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Betrayal is a very personal thing; when a friend betrays you the hurt is larger and the impact far deeper.

Friendship is based on trust, mutual understanding and a will to see no harm come to the other- that includes at an emotional level. Your friends are the people you quite often turn to for help, before your parents because you know they care, and you know they can relate to your experience with greater empathy.

Backstabbing is usually limited to talking about someone negatively behind their back, aiming to damage their life in some manner or other. Sometimes this is accidental; sometimes the only accident is you finding out.

My instinct is always defensive; I guess pretty much the same as everyone else's. I ask, "Why did they do this to me?" and brood on their malice and come to question their past actions; you feel so hurt that you'll sit there and try and unravel the friendship, taking every bond away with your biased hindsight.

It's better to sit and ask yourself, "What information am I lacking? Was this innocent? Was it misconstrued?" then approach the person.

Don't think of it as a confrontation; confrontation always has the connotation of wills clashing and difficult times; think of it as approaching for clarification, you need to know what happened from their angle, not just your own; sometimes you can be quite wrong.

Approach them when there's some time to talk, alone, and quietly. Don't be aggressive, but don't tiptoe around the issue, ask them directly, "I heard X, Y & Z?' ask gentle questions and find out why they did it. If the answer is innocent it still may take time to get past your own natural reluctance to trust them before it is resolved- tell them that, help them understand your situation as you try and understand theirs.

It's rare that the incident will be an act of malice, when it is, cut your ties.

A good friend of mine once said, "The people I carry around in my heads are tenants, if they cannot pay the rent they must get out,' by rent of course, he meant meeting his criteria for friendship. When you come across malicious types, tell them why you don't need their company, tell them life is short and walk, leave them behind you.

Your life is short, and you should never suffer those who willingly do you harm, nor entertain the idea that you should or will ever invest your trust in them again.

Learn more about this author, BT Cassidy.
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