Letters to the Editor
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This too shall pass...
LW –
I feel for you, and I’m also amazed by the strength you’ve shown in dealing with this.
When I was 30, two of my closest friends – one male, one female – became partners. When they invited me to visit for a weekend, I took a guy with me; I wasn’t involved with him but I knew my female friend was edgy about my long friendship with her partner, so I played safe. For whatever reasons, that weekend they also chose to burden themselves with too many other visitors I didn’t know about, most of whom had issues that added up to a stressful mix. I put my head down and tail up: I’d brought heaps of food, I helped prepare every meal, I cleaned up after every meal, the guy who came with me and I took 9 children out for an afternoon’s play and sight seeing, and to wear them out, leaving the other adults back at the house relaxing.
When I didn’t hear from them for about 6 weeks afterwards, I called. My female friend refused to speak to me; my male friend told me this, then gave me a blast. Everything I’d said and done (and supposedly hadn’t done, like bringing food and helping all the time) that weekend was twisted and misconstrued into the most incredible constructions, and then for good measure he threw in a complete shredding of my character and personality, and things I was supposed to have done to my female friend in the past. Absolutely irrational stuff.
I could hardly speak for days. What scared me most was their crazy ‘reality’ versus mine. It took me a week, but I eventually sat down and wrote an abject apology for things I knew I hadn’t done and said. (I wouldn’t do it now.) I’ve examined that weekend many times since, and to me it’s still irrational. I was ‘forgiven’ and a now awkward friendship resumed. The couple married – while I was away overseas – and later divorced. I still see both of them occasionally but that episode has never left my mind. And when it comes to character and personality, they’ve made messes of their own and their various children’s lives since.
My immediate reaction was a shattering of self-confidence, I couldn’t trust my own perceptions of myself and the world around me, and distrust of all my friends. Were they all thinking these things about me, really? Were they, without warning, going to attack me too? Of course not, but I couldn’t shake that feeling for a very long time. I’d almost physically recoil when a friend called in. It took a year away overseas to put things in perspective, and to once again treasure my friendships.
There are many kinds of betrayals in life, and we all experience them. Someone else has commented that the betrayal you suffered was more about this group than about you. I know it doesn’t feel like that to you, now, but that’s a very good summation.
Regardless of our faces, sexuality, rural origins or anything else, most people are trustworthy. I made a decision, after this episode, to live my life in that expectation amongst friends, strangers, in foreign countries. I’ve been richly rewarded. One snake-pit doesn’t make the whole world, though it can rock it badly for a while. You will never forget this; but you’ll also come to realise in time that you were just horribly, horribly unlucky.
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Betrayal Is A Big, Big Hurt...
and it'll take time to overcome it, but it WILL pass.
I too had a major betrayal when my now-XH had an "involvement" w/my sister. My other siblings were also complicit in her actions by knowing about it but saying nothing.
By then he had betrayed me in so many other, fundamental ways--w/in 6 mos after the wedding!--that, 15 mos later, I had to leave. I had only superficial contact w/the others until our mother died last year (our father died 20 yrs ago), and now I don't see THEM either.
While I miss having a family, I can and do live w/out them b/c life is hard enough w/out dealing w/their hypocrisy. Since then, I've created another "family" of assorted friends and neighbors, but I mostly spend my time alone. It's not so bad either.
Violation of trust is a deep wound, but if nothing else you'll be far more selective of whom you do trust in the future. You'll also learn to cultivate your own companionship--something all of us should learn anyway. Doing so would make everyone think twice about starting some r'ships out of sheer desperation and b/c it beats being alone.
There's a big difference between being BY yourself and being WITH yourself. Continue to heal, feel your pain, then do something else. Get to know that wonderful, complete person--YOURSELF!--that you already are. Other people will come into your sphere when you're ready for them.
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What they said wasn't true; it's just that you believed them
As an American in the UK, I frequently have the piss taken out of me. Sometimes it's based on Ugly American stereotypes. Somtimes it's because our president is a bonafide idiot. Sometimes it's just because of my accent.
Here's the thing: none of those things even remotely describes me. I'm by no means an ugly American. I never voted for our idiot president, but if I'm responsible for every stupid thing he's done, does that make a British person responsible for Blair's disastrous decisions as well? (Of course not.) And as for my accent, it's actually quite mild, especially compared to the butchered English typically uttered by the uneducated yob who typically takes the piss out of me in this fashion.
I didn't always have this kind of understanding, and when the piss was first taken out of me, I felt hurt and offended. It took years to take full stock of myself -- as well as taking stock of the type of person who seeks to make others feel bad about being themselves -- before I realized that I don't have to play this game. Now, when some yob tries to insult me, I laugh. Often, he laughs back, and if we're at a pub, we continue getting drunk together.