84: Relationship Betrayal: When a Mistake Crosses the Line

Welcome back to Make More Love. I'm your host, Ellen Dorian. This show looks at the connection between relationships and business ownership, especially for men who want straight talk, useful frameworks, and practical ways to solve relationship problems. If this is your first time here, hit follow or subscribe so you don't miss anything. Now let's get into it. Over the last two episodes, we've been talking about trust. In episode 82, we looked at the distinctions between sexual fidelity and overall trustworthiness. I also introduced seven domains of trust in relationships. Then in episode 83, we explored seven trust archetypes and how our natural tendencies shape the way we build and maintain trust in our relationships. Today, I wanna talk about what happens when trust gets damaged. More specifically, when does a simple relationship letdown become a betrayal? Look, every relationship includes letdowns. You're gonna disappoint your partner, and your partner is gonna disappoint you. Everyone forgets, makes poor decisions, or underestimates the importance of something that matters to their partner. Hopefully, every mistake that you make isn't automatically deemed by your partner to be a betrayal. If even small mistakes carry that much weight, there's probably something deeper going on. But sometimes things are more serious than they first appear. What looks like a simple mistake from one side might feel like a profound violation from the other. So let's break these situations down into more manageable parts, just the way we did with trust in the previous two episodes. I see three distinct categories of relationship letdown. There's disappointments, breaches of trust, and betrayals. Not that I think you should argue about whether a relationship letdown is a betrayal, a breach, or a disappointment or anything else like that. But the reason to look at them in this context is to give you a starting point for addressing what happened. As you get into the repair process, you'll get a better understanding of how your partner sees the issue, and then you can adjust your approach. So let's start with disappointments These happen when an expectation is not met. Maybe we make a bad decision, or we forget something important, or we don't follow through on a promise. And they can hurt, and they may require a difficult conversation, but on the whole, they're resolvable. They don't lead you to question who your partner is or whether the relationship itself is sound. Disappointments are usually solved through a solid apology. The second type is a breach of trust. A breach happens when something important that supports the relationship actually gets broken. This could be an agreement, a boundary, a responsibility, or a shared understanding about how the two of you are supposed to operate. A disappointment feels like, "you let me down." A breach feels more like, "you screwed up." The underlying characteristic of breaches is that they are unintentional. They usually happen in one of two ways. The first is an accident. It's bigger than a disappointment, but it's driven by simple carelessness because nobody's perfect. The second is a misunderstanding. So one partner assumes there's a clear agreement about something, but the other partner either understands it or interprets it differently. The common denominator for these two is the lack of intent, And that's a major factor separating a breach of trust from a betrayal. So I have an example from one of my clients to share with you. This client has an agreement with their partner to discuss any purchase over three hundred dollars in advance. I bet a lot of you have agreements like this in place. But the reality of life is sometimes in the heat of purchasing something, all the rules go out the window, and both partners in this case have made purchases over the limit without discussing them first, and this is a breach of their financial agreement. The key to repairing that breach is handling it transparently and in a timely way. When you get this right, a negative experience, like a breach of the financial agreement, can become a positive relationship-building one You admit the problem, you apologize, you undo the damage if it's possible. In my example, the partners returned their over-limit items. And then you work together to prevent it from happening again. And maybe the agreement or the boundary also needs to be renegotiated. That's what we did in this client's case. I helped them change their approach. So instead of having this $300 limit, they each got a debit card with a $1,000 limit on it, and they could use that for whatever they wanted with no questions or permissions needed. But they had to discuss when to refill and how much to refill once that first $1,000 ran out. The new agreement worked better for both of them And it made their relationship stronger overall So to sum this up, if you're trying to repair a breach of trust, there are three steps: Number one is to get clear about what the agreement was, what was broken, and how it hurt the relationship. Number two is to make amends for the breach. Apologize, correct what you can, and restate your commitment to respecting the agreement. And three is to look at what changes you might want to make and revise the agreement so it fits the current reality of your lives. It helps to remember that changing your agreements is a natural thing. What's unnatural is to continue clinging to rules that no longer feel fair or useful. I'm really curious to hear from you. What agreements have you made with your partner that don't fit the current stage of your relationship? If you'd like to share, you can email me with your thoughts or you can head over to the Passionate Partners Insider Community on Facebook. I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this. Now, let's move on to betrayal because that's a whole different thing. What makes betrayal different from other kinds of letdowns is that it attacks trust. Where a breach of trust is experienced as, "you screwed up," a betrayal feels much more dramatic like ,"you're a monster." Betrayal usually has two traits. The first one is forethought. Forethought is when you knowingly crossed the line. There's not a lot of wiggle room here The second trait is perception. It's about how your partner experiences What your action came to mean and how much damage it caused. When they see your actions as disrespecting them or devaluing the relationship, it's gonna be very personal to them. And often betrayals get even worse because people hide the behavior. That may even become the biggest part of the betrayal Now your partner may question whether your word means anything at all. And, they may be wondering what else you're hiding or lying about. Knowing your own tendencies and understanding your partner's can help you respond more appropriately. So if you tend to react strongly to things, then that betrayal may feel enormous. On the other hand, if you tend to downplay things, you may be ready to let go of it before your partner is. Either way, you need to be tuned into how the other person in the relationship is experiencing the betrayal. This is what happened with my clients CL and JL. CL is married to JL, the owner of a demolition contracting company. Without getting too specific, JL had a habit that CL did not like. JL Knew It wasn't good for him, and he often talked about wanting to stop, but he never followed through. CL was Disappointed, but she didn't see it as her job to manage him. As she put it, "I'm, I'm his lover. I'm not his mother." Eventually, the shit hit the fan and he decided it was time to stop this habit. And she was so proud of him, and she gave him so much support and encouragement and acknowledged the effort he was making and helped him see how much better life could feel without that habit. But later, he went back to it without telling her. But she continued to encourage him and reinforce him and validate him, while all the time he knew that what she believed was no longer true When she eventually found out, she understandably went ballistic. She was even more upset that he let her continue believing he had stopped than she was about him picking the habit back up. He knew she was supporting him based on false information. Telling her the truth would have been uncomfortable, so he let the deception continue And that took away her ability to decide what she wanted to do. When you hide information that directly affects your partner, you are deciding for them what they get to know about their own relationship. They are making choices based on a version of events that you know is false or incomplete. You made a conscious decision to avoid conflict by misleading your partner. The injured partner is now dealing with two problems. They're trying to make sense of the betrayal, and they're also learning that you covered it up just to make your own life easier. And that makes the repair 10 times harder. Accountability starts with telling the truth and accepting that your choice affected your partner. It also means being willing to stay in the conversation and change your behavior It's a statement that goes something like this, "I did this. I understand what I did to you. I'm not gonna make you responsible for my decision, and I'm willing to do what it takes to repair the damage." Now, I always think it's interesting to know how other people think about any topic. So I did some research and I found the top five betrayals that couples are most concerned about in their relationships. Number one is predictably infidelity, whether that's a physical affair or an emotional affair Number two is sharing private information or breaking confidences. when you expose things your partner trusted you to protect or when venting to a friend turns into an intimate alliance against your partner. Number three is lying or withholding important information. Number four is financial secrecy. So that includes hidden spending, secret accounts, secret assets, or secret debts. And number five is not having your partner's back or criticizing them in public In particular, people mention not standing up for your partner when their parents, relatives, or acquaintances or friends say negative things about them. So which of these hits home for you? I will say for me, it's number five, and my husband knows this. He would never criticize me in public, and he would never tolerate anyone bad-mouthing me in his presence People think I'm weird, but number two actually doesn't bother me as much. I believe everyone needs to vent from time to time, although I've never gotten the sense that my husband does that. And it matters who you vent to. More often than not, a good coach, counselor, or even a good friend will help you see a different perspective on your frustrations with your partner. And a really good one will tell you straight up if they think that you're the one who's off base. Next I wanna talk about inevitability. Disappointments are inevitable, and breaches probably are too. People are careless sometimes, and they misunderstand each other other times. And honestly, I'm not sure that there's anything anyone can do to entirely prevent those. But betrayals are different because You know there's a line, and you choose to cross it, and that means betrayal is not inevitable. You always have another choice. Now let's say that you've had a betrayal in your relationship and you wanna know how to repair it. This is a question I hear all the time. Can you ever really overcome a betrayal? In Make More Love Episode 39, I laid out a framework for working through betrayal called the SHIT Model. If you want the full version, I've put a link to that episode in the show notes. But for now, here's the high-level overview of the five main steps Step one is to decide if you're really willing to repair the, the damage. Nothing happens till you make that decision. So are you willing to show up honestly and find out if trust can be rebuilt? If you're not ready to do that, I wonder what's holding you back. Maybe it's fear, maybe it's doubt, maybe you don't trust your partner enough to believe that the effort will go anywhere. Whatever that is, get honest about it, and then look at your own habits and see what would have to change if the trust is going to come back Step two, and this to me is the most important one. Step two is you've gotta end your love affair with resentment. Resentment is a delicious emotion. It is unexpectedly seductive. It feels good because it validates your anger and proves that you were wronged. We build a whole resentment story around it. It's a twisted little love story where we get to be both the victim and the hero. But if you keep feeding that story, there isn't much room left for repair. So you're gonna have to ask yourself, "What is the payoff I get from holding onto that resentment?" There may be anger underneath it, or guilt, or fear, or shame. Those feelings are not the problem. The problem is what you do with them. Like anger needs somewhere productive to go, otherwise it's just there feeding on itself. Guilt is only helpful if it motivates you to take responsibility, otherwise it's just dead weight. And fear usually induces one of those three responses, fight, flight, or freeze, none of which are gonna make the situation any better. And shame? Shame is wasted energy that would be better if it was directed towards some positive action. Resentment is the false comfort. It keeps you focused on the case against your partner. At some point, you just have to decide whether you wanna keep proving they were wrong or start figuring out how to make what happens next Step number three is to let go of the mythology of love. There are so many stories about love that we just absorb from childhood on, and it becomes part of our identity And when it comes to making a real relationship work over a long period of time, these stories just aren't helpful. So here are a few things I want you to know. You're not Prince Charming. You don't find a soulmate. You make your partner into your soulmate. There is no guaranteed happily ever after. Love is not all you need. It does not conquer all, and nobody can complete you but you. Got it? A resilient romantic partnership is built by two imperfect people who make commitments, screw some of them up, repair what they can, and keep deciding they want to stay together. Once you clear out this fairytale shit, you can start working with the relationship you actually have Step number four is to use what happened. It's about you as much as it is about the relationship. Look at what this experience has taught you about your needs, your boundaries, and your values. What needs did you ignore or not recognize? What did you tolerate for too long? What do you understand now that you didn't understand before? And ask yourself, How can I grow from this experience regardless of the outcome?" And that part is key because if you tie all of your growth to saving the relationship, you're gonna miss what this experience can teach you about yourself. The relationship may survive or it may not. Either way, you should come out of this clearer and stronger and more honest about what you want out of a relationship and what you need inside of one Step number five is to rebuild the relationship in real life. You have to now turn all that insight that we've just talked about into positive forward action. That might mean weekly meetings or daily check-ins, intentional planning, or other routines that keep the two of you connected. You might need to look at your agreements. You might need new agreements. You might need clearer boundaries. You might need to take baby steps toward rebuilding trust, and you will definitely need a new vision for the relationship based on the life you have now and the values you still share. The old vision is not gonna cut it anymore. Now consistency plays a big part in this. You have to show up when you say you will and follow through on what you promise. Trust isn't magically restored by one deep conversation. It comes back because you keep doing what you said you would do over and over until it becomes your standard way of being. And I've just gotta say this: repairing a relationship after a betrayal is not likely to be a DIY project. Your chances of success go way up if you get a professional coach or counselor to help you. That's what I do, and I have seen what happens when people try to handle this on their own, and it's not pretty. And even after you've done all that work and been through the repair process and restored trust, you may still have to decide whether you're gonna stay or you're gonna leave. But repairing the damage is worth the effort even if the relationship doesn't survive. I know some of you are thinking this, I don't know if I can repair it, but I'm not ready to end it either." And I get that. I really do. But a lot of relationships are dead for years before anybody admits it. And can you really live your best life with the corpse of your relationship rotting in the basement? I don't think so. You don't have to make the final decision today, but you do need to move in a direction. Either you start rebuilding or you start letting go. Before we wrap up, here are some key points I hope you'll take away from today's episode. What is the difference between a disappointment, a breach of trust, and a full-on betrayal? Most disappointments can be resolved with a solid apology and better follow-through. A breach of trust is more serious. It happens when something in the relationship gets broken, but without intent, and it takes work to repair that. Betrayal involves forethought. You knew there was a line, and you crossed it. The labels are there simply to help you figure out where to start and what direction to go in. What happens next depends on whether both of you are willing to face the truth, make the changes, and give trust a real chance to come back. Alright. I hope today's episode got you thinking, but there's really only so much we can do in an open forum like this. If you wanna look at your specific situation, go to relationshipresetcall.com And book a time to talk with me. It's free, it's quick and it's private. We'll figure out the next best move for you and get you on track. And if you know someone who's struggling in their relationship, please pass this episode along. I've also included links to additional resources in the show notes so you can keep building on your relationship skills. I believe you had good reasons for choosing your partner. My mission is to help you reconnect with those reasons and discover new ways to Make More Love with your wife and in your life. I'm Ellen Dorian, and that's what I've got for you today.