6 Relationship Betrayals That Have Nothing To Do With Infidelity
Some betrayals can hurt more than cheating, but are rarely discussed.
Velimir Zeland via Shutterstock When we speak about relationship “betrayal,” most of us think about infidelity. But in my many decades of work as a psychologist and couples therapist, I have witnessed innumerable instances of devastating disloyalty, many of them at least as painful as infidelity, if not more so.
Research consistently finds that happily married people (and, I assume, coupled people) report more life satisfaction than single people. The problem is, betrayal of many forms can scare people away from this type of commitment.
In a research study of almost seven thousand single people from eight different countries published in the Cross-Cultural Research Journal, almost forty percent said they were single because they feared they would get hurt if they were to enter into a relationship. But being armed with knowledge could help couples avoid these betrayals and keep happy families together.
Six betrayals that have nothing to do with infidelity but can equally destroy relationships
1. Going back on an important life choice you agreed on before committing to be together
Making a lifelong commitment involves multiple discussions and decisions. So, many mutual decisions, or even assumptions, can form the grounds for feelings of betrayal, as suggested by a study in the American Journal of Family Therapy.
They run the gamut but might include agreements about the city you will live in, arrangements for how to balance two careers, the number of children you will have, the role grandparents would have in the children’s lives, the division of labor between you, what kind of diet you will both embrace, whether to live in the city, the country, or the suburbs, work-life balance, decisions about health choices, and materialistic decisions like the kind of car you will drive or the type of house you might buy.
For instance, Billy and Sandra agreed when they met and fell in love in their late 20s, they would have at least two children. After several years of a very happy marriage, buying a house, and taking a few wonderful trips, it was time to get pregnant.
Billy told Sandra he did not feel good bringing children into a world in such bad shape. No matter what arguments Sally proffered, Billy was intransigent. Sally was devastated. She always planned on being a mother.
Billy’s change of mind about parenthood took away the future identity Sally had counted on. She loved him too much to leave, so she stayed. Initially, her resentment over this betrayal eventually ate away at the marriage, and they divorced in their thirties.
2. Your partner chronically neglects you in day-to-day life
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During courtship, people are on their best behavior, and typically, each person is focused on getting more and more emotionally involved with the other as the relationship gels and gets formalized.
Typically, early on, couples are fascinated with each other. Partners experience being betrayed when their mate stops being interested in their inner life, thoughts, and feelings.
Most importantly, feelings of betrayal are solidified when it is clear that making time to connect with you is not high on the list of priorities. When friends, family, co-workers, or work itself is consistently prioritized, the future for the couple is bleak.
3. Your partner is missing in action during something important in your life, like an illness, a loss, or another major life transition.
For most of us, the reason to be in a relationship is to have the security of knowing exactly who will sit or stand with us during life’s most difficult moments. At those times, we want someone to understand and support us and hopefully mirror our feelings. Usually, we are talking about life and death moments.
For Allison and Elaine, the event that broke trust in their relationship was Allison going off on a two-week snorkeling trip to Fiji just as Elaine’s beloved father was dying. For Bill and Elissa, the betrayal came when Bill minimized her trauma over a cancer diagnosis and did not come through by coming to her treatments.
In one couple, the final nail in the coffin was when David, the boyfriend, did not support my patient Linda’s terrible grief as her favorite niece was dying of leukemia. Linda spent months openly crying over this little girl, and she frequently traveled many miles to another city to see her niece in the hospital where she was being treated.
After her niece finally died from the disease, Linda broke things off with David. She felt he had been so emotionally absent during this traumatic event she could not ever trust him again.
4. Careless, critical or cruel comments
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It would be a rare long-term couple who never, ever hurt each other’s feelings with a critical or careless comment. Nevertheless, it is worth treating your partner’s ego as tenderly as is humanly possible.
There are considerate and kind ways to give difficult feedback. And the ratio of positive to negative comments in a relationship is important. Persistent, mild criticism wears away at feelings of trust, safety, and acceptance. Incidentally, research published in the Couple and Family Psychology Journal found positive comments about appearances from romantic partners are associated with both relationship satisfaction and satisfaction in a couple's intimate life.
Of course, criticism can be about all sorts of topics, from cooking skills to driving skills to taste in friends. But the killer kinds of criticism are cruel comments about the other person’s looks or body.
Men may be the primary culprit in this kind of betrayal because they, more than women, sometimes derive a sense of status or self-esteem from their partner's appealing physical looks. Some comments are so cruel and so vivid they are unforgettable.
Such statements can change the other person’s comfort and satisfaction with their body, leading to feeling betrayed. For instance, after Meg gave birth to her and Michael’s third child, Michael commented negatively about the changes to her postpartum body.
This brutal comment devastated Meg. Every time she saw herself nude, she remembered it. Even with the help of a therapist, Michael could not sensitively mend the breach. And his unbelievably thoughtless and selfish comment contributed to Meg’s growing distrust of him and dissatisfaction with their relationship.
5. Financial betrayals
Different couples handle finances differently. Some keep their bank accounts and investments separate, some combine all the family money, and some create a hybrid, one-of-a-kind system.
But when one person has a “financial double life” through sins of omission or commission, partners feel terrified, disrespected, devalued, and betrayed. When this occurs, it does not land more gently than actual sexual infidelity.
Most partners in a couple think of their joint income, even if in two different names, as family assets in terms of planning for the future. Some examples of financial infidelity include hiding debt, such as gambling debt or credit card debt, making a financial agreement with family or businesspeople your partner does not know about, draining a joint bank or investment account, or making a large purchase secretly.
When financial infidelity is discovered, the partner’s entire sense of safety is dismantled. As with sexual infidelity, the partner’s worry that where there is one lie, there will be others is constant. The grief and intense anxiety of discovering financial betrayals is long-lasting and threatens the couple’s marriage and their future.
6. Ignoring your partner’s intimate needs
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Unless people enter a relationship having determined one or both of them are asexual, the role of fulfilling each other’s needs, naturally, is assumed. However, sexual problems and dysfunctions are common. I can testify to the disappointment when expectations are not met: I was the moderator for iVillage’s Mismatched Libidos chat board back in the day.
However, most partners in couples with sexual difficulties do not necessarily feel betrayed. Research in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin indicates when couples think of intimacy difficulties as their mutual issue, a problem to be negotiated and solved, or at least acknowledged in an ongoing way, relationship satisfaction can still be high.
The feeling of betrayal comes from feeling ignored, your sense of being unfulfilled, unloved, or rejected is not being addressed. The other person is causing you pain and constant longing, and they are not invested enough in you to care, comfort you, find an alternative way to express sexual intimacy or seek treatment.
Baru and Sara had not been sexually active before they married. They were ambitious people who were busy getting ahead in life. Baru was always taking courses to better himself.
Because of her inexperience, it took Sara a while to realize Baru was experiencing sexual dysfunction. She desperately wanted to feel the closeness and physical intimacy experienced by other heterosexual married couples. She was very sad and hurt about it, and she pleaded with Baru to get treatment for it. For several years, he did nothing. They eventually had two children, helped by fertility treatments.
These are a few common types of betrayals that are not infidelity. I suspect as you read them, you will remember some others I have not listed here. For the psychologist, treating issues such as these can be a long process of re-establishing trust.
Sometimes, a partner is so obviously untrustworthy a client just bails. Other times, the process of addressing the betrayals is so powerful the couple becomes stronger in the broken places than they were before.
Psychologist Aline Zoldbrod, Ph.D., is a psychologist and sex therapist near Boston, hosts her blog on the subject, and is an award-winning author of ‘SexSmart’, a book that explains how your family of origin has shaped your sexuality.