it can be incredibly painful & confusing. But, with God’s help & by taking the time to recognize & process your emotions, you can heal & move forward.

Narcissists & Loyalty

Narcissists have an incredibly skewed view of loyalty.

Narcissists demand blind loyalty from people in their lives, no matter what.  The average person has the sense to realize that if they do certain things, people in their lives won’t approve, & if they do really bad things, they will lose those people.  While this seems like common sense, it’s not to narcissists.  Those in their lives are supposed to be blindly loyal to them no matter what they do.  No matter how badly they abuse & cause pain & suffering, their victims are supposed to remain by their side.  They could set an orphanage on fire on Christmas Eve while kicking puppies & they would expect people in their lives to support this decision whole heartedly.  Failure to support the decision is proof of disloyalty to the narcissist.

Narcissists demand people forgive & forget any egregious behavior on their part, no matter how horrific.   A part of the blind loyalty narcissists demand from their victims is for them to forgive & forget, so the narcissist can continue abusing them without consequences.  Any confrontation from the victim seems to be taken as a betrayal by the narcissist.  They act like the victim has no right to complain about their behavior.  Narcissists also expect others the victim may tell about the abuse also to forgive & forget, to make excuses for the abuse, to deny it ever happened or to blame the victim for making the narcissist behave in such a manner.  Doing those things proves loyalty to the narcissist.

Narcissists seem to take their children growing up as a form of betrayal, as if the child has done this terrible thing on purpose just to hurt them.  Children grow up.  Everyone knows this.  Except narcissists.  To them, growing up proves their children are nothing but disloyal, disobedient & out to hurt their narcissistic parent.

All narcissists expect blind obedience, & lack of blind obedience is taken as a betrayal & sign of being disloyal.  Overt & covert narcissists demand obedience in different ways, but make no mistake about it – they do demand it.  Overts will use threats or raging while coverts use guilt, shaming & act disappointed in those who disobey them.  Either way, whatever a narcissist wants someone to do for them, it’s expected to be done post haste, & not doing so is proof of disloyalty.  Even if whatever the action is goes against someone’s morals or causes physical pain or financial loss, if the action isn’t done, the narcissist will see this person as disloyal.

Narcissists are of the mindset, “If you’re not for me, you’re against me.”  Narcissists take a difference of opinion as a personal attack & proof of your disloyalty.  They can’t seem to grasp that people don’t all think like them & it’s ok.  Thinking differently than them is wrong in their mind & proof a person isn’t to be trusted.

Clearly the view of loyalty narcissists have proves their thinking is very messed up to put it nicely.  Like their views on other topics like respect, their views on loyalty are incredibly dysfunctional & wrong.

Actually, the way narcissists view loyalty also explains a lot about the people narcissists are close to.  They share these very skewed views of loyalty.  They also have absolutely no integrity to be so incredibly loyal to someone like a narcissist even when they know the person is harming other people.  Any person with a conscience couldn’t be so loyal to a person with such terrible character deficits.

If the narcissist in your life says you’re disloyal, then take it as a complement!  It shows you’re not thinking the same warped way they are! 

Why Narcissistic Parents Defend Their Child’s Abuser