With glazed eyes I looked up at you, there was blood on my lips, just a touch and all the pain was gone, and the moment had come, the moment foe peace from pain, peace from struggle, peace from fear. Discovering a betrayal may come out of the blue and constitute a deeply distressing sock. The morning of our date was a fine Summer day. I was nervous, I had no idea what to expect but little time to worry about it. If relational trust is low, or the betrayer has been on probation because of a prior offense, a partner may actively search for evidence of deception. The initial discovery and experience of betrayal goes beyond the mere cognitive awareness that a violation has occurred, rather, the feeling of violation is registered at a deep, visceral level. The pain and hurt are amongst the first and most acute emotional reactions to the awareness that one has been betrayed. At some point, however, the powerful emotional impact of betrayal will motivate a considerable amount of conscious, cognitive effort to figure out its causes and implications, both for the partner and for the relationship. And, depending on how the betrayed partner interprets the situation, a variety of negative emotions other than hurt may be expressed.  #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

Betrayal of trust is the most intensely anger-provoking type of relational transgression, anger that arises, no doubt, because betrayed individuals typically appraise the motives of their betrayers as malevolent, dispositional (a mean streak), and intentional. Such appraisals, along with perceptions of unjustness and moral wrongness reliably elicit anger in most relational contexts.  Another emotion that may be experienced in response to betrayal is hatred—an emotion about which psychologist know little, but that is considered by laypeople to be a powerful motivator of destructive and vengeful behaviors. Humiliation and appraisals of relative powerlessness were important elicitors of hatred for an offending spouse, thus it might be expected that hatred would be experienced in response to deeply humiliation and appraisals of powerlessness. Moreover, betrayals involving deceit, sever loss of social status and infidelity are likely to evoke the highly complex emotional syndrome knows as jealousy, comprising elements such as fear of rejection, anger, and sadness. One may be alarmed if you are not worried for their safety after all you have put them through. I saw my heart, my very heart. I pulled back, dizzy, and clung to the post, each one is unique and staring down at me. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

Moreover, betrayals that have involved deceit, coercion into taking provocative photographs, sexual or emotional infidelity are destructive because emotions motivate different kinds of behaviors, and so play a major role in how the interpersonal betrayal script progresses.  Anger, for example, typically tends to motivate confrontation and engagement with the offending party, whereas hate tend to motivate avoidance or emotional withdrawal. Once a betrayed individual has discovered and reacted to a partner’s betrayal, the typical next step is for the betrayer to provide some kind of explanatory account of their behavior. The betrayers may believe that their intentions were good. They may argue they were doing their victims a favor, or at least, that their betrayals were unintended, excusable, and due to temporary, extending or unstable causes. However, regardless of how benignly betrayers regard their own motives, the accounts they give of their actions must be carefully tailored if they are to achieve their relational goals. I knew I could not endure the dark tick. Vessel of my blood. Petals falling. Whispering poetry was tumbling from my lips. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

I was a perfect soul unlike any other, tutored in courage, never looking back, lifted from misery, and seeking to marvel at all things without malice nor lamenting. However, a betrayer may sincerely regret their behavior and desire their partner’s forgiveness, but may also desire to maintain pride and control of the situation and may defend or ignore their transgressions in order to power force. Or, a betrayer may desire the partner’s forgiveness, yet also desire to end the relationship. It is important to mitigate the situation and make some form of restitution. Nonetheless, the most blameworthy offenders are likely to tell more lies and give the shortest and most aggravating accounts, suggesting that these were highly culpable offenders and may have been more motivated to save their self-esteem than to win forgiveness.  Some may even feel like you are lucky to even be involved with them, even though they abused you, and you should feel proud to be in a relationship with a man who was able to get such a beautiful affairee. Needless to say, the victim was not mollified. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

You saw a graduate of the school of suffering. You saw me. Without a doubt, the most constructive kind of account is if the betrayer’s goal is to repair the relationship and that is a concessionary one involving apologies and the sincere expression of remorse. A wealth of psychological literature attests to the power of apology in ameliorating relational damage. More profuse apologies result in less blame, greater forgiveness, less desire for punishment, greater liking and a stronger belief that the offender was really sorry for his or her offense. Apologies are helpful in softening negative attitudes toward an offender and in reducing urges to aggressively retaliate. Apologies are powerful because the submissive posture of the apologizer, and its implications for restoring the esteem of the injured party. Essentially, the offender abases himself before the person he has wronged with a higher moral status than himself. The power of the apology to repair, then, derives from the gift of status that helps redress the power of imbalance between the two parties. You do not have to feel sorry, but you must look sorry and offer a resolution. Evidence that the lack of human companionship or disrupted social relationships may lead to the development of arteriosclerosis and sudden death. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5