When Betrayal Is Silent
Get your googles and snorkel on! We are now diving into deeper emotional waters that most of us avoid and if I’m going to talk about something uncomfortable, I might as well begin with myself.
There was a time in my own life when my integrity wasn’t as clear, clean and aligned as it is today. I have been betrayed— and I have also been the betrayer. Owning both sides of that reality allows me to speak about this from a place of openness rather than accusation.
In my late thirties, I began doing a lot of introspection work during my second divorce and a major medical moment that was a wake up call, cleaning up different areas of my life— not perfectly, but consciously. And that required something deeper than being hurt. It required examining of my own participation.
Some of the behaviors and patterns I witnessed as a child were normalized in my upbringing. I watched, heard and listened to conversations behind closed doors, to alliances form and shift over the phone or in my presence. I noticed that indirect communication felt more strategic rather than dishonest. When something is modeled consistently, it doesn’t necessarily feel wrong. For me, it was a normal part of relational strategy that I never questioned.
It was during my own childhood experiences and reenactments that I intuitively felt something was off. I slowly began to realized some of what I had witnessed, absorbed— and unconsciously mirrored — was eroding trust rather than building relationships. And with that experience it made me reclusive and selective, but it also made me very emotionally resilient.
When We Don’t Recognize It
One of the most uncomfortable truths about betrayal is that we don’t always recognize it — especially if certain behaviors were normalized in our upbringing or socially acceptable. If secrecy, indirect communication, emotional withholding, or triangulation were part of the relational climate we grew up in, we may not register their impact. We learned them as strategy. As survival. As “just how things are.”
We smile through resentment.
We agree while internally dissapproving.
We justify what we wouldn’t tolerate if it were done to us.
That gap — between inner knowing and outer behavior — is where silent infidelity lives and these are some ways it shows up.
In friendships, silent betrayal can look like:
Talking about you to other behind your back
Turning others against you or undermining your reputation
backhanded compliments or remarks
Abruptly ending the friendship
Conditional or convenient
Downplaying your achievements or success
In professional spaces, it can look like:
Conversations about someone instead of with them
Withholding feedback that could strengthen the work
Taking credit for others work
Aligning with influence instead of truth
Violating professional boundaries
spreading false rumors to destroy a reputation.
In personal relationships, it can look like:
Emotional intimacy outside the relationship
Overly guarding personal devices
Chronic avoidance of hard conversations
Omitting the truth
Saying “it’s fine” when it isn’t
Staying physically present but emotionally withdrawn
None of these may feel dramatic, but that’s what’s makes them dangerous. Because over time, those small, subtle misalignments accumulate. Trust fractures quietly before it breaks loudly. And many of us have selfishly participated in this at some point — as the betrayer or the betrayed — without fully understanding it. So the question is not whether we’ve ever been misaligned, yet what do we do next?
Why We Ignore the Signs
We ignore the telltale signs because confronting them shakes foundations. It disrupts friendships. It challenges workplaces. It threatens relationships. It forces self-examination. And most of us were never taught how to repair rupture directly. So we rationalize, minimize, or we normalize until one day the fracture is too wide to ignore.
Betrayal rarely begins with catastrophe. It begins with small misalignments we convince ourselves don’t really matter. But here’s the paradox: Avoiding the shake-up doesn’t protect the foundation. It weakens it.
When You Discover You’ve Been Betrayed
There is a particular kind of heartbreak that comes from betrayal by someone you trusted deeply. It isn’t just the act itself that wounds you. It’s the collapse of the story you believed. You replay conversations. You question your perception. You wonder how you didn’t see it. And when the betrayal comes from someone you held close, it shakes more than the relationship — it shakes your sense of judgment.
For me, being betrayed by people I trusted most was devastating and disorientating. Not because I believed people were perfect, but because I believed we were aligned in loyalty. The pain wasn’t only about what happened. It was about realizing the alignment wasn’t mutual. That realization forces a reckoning: Betrayal is painful and it hurts. But it also clarifies, and that can act as a catalyst for persona growth and a re-evaluation of priorities and self worth.
When You Admit You’ve Been the One Betraying
This is harder to admit. When I look back at earlier seasons of my life, I can see the moments where I betrayed — not out of cruelty, but out of survival. Betrayal is a selfish attempt to protect a fragile part of ourselves. A part of us seeking comfort. Alliance. Safety. Validation. Although it feels like protection, for me it came from a place of emptiness — a depleted sense of worth that looked for reinforcement outside of integrity.
I didn’t know better, so I didn’t do better. When I knew better, I behaved differently. There was a period of my life where I unconsiously navigated relationships like a chessboard — anticipating moves, positioning myself, calculating safety. It was subtle, but it was there. and eventually, I decided: game over.
Taking responsibility meant seeing the threads clearly. Seeing how certain behaviors had been normalized. Seeing how I had justified misalignment when it benefited me. Accountability isn’t self-punishment. It’s self-respect. This is harder. Not in shame — but in responsibility. To look at your own avoidance. Your own withholding. Your own participation.
Growth often begins here. Not in blaming others. But in cleaning up your own integrity.
What Changes After Betrayal
Betrayal forces choices. Not just about other people — but about yourself.
Being both the betrayed and the betrayer changed the way I move through the world. It required me to reconfigure my boundaries, my discernment, and my sense of responsibility. I keep my lane clean. I respect privacy — mine and others. I don’t insert myself into spaces that aren’t mine. I don’t overextend to earn belonging. I don’t participate in conversations that compromise integrity. The is my fidelity in motion.
My worth is no longer negotiated in rooms that cannot hold it. My esteem isn’t dependent on alliance or approval. And truthfully, one of the greatest gifts in doing this work has been discovering how much I genuinely like who I am when I’m congruent.
Betrayal gave me perspective. In many cases, it had far less to do with me than I initially believed. Much of what wounded me was born from other people’s unconscious behavior, their fear, their own unexamined patterns. Understanding that didn’t excuse anything. But it released me from personalizing everything.
For the relationships that mattered, I took ownership. I made amends where necessary. I accepted responsibility without defensiveness. For the ones that didn’t — I allowed the space to compost. Not everything needs revival. Some experiences become soil and quietly nourishes something stronger.
There was heartache on both sides of the equation. But there was also reclamation. I gained clarity. I gained discernment. I gained self-trust. And in many ways, I gained parts of myself I had never fully possessed before.