I sometimes wonder how people are able to look their friends or family members directly in the face, smile, have normal conversations with them and even comfort them, knowing they have deeply betrayed them behind their backs.
How do they do it?
I’m currently keeping a secret from my sister, and even though the secret is completely harmless, I already feel slightly guilty about it. Her fiancé reached out to me recently because he wants to plan something special for her birthday, which is coming up this month.
She is carrying his child, and apparently, he feels deeply indebted to her for agreeing to do something quite expensive for him. So he wants to surprise her with something special.
Naturally, I was recruited and my job is to help with the planning and, most importantly, not tell my sister. It sounds simple enough Except my sister has recently been suspicious that something is wrong between them. She has been wondering whether he might be cheating because he’s been acting strangely.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting here knowing the real reason he’s acting strangely is because he’s secretly planning a birthday surprise for her. So now, every time I text him I feel like I’m participating in some elaborate conspiracy against my own sister. She’ll ask me something about him and I’ll have to act normal. She’ll tell me about how his recent behaviour is making her uncomfortable and I’ll console her and somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, Girl, if you only knew but I can’t tell her. Not because I want to deceive her, but because I know the truth is supposed to make her happy when the surprise is finally revealed.
Still, it has made me think about something I’ve never quite understood, about how people deliberately betray someone close to them and then continue interacting with them as though nothing happened? Imagine secretly having an affair with your friend’s partner and then sitting beside that same friend while she cries about how distant her partner has become.
Imagine knowing exactly why she’s hurting because you are part of the reason she’s hurting, and still being able to hug her and say, You’ll be fine. How? I genuinely don’t understand the psychological gymnastics required for that. Because even with something as innocent as the secret I’m currently keeping, I feel uncomfortable knowing that my sister doesn’t have the full picture.
Now imagine knowing that the secret you’re keeping could completely destroy someone. Perhaps that’s why betrayal hits differently when it comes from someone close.
A stranger hurting you is painful, but a friend or family member betraying you requires them to know you well enough to understand exactly what would hurt you and then do it anyway and still manage to sleep peacefully afterwards.
Some even justify it as self-love. Their theory is they don’t care about being a girl’s girl. Or they’re doing what’s best for them or nobody owes anybody anything. Of course, there is nothing wrong with prioritising yourself or leaving situations that no longer serve you. But self-love shouldn’t require deliberately destroying someone else.
There is a difference between choosing yourself and choosing to hurt someone because their pain is convenient for you. What fascinates me most is the ability to compartmentalise it. To betray someone at night and greet them warmly in the morning. To know their partner’s secrets and still sit with them over lunch, hear them complain about the very thing you secretly participated in and still keep a straight face.
Some people become very good at separating their actions from their conscience and they convince themselves that they haven’t actually done anything wrong. Guilt simply doesn’t affect everyone in the same way. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I can’t even comfortably keep a good secret from my sister without feeling like I’m doing something suspicious. Meanwhile, some people are apparently out here carrying secrets capable of detonating entire relationships and still managing to ask how they are with a completely straight face.
That level of emotional audacity genuinely fascinates me. To be honest, that’s the deepest betrayal of all, not simply what someone does behind your back, but the fact that they can stand in front of you afterwards and behave as if they have done absolutely nothing wrong.
