How to Recover From Betrayal: Forgiveness Isn't Trust

Two Ways of Understanding “Forgiveness”

What does it mean to forgive someone?

People use the term “forgive” in two different ways.

One way—probably the more common way—is what we just talked about. If I forgive someone, it means I’ve decided I can restore the relationship. All is forgiven—we can get back to how things were. That implies I’m choosing to trust that whatever they did, they won’t do it again.

I don’t like that way of defining forgiveness.

Instead, I prefer the idea of forgiveness as an “inside job.”

Forgiveness in that sense is about letting go of the anger, resentment, and obsession with whatever happened. It’s recovering from the trauma, so you can think about it without panic.

Forgiveness is about your own mind and spirit, not anyone else’s. When you forgive, you’ve freed yourself of the burden of anger. You stop trying to change reality, and can think clearly enough to work with it.

Notice that the “inside job” understanding has essentially nothing to do with trust.

In fact, when you think about forgiveness this way, you realize that you could forgive someone whether or not they deserve it. You can forgive someone whom you are still choosing to divorce, or sue, or prosecute. Whether or not to restore trust is a whole separate issue.

In other words, when you forgive, you get your brain back, along with your soul.

That’s why forgiveness—in that “inside job” sense—is a vital step in recovering from betrayal.

How Do You Forgive?

 If I’m saying that forgiveness is getting your brain and soul back, I’m obviously saying it’s a good thing.

But that doesn’t make it easy.

In fact, you can’t, and shouldn’t, forgive until you’re ready. Sometimes you need the anger to motivate you to get out of an unsafe situation.

Even when you’re ready, forgiveness can take time. In my books and courses, I describe getting to forgiveness as involving three steps: forgive yourself, forgive whoever hurt you, and forgive God. (That last one especially takes some explanation!) How you do all of that is beyond the scope of this brief article.

But you do need to forgive, in that sense of getting your brain back, before you can think about whether you can restore trust—or even about whether you want to try.

Where Do You Go from Here?

If you’ve been betrayed, forgiveness is only one of many questions you’ll eventually face.

You may also be asking:

• Was this truly a betrayal?
• Can I understand why it happened without excusing it?
• Is rebuilding trust something I even want?
• If so, what would that require?
• How can I make decisions now that I’ll still feel comfortable with years from now?

Those questions deserve more than quick answers.

They need a framework for thinking them through carefully.

I’ve explored that framework in much greater depth in my self-paced video course:

Betrayal and Forgiveness: How to Navigate the Turmoil and Learn to Trust Again.

▶ Learn more about the course

Whether or not you continue with the course, I hope you’ll remember this distinction:

Forgiveness and trust are different questions.

You don’t have to answer them both at the same time.

And you don’t have to force either answer before you’re ready.