5 Quick Lessons About Betrayal of Trust
A betrayal of trust is typically an emotionally devastating experience.
When this happens to people, it can take them a long time before they open themselves up to others again.
Are there lessons to be learned from such a betrayal of trust? Who are the people we should rely on? And, is there perhaps a way to reduce the likelihood of being disappointed in relationships or having one’s trust broken?
Well, a few years ago, I had a chance to reflect on these questions.
At a friend’s recommendation, I was watching the British miniseries The Honourable Woman.
Its main character Nessa Stein (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a successful and highly traumatized businesswoman.
In this spy thriller, everybody is betraying everybody else — including Nessa — all the time. (It’s a spy thriller, after all.)
Watching all the betrayals in the show created an eerie feeling in my stomach.
Life imitating art
Just as I had expressed to my husband that I did not enjoy the show (too gloomy…), the phone rang.
Via this phone call, I discovered that someone whose advice I trusted a lot had broken the trust of others in significant ways.
When I found out what X had allegedly done, my mind initially didn’t process the information. It just did not fit together. “What?” My tone was incredulous, upon hearing what seemed to have happened. “Why?”
I had relied on this person’s personal advice in a challenging situation. X had been really helpful and now I was asking myself to what an extent I could trust their guidance.
For a while, I felt sick to my stomach. I could not understand why someone so amazing could do something as hurtful to other people as it appeared to be.
And yet, the evidence suggested that this was what had happened.
In the midst of this internal process, I found myself relating more to Nessa’s difficult situation and her conclusion: it is a wonder we trust anyone at all.
Art imitating life
Thus, a few hours after expressing my discontent about The Honourable Woman
to my husband, I found myself sitting eagerly in front of the screen with him, watching the intro to the last episode.
This time, I could not help but let the now familiar words of Nessa resonate through me, in a whole new way: “Who do you trust? How do you know?”
It was like taking a day trip to a place I used to live at but that I left a long time ago.
Here are five key insights that I gained from that experience:
1. Trust is a complex is a complex issue
Trust and whom to trust is a deeply personal question.
Do you trust your family?
Your partner?
Your friends?
Do you trust… yourself?
With the people who make your “trust list,” why do you feel you can trust them? Is it a shared history, or a gut feeling?
Often, the reasons why we trust someone are complex.
It can be hard to express them even to yourself.
2. It’s important to trust others
If you want to live a happy life, there is no real alternative to trusting others.
Without a basic sense of trust, we could not even leave our house or get behind the wheel of a car.
That’s why I don’t agree with Nessa’s conclusion that it’s a wonder we trust anyone at all.
3. It’s important to trust wisely
You want to trust others wisely, ot blindly.
Trust in others is as necessary as discernment.
Not everybody has your best interests in mind all the time. When people overlook alarm signals, they are betraying themselves.
4. It’s important to trust oneself
The importance of trust is even more pronounced in one’s relationship with oneself. Since you’re the person behind the steering wheel of your life, it’s crucial that you trust yourself and your own discernment.
5. It’s important to heal
This is the master lesson that unlocks all other ones.
People who have been hurt need to heal in order to be able to trust others, to trust their own discernment and to trust themselves. There is no magical epiphany that will resolve someone’s trust issues for good.
Trust does not respond well to a “fake it until you make it” approach.
Without appropriate healing work, someone who has been betrayed will probably once again find themselves in situations that break their trust.
Healing makes betrayal much less likely. It might well be impossible for someone to create a trustworthy environment if they haven't healed their underlying issues and negative repeating patterns.
I believe that patterns of betrayal don't play themselves out in my life anymore is that I have done so much healing work. While this hasn't always been easy, it's way better than the alternative.
Healing work might be more uncomfortable temporarily but it will improve one's life in the long run.
So, what happened?
I won’t spoil the show The Honorable Woman for you by giving away the ending.
In my own life, significantly less dramatic situation here’s what happened: ultimately, the whole thing didn’t have a huge impact on my life. (I was not personally hurt by what X had done — X had actually helped me a lot.)
It took a bit but the shock wore off, without a lasting impact. Once it did, I was back in my world, a world that is the exact opposite of Nessa’s.
In my world, my trust had been shaken up for a moment but not compromised long-term.
A few weeks later, it also turned out that there had been mitigating factors which to some extent explained — but not excused — the behavior of X.
Because some people stated that X had betrayed their trust, I decided to take time to re-evaluate my relationship to X.
At the end of this re-evaluation, I still trusted others and life. Not blindly, but wisely.
And even more importantly, I still trusted myself.
This article was first published on Elephant Journal here.
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