essay about friends betrayal

Essay About Betrayal Of A Trusted Friend

Essay example on narrative about friend betrayal.

As a child growing up friends are everything. Your best friend is the one you share all your secrets with and trust them not to tell anyone. They are the one who knows everything about you and stands by your side through everything. For some, best friends may change frequently, but that wasn’t the case of Michelle and l. That was the type of friend Michelle was. We had been friends since the first grade and shared everything.

We never kept secrets from one another and more importantly, we never shared those secrets with anyone else. Well at least I didn’t. One fall I learned many important lessons in life.

The most important one was not to trust people. Sounds cynical I know, but I don’t know any other way to put it. I was 12 years old and trust had never been an issue for me, but that year brought on many changes.

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon my whole outlook on life changed. On a day that seemed like so many before, my brother-in-law raped me. Dealing with that was more than I knew how to handle. The betrayal of the one person I thought I could trust only added to the pain. A few weeks passed before I could even bring myself to tell Michelle. He had made me feel like it was my fault, that I had done something to deserve it.

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He has also convinced me that if my sister found out it would cause her to lose the baby she was carrying. At that time I really didn’t know any better so I believed him. Finally I realized I had to tell someone and of course Michelle was who I turned to. I explained what happened, how it made me feel, how it made me view things. Never in my life did I think she would tell anyone. Once again I was wrong, within three days it seemed the whole school knew. To make matters worse Michelle told people that it had been my fault. That it wasn’t rape at all, that I had agreed to it. Even worse she told them I was pregnant by him.

I couldn’t understand how she could do something like that to me. Here I was trying to cope with what had been done to me physically and she betrayed me in a way that I couldn’t even begin to understand. Granted, in time the talk moved on to something else as it always does in schools, and they all realized that I wasn’t pregnant. Still, the damage to me was already done. I learned the hard way the need to be careful who you trust. It is something that was remained with me to this day. After being betrayed by my best friend, it became nearly impossible to trust anyone. Betrayed by my best friend By eschewing 123

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If You Were Betrayed By A Friend, Here Is What You Should Do

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Betrayal is never pretty.

The focus tends to be on betrayal in romantic relationships, but the reality is that a betrayal by a close friend can be just as upsetting.

If this has happened to you, it’s not necessarily going to be an easy thing to get over.

If you decide that your friendship has come to an end, it’ll take you a while to adjust to life without them in it.

But if you want to keep this friend in your life, you’ll need to face up to what’s happened and work through your feelings before you can start to repair the relationship and move forwards.

Here are the steps you should take either way.

What To Do When A Friend Betrays You

1. accept that being betrayed by a friend is deeply hurtful..

If you find that you’ve been betrayed by a friend, it’s completely normal to be devastated by it.

Some people try to fight these feelings, not understanding why a friend could have such power over them, and why a betrayal on the part of the friend can rock their world so.

That’s largely down to the fact that we tend to place far more value on romantic and even familial relationships in our society and often ignore the power of friendships.

But if we’re honest with ourselves about our feelings, we start to appreciate just how important friendship is to us, and what a big impact it can have on our lives when it goes wrong.

Our friends are the ones who are there for us when we need them and are a constant presence in our lives.

They’re the family we choose, and the people we confide our innermost fears and desires to.

Whereas we don’t get to pick our families, and romantic partners often come and go, good friends are there for the long haul.

They see us at our best, and our worst, and every step along the way. And they love us just the way we are.

So, it’s important to remember that it’s totally legitimate for a friend’s betrayal to have cut you so deeply.

Don’t beat yourself up about it, but accept the feelings, give them their due importance and be prepared to examine them and work through them.

2. If you can, have an honest conversation with your friend.

Your friend might have betrayed you to such an extent that you’re not willing to speak to them face to face (at least not for a long while). And that’s your prerogative.

But if you can bring yourself to speak to them, an honest conversation could be the salvation of your friendship, or could at least help you to move on, even if you choose not to remain friends with them going forwards.

You both need to be totally honest about things, without letting your ego get in the way.

Give them a chance to explain the situation from their point of view. Even if it doesn’t make things better between you, hearing their reasons for acting the way they did might help you to understand the things that have happened.

This might not be relevant in your case, but you may also need to consider whether you’ve had a role to play in what’s happened.

If you haven’t been the best friend to them in recent times, that might have contributed to their behavior. That’s not an excuse for their betrayal, but it’s something to bear in mind.

3. Figure out why you feel so betrayed.

What is it specifically about what your friend did that has hurt you so?

You need to take some time to yourself to reflect on why this is hurting you so badly. What elements of what they did bothered you the most?

Was it a concrete action that you felt was a betrayal, or was it them withholding the truth about something from you?

It might be fairly obvious, but the main reasons you’re so hurt by it might be more complex than they appear to be on the surface.

4. Ask whether the relationship is worth saving.

So, you’ve had an honest talk with them about what happened, and you’ve had a chance to analyze the way it’s made you feel.

It’s now time to look to the future and decide whether the friendship you had with them is salvageable and, if so, if it’s really worth your while putting the effort in to patching things up with them.

How important are they in your life? Would your life be poorer without them in it? Are you willing to put the necessary work in to rebuild the friendship?

Was this betrayal entirely out of the blue, and out of character? Or has this person never really be the kind of friend you deserve?

Don’t just focus on how they’ve betrayed you in the present, but think back.

If they’ve consistently been a good friend to you in the past, there for you when you need them, providing you with good advice, being loyal, and enriching your life, then one betrayal might not be enough to counteract all that.

Or it might be. It’s entirely your decision.

5. Ask whether they are sorry.

Of course, a large part of how you move forwards will depend on how your friend is dealing with the situation.

If they can’t understand your feelings of betrayal and haven’t apologized or done what they can to improve matters and make things up to you, that might be an indication that the friendship doesn’t have a future.

If, on the other hand, they’ve shown remorse and are doing their best to make things up to you, that might be a sign that your friendship could survive their betrayal.

6. Don’t rush into a decision.

When we’re angry, we all make decisions that we later regret, and you don’t want the loss of a good friend to be the result of an impetuous decision you made in the heat of the moment.

Give yourself time to calm down and mull over the situation before you make any decisions.

It might be best to avoid speaking to the friend in question until you’ve regained some kind of equilibrium, so that you don’t say anything you might want to take back later on.

After all, if you know someone well, you’ll probably know just how to hit them where it hurts.

Try to focus on the fact that it would be horrible to sacrifice a lifetime of friendship by saying something you don’t mean when the red mist comes down.

7. Say goodbye.

Some betrayals are things you can work past and come back from. But sometimes, a betrayal can spell the end of a friendship.

If you’ve decided that that’s the case with this friendship, it’s time to cut the cord.

It’s your decision if you’d like to have a formal break-up conversation with them, or not. But you wouldn’t just end a romantic relationship without letting the other person know that it’s over, so maybe you should apply the same logic here.

It won’t be an easy conversation to have, but you might want to speak to them, letting them know why you can’t find it within you to forgive them, and that you no longer want them to be a part of your life.

That’ll provide closure for you both and might stop them from trying to contact you if you don’t want them to, which can make it easier for you to move on.

8. Or, forgive them.

On the other hand, you might come to the realization that, despite the betrayal, this person is extremely important to you, and you’re willing to forgive them and work toward building the friendship up again.

In order for you to be able to be friends again, you need to forgive them for what they did. You don’t necessarily have to forget about it entirely, and you probably never will, but you do have to genuinely forgive them in your heart of hearts.

Any lingering resentment will only spell trouble further down the line.

9. Don’t expect miracles overnight.

If you’ve decided to try to rebuild a friendship, don’t expect the two of you to be back to normal within the blink of an eye. Your friendship has been through the mill and is going to need some significant time to recover.

You both need time to process what’s happened and figure out what this new stage of your friendship is going to look like as you move forward.

Be patient with one another, and whenever you find things tough, remember why you’ve chosen to keep this person as part of your life.

And remember, just as it won’t be quick, it won’t be easy. When you decide to try to patch things up, you need to be aware that it’s going to take work and determination.

10. Remember: a good friend is a treasure.

If you want to forgive your friend and move on, but you’re finding it tough, just remember that good friends don’t grow on trees, and friendship is worth fighting for.

Betrayal can spell the end of friendships, but with a commitment on both your parts and love and care for one another, the best of friends can overcome anything.

Why Did My Friend Betray Me?

It can be surprising when someone you care about betrays your trust. Why would they do that to you?

Here are some possible explanations:

1. They didn’t value the friendship as much as you did.

Were you in a one-sided friendship ?

If you cared more about your friendship than they did, it could explain what happened. And why.

If your friend didn’t value your friendship, they weren’t afraid of losing it either. So, backstabbing you was worth the risk to them.

Your friendship was less important to them than doing what they did to hurt you.

They prioritized their happiness over a friendship that they were fine with losing.

2. They wanted to end the friendship.

What if your friends did this to sabotage your friendship?

If they didn’t want to end the friendship directly, they could have been two-faced to make the friendship end on its own.

At best, they didn’t care if the friendship ended. But they may have betrayed you on purpose because they wanted things to end.

They were too afraid to face you and tell you this, so they caused you a trauma to make you leave on your own.

It’s one of the more brutal explanations for friend betrayal.

3. They made an impulsive mistake.

Let’s give your friend the benefit of the doubt. What if they didn’t mean to hurt you?

If what they did was an impulsive mistake, they will feel bad about it, apologize, and try to make up for it.

Sometimes people do things out of impulse that they regret later on.

If your friend regrets what they did, you might want to consider giving them a chance to regain your trust.

People make mistakes, and if your friend wasn’t thinking straight when they did what they did, they probably didn’t mean to cause you pain.

4. They were suffering from poor mental health.

People sometimes do bad things because they’re suffering from stress, depression, anxiety, or some other mental health issue.

How has your friend been feeling lately? Were they in a bad mood for a while now, and could some major stress in their life explain what happened?

If your friend is suffering from poor mental health, you should try to show some understanding. They probably regret what they did.

Maybe they can explain to you what made them feel like it was the right choice at that precise moment.

Of course, you may not want to let them off the hook if this is a repeated behavior. It is okay—healthy even—to let a friend go if their poor mental health is harming your well-being over a prolonged period of time.

5. They were mad at you.

People will want to hurt you when they are mad at you, even if they are your friends.

If you betrayed your friend first, they probably wanted to hurt you back.

But they could want to hurt you even if you did nothing to them.

They could be mad at you because of a disagreement you had and decide to punish you by breaking your trust.

Backstabbing can often be used as a form of revenge or punishment.

6. They are just self-centered.

Does your friend only think about themselves? Did they prioritize their needs like they always do?

If your friend is self-centered, they probably put their happiness, needs, or wants above a friendship with you.

Your friend only cares about themselves and may even be a narcissist. To be honest, this is a classic sign of a fake friend who doesn’t really care about you.

It could have been a situation where they had to choose between you and themselves, and they put themselves first like they always do.

7. They couldn’t control their emotions.

Emotions can cause people to do crazy things, and spiteful things as well.

Your friend may have betrayed you because they couldn’t control their emotions.

Maybe they were mad at you, in love with someone, or sad about something that happened.

They could have even been too drunk to control themselves or under the influence of drugs. If your friend would never betray you sober, they may have done it because of too many drinks.

8. They prioritized their romantic relationship.

Most people will prioritize a romantic relationship over a friendship.

If your friend betrayed you because they had to choose between their partner and you, they just prioritized their romantic relationship.

This may not feel right to you, but it’s a choice most people will make in that situation.

Although friendships can last longer than romantic relationships, people tend to prioritize the latter.

Examples Of Betrayal

In which way did your friend betray you? Here are the most common examples of betrayal in friendships:

You have every right to doubt your friend’s loyalty if they have been dishonest or deceitful.

Sometimes friends tell white little lies to protect your feelings, but even that could be considered a betrayal of your trust depending on the context.

For instance, a friend could lie to you that your zit is barely noticeable when it’s actually huge. That is certainly not the same as if they would lie about their feelings for you or their true intentions.

2. Gossiping.

Do your friends talk behind your back?

If they gossip about other people to you, you can bet that they gossip about you to others too.

They could even be spreading rumors, whether those rumors are true or made up.

If your friend is two-faced, you should reconsider your friendship.

But, bear in mind that gossip is not always the same as badmouthing you to others.

It’s not the same when your friend gossips about how much your new car costs and when they badmouth you by highlighting your negative qualities.

But they could also be spilling the beans about your personal life. Revealing your secrets is a huge break of trust.

3. Stealing.

Your friend could steal from you. They could steal your money, your personal belongings, your credit cards, or even your boyfriend or girlfriend.

It’s better to have enemies than bad friends like these, but it happens.

This is not the same as borrowing small things and never giving them back. Although that is a nasty habit too, it is not the same as deliberately stealing valuable things from you.

4. Keeping secrets.

Did your friend keep secrets from you?

If you needed to know something and they kept quiet about it, it is similar to lying to you.

Withholding information could be a form of being dishonest.

Your friend shouldn’t have to tell you everything that happens in their life, but they should tell you things that affect you, as well as the important information about them that could affect your friendship.

5. Being disrespectful.

An act of betrayal could be a sign that your friend doesn’t respect you .

If they disrespect your boundaries, they’re not a good friend to you.

They should respect your boundaries if you’ve clearly communicated what you will and won’t tolerate.

A friend might also act disrespectfully to you in public by putting you down or even humiliating you . You don’t need friends like that in your life.

Don’t tolerate it if your friend puts you down or humiliates you when you’re alone either. Friends tease and joke, but good friends never cross the line.

6. Breaking promises.

What if your friend constantly makes promises that they can’t keep?

They get your hopes up for nothing and leave you disappointed.

If they promised to do or not do something, they should stick to their word.

Sometimes, it can happen that a person can’t keep their promise for reasons that are out of their control. But frequently making and breaking promises is a whole other thing.

7. Using you.

Unfortunately, your friend could be using you , whether it’s for your money, time, attention, or something else.

When someone has a hidden agenda for being friends with you, they’re not really your friends.

Your friends should genuinely like you for who you are, and you should help each other and support each other.

But using someone is never mutual like that, and one person always gives more while the other just takes.

8. Cheating.

How can a friend cheat on you? Obviously, this is not the same as cheating in a romantic relationship.

But, betraying your loyalty is a form of cheating.

Whether your friends broke your trust by lying to you, revealing your secrets, or in any other way, they cheated.

Cheating could also mean that your friend befriends someone else and prioritizes them over you, even if you introduced them in the first place.

The Damaging Effects Of Friend Betrayal

What can a betrayal from a friend do to you and your mental health? Here are the most common effects of friend betrayal:

Naturally, this situation will cause you a lot of stress.

Why did they do it? What else did they do that you don’t know about yet?

Can you ever trust them again? Can you trust anyone again?

Questions like these could put you under a lot of stress. You could also have mood swings, from being stressed to feeling numb and back and forth.

2. Feeling hurt.

It hurts when someone you love betrays you.

Betrayal is a type of trauma that needs a lot of time to heal.

You could be feeling hurt for months after the incident happened, or even hold onto a grudge for years.

It’s hard to forgive someone for hurting you so much. But it is advised that you forgive your friends whether you want to stay friends with them or not.

It will help you move on and recover from this faster.

3. Being disappointed.

It’s only natural to feel let down by your friend . You expected more from them.

What they did left you disappointed in them, and possibly in the the whole world.

How could they have done this to you? How could you have let yourself trust them?

If you didn’t see the betrayal coming, you’re probably asking yourself tough questions like these.

You might even be disappointed in yourself for letting yourself trust this person and not noticing the truth earlier.

4. Being shocked and confused.

You probably didn’t expect your friend to betray you, so their behavior left you shocked and confused.

You could start doubting everything they ever told you because you don’t know what to think anymore.

It’s confusing how someone so close to you could stab you in the back.

You don’t understand their motivation and reasoning for doing what they did.

Didn’t they know that they could lose you? Why were they willing to risk that happening?

5. Low self-esteem.

Your self-esteem may take a hit by all this, especially if your friend was putting you down or badmouthing you.

Maybe they even betrayed you by stealing your boyfriend or girlfriend.

You could have problems with low self-esteem because of it.

Luckily, you can work on your self-esteem and feel better again.

But never let your friend repeat what they did.

6. Trust issues.

This bad experience could leave you with trust issues.

It’s not just that you’ll have trouble trusting that particular friend, but you’ll also find it hard to trust people in general.

You can work on your trust issues with a therapist.

Don’t let one bad experience ruin more of your friendships and relationships.

7. Feeling grief.

You are probably overwhelmed with a sense of loss. You’re grieving the loss of trust, and possibly the loss of the friendship.

If you need to cry or let out your pain in another healthy way, don’t hesitate to do so.

Take all the time you need to grieve in peace before you are ready to move on.

8. Need for revenge.

What if you want to get back at your friend for hurting you?

If you’re angry, you could be thinking about revenge.

However, this is a very bad idea.

Even if they did something terrible to you, don’t stoop to their level. It’s a much better idea to learn to forgive them and let go.

You may also like:

• 9 Ways Of Dealing With Betrayal And Healing From The Hurt
• How To Forgive Someone: 2 Science-Based Models Of Forgiveness
• How To Accept An Apology And Respond To Someone Who’s Sorry
• How To Let Go Of Anger: The 7 Stages From Rage To Release

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About The Author

Katie is a writer and translator with a focus on travel, self-care and sustainability. She's based between a cave house in Granada, Spain, and the coast of beautiful Cornwall, England. She spends her free time hiking, exploring, eating vegan tapas and volunteering for a local dog shelter.

Disappointed by Friends: Coping with Betrayal and Letdown

Feeling let down by friends is a universal experience we’ve all faced at one point or another. Disappointment can come in many forms, and it’s often brought on by the people closest to us. We tend to hold our friends to high standards, expecting them to be there when we need them most and share in our joy during the best times. But what happens when they fall short of these expectations?

As an expert blogger, I’ve navigated my fair share of friendship woes. From small slights that sting, like missing important events, to more significant problems like betrayal or loss of trust – I’ve seen it all. And while every situation is unique, there are certain patterns and steps that can help anyone dealing with disappointment from their friends.

There’s no denying it: being disappointed by your friends hurts. It’s not just because you thought they’d always be there for you; it’s also because these relationships form such a crucial part of your social support system. Yet despite this pain, remember that feeling letdown doesn’t mean you’re alone or that your friendship is doomed forever.

Understanding the Feeling of Disappointment

Feeling disappointed by friends is something I’ve grappled with, and it’s an emotion that can hit us hard. It’s like a punch in the gut when those we hold dear let us down. But what does this feeling really mean? And why does it hurt so much?

Disappointment is a complex emotion. It’s not just sadness or frustration, but rather a cocktail of both, stirred with a dash of betrayal and sprinkling of self-doubt. When it comes from our friends – the people we trust and rely on – it feels magnified. We question their loyalty and perhaps even our own judgement.

Have you ever felt your heart sink at a friend’s broken promise? Or experienced anger bubble up when they cancel plans last minute? These reactions reflect our expectations being shattered, creating that bitter taste of disappointment.

When we consider friendship statistics:

It becomes clear that feeling disappointed by friends isn’t uncommon.

Let me share an anecdote to illustrate this point further. A good friend promised to help me move apartments one weekend. They canceled last minute due to another engagement, leaving me stranded. My initial reaction was disbelief followed by disappointment – both in my friend for failing to honor their commitment, and in myself for relying on them.

Understanding disappointment helps us manage these feelings better. Recognizing their roots can guide us towards healthier relationships where expectations align more closely with reality.

Remember that feeling disappointed doesn’t make you unreasonable or needy; it makes you human! Even best friends can disappoint each other as no one’s perfect – including ourselves! Reflecting on these experiences can present valuable learning opportunities about ourselves and how we relate to others.

Common Reasons for Being Disappointed by Friends

It’s not uncommon to feel let down by those closest to us. One of the most heart-wrenching experiences in life is feeling disappointed by friends. Let’s dive into some common reasons why this may occur.

Firstly, broken promises can be a major source of disappointment. We all expect our friends to keep their word and when they don’t, it hurts. For instance, you might have been looking forward to a planned outing that never happened because your friend flaked out at the last minute without any explanation.

Secondly, lack of support during difficult times can also lead to feelings of disappointment. We tend to turn towards our friends when we’re going through tough times and their absence or indifference can be hard to swallow. Imagine losing your job and instead of being there for you, your friend brushes off your worries saying “you’ll find another one.”

Next on the list is betrayal; nothing stings quite like it. This could range from spreading confidential information, backstabbing or siding with others against you in an argument. These actions break trust and leave us questioning the whole friendship.

Lastly, unequal efforts in maintaining the relationship often cause frustration and disappointment as well. Friendships require work from both parties; if only one person is putting in all the energy while the other barely contributes, it becomes draining over time.

So there you have it – four common scenarios where friends might disappoint you: broken promises, lack of support during rough patches, betrayal and unequal investment in the relationship.

The Psychological Impact of Friend-Based Disappointment

Feeling let down by a friend can be incredibly hurtful. I’ve found that this type of disappointment often leads to a whirlwind of emotions, which can take a serious toll on one’s mental health. It’s not uncommon for individuals to experience feelings of betrayal, anger, sadness, or even despair when they are disappointed by someone they considered close.

Now, it’s important to understand that every person reacts differently to friend-based disappointments. For some people, the pain might lead them into a state of isolation as they try to cope with the emotional blow. Others might react in an outwardly aggressive manner, leading to potential conflicts and further strain on relationships.

Research has shown that such experiences can have long-term psychological implications too. According to a study conducted by the American Psychological Association (APA), individuals who frequently face disappointment from their friends tend to develop trust issues over time. This could impact their ability to form meaningful connections in the future.

Moreover, sustained periods of stress resulting from these disappointments can result in physical symptoms like headaches and sleep problems. In more severe cases, it may even contribute towards mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety.

• Sleep problems

To sum things up: whether it’s an unkept promise or unexpected betrayal – friend-based disappointments have significant psychological impacts. They affect not just our emotional well-being but also our physical health and interpersonal relationships moving forward.

Personal Stories: Experiences with Friendship Letdowns

Let me share a few personal stories that I’ve collected over the years about experiences with friendship letdowns. These are real-life accounts from various individuals, each one unique and revealing in its own way.

One of my acquaintances, let’s call him Mark, had a childhood friend who he trusted implicitly. They’d been inseparable since kindergarten and shared many life milestones together. But as they grew older, their paths started to diverge. Mark worked hard to make a stable career while his friend fell into some bad habits. Despite this, Mark stuck by his side believing that true friendship could weather any storm. Unfortunately, his trust was betrayed when he found out his friend had been stealing money from him for months to support his habits. This incident left Mark deeply hurt and disappointed.

Then there’s Sarah’s story – she was part of a tight-knit group of friends throughout high school and college . Always being there for each other was their motto but things changed after graduation when everyone moved away for jobs or further studies. Sarah felt abandoned as her friends became more engrossed in their new lives and stopped making efforts to keep in touch regularly despite her attempts to do so.

I also met Anna during an event where she opened up about her experience with toxic friendships where her ‘friends’ repeatedly belittled her achievements under the guise of humor or constructive criticism which eroded her self-esteem over time.

• Mark – Betrayed by best friend
• Sarah – Felt abandoned after friends moved away
• Anna – Experienced toxic behavior

These stories underline how friendship letdowns can come in different forms but they all result in similar feelings of disappointment and betrayal.

How to Communicate Your Feelings to Your Friends

Let’s dive into the heart of the matter – expressing your feelings to friends when you’re disappointed. It’s a tricky balance, but it certainly isn’t impossible.

First, a good starting point is honesty. Just as you’d appreciate truth from them, they’ll likely respect it from you too. Tell them how their actions or words have affected you without blaming or accusing them outright. Instead of saying “You always let me down,” try something along the lines of “I felt let down when XYZ happened.” This way, you’re not attacking their character, but sharing your personal experience.

Next up is timing. Timing can often be key in such scenarios. It’s best to bring up your concerns when both parties are calm and open for discussion rather than in the heat of an argument or immediately after an upsetting event.

• Choose a neutral setting: A quiet place where you can talk without interruptions.
• Be clear about what hurt you: Instead of giving vague descriptions, provide specific examples.
• Use ‘I’ statements: Instead of saying ‘you did this’, say ‘this made me feel…’.

Now here’s something interesting! According to a study by University College London, emotions are contagious among friends. This means that if we’re feeling upset and don’t communicate it effectively, there’s a chance our negativity could spread within our friend group.

Lastly, remember that everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect – including yourself! Give your friends room for error and opportunities for growth just as much as you’d want them to do the same for you.

In conclusion (remember we discussed avoiding this phrase?), effective communication requires patience, understanding and most importantly – practice! So give it time and keep trying until it works out!

And before I sign off on this section – don’t forget that sometimes we need professional help navigating through certain situations. If conversations with your friends aren’t helping or your disappointment is causing distress, reach out to a mental health professional. They’re equipped to guide you through these tricky times.

Approaches to Overcoming Disappointment in Friendships

Navigating the waters of friendship isn’t always smooth sailing. There are times when we’re let down by those we care about the most. When that happens, it’s crucial to know how to cope with disappointment.

One method is honest communication. It’s easier said than done, but addressing your feelings openly can pave the way for understanding and resolution. Let your friend know what you’ve been feeling and why. You’ll be surprised at how much a simple conversation can clear up misunderstandings.

Another approach is setting boundaries. If you’re constantly feeling disappointed, it might be time to reassess what you’re willing to accept from others. Setting boundaries does not mean pushing your friends away; rather, it ensures mutual respect and understanding within the relationship.

Learning to manage expectations can also help prevent future disappointments. We often build up scenarios in our minds about how situations should play out or how people should behave – only to be let down when reality doesn’t match these fantasies.

Lastly, don’t overlook self-care during this process. It’s important not just for overcoming disappointment, but for general mental well-being too! Take time out for yourself: read a book, take a walk in nature or indulge in some chocolate therapy – whatever makes you feel better!

• Honest Communication
• Set Boundaries
• Manage Expectations

These strategies aren’t foolproof and they require effort and patience on your part – but they’re definitely worth trying if you want healthier friendships moving forward!

Tips for Building More Fulfilling Friendships

There’s no denying it: friendships are crucial to our well-being. They can bring joy, improve health, and provide comfort during times of sorrow. But what happens when these relationships fall short? When they leave us feeling disappointed or unfulfilled? Here are a few tips I’ve gathered on how to build more fulfilling friendships.

First up, let’s talk about communication. It’s key in any relationship but especially so in friendships. Open and honest conversations are the bedrock of lasting connections. Make it a point to actively listen when your friends speak, showing empathy towards their feelings and experiences.

Next is mutual respect. This might seem like a given yet it’s often overlooked in the hustle and bustle of life. Show appreciation for your friends’ time, opinions, and boundaries – just as you’d want them to do for you.

Then there’s reliability – being there when your friends need you most. You don’t have to always have all the answers; sometimes an empathetic ear or shoulder to lean on can make all the difference.

Now we come to shared interests – that glue that binds many great friendships together! Engaging in activities you both enjoy not only creates memorable experiences but also deepens the bond between you two.

Lastly but certainly not least, be patient with yourself and others as these changes take time. Rome wasn’t built in a day nor will your dream friendship be! Keep nurturing these aspects into your relationships consistently over time.

Remember this isn’t an exhaustive list by any means; each friendship is unique after all! However, practicing these tips could go a long way towards building more fulfilling friendships that enrich rather than drain your life.

Conclusion: Turning Disappointment into Growth

It’s never easy when friends let us down. We build our trust and hopes around them, and it stings when those expectations are unmet. But here’s a secret I’ve learned: disappointment can be a catalyst for growth.

Let’s dive deeper into this idea. When we’re disappointed by friends, it forces us to look inward and reassess our relationships. It nudges us to establish boundaries , respect our own needs, and value ourselves more.

• It pushes us to become better communicators.
• It urges us to express our feelings honestly.
• And most importantly, it teaches us the art of forgiveness.

Now don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting that we should welcome disappointment with open arms. But if it does come knocking at the door, we shouldn’t fear it either. Instead, let’s use it as an opportunity to grow stronger and wiser.

Remember these points:

• Every friendship has its ups and downs.
• Disappointment doesn’t signify the end; rather, it can be a new beginning.
• Most importantly—growth often comes from places we least expect.

So next time you find yourself feeling disappointed by a friend—pause. Remember this is your chance to learn something about yourself and about the nature of friendships in general.

In wrapping up this discussion on being disappointed by friends—it’s essential to remember that everyone makes mistakes—even our closest pals! So before you judge too harshly or make any hasty decisions—give them space for improvement—and give yourself room for personal growth too!

Disappointments may sting—but they also shape who we become. They help forge resilience, foster empathy, and fuel personal development—if only we allow them.

That’s my final thought on turning disappointment into growth—a bitter pill perhaps but one that ultimately promotes healing and self-improvement in ways you might not have imagined before! Don’t let disappointment pull you down. Instead, leverage it for your personal growth and transformation.

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• Relationships

Betrayal and Human Relationships

Betrayal is a part of life and can improve future relationships..

Posted November 29, 2021 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• Why Relationships Matter
• Find a therapist to strengthen relationships
• Betrayal can occur in any kind of relationship; the only people who can betray you are people you trust.
• The intensity of the relationship determines the intensity of the emotional stress caused by the betrayal.
• Don’t miss out on a close personal relationship because someone betrayed you in the past.

Friends betray friends. Siblings betray siblings. Lovers betray lovers.

Betrayal can occur in all relationships. The intensity of the relationship determines the intensity of the emotional stress caused by the betrayal. The more intense the relationship, the more intense the betrayal is. For example, a salesperson who lies to you about the qualities of a product you are buying is an act of betrayal. The effects of this betrayal are slight because you and the salesperson only shared a brief relationship. Conversely, if a romantic partner cheats on you, the effects of that betrayal can present significant interpersonal trauma. The consequences of betrayal can range from disappointment in less intense relationships to post- traumatic stress in more intense relationships.

Trust is the key component of all relationships.

Without trust, betrayal cannot occur. The only people who can betray you are people you trust. The emotional impact of betrayal increases with the level of trust you have in the person who betrayed you.

The emotional impact of betrayal can range from disappointment in less intense relationships and repulsion due to the lack of integrity of the person who betrayed you to fear of losing a close relationship, especially a romantic connection. Trust is fragile. Regaining trust is difficult, if not impossible.

When people are betrayed, they often consciously or unconsciously seek revenge . The betrayed person’s world suddenly destabilized, often causing grief , a sense of loss, and depression . Revenge is a form of “justice” or “fairness” that can restore a collapsing world. Revenge destroys not only the target of the revenge but also the person seeking revenge. Revenge hijacks emotional energy that could otherwise be spent recovering from the aftermath of betrayal and seeking new, more stable relationships.

Another consequence of betrayal is the fear of being emotionally hurt again.

To avoid being emotionally hurt again, the betrayed person will often build an emotional wall to prevent people from getting too close. People hiding behind emotional walls often sabotage relationships that become too intense to avoid the possibility of future betrayal. People entrenched behind emotional walls often experience loneliness and isolation. The pain of loneliness and isolation is less intense than the pain of betrayal.

The pain of loneliness and betrayal often mutates to victimhood, which provides a sense of emotional comfort. The problem with cowering behind an emotional wall is that the entrenched person often experiences a conundrum. They desire a close personal relationship with other humans but are reluctant to foster new relationships because they are afraid of experiencing the possibility of another emotional disaster.

Emotional walls provide safety but prevent the person from experiencing the true happiness that comes from close relationships with other humans. Intrinsic to human relationships is the possibility of betrayal. This cannot be avoided. Shunning close personal relationships is not the answer.

Building and sustaining personal relationships is a learning process.

Past failures serve as guidelines for future behavior. Eventually, through the trial-and-error method, people discover what works for them and what does not work for them. Betrayal is part of the learning process.

People cross busy streets every day, knowing they could get hit by a car and suffer devastating injuries and even death. People get into automobiles without giving a second thought to the possibility of getting into an accident. People board airplanes every day, accepting the possibility the plane could suddenly fall from the sky. People engage in risky behaviors because the benefit of the activities far outweighs the possibilities of catastrophic failure. Accepting the possibility of betrayal in personal relationships is just another risk on the long list of risky behaviors people undertake every day.

The pain of betrayal cannot be avoided. However, knowing the emotional consequences of betrayal before it occurs often mitigates the pain of betrayal. Accepting the fact that betrayals are a normal part of life reduces their emotional intensity.

If there is an upside to betrayal, it is this: True happiness has no meaning without experiencing true sadness.

John R. "Jack" Schafer, Ph.D., is a behavioral analyst for the FBI, and is the author of The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over.

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At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that could derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face triggers with less reactivity and get on with our lives.

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Why betrayal of friends hurts so much

When we think of betrayal, we often think of betrayal in romantic relationships and marriages. While such betrayals are obviously very damaging to the victim, the betrayal of friends can be damaging as well. Yet, people don’t talk about it that often.

In this article, we’ll discuss the phenomenon of friendship betrayal. Focusing on the betrayal of friends is important because almost all relationships start out as friendships. If you can understand and deal with betrayal at the friendship level, you might handle it at the relationship level as well.

Betrayal and close relationships

We humans have certain needs that can only be met by forming close relationships and friendships with others. These are give-and-take relationships where we get benefits from others while simultaneously providing benefits to them.

For betrayal to happen, you have to first invest in the person. If you’re not invested at all in them, there’s no risk of betrayal.

A stranger is least likely to betray you. Even if they do, it doesn’t hurt as much as a betrayal coming from a close friend. Your enemies can’t betray you. You’re not invested in these people. You don’t trust them to begin with.

In friendships, however, you invest your time, energy and resources. You only do that because you expect things from them in return. If you get very little or nothing back, you feel betrayed.

The psychological experience of betrayal

The degree of hurt you feel when you’re betrayed is proportional to how much you were invested in the friendship. The feelings of hurt are there to motivate you to re-evaluate your relationship with the betrayer.

You can’t keep on investing in a person, getting no returns. When you feel bad after someone betrays you, your mind is basically giving you a chance to redirect your investments elsewhere.

Our ancestors who didn’t evolve such a mechanism would have kept investing in non-fruitful friendships and alliances at their own expense.

Therefore, we have this cheater-detector mechanism in our minds that is sensitive to cues of betrayal. 1

In other words, even if we get a whiff of betrayal in a close relationship, we’re likely to jump on it. Letting such instances pass would have been too costly for our ancestors.

In short, we enter friendships with certain expectations. We invest in the other person and try to cultivate trust. When that trust is violated, we feel betrayed. The feelings of betrayal motivate us to avoid future betrayals from the same person and redirect our investments elsewhere.

Intentional vs unintentional betrayal

Just because you feel betrayed doesn’t necessarily mean your friend intentionally betrayed you. As mentioned in the previous section, our cheater-detector mechanism is highly active and ready to jump on and call out instances of betrayal. It just wants to protect us.

However, it’s crucial to differentiate between intentional and unintentional betrayal. Only when you can be sure that your friend has intentionally betrayed you should you consider a course of action like terminating your friendship with them.

Before that, you have to give them a chance to explain their side of the story. Of course, this might give them a chance to lie or make up excuses. But if their story holds up, it’s more likely that you were too quick to doubt them.

That is likely to be the case if they’ve had an excellent track record with you. You’ve had no reason to doubt them in the past. If you often find yourself doubting that person, it’s likely that they’re dishonest. The frequency matters here.

A study asked people to describe instances where they betrayed others and instances where they were betrayed. When the subjects talked about instances where they betrayed the other person, they mostly blamed themselves but not their stable personality traits. 2

They attributed their betrayal to their temporary mental and emotional states. For example, “I was going through a rough period” or “I couldn’t resist the temptation” or “I was intoxicated”.

In contrast, when describing episodes where they were betrayed, they mostly blamed the other person’s stable personality traits . For example, “They have an inherent weakness” or “They have no self-control” or “They lack principles”.

This is why, before accusing someone of betrayal, one should always seek to collect as much information about the situation as possible.

The challenge of friendship and betrayal

One could live in a cave somewhere and totally eliminate the risk of being betrayed, ever. Some people do just that. For most of us, that isn’t an option because we’re willing to risk betrayal to have our important needs met by others.

The challenge of friendship and betrayal is this:

On one hand, we want to get close to a person to have our companionship and intimacy needs met. On the other hand, the closer we get to someone, the more power give them to betray us.

You can’t really get close to someone if you don’t share your life, secrets, and vulnerabilities with them. 3

Yet, when they betray you, they’re likely to use those very things against you.

Hence, knowing how to protect yourself from the betrayal of friends is one of the most important life skills you can learn.

How to protect yourself from betrayal

Your friend is likely to betray you when they believe they have more to gain from the betrayal than from your friendship. If you can tweak this simple math in your favor, you can significantly reduce your chances of getting betrayed.

Here are some things you can do to reduce the chances of getting betrayed:

1. Have a solid ground for friendship

What’s your friendship based on? I hope you’ve already disabused yourself of the notion of unconditional friendship. There’s simply no such thing.

You probably made this person your friend because you hoped to get something from them. You probably saw them as someone who could help you meet your important needs.

They did the same. They thought they could gain something valuable from you. It’s often hard to pinpoint what mutual benefits a friendship might be based on.

Maybe your friend thought you were smart and could help him with assignments. Maybe your friend thought you’re funny and would make them feel good.

There are many benefits people can gain by being in friendships. These benefits are often comparable in magnitude. In other words, one can’t give their friend much more than they get. This is why you don’t see the rich being friends with the poor. Sure, they might help the poor with charity and stuff, but from a distance.

If a rich person did become friends with a poor person, the latter will gain much more from the friendship than they can give. This imbalance is what makes such friendships extremely rare.

Anyway, the key to avoiding betrayal is to give your friend something they can’t gain elsewhere. If they mainly became your friend because you could help them with studying, then as soon as they graduate, they have no reason to continue being your friend.

In contrast, a friendship that is built on more lasting foundations such as personality traits, shared values, beliefs, and interests is likely to last long. There is minimal risk of betrayal here because you can continue giving them what they want as long as you continue being who you are.

It’s unlikely that your personality will undergo a drastic change. Or that they’ll come across another person who’s just like you- has your unique combination of personality, values, and interests.

By looking for such a solid ground for friendship, you can get better at choosing friends from the outset. Prevention is always better than cure.

2. Be mindful of the shadow of the future

If your newly-made friend knows they won’t interact very much with you in the future, the odds of them betraying you shoot up. Although betrayal does happen in old friendships, new friendships are a breeding ground for betrayal.

If your friendship has a short shadow of the future, your friend can easily get away with betraying you. When they believe they can minimize the costs of betraying you by not interacting with you in the future, they’d be more willing to betray you.

This is one reason people who’ve been betrayed and do nothing to punish those betrayers are likely to get betrayed again and again. They’re basically putting a message out there that they’re okay with being betrayed. This encourages potential betrayers even more because they know that the costs of betraying will be low.

When making new friends, it’s a good idea to give some thought to whether it has the potential to last. If it doesn’t, you might only expose yourself to betrayal.

3. Calibrate your opening up to people

You can’t go around opening yourself up to people. You can’t blindly trust everyone. I know this is the age of sharing, social media and public personal lives, but oversharing exposes you to betrayal.

If you’re like most people, you come across a person you’d like to be friends with, and you open yourself up to them. You hope that the other person will also open themselves up to you.  

This is a risky strategy. You may find that you’ve opened yourself up to this person, but they haven’t, not nearly to the same extent. Now, if the friendship turns sour, you’ve given them all the weapons to destroy you.

“It’s hard to tell who has your back from who has it long enough just to stab you in it.” – Nicole Richie

Ideally, you want them to open up first and then calibrate your opening up to their opening up. If they reveal little to you, you do the same. If they reveal a lot, you do too. Your revelations should follow theirs. This way, you’ll always be one step ahead of them.

If the friendship turns sour and they threaten to release your secrets out into the world, you’ll have a whole lot of their secrets to reveal as well. This strategy immunizes you to betrayal.

The only problem with this approach is that you may not come across many people willing to open themselves up to you. I think that’s a good thing because this way you’ll steer clear of most betrayers. Sure, you might end up with fewer friends, but at least you can count on them.

The good news is that if someone makes the effort to open up to you and tries to cultivate trust with you, they’re least likely to betray you. Generally, the more trusting a person is, the less likely they are to break others’ trust. 4

If you still want to open yourself up first because you really like the person, you should at least be mindful of how much they’re reciprocating. Don’t open yourself up all at once, but gradually, making sure the other person is reciprocating.

Ultimately, however, you should always seek to balance the friendship. You know, make it an equal give-and-take. The best friendships are balanced. They don’t have an imbalance of giving and taking, sharing, and revealing vulnerabilities.

• Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). Cognitive adaptations for social exchange.  The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture ,  163 , 163-228.
• Jones, W. H., Couch, L., & Scott, S. (1997). Trust and betrayal: The psychology of getting along and getting ahead. In  Handbook of personality psychology  (pp. 465-482). Academic Press.
• Rempel, J. K., Holmes, J. G., & Zanna, M. P. (1985). Trust in close relationships.  Journal of personality and social psychology ,  49 (1), 95.
• Rotter, J. B. (1980). Interpersonal trust, trustworthiness, and gullibility.  American psychologist ,  35 (1), 1.

Hi, I’m Hanan Parvez (MA Psychology). I’ve published over 500 articles and authored one book. My work has been featured in Forbes , Business Insider , Reader’s Digest , and Entrepreneur .

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Betrayal and friendship

2009, Society and Business Review

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Introduction In the past few years the charge of “betrayal” has become all too common. Yet, with all the fanfare and publicity attached to these charges, there has been surprisingly little written about what we even mean by the term. It clearly matters a great deal to us. An act of betrayal makes us appreciate Dante’s reserving the innermost ring of the Inferno for the betrayers. We can even say there is a characteristic “feel” to betrayal. The betrayed experience powerful sensations of violation; they feel used and damaged. Betrayal, however, elicits more than strong feelings. Psychologists offer clinical evidence attesting to the devastating effects of betrayal.1 Betrayal acts as an assault on the integrity of individuals, affecting the capacity to trust, undermining confidence in judgment, and contracting the possibilities of the world by increasing distrust and scepticism.2 Betrayal changes not only our sense of the world, but our sensibility toward the world. A charge of betray...

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This article investigates the impact of different emotions on trust decisions taking into account the experience of betrayal. Thus, an experiment was created that included one betrayal group and one control group. Participants in the betrayal group experienced more intense feelings governed by negative emotions than participants in the control group did. Moreover, participants in the betrayal group significantly lowered their trust of another stranger. On the other hand, we found some evidence that neuroticism exaggerated the relationship between experienced betrayal and subsequent trust.

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In this revised 3rd Edition (published by Wynword Press, 2013), Chapter 1, Journey From Betrayal To Trust: A Universal Rite of Passage, Hedva introduces the radical notion that betrayal, and the necessity to heal shock and injury --(be it from family violence, abandonment, neglect, addictions ...and more)--actually prepares a person to respond to collective betrayals, like social injustice (Chapter 7-Betrayal of Society) and environmental disasters (Chapter 8-Betrayal of the Planet). Real life stories blended with archetypal mythic themes are woven together to map-out how any betrayal, personal or political, often evokes five common reactions 1) A call for vengeance, vindication, or retribution that leads to obsession about the betrayal, 2) Demonizing or dehumanizing the betrayer, 3) Generalizing the negative to others through stereotyping, prejudice and bigotry, 4) Self-betrayal--where we no longer trust ourselves or our judgment, 5) Suspicion, fear, control, and manipulation to protect against future betrayals. Hedva shows how each of these challenges become a test of character and an opportunity to reorient ourselves toward more life-sustaining choices. Just as reaction patterns to injury is predictable, this work defines how the steps to healing also follow a distinct pattern of growth, consistent with the stages of growth in ancient and indigenous rites of passage, in which one confronts existential crisis and 'symbolic death' to awaken spiritual insight into the challenges one faces, which inspires a transition into Self-renewal or symbolic rebirth and a return to one's community. The book contains 9 chapters focusing on different betrayal wounds to motivate and guide the reader step-by-step through each stage of growth, going from retribution to reconciliation and forgiveness.

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Betrayal is proposed in this dissertation as a concept that is informed by political theory and by curatorial concepts. Betrayal is conceptualized here as an entanglement of antagonistic relations. It is proposed as an engagement with an antagonism while withdrawing from its underlying logic. Betrayal is presented as a variety of approaches through a set of proposals which include exhaustion, anachronism, fictionalism, demonstration and acting. Written in the context of curatorial work in Israel-Palestine, this dissertation proposes several qualities of the field of the curatorial and applies them to political theory. Betrayal is considered operational through the field of the curatorial as the curatorial provides a setting for activating potentialities. In the three chapters of this dissertation, Betrayal is developed through an active reading of the lives and work of several figures as method: Alcibiades son of Cleinias, a fifth century BC Athenian politician; the last book publis...

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Friendship betrayal: Why it hurts so much

Navigate the turbulent seas of emotional betrayal and discover your route to recovery and personal growth.

• 1 The depth of emotional investment
• 2 The role of trust in friendship
• 3 Feelings of deceit and disillusionment
• 4 The impact on self-esteem
• 5 The way forward

Friendship is a precious gift that can bring immense joy and fulfillment. It’s built on a foundation of mutual respect , trust, and affection, and often leads to a deep emotional bond that can feel like an extension of ourselves.

But what happens when that bond is broken? What happens when the friend you trusted and cared for betrays you? The pain can be intense, and the hurt can run deep.

This piece explores the complex emotions that arise when we feel betrayed by a friend. It’s a meaningful exploration of a difficult topic that many of us can relate to.

So, let’s dive deep into understanding the  profound hurt caused by betrayal in friendships and how to find the way forward .

The depth of emotional investment

When we form friendships, we create an emotional bond based on trust, affection, and mutual respect.

This bond is nurtured and strengthened over time, often making a friend feel like an extension of ourselves. Therefore, when a friend betrays us, it feels like a part of us has been damaged or lost.

The pain we experience is a reflection of the depth of our emotional investment in the relationship.

The role of trust in friendship

Trust is the cornerstone of any friendship. It is this trust that allows us to be vulnerable, share our thoughts, dreams, fears, and secrets with our friends.

We believe in their loyalty and expect them to safeguard our confidences. Therefore, when this  trust is broken , it can have a devastating impact on our emotional well-being.

The betrayal not only shatters our faith in the friend but also leads us to question our judgement and ability to trust others.

Feelings of deceit and disillusionment

Feeling deceived by a friend can lead to a strong sense of disillusionment. The friend you thought you knew, and who you believed valued and respected you, suddenly becomes a stranger.

This drastic shift in perception can be extremely painful and unsettling.

For instance, imagine finding out that your best friend has been spreading rumors about you.

The person you trusted the most in the world, the person you shared your deepest secrets with, is now the source of your pain and humiliation.

This example illustrates the profound hurt that can be caused by betrayal in friendship .

The impact on self-esteem

Being betrayed by a friend can also have a dramatic impact on our self-esteem. This is particularly true if the betrayal involves humiliation or public embarrassment .

In such cases, the betrayed person may begin to feel inadequate or unworthy, questioning their own worth and value.

The betrayal can act as a mirror, reflecting a distorted image of self-worth that can be deeply damaging to our self-esteem.

The way forward

While it’s undeniable that being betrayed by a friend really hurts, it’s crucial to remember that one person’s actions should not define your self-worth or influence your ability to trust others.

Healing from betrayal takes time and patience, but it’s ultimately an opportunity for growth and self-reflection.

Don’t let the actions of one person close your heart to the possibility of new and sincere friendships .

In conclusion, the deep hurt we feel when betrayed by a friend stems from the depth of our emotional investment, the breach of trust, feelings of deceit and disillusionment, and the impact on our self-esteem.

Remember, it’s not about you, but about the other person’s actions and choices.

So, did this article help you understand why being betrayed by a friend really hurts? If it did, please feel free to share it on your social networks.

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18 Of The Most Brutal, Real Stories About Being Betrayed By A Friend

These "friends" are the worst..

Written on Apr 03, 2019

By Team SheSaid

We don’t get to choose our families, but we do get to choose who we’re friends with. Which is why a friendship betrayal hurts so much. 

Those chosen, special few typically earn a position in our lives thanks to their ability to always have our back, even when we’re not necessarily being the best version of ourselves. 

It’s a good friend’s very ability to overlook our flaws and support us through tough times whilst also being our biggest cheerleader in our happiest moments that really cements their place in our hearts.

RELATED:  The One Thing You Should Do If You Were Ghosted By Your Best Friend

Unfortunately though, not all the friends we make throughout the course of our lives have our best intentions at heart.

In fact, some so-called ‘friends’ go to horrifying lengths to cut us down to size and sabotage our lives in the most soul-destroying of ways.

Something these unfortunate Reddit commenters who’ve come face-to-face with some of the ultimate friendship betrayals, know all too well…

1. The other woman

“She started having an affair with my then husband and then lied about it. When my marriage was falling apart, I confided in her. She turned around and told him everything I had said. I’m glad to be rid of them both.”

“[My] roommate broke our lease and gave me a one-week notice to move out because she ‘didn’t like having a dog.’ Next week on Snapchat her and her new roommates got a dog.”

3. Backstabber

“In sixth grade my best friend came up to me and literally stabbed me in the back with a pencil.”

4. Bye, Felicia

“My friend stole $50,000 from a business we started together and took off to Costa Rica.”

5. The mean girl

“They day of my birthday my “best friend” went to a party of a girl she didn’t even know because it was full of girls, I went to a restaurant alone because I didn’t want my father to worry.”

6. Absolutely heartbreaking betrayal

“I raised 11k for a friend who had two types of breast cancer, I raised this money in 4 hours, handed it all over to her and then she went round telling everyone I stole 5k from her. I still get hate mail now.”

7. Straight up disgusting

“I had one friend hook me up with a guy (I lived in a different state and I was visiting her area for a while) she knew. Turns out the reason why she set me up with him is because he was known for having STI’s and she wanted me to get chlamydia, since she couldn’t have kids and I was fertile but childfree.”

8. Breaking every friend code

“I had a “friend” who I thought was pretty awesome. Right up until she developed a habit of getting super drunk and then sleeping with whoever I was dating at the time. And, yes, I say “habit” because it happened more than once, although I can’t say we stayed friends after the first two.”

RELATED:  5 Ways To Tell If The People You Surround Yourself With Are Toxic

9. Going through medical scares can show you who your true friends really are

“My doctors thought I had a tumor and I was undergoing tests and said “friend” said that they were tired of me always being sick. The irony was that I kept the whole situation very private, only this friend knew about it, as did two doctor friends of mine. Needless to say I’m not friends with this person anymore.”

10. So cray cray

“I had a friend who broke into my house, slashed my couch and stabbed me with a fork. She was convinced that I was sleeping with her boyfriend. He was one of my good high school friends, I had introduced them.”

11. Ugh, seriously?!

“I let my “best friend” stay with me while I was house sitting for my grandmother one summer so she could save up money and get a real apartment. The first weekend she arrived I had a short camping trip planned so I left her there alone for two days. When I returned I found out that she and another “friend” of mine invited two shady guys over (one was a drug dealer and the other brought a camera to film). They proceeded to trash the house and then had sex with them in my grandmother's bed leaving a condom on the floor for me to clean. One of the guys stole my $400 iPod.”

12. She won't be winning any BFF Of The Year awards anytime soon

“My “best friend” slept with my boyfriend, the guy I lost my virginity to not even a week earlier, while I was out of town for a funeral.”

13. Real friends don't back out when life gets serious

“She comes on holidays with my family, joined at the hip etc etc. My mother dies suddenly, she doesn’t come see me, leaves the funeral early and a week later texts me calling me bad names because she didn’t get invited to some imaginary party she thought I was having.”

RELATED:  3 Signs Your Insecure Friend Is Sabotaging

14. Do people know what the word "friend" even means anymore?

“A friend asked me to call out a guy. I did, and she defended him.”

15. A true friend always honors her girls' privacy

“When I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, my sister had just lost her baby. To give her time to heal, and so my family wouldn’t worry about me, I was going to wait until I was 12 weeks to tell my family. I told a few of my friends, and told them to keep quiet and why. One of them thought it wasn’t right to keep it from my family, so she told my parents behind my back.”

16. Some people just refuse to grow up

“I paid her rent for several months while she hopped from job to job, always quitting what jobs she got with some lame excuses. Then she only gave me a one week notice about her moving out of state. She had to leave a lot of her stuff here, and when she ran out of money out of state, started selling her stuff. She emailed me asking me ship out the items she’d sold on ebay. When I mentioned the burden of the shipping cost, even though she was collecting the shipping, she accused me of only being concerned with money.”

17. Hello, you're supposed to be my friend?

“My friend ignored all major life developments for me. Getting married, buying a house, having a baby. No congratulations or anything.”

18. It's time to agree that friend betrayals are the worst

“[I] helped her get a job where I work. She then cozies up to the boss. Gets me fired. “Hope we can still be friends?” I don’t even bother opening her emails anymore.”

RELATED:  6 Signs You're Being Emotionally Manipulated By A Toxic Person

SheSaid is a website dedicated to covering topics about women, their relationships, and their lives. For more content from SheSaid, visit their website .

This article was originally published at SheSaid . Reprinted with permission from the author.

More content from SheSaid:

• Why I Broke Up With My Best Friend Of 12 Years
• I Broke Up With One Of My Best Friends And I’ve Never Felt Better
• 13 Ways To Know If Your Friends Are Actually Real Friends

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Betrayal Essay | Short Paragraph and Long Essay on Betrayal in English

July 22, 2021 by Prasanna

Betrayal Essay: Everybody commits errors in their day-to-day existence. In any case, there’s one thing that is something awful to do, Betray. Deceiving is exceptionally passionate and can hurt somebody profoundly (embarrass). Individuals typically lie now and again as well. In the book Uglies, the fundamental person lies and deceives her dearest companions. The book instructs us that we should feel remorseful about deceiving and should attempt to fix our betrayals.

Trust is established for connections. It requires a very long time to assemble, seconds to annihilate. All through life, an individual gives one’s trust to individuals she thinks often about. Betrayal. A demonstration of unfaithfulness. In a moment, all that was based on that common trust can be broken. It will all come disintegrating down with one mix-up. One demonstration of Betrayal.

You can read more  Essay Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Short Paragraph on Betrayal

The closest companion is the individual you depend on the most. She’s somebody you would trust with your life, your mysteries, and your feelings. You gradually let her into your heart and the trust gathers over the long haul. A bond is framed over those mysteries, a kinship that will last. Never again is anything untouchable, and if that individual ever needs to talk, somebody will be there.

One second can transform everything. The individual you thought was your comrade ends up being a deceiver. The entirety of the mysteries and shared feelings are convoluted and utilized against you. Your shortcomings are played until you separate and are gradually destroyed. At last, the individual is perceived as the truth about. The entirety of the reports and the alleged untruths are valid. You, being the better individual, attempted to look past them, assuming the best about your companion. Yet, when reality comes out and the untruths begin to disentangle, what do you have left? When do you know to release a fellowship and when to hang on? Starting there on, all the trust you once had for your companion is gone and it can never be reconstructed.

At the point when you depend on somebody with your privileged insights, you are depending on her to respect them. Your sentiments ought to be brought into account in dynamic. Yet, when you are overlooked, deceived, there is no returning. The individual you however she was is gone. All that is left are sensations of hurt, addressing where you turned out badly and how excessively more forward. Unexpectedly, companionship is finished.

Long Essay on Betrayal

Betrayal is a word from Middle English and it was initially betrayed. There are numerous types of disloyalty, and it is entirely expected inside a culture to have shifting levels of discipline for double-crossing, the vast majority of which are somewhat extreme as it is viewed as one of the more difficult and unsympathetic demonstrations an individual may do.

Practically all selling out includes a type of deliberation, including if the double-crossing is through a demonstration of omittance. It includes utilizing the trust that has been developed and procured for individual use or gain. The trust is frequently broken once the double-crossing is plainly apparent.

It is viewed as an extreme demonstration since it is something beyond lying. Individuals may deceive to acquire trust to double-cross it, yet the truth of the matter is that lying on its own legitimacy isn’t just about as awful as disloyalty. An individual may deceive another with no type of trust existing, and the more trust that has been fabricated then the greater the double-crossing. There is frequently a measure of lying engaged with selling out, however, this isn’t generally the situation.

An individual may kill out of retribution or assist with facilitating enduring, yet since selling out requires trust and the breaking of that trust, it is viewed as more unsympathetic. An individual may comprehend a robbery to take care of a family, however, individuals once in a while comprehend a planned demonstration of building trust to break that trust for individual increase.

Assuming a trust has been set up, supporting the foe of the one that trusts are still disloyal. It is additionally selling out in the event that one uses the trust of one individual (or thing) to acquire the trust of someone else (or thing); the thing might be an organization or even a country. The more drawn out the trust is kept up with after the double-crossing, then, at that point the more serious the demonstration of Betrayal is.

Following six years of marriage, a lady may lay down with another man. This is a Betrayal on the grounds that there was a guarantee of monogamy, in addition to the inferred feelings and sentiments that are attached with the lady asserting she is infatuated are all important for guarantees dependent on trust. The lady says she has certain sensations of adoration to where she weds in a huge representative motion inferring she means to go through her life with only one man–both inwardly, truly and physically. These are generally the trust-building components, and the genuine issue is the place of Betrayal. If the man discovers, he has still been deceived. The selling out deteriorates the more drawn out the lady denies enlightening the man concerning her betrayal.

Betrayal is the demonstration of building trust and afterward utilizing that trust for individual addition. It frequently includes breaking the trust and regularly includes lying. Betrayal is anything that carries on the interest of a person or thing when that person or thing has been persuaded that would not occur.

FAQ’s on Betrayal Essay

Question 1. What is betrayal?

Answer: Betrayal is the demonstration of building trust and afterward utilizing that trust for individual increase. It regularly includes breaking the trust and frequently includes lying. Treachery is anything that carries on the interest of a person or thing when that person or thing has been persuaded that would not occur.

Question 2. What does betrayal do to a person?

Answer: The impacts of double-crossing incorporate shock, misfortune and distress, dreary pre-occupation, harmed confidence, self-questioning, outrage. Not rarely do they produce life-changing changes. The impacts of calamitous disloyalty are generally significant for uneasiness issues.

Question 3. What is an example of betrayal?

Answer: An illustration of a sell-out is the point at which you confess to insider facts and deceive trust. An illustration of a sell-out is the point at which you wheeze and your adversary is then ready to discover you. To convey under the control of a foe by injustice or extortion, infringing upon trust; to surrender misleadingly or irresolutely; as an official double-crossed the city.

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Betrayed Trust: A Painful Chapter in My Life

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Entrance of Deceit: Naivety and Broken Trust

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Consequences of betrayal: a stolen bond with my daughters, reflections and moving forward.

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The Legendary Companionship of the Three Musketeers

This essay is about Alexandre Dumas’ novel “The Three Musketeers,” highlighting the themes of adventure, camaraderie, and heroism. It describes the main characters—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—and their deep bonds of friendship, along with the addition of D’Artagnan. The essay explores their exploits, personal struggles, and loyalty, emphasizing the enduring appeal of Dumas’ storytelling and the universal values of bravery and companionship.

How it works

The Three Musketeers, immortalized by Alexandre Dumas in his 1844 novel, is a tale of adventure, camaraderie, and heroism that has captivated readers for generations. Set in 17th-century France, the story revolves around three inseparable friends—Athos, Porthos, and Aramis—who serve as musketeers of the King’s guard. Their exploits, driven by a deep sense of loyalty and honor, showcase the essence of true friendship and the spirit of adventure.

Athos, the eldest and most reserved of the trio, embodies wisdom and nobility.

His real name, Comte de la Fère, hints at a troubled past, which adds a layer of mystery to his character. Athos is the leader of the group, often serving as the voice of reason and moral compass. Despite his stoic demeanor, his loyalty to his friends and his commitment to justice are unwavering. Athos’ backstory is marked by tragedy and loss, which explains his melancholic nature and his occasional bouts of introspection. This depth makes him a compelling figure, whose personal struggles resonate with the broader themes of redemption and forgiveness in the novel.

Porthos, in contrast, is the embodiment of exuberance and physical strength. He is a larger-than-life character, both literally and figuratively, with a love for flamboyant attire and grandiose living. Porthos’ jovial personality and straightforward approach to life often provide comic relief in the narrative. His strength and courage in battle, however, are unmatched, making him an invaluable ally to his friends. Porthos’ character represents the more earthly pleasures and the joy of living, which balances the more serious tones of the story. His larger-than-life presence and his unyielding bravery in the face of danger make him an endearing and unforgettable character.

Aramis, the third musketeer, is the epitome of elegance and charm. With his scholarly demeanor and religious aspirations, he often finds himself torn between his duties as a musketeer and his desire to become a man of the cloth. Aramis is a complex character whose intellectual pursuits and romantic entanglements add layers to his persona. His cunning and resourcefulness are evident in various subplots, where his diplomatic skills and strategic thinking play crucial roles. Aramis’ dual nature of being a soldier and a cleric brings an interesting dynamic to the group, as he often acts as the mediator and the strategist.

The trio’s adventures begin with the introduction of D’Artagnan, a young and impetuous Gascon who arrives in Paris with dreams of becoming a musketeer. His encounter with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis leads to a series of duels, misunderstandings, and ultimately, a deep bond of friendship. D’Artagnan’s youthful enthusiasm and bravery complement the more seasoned musketeers, creating a perfect balance within the group. His journey from a naive provincial to a savvy and courageous musketeer is central to the narrative, reflecting themes of growth, loyalty, and the pursuit of honor.

Throughout the novel, the four friends navigate court intrigues, romantic liaisons, and numerous battles, all while upholding the musketeer’s creed of “All for one and one for all.” Their loyalty to one another and their unwavering commitment to justice define their character and drive the story forward. The antagonist, Cardinal Richelieu, serves as a formidable opponent whose schemes and machinations test the musketeers’ resolve and ingenuity. The conflict between the musketeers and Richelieu’s agents adds a layer of political intrigue to the story, highlighting the themes of power, loyalty, and betrayal.

Dumas’ portrayal of the musketeers transcends the mere historical setting, creating archetypes of heroism and friendship that resonate universally. The Three Musketeers is more than just a tale of swashbuckling adventure; it is a celebration of the enduring human values of loyalty, bravery, and camaraderie. The novel’s enduring popularity can be attributed to its rich characterizations, thrilling plot, and the timeless appeal of its central themes.

In essence, the story of the Three Musketeers continues to inspire and entertain, reminding readers of the power of friendship and the importance of standing together in the face of adversity. The legendary companionship of Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan remains a testament to the enduring appeal of Dumas’ masterful storytelling and the timeless allure of adventure and heroism.

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A Friendship and Betrayal - Essay Example

• Subject: Sociology
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• Level: College
• Pages: 4 (1000 words)
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Dave had an imaginary friend named Donald—but unlike most childish fantasies, this one had real-world consequences: the conviction on thirty-four felony charges of a former and perhaps future president. David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer , testified at Donald Trump’s criminal trial in April that when they spoke together, he called him “Donald.” While Pecker was giving his evidence, Trump also referred to him publicly by his first name. Speaking to the media outside the courtroom, he said, “Dave has been very nice, a nice guy.” The message to Pecker was clear: be nice to your old buddy. Trump was invoking the bond of reciprocity created by long intimacy, in this case a relationship built up over a quarter of a century. Yet as the prosecution complained before Pecker resumed his testimony, Trump’s words also carried an implicit threat: to the injunction “be nice” was appended a silent “or else”—not quite the language of genuine friendship.

The trial itself was a product of Trump’s inability to grasp the idea of mutual obligation. It seems apt that at the heart of such an astounding moment in American history there is such a banal betrayal. Trump almost certainly wouldn’t have been prosecuted on those charges if he hadn’t been such a lousy friend. During their deliberations the jury asked to hear again portions of Pecker’s testimony that concerned an arrangement in 2016 to pay $150,000 to Karen McDougal, with whom Trump had an affair in 2006 and 2007. Pecker understood, as he told the jury, “that I would be either reimbursed by the Trump Organization or by Donald Trump.” If Trump had honored that deal and given Pecker what he was owed, Pecker would have later repeated the same maneuver to buy and suppress Stormy Daniels’s story of her brief sexual encounter with Trump. Thus Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, would not have had to pay Daniels $130,000 himself, and Trump’s reimbursement of Cohen would not have been recorded fraudulently as legal fees.

Pecker told the court, “I felt that Donald Trump was my mentor. He helped me throughout my career.” He also confirmed multiple times that he understood Trump to be his friend. That relationship was the prism through which Pecker viewed the whole business of catching and killing salacious stories on Trump’s behalf. Asked whether he had formal arrangements with Trump to ensure repayment, Pecker replied, “No, they weren’t put into writing. It was just an agreement among friends.” The operation was based on personal trust.

Yet Trump stiffed him. Pecker needed to recoup the $150,000 he paid to McDougal because it was too large a sum to hide from his parent company. The failure to pay was, for him, difficult and distressing. He was repeatedly reassured by Cohen: “Don’t worry…. The Boss will take care of it.” Even bearing in mind that Trump’s real wealth has been grossly exaggerated, $150,000 was not a lot of money for him. But it was a great deal more than Pecker’s friendship was worth.

This episode tells us something much bigger about Trump. One of his favorite sayings, which he misattributes to Abraham Lincoln, is “A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.” This is an accurate enough summation of the instrumental view of human relationships typical of autocrats. Trump’s problem, though, is that, as Pecker discovered, his friendship is little better than his enmity. Even when it is obviously in his own interest to help those who are loyal and useful, he cannot be trusted to do so.

Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy gives us the fullest sense of what it’s like to be a hanger-on in the court of a capricious narcissist. A pair of courtiers compare such a life to playing chess in the dark, on a board of jelly, with chessmen made of butter. Over the course of the three novels, two dazzlingly successful servants of Henry VIII, Thomas Wolsey and his protégé, Thomas Cromwell, lose the king’s favor. They are stripped of power and then of life. This downfall, in the world Mantel conjures in such convincing detail, is inevitable. The psychopathic ruler’s ultimate expression of power is the destruction of those on whom he has relied most, the ones who have been such good servants that they have developed the temerity to imagine themselves as indispensable. In the end Cromwell is forced to reflect that “Henry has ground and ground me in the mill of his desires, and now I am fined down to dust I am no more use to him, I am powder in the wind. Princes hate those to whom they have incurred debts.”

Yet Mantel’s novels also show that where there is risk, there can be reward. We understand why Wolsey and Cromwell, who are no fools, accept the hazards implicit in the task of navigating the big boss’s whims, rages, moods, and desires. The recompense is as lavish as the danger is acute. They get to build opulent palaces for themselves. They eat the best food and wear the finest clothes. They establish their own satellite courts with their own hangers-on and loyal retainers. They shine with the reflected luster of the monarch’s power and prestige. Part of what makes the novels so gripping is that the risk seems just about worth it. Ultimately it may have been a losing game, but while it lasted it gave these consummate players immense pleasure.

This is one of the things that is so peculiar about Trump’s nexus of power: the rewards are not worth the risks. He hates those to whom he has incurred debts. In her book Confidence Man , Maggie Haberman quotes an anonymous longtime friend who says that “being close to Trump was like ‘being friends with a hurricane.’” He is more a black hole than a sun king. Mantel’s Cromwell, in serving his master, imagines that “I have had my soul flattened and pressed till it’s not the thickness of paper.” Many of Trump’s servants—even if they had souls to begin with—have been so flattened and pressed by the overwhelming density of his self-regard that one has to wonder why others continue to propel themselves into his field of gravity. The typical autocrat revels in his power to give and take; Trump takes everything but gives back only grief and shame.

On April 21, 2018, Robert Costello, acting as a go-between for Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, sent an e-mail to Cohen. Less than a fortnight earlier federal agents had raided Cohen’s office and seized documents related to the $130,000 payment Cohen had made to Daniels on Trump’s behalf. The purpose of Costello’s e-mail was to reassure Cohen that he would be protected: “I spoke with Rudy. Very, very positive. You are loved…. Sleep well tonight. You have friends in high places. Bob. P.S. Some very positive comments about you from the White House.” At Trump’s trial, Costello confirmed that “‘friends in high places’ definitely refers to President Trump.” When Cohen was asked, “What did you understand Mr. Costello to mean by ‘you are loved,’ by whom?” he answered, “By President Trump.”

This is how hierarchies of autocratic power are supposed to operate. Vassals like Cohen do their master’s bidding, and in return they have friends in high places who will protect them from the consequences of their nefarious actions and reward them for their service. But no object of Trump’s love gets to sleep well. Cohen went on to spend thirteen and a half months behind bars and a year and a half in home confinement. He is just one of hundreds of Trump’s supporters and followers who have endured humiliation and disgrace.

Giuliani filed for bankruptcy last December, has lost his license to practice law in New York, may be about to lose his license in Washington, D.C., and faces criminal indictments in Georgia and Arizona. His old age is shadowed by the knowledge that he will die broke and dishonored. The same goes for Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization and perhaps Trump’s most trusted functionary. He was sentenced in April to five months in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of perjury during his boss’s civil trial for fraud. It is his second sojourn in the notorious Rikers Island jail—he served one hundred days there in 2023 for offenses committed as Trump’s right-hand man.

Political enablers like Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone, Peter Navarro, and Sidney Powell have faced—or still face—various criminal charges. Even those (like Flynn, Stone, and Manafort) whom Trump pardoned had to pay large legal bills and will always bear the stamp of criminality. Lawyers who were sucked into Trump’s orbit—including Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeffrey Clark, and John Eastman—are under indictment for their parts in Trump’s schemes to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. So are dozens of people who served as fake electors. And more than 460 Trump supporters have been imprisoned for taking part in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Among the 244 people who received felony convictions connected to the invasion, the average sentence has been about three and a half years. These are catastrophic outcomes, destroying relationships, careers, and reputations. The prize for their devotion to Trump is a world of pain.

Even those who’ve avoided such disasters have to face Trump’s sadistic ingratitude toward supposed friends. To Mike Pence, Trump “was my president, and he was my friend.” That friendship did not move Trump to talk his fans out of wanting to hang Pence on January 6. Ronna Romney McDaniel served Trump with unctuous loyalty as chair of the Republican National Committee. Her obsequiousness extended to dropping, reportedly at Trump’s request, the half of her surname that linked her to her uncle (and Trump critic) Mitt Romney. Trump nonetheless dumped her in February, in part to clear the way for his daughter-in-law Lara Trump to become cochair of the RNC . McDaniel’s subsequent media career as a political analyst for NBC lasted less than a week before the network dispensed with her, too.

Or consider the pitiful fate of Chris Christie. He imagined himself to be not just a political ally of Trump but a close personal friend; as Christie wrote in his hilariously self-pitying memoir, Let Me Finish , “He told me he loved me.” In return, as governor of New Jersey, Christie became the first senior member of the Republican establishment to endorse Trump for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016—a gesture that marked Trump as a serious contender rather than a mere insurgent outsider. Christie then spent nearly six months leading a team of 140 people to draw up detailed plans for the transition to a putative Trump presidency. When Trump was duly elected and Christie arrived at Trump Tower with his thirty binders full of blueprints for the new administration, they were sent straight to the dumpster and Christie was informed by Bannon that “we do not want you to be in the building anymore.” 1

In all of this, Trump’s concept of friendship seems even emptier than that of his notoriously nasty mentor Roy Cohn. 2 Haberman writes of Cohn:

To the degree he followed rules, they involved a vague, menacing concept of “friendship.” In 1978, Cohn laid out to the journalist Ken Auletta how far he would go to protect those he saw as friends. “I wouldn’t lie under any circumstances. But I’d do everything I could, within the bounds of legal propriety, not to hurt someone whose friendship I had accepted,” he said.

Trump seems to have no such rule. He seems utterly indifferent to the hurt of his friends.

Even with Cohn himself Trump seemed incapable of generosity. Cohn had used all his dark arts for his protégé: “He’s been vicious to others in his protection of me,” Trump recalled, and said that if he were to sum up his personality, “I think the primary word I’d use is his loyalty.” Yet this did little to affect Trump when Cohn’s former companion Russell Eldridge was terminally ill with AIDS . Trump gave the dying man a suite in his Barbizon-Plaza Hotel but sent the bills to Cohn and tried to insist that he pay them. Knowing that Cohn himself had AIDS , Trump moved his own legal business elsewhere; Cohn was said by his secretary to be “plainly crushed.”

When his younger brother, Robert, died in 2020, Trump wrote in a statement, “He was not just my brother, he was my best friend.” At a press conference he remarked, “We’ve had a great relationship for a long time, from day one.” Yet according to Robert Trump’s obituary in The New York Times , the two men were estranged for years:

Simply being a close family member did not shield him from his brother’s rages when Donald Trump needed someone to blame. Family friends said that as Donald’s star grew, Robert struggled with working for his brother and cast himself as his brother’s polar opposite.

In her family memoir Too Much and Never Enough , Donald’s niece Mary L. Trump wrote of how he tormented Robert from the time they were children:

Donald had discovered early on how easy it was to get under Robert’s pale skin and push him past his limits; it was a game he never tired of playing. Nobody else would have bothered—Robert was so skinny and quiet that there was no sport in tormenting him—but Donald enjoyed flexing his power, even if only over his younger, smaller, and even thinner-skinned brother. Once, out of frustration and helplessness, Robert kicked a hole in their bathroom door, which got him into trouble despite the fact that Donald had driven him to it. When his mother told Donald to stop, he didn’t.

Plato, in The Republic , described the inescapable wretchedness of the tyrannical character; he can never really have a friend:

Men of his kind behave in the same sort of way in private life, before they have gained power. Their companions are parasites in every way subservient to them, and they are themselves always prepared to give way and put on the most extravagant act of friendship if it suits their purpose, though once that purpose is achieved their tune changes.

The consequences of this friendlessness, Plato noted, only worsen as the tyrannical character gains power:

His power will make him still more envious, untrustworthy, unjust, friendless, and godless, a refuge and home for every iniquity, and you can see that he’s a source of misery above all to himself, but also to his neighbours.

This condition was, in the Greek worldview, the ultimate in existential bleakness: “So tyrannical characters pass their lives without a friend in the world; they are always either master or slave, and never taste true friendship or freedom.”

Both sides of this master/slave duality apply to Trump’s practice of friendship. The first is obvious in his refusal of reciprocity: for Trump, friendship is a one-way street. The slavish aspect is evident in his extreme reluctance to repudiate any source of support, however repellent. In 2016 he was very slow to disavow the enthusiastic endorsement of the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. As president, he was so loath to offend white supremacists, antisemites, and neo-Nazis that he called those who took part in a violent rally in Charlottesville in 2017 “very fine people.” In 2022 he had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the white supremacist Nick Fuentes and the antisemite Kanye West. Of West he later wrote, “We got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on [the Fox TV program] ‘Tucker Carlson.’ Why wouldn’t I agree to meet?”

Trump can seem almost childishly desperate to impress even when he is not currying favor with anyone he perceives to have power or fame or anyone who offers him political backing. His efforts to show off at a meeting at his Bedminster golf club in 2021 make him sound like an eager teenager trying to ingratiate himself with the in-crowd. Trump allowed the group, including the ghostwriter working on Meadows’s memoir, to see a secret contingency plan for an attack on Iran: “It’s so cool. I mean, it’s so, look…and you probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.”

Likewise Trump has always been anxious to claim celebrities as friends. Michael Jackson, Trump tweeted on his death, “was a great friend and a spectacular entertainer.” Joan Rivers “was an amazing woman and a great friend.” Trump was “taking piano lessons from my friend Elton John.” Whitney Houston “was a great friend and an amazing talent.” Andy Williams “was a friend of mine and a great guy.” Tom Brady is, whether he likes it or not, “a friend of mine, he’s a great guy.” “Do you think,” Trump asked his Twitter followers in 2013, “Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?” After Trump became president, Putin had to vie for his affections with “my good friend, President Xi of China,” “my friend Kim Jong Un,” and even Queen Elizabeth II, of whom “I am a great friend and admirer.”

This habit of inventing friends was also part of Trump’s shtick in dealing with subordinates. Cliff Sims, who worked for him in the White House, noted in his memoir, Team of Vipers , that “as I got to know Trump, he’d often cite various nameless ‘friends’ whose statements or experiences fit neatly into whatever point he wanted to make.” It is an extraordinary thought: the most powerful man in the world had to fabricate friends in order to convince a relatively junior staffer of the rightness of his opinions.

What are the political implications of Trump’s friendlessness? One is that it contributes to the instability of his use of power. Trump has not been able to create a fixed cohort of political intimates. He has even alienated many of his most prominent enablers, including William Barr, James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, John Kelly, and Mick Mulvaney. Successful authoritarian (as opposed to totalitarian) rulers cultivate networks of loyalty by offering intimacy, patronage, and protection. They institutionalize their authority by recruiting and embracing individuals who in turn can sustain the support of wider groups. These friends of the regime benefit from the boss’s largesse. This is the system perfected, for example, by a politician Trump greatly admires, the Hungarian prime minister and pioneer of “illiberal democracy” Viktor Orbán. In March the US ambassador David Pressman said of Orbán’s Hungary:

All aspects of government power—from procurement, to licensing, to tourism subsidies, to concessions, to tax and audit actions, to regulatory policy—provide favorable treatment for companies owned by party leaders or their families, in-laws or old friends.

Trump, though, is not very good at this kind of personal patronage. His sleaze is primarily nepotistic and self-serving. He keeps too much of it in the family.

Yet this failure has a paradoxical quality. Trump’s faithlessness makes the faith of his acolytes all the purer. In the Republican Party’s congressional caucuses, cynical calculation still dominates: many of its members despise Trump but do his bidding either because they are afraid of him or because they need his help with their voters. But beyond the cohort of professional representative politicians there are the true believers who, unless they are stupid, must know that if they get burned on his behalf Trump will do nothing to save them. In the typical nexus of political corruption, the hanger-on has reasonable expectations of protection and advancement. Having a friend in the highest of places is a clear advantage. The wages for dirty work are good. But Trump’s love is now so plainly tainted that any calculating opportunist has to factor in the probabilities of imprisonment, bankruptcy, and disgrace. When the Boss is not just mad and bad but so obviously dangerous to know, serving him must be thought of as an act more of self-sacrifice than of self-interest. This may sound quite sweet, but what it really amounts to is a gradual replacement of coldly self-serving shrewdness with genuine fanaticism. The first is corrupt; the second is deadly. Those who embrace the possibility of pain for themselves are all the more willing to inflict it on others.

This is true of the inner core of Trump’s enablers, but what of the millions who love him? Friendship, for them, operates in two ways. One is their bond with one another. Meadows, in his memoir, writes of the sense of affinity among those who attend Trump rallies:

In general, I found them to be some of the kindest, most generous people I had ever met. Many of them had met one another at Trump rallies in the past. There was a kinship in the MAGA movement that is almost never reported on, and it includes people from all walks of life. In the months that I had been traveling to rallies with President Trump, I had spent time with carpenters, computer programmers, business owners, and used car salesmen, all of whom seemed like the best of friends as soon as the MAGA hats came out. I saw bartenders milling about with medical doctors, and groups of young people mixing with retirees like it was the most natural thing in the world.

This may be sugarcoated, but there is no reason to doubt its essential truth. The MAGA movement may symbolize hatred, but among its devotees it radiates good vibrations. And Trump, as the occasion of this overflow of amity, seems, if not exactly friendly, then certainly friend-like.

Trump also fills the need, in a harsh and confusing world, for an imaginary friend. The make-believe companion can be forgiven all slights and failures. It is striking that toward the end of his testimony at Trump’s criminal trial, David Pecker was anxious to make clear that in spite of being essentially robbed by Trump, “I have no ill will at all. And I still consider him a close—I still, even though we haven’t spoken, I still consider him a friend.” (Ironically, it was probably this evidence of continuing loyalty that made Pecker’s testimony so damaging to Trump—unlike Cohen, whose hatred for his old boss oozed from every pore, Pecker did not appear to be contaminated by enmity.)

That’s the thing with imaginary friendship—even when the friendship is patently false, the imagination can still make it feel real. Trump, as president, treated most of his voters as he’s treated Pecker. He failed to keep his promises. He didn’t repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something “beautiful,” or make the superrich pay higher taxes, or “drain the swamp” of corporate lobbyists, or become “the voice” of American workers, or eliminate the federal deficit, or bring all the coal mines back to West Virginia, or build a coast-to-coast wall and make Mexico pay for it. Most of his voters did not, in reality, have a friend in high places. But that has only sharpened their desire to believe that “the Boss will take care of it.” The more Trump suffers for his own crimes, the more his voters need to believe that he is suffering for them.

Agreeing to Our Harm

“Ami Police”: A Story

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Fintan O’Toole is the Advising Editor at The New York Review and a columnist for The Irish Times . His book Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life was reissued this year. (July 2024)

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Their friendship, or rather its lessons in cruelty and remorselessness, is the subject of Ali Abbasi’s new film The Apprentice, which has worryingly failed to find a distributor in the US after Trump’s attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to the filmmakers.  ↩

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It begins with a betrayal | Review of ‘Long Island’ by Colm Tóibín Premium

The much-awaited sequel to ‘brooklyn’ works marvellously with the irish novelist ticking all the boxes.

Updated - June 28, 2024 10:57 am IST

Published - June 28, 2024 09:45 am IST

Actors Emory Cohen and Saoirse Ronan in the 2015 movie adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s novel ‘Brooklyn’.

Sequels can be tricky, because however good the book is, it is always compared to the original. Mention the great Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe and his debut novel  Things Fall Apart  has top-of-the-mind recall, not the sequel,  No Longer at Ease .

Sometimes, a sequel is written after a long interval, like Margaret Atwood’s  The Testaments , which appeared 34 years after her dystopian classic  The Handmaid’s Tale  (1985). It’s a lovely coincidence, of course, if they work as companion pieces, and in the case of Atwood, it does. Like it also does in Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton novels.

Writers usually do follow-up novels if they know they can access different characters in the original and embellish their stories. Colm Tóibín decided to write  Long Island , the sequel to his celebrated novel,  Brooklyn , published 15 years ago, when an image came to his mind.

A new novel by a master of contemporary Irish fiction is a gift. The 69-year-old Tóibín, shortlisted for the Booker Prize thrice, has ruled the literary world with his 11 novels, essays, poems and short stories. The sequel to  Brooklyn  works marvellously because Tóibín ticks all the boxes — it’s a story with upheavals and quiet joys, and new things to say, the characters have been mined further to give them layers of interiority, and the beautiful prose ensures the narrative never sags. And while it’s not imperative to read  Brooklyn  to appreciate  Long Island  as it is a great standalone novel, the predecessor completes it.

Author Colm Tóibín | Photo Credit: Getty Images

In the aftermath

We are not giving away spoilers, because  Long Island  starts with a big bang and it is this terrifying premise on which the whole story revolves. Eilis Lacey, married to Tony Fiorello for two decades, is seemingly happy in their Long Island home with two children, Rosella and Larry, till an Irishman comes knocking and drops a bombshell. Eilis’s husband, a “very good plumber”, has had an affair with the stranger’s wife; she is pregnant and he threatens to drop off the newborn at the Lacey-Fiorello home.

Actions have consequences, and the rest of the novel traces the aftermath. What will Eilis do? She may have immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s from Ireland, but she is still an outsider in the 1970s, and has built her life around domesticity. She has no peer support group, no one to turn to, unlike her husband Tony who has built a house on a plot where the rest of his family, his two brothers and his parents, also have homes.

Eilis decides to visit Enniscorthy, where her mother lives and is about to celebrate her 80th birthday. This is the town that Tóibín grew up in, and readers will get more atmospheric details of an Irish town of the 70s with its bars, quaint shops and homes without telephones or refrigerators than of the Long Island of the title.

Back to base

Actors Saoirse Ronan and Domhnall Gleeson in ‘Brooklyn’ (2015).

In  Brooklyn , Eilis had gone home from New York to be with her mother after her sister Rose passed away suddenly. Tony, the Italian she gave her heart to, in a fit of desperation and certain she would not return, asks her to marry him — and they do, quietly. Back home in Ireland, Eilis keeps the marriage a secret from her mother and friends, and that “made every day she had spent in America a sort of fantasy, something she could not match with the time she was spending at home”. She meets an Irishman, Jim Farrell, who will inherit a bar, and thereby hangs many a tale. Soon, “the idea that she would leave all of this — the rooms of the house once more familiar and warm and comforting — and go back to Brooklyn and not return for a long time again frightened her”.

But Eilis does go back, and  Long Island  picks up the story decades later, with Farrell, now getting a lot of attention, who wishes “he had been with her [Eilis] all the years, but there was nothing could be done about it now”.

Will Eilis and Farrell be together? Tóibín’s eloquent storytelling doesn’t quite include settling things for either Eilis or the other characters. Readers will yearn for a third novel, though Tóibín isn’t really a fan of series writing, unless a compelling image crops up.

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Long Island

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