Trust, Betrayal, and the Road to Recovery

Relationships are one of my favorite topics.

All types of relationships—the quirky friendships, the frenemies, the weird colleagues, or even complete strangers—all of them.

I love them all! I enjoy seeing the dynamics between people.

I have a good friend who is just as incorrigible as I am, and we can talk about this for hours without getting bored.

I’ve often felt that when you meet someone for the first time, it is never by accident, nor is it coincidental.

At various stages of our lives, we encounter and interact with individuals, who have the potential to either impart knowledge or teach us.

In a nutshell, you are either learning or teaching.

Recently, I met up with a friend that I hadn’t seen in over 5 years. There was a time that we spoke every couple of weeks, and then life happened.

After the initial hugs and kisses, we settled into the stories of our lives.

There were a few new characters and personalities to bring to the discussion, but all in all, we fell into an easy conversation; it was as if we had never been apart.

One of the more controversial topics we discussed was betrayal, or perhaps more accurately, the confusion surrounding betrayal.

I hope you will forgive me (you know who you are) as I share this story and it goes like this.

Two men had gone into business.

It was a young, thriving business with a steady flow of clients.

One partner handled operations, recruitment, and the day-to-day running, while the other handled the scaling of the business, marketing, and networking.

They both had crafted the vision and direction of the business with the understanding that they would inject funds only for the first couple of years, and when the business stabilized, they would receive a dividend.

They had estimated this to be between years 3 and 4.

I met my friend in year 3, so business was up and running, and nothing seemed amiss.

The Betrayal

Now this is where it gets intriguing.

In year 4, one of the partners needed to travel for a period of time.

In his absence, the other partner was happy to run the business with the fully functioning team that they had both recruited.

After some time, he began to hear rumors from their clients that his partner had set up a rival business.

He made a few inquiries, and lo and behold, it was true.

By the beginning of year 5, there had been a vicious legal battle between the partners.

There are so many things to learn from the example, but I will only focus on two.

The first is one is…

1. How did this happen?

The simple answer to this is Betrayal.

What is betrayal?

Betrayal is a breach of trust.

Without trust, we are left floundering.

Remember when we were children growing up?

We understood that our parents would prepare breakfast and get us ready for school.

There was a routine that we looked forward to and grew into.

It instilled discipline in us, mainly because of the consistency.

For us to build trust, the three ingredients of Routine, Discipline and Consistency are extremely important.

Imagine discovering after years of living with your parents, who instilled those three ingredients, that they were not your parents and not even remotely related to you.

You'd feel betrayed to the nth degree.

There might be no way out of that situation.

My point is that betrayal is often a deal-breaker.

While we try to hold onto the three components, it can still leave you shaken and extremely emotional.

The second one would be...

2. What is the way forward?

You can only linger in the confusion of betrayal for a brief moment.

You simply cannot live there.

It’s a dark and confusing place where swirling emotions threaten to overwhelm you.

It is uninhabitable.

So again, let’s try to keep this simple.

Even though someone close to you has betrayed you, it doesn’t mean that you can no longer trust anyone.

And fortunately for you, the three ingredients of routine, discipline, and consistency remain the key components.

Nothing has changed there.

Consistency builds a routine, which in turn becomes discipline.

Betrayal brings about a range of emotions oscillating between mild irritation and extreme rage, making it a highly emotive place.

So, what do you do when emotions run amok?

You must harness them, and that would require immense self-control.

With routine, discipline, and consistency, you can add self-control.

These are your superpowers.

The Path Forward

You’re now on your way to rebuilding your life.

I’ve skimmed over the details in the example so that you can focus on the two core lessons.

One can learn several more lessons from this, but it also illustrates the dynamics of friends turning into enemies and strangers forming strong bonds.

These examples are meant to challenge you to determine which season you are in and your role in all interactions; this way, it makes it more meaningful and impactful.

We all strive for consistency within relationships, but we fail woefully.

God is the only constant I have learned.

He is the same today, tomorrow, and forever.

Remember this, my advice to anyone struggling with the swirls of betrayal: only structure and control can combat the emotive response that betrayal promotes.

Harness those emotions with self-control; create routines and habits with firm disciplines and boundaries.

Establish strong pillars of consistency and focus on them diligently, as Angela Bassett said in her sassy voice.

“If God be for you, who can go against you?”

See you next Sunday!