How To Repair A Friendship After Betrayal

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Daphne was almost xl when she came home to find her best friend, Jennifer, in bed with Daphne's husband, Mike.* "I think it was the worst thing that had happened in my life," she said. "I guess information technology was the double betrayal. Mike and Jennifer: Ii people I completely trusted."

Not every deception past a friend is as life-shattering equally Daphne'southward double whammy, simply even the smallest can sting. Daphne is ane of the women I spoke with as I gathered the data for my book I Know How Yous Feel: The Joy and Heartbreak of Friendship in Women's Lives. Others told me of a number of different means that friends had betrayed them — sharing something they had told them in confidence, talking about them backside their backs, and lying to them were just a few examples.

Madeleine*, a contempo college grad, said that she felt betrayed by a friend who had started dating and suddenly wasn't available to conversation or spend time with her. "I know that'southward non fair," Madeleine said. "She'south involved in a new human relationship, and it's normal not to have equally much fourth dimension as she used to. But it's happened a few times, and the problem is, when the relationship is over, she sort of thinks I should exist available to spend the same corporeality of time we used to spend. It doesn't matter if I'm dating, or if I've got plans with other friends. I'm supposed to be at her beck and call."

The psychologist Jeanne Safer describes a friend who betrayed her past becoming more than and more self-centered, unable or unwilling to fifty-fifty ask questions about Safer's life or experience. She writes, "Lost friends are as haunting as lost lovers, and just as difficult to replace." Some of the women I spoke with would have changed her comment to "even harder to replace." Numerous women described experiences similar to Safer'due south, with friends who could non tolerate or support them through an illness, or a divorce, or the loss of a spouse or child.

But in some cases, what feels like a expose is really more a change in life situation. Like Madeleine, you may have experienced a sense of betrayal when a friend married, began to have children, and/or became intensely involved in her work. Interestingly, many of the women likewise told me they felt bad that they had get less available for their friends, but said that their closest friends understood. "We're all in the aforementioned boat, more than or less," said one woman in her early 30s. "We assemble when we can, nosotros talk on the phone, merely it's a lot less than it used to exist."

Another woman told me that she felt she had been a bad friend considering she was and so involved with her family and her career: "I felt similar I left my friends behind. And I injure some of them."

Change and loss tin can experience like a expose, but information technology is not always meant that way. As we move through unlike life stages, it is not unusual that some of our friendships receive less attending. Further, beingness disillusioned by a friend is a normal and even expected part of a healthy developmental process.

Yet studies accept found that nosotros feel these changes are personal — that is, that they are specifically directed at united states, which is what makes them sting so much. [two] [iii] [iv] Julie Fitness, a psychologist who has studied and written about the impact of betrayal, puts it this way: "When those on whom we depend for honey and support betray our trust, the feeling is like a stab at the center that leaves us feeling unsafe, macerated, and alone."

And this loss makes us more vulnerable physically besides equally emotionally.

There are books galore nearly handling infidelity in a matrimony. But what virtually when a friend is disloyal or unfaithful? What do you exercise when your all-time friend — or whatever friend — betrays yous?

Here are some suggestions gleaned from the women I interviewed and from psychotherapists who write near these experiences:

ane. Clarify the state of affairs. Whether yous are the betrayer or the betrayed, the damage can sometimes be temporary, with the disruptions folded into the fabric of a relationship without doing also much destruction. Sometimes, however, the fallout can be permanent and life-changing. In either case, how nosotros translate the rupture can add to or alleviate our pain.

What does that mean? Sometimes information technology means making sure that your interpretation is the aforementioned equally your friend's. For example, Alice* felt abased by Deirdre*, her closest friend from childhood, who had stopped returning her telephone calls. "I texted, emailed, and did everything I could short of going to her business firm and pounding on her door," Alice said. "Eventually, I merely decided that our friendship must be over. I was then hurt and angry and actually kind of horrified." But she felt worse when she discovered that Deirdre was in the throes of severe depression. "I finally did go over to her house and knocked until she let me in. She looked terrible. She wasn't eating and hadn't been out of the firm for days," Alice said. "I bundled her upwards and took her to the hospital. It wasn't a betrayal. It was an illness."

ii. Accept and process your feelings. Once you have faced the painful truth of a expose and your own feelings about it, y'all can outset to process the emotions — the skillful, the bad, and the ugly. Later a expose, you will very probable have to manage a number of different emotions. Your feelings near what happened are not going to be static. Hurt may turn into anger or vice versa. Each phase volition require different emotional and maybe fifty-fifty physical responses on your function. The key is to stay equally honest with yourself equally you tin can. And, when possible, to explicate your thinking to the people who are of import to you, although non necessarily to the person who injure you.

iii. Consider whether or not to procedure the feelings with the person who hurt you (or the person you lot hurt). Sometimes the person who betrayed you is around to help you lot process those feelings. In that case, it can exist healing to talk about what happened. But sometimes she cannot join you lot in that work, or you may not want to open yourself up to the possibility of further injury, and that is okay too. The aforementioned is true when yous take done the betraying. If your genuine apologies are not accepted, you lot may feel hurt and frustrated. In either case, y'all can still express your feelings, merely maybe not to the friend. It is also perfectly okay if you lot want to human action like things are fine, and you want your friend to do the aforementioned, although of course, this solution works best when it works best for both of you. Like Lillian on the show Bridesmaids, yous might but want to say, "Why tin can't you be happy for me, so become home and talk nearly me backside my back similar a normal person?"

4. Determine whether or not yous can forgive your friend. Daphne felt that she could not forgive her friend Jennifer: "Information technology wasn't just her, of course. Mike was part of it. And so was I. I mean, I had known for a while that something wasn't right with our spousal relationship, but I was agape to address it. Just that doesn't mean that it was my mistake. And I'm just not ready to put it all behind me and exist kissy-confront with either of them." Safer says that sometimes non forgiving can be both freeing and let yous to move on. It can besides help you call up the things that you lot did beloved about your friend.

But sometimes forgiving is also freeing. Madeleine found that she missed her friend and decided to accept her for who she was: "We have a bully fourth dimension together. And I'yard really fond of her. And so, I but take to know that she'south going to put whatsoever boyfriend she's with first; that's just who she is."

5. Recognize that at that place is no single correct fashion to handle a betrayal. What is crucial, however, is to recognize and acknowledge, at least to yourself, what yous are feeling. Once you have washed that, information technology is easier to find ways to cope with the experience that works best for you. If you do non accept a clear sense of what you want to exercise, y'all might try talking or even acting out a possible conversation with someone yous trust. Accept the conversation every bit far equally you can, and then permit yourself sit down with your feelings almost that scenario. And so imagine the opposite. What would happen if you lot said goose egg? How would that look and experience to you lot? After you accept imagined several different scenarios, yous will probably have an idea of what yous feel most comfortable doing — or non doing — most the state of affairs.

6. Recall that it may not exist what it seems. This can mean trying non to have the hurtful actions personally, even when it seems that you are the intended victim. Daphne finally came to realize that the double betrayal by her husband and her best friend was non her error. Sure, there were things she could have washed differently, and ways that she could have been both a better wife and a better friend. Only as some other friend pointed out to her, their beliefs had much more to exercise with their inner demons than with her. Information technology might seem to y'all that a friend intentionally hurt you when she was thinking about her own issues, not you. Of course, her lack of consideration of your needs could be hurtful in and of itself, and y'all do have to deal with that. Merely stepping back and looking at the bigger flick tin assist. And turning to other friends can besides be an invaluable mode to help the injury heal and aid y'all move on.

"It was an atrocious time," Daphne said. "I wanted to withdraw from the world." Because she felt that her children needed extra attention from her during the separation and divorce, she focused all of her attention on them. Equally a working female parent, that meant she had little time to spare for herself, and fifty-fifty less for her friends. "But my friends wouldn't let me bury myself in my work or my kids," she said. "They bundled activities!" They would organize a movie twenty-four hours for all of the kids and the moms and insist I come. And and so subsequently, a couple of them would take the kids for pizza, and the others would take me back to someone's domicile for a glass of wine. They knew I wouldn't come if they just asked me that, just it's really exactly what I need. I'one thousand so lucky to have friends like this!"

*Names and personal information inverse to protect privacy

Copyright @ fdbarth, 2022.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201801/betrayed-your-best-friend-6-ways-heal-your-heart

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