Twisted Truth

Was it betrayal? Or was it clarity? ​

For months, you’ve been ruminating over who he was in the end versus who he pretended to be in the beginning. You’ve gotten lost in trying to find answers to questions that spill into each other like water in a cascading fountain. But how could he? How did it happen? He was so loving, kind, and sweet — who is he really? I’m so fucking confused! Trapped in cognitive dissonance, your mind is trying to make sense of something senseless, something pure evil and cruel.

Mental and emotional exhaustion have become a familiar place for you. In the relationship, you grew exhausted by hyper-vigilance, by your nervous system being in a never-ending state of fight-or-flight, and walking on eggshells. After the relationship, you’re in a state of shock so profound it’s described as an experience akin to PTSD in war veterans. Brain fog. Low energy. Anxiety. Insomnia. You haven’t been able to truly relax in well over a year.

Now, with the passing of time, something is starting to shift. Cognitive dissonance is transforming. You question less who he really was, or what version of him was real. That inquiry comes from a place of betrayal. A version of you who loved and trusted a version of him that doesn’t even exist.

When you look up the true definition of betrayal, it’s meant to describe an act of deliberate disloyalty. It’s when someone you’re close to breaks your trust through deceit or misrepresentation. Betrayal feels like a violation and is embodied as psychological conflict for the person who was betrayed. During the throes of cognitive dissonance following an abusive relationship, betrayal trauma sounds like: But I trusted him? I thought what we had was real? How could someone who says I’m the love of his life treat me this way?! In essence, you thought you knew him. You thought you could trust him not to hurt you. And in the end, he ended up being the thing that hurt you most of all, right after you let him in to the most sacred parts of you.​

But betrayal assumes the act of deceit comes from someone you know, someone you’re close to. That means their act of violation comes as a surprise to you, and leaves you reeling in a pain so profound you’re convinced you are dying from the inside out. Was it really a surprise? Did you truly never see signs before this catastrophic moment? Or did you dress up their prior behavior in hope and potential?​

For years, you’ve lived by the saying, When people show you who they are, believe them. From where you sit today, he showed you. He showed you in big ways and in small ways. He showed you who he was and what he’s capable of. That time he told you stories about his ex, painting her as a liar and a cheater; he showed you glimmers of truth. That time he said his ex “falsely” accused him of rape and abuse; he was giving you a silver platter of evidence. That time he said she came “out of the blue” with her accusations; he was painting a picture of your future. But you believed him, because you were drunk on hope and romantic possibilities. You believed him when he said that was all a lie; that what his ex accused him of was a lie, and he was a victim of a tragedy. Now, today, having seen a different side of him, you aren’t so sure she’s the villain he made her out to be. You now know what he’s capable of, and you think it’s perfectly plausible for him to do those things.

​It makes me sick to my stomach, you say to your best friend and your therapist. Everything he told me about what happened between them. I don’t think she was lying. I think he did do those things. And he has done them, and he will keep doing them.​

Your stomach turns. Nausea rises in your throat.​

Is this who he is? Is this who he’s always been? You ask your therapist in horror as the reality of his abuse of you sinks in.

​Yes, she says firmly and unapologetically. Having worked on domestic violence and abuse cases like yours, she knows the data. Taking everything we know about him together, his current behavior and his past, it’s clear. She pauses. He is not well, she adds gently. She’s careful not to confirm or deny stories about his past. She holds space for it. But her focus is on you and your experience, coupled with her years of experience.​

Hearing her confirmation, you feel hope drain from your body as horror and truth step in its place. I’ve been conned, you think to yourself.​

Is it a surprise? Or is it the realization that he was consistently showing you who he is? Were you betrayed by who you thought he was, or who you wanted him to be? Are you hurt by reality, or disappointed by expectations you had?

​On the outside of abuse, it might be easy to label and judge someone’s choices: How could you not know who he really was? How could you stay for that long? Why didn’t you leave sooner? But this logic mixes clarity with confusion and fails to account for being misled by misrepresentation. This logic, however, fails to distinguish clarity from confusion and overlooks the dangers of being misled and of actual misrepresentation. Sure, looking back now, you can say the signs were there. You can say he showed you who he was all along. But couple that with the poison he put in your brain that cast a spell of hope, promise, and potential, and you were none the wiser. Maybe you “ignored the signs.” But let’s not forget that he paved the road that led you away from them. He littered a path with grand gestures, fake romance, and empty promises to lure you away from the truth. And it worked. He wasn’t a sheep leading you to pasture. He was a wolf taking you to your death.​

How could you be so stupid? It’s easy to critique the steps one takes or doesn’t take based on the information at hand. But what would you do if you were sold a lie? What would you do if you found out that the Trojan Horse wasn’t a parting gift or a romantic gesture but a weapon intended to destroy you from the inside out?

Victims of abuse and domestic violence receive harm from the hands that deal it, and from the eyes that watch and ultimately judge it. Their intelligence is questioned instead of the abuser’s behavior and commitment to a lie. A public lie at that. Do you think he wants you, his friends and community, to know this side of him? Do you think you, the buddy, the co-worker, or the brother wants you to see the monster that he truly is? He’s a master of his craft: a stand-up guy in public, and an abusive villain behind closed doors. Are you willing to look at the truth?

It begs the question: How well do you really know him? Is he who YOU think he is?

Who is actually being betrayed here?