There are two distinct ways that the word betrayed can be used.
One is for a person to describe betrayal as something that has objectively taken place. This is betrayal as an action, a verb. People can come up with criteria for what constitutes betrayal, and then compare someone’s actions to those criteria, and come to conclusions about whether betrayal is there.
The emotion of betrayal is different from that. The feeling of having been betrayed isn’t based purely on objective facts, but has a strong component of subjective perspective mixed in. Other people may make arguments that the feeling of betrayal is not justified, but those arguments don’t change the fact that the person feels betrayed, and logical arguments aren’t likely to alter that feeling.
What we feel on the inside, emotionally, operates according to different rules from those that determine how things work in the world outside ourselves. Often, we don’t even understand the rules according to which our emotions work. A person can feel betrayed by another person without being able to articulate exactly why they feel betrayed.
Betrayal is a social emotion in the sense that it has to do with the actions of another person, and the breaking of the terms of a relationship with that person. However, betrayal as a feeling is held by an individual, sometimes remaining a secret from everyone else.
Spouses can feel betrayed by their mates without ever saying anything about the betrayal. A reader can feel betrayed by an author’s choices in writing a new book, even though the author doesn’t even know the reader.
Even the terms of betrayal can be held subjectively. A person can feel betrayed when a friend engages in actions that the friend didn’t even understand were beyond the limits of trust. The grounds for betrayal, like the grounds for trust, aren’t based in a universally agreed upon set of facts about how things are and how things are supposed to be. They grow from diverging models of reality, including many beliefs that could never be objectively tested.
Betrayal begins its insidious entry into our relationships when we forget that our own expectations will never perfectly match the expectations of those we have decided to trust. Betrayal is the feeling that trust has been broken, but trust is never complete. Within every trusting relationship, there exists a flaw within the grain of common understanding that, with the application of pressure, can expand into an unmendable rift.
