The Psychology Behind Trust Issues

I used to think that after betrayal, trust issues were always related to another person – whether “I trust you, and you trust me.”

But after years of friendships, relationships, and self-reflections, I realized that trust issues are not about the other person. They are about who we are in the relationships.

When I was in my twenties, I blindly trusted my friends, especially my best friends. They betrayed me later, but that is not my point.

What I learned from those experiences was that I made people sacred in my mind. Once I loved someone, I removed all borders between us. Their pain became my pain, their enemies became my enemies.

I thought friends should be friends until death, like in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (Twain, 1876), where they lock their friendship with blood.

I thought this level of loyalty made relationships stronger, but later I realized it slowly made me lose my own boundaries.

When you make someone sacred in your mind, you stop seeing them clearly. You stop judging their actions adequately because, emotionally, they become part of your identity. Losing them starts feeling like losing yourself.

People who fear losing connection might develop unhealthy relational behaviors such as emotional dependency, avoidance, hypervigilance, testing partners, or ignoring their own needs in order to preserve attachment (Peel & Caltabiano, 2021).

Looking back, maybe my biggest mistake was abandoning my own judgment to keep people I loved.

The irony is that many trust issues begin long before the betrayal itself. They begin the moment we stop trusting our own perception, boundaries, intuition, and emotional needs inside the relationship. Betrayal only exposes what was already happening internally.

The dangerous part about self-abandonment is that the more you disconnect from your own judgment, emotions, and boundaries to keep a relationship alive, the more you slowly lose trust in yourself.

Over time, you stop asking whether the relationship is healthy for you and focus only on how to keep the person.

I never thought about trust as something connected to my relationship with myself.

We talk about “trust yourself” all the time, but what does that mean in practice? In real life?

Let’s break it down.

I remember when I was a university student back in the day, I had my best friend. My best friend ended up in conflict with almost everyone in our friend group.

One day, everyone started to complain about her, saying she was becoming difficult and fighting with each of them.

I tried to justify her behavior — she was pregnant — but they gave me an ultimatum: Choose hers or our side.

I felt terrible, scared of losing everyone at the same time, but I chose my best friend, of course. After that, I never spoke to my classmates again.

Looking back, the betrayal started when I stopped listening to myself just to keep the connection alive.

Later, I realized that she was not who I thought she was. Some people take until they have everything, and when they no longer need you, they slowly disappear.

After that, I stopped romanticizing friendships and connections. People like me do not love halfway. We attach to the roots, intensely, with loyalty and devotion. And when those connections break, it changes the way we experience people altogether.

So far, I’m fine. Even better than before. I can say I don’t depend on anyone. But did those experiences leave a mark on me? Yes.

I think the same thing happens in relationships. When a partner betrays you, trust breaks suddenly, overnight. It’s like a switch in your head that was on, then it turns off. And when it happens, everything connected to it disappears with it.

It’s scary how one moment can have the power to change everything inside you so completely.

And after that, it is challenging to open to a new person, because now you carry that trust issue into every new connection.

Psychologically, betrayal creates defensive attachment behaviors. Some people become avoidant and emotionally distant, others become anxious, hyperaware, controlling, or constantly seeking reassurance. In both cases, the relationship is no longer experienced freely because the previous wound is still controlling the present connection (Peel & Caltabiano, 2021).

So how do people deal with trust issues? By avoiding being vulnerable? Testing people? Staying emotionally distant?

No.

You just start trusting yourself. Yes! It is that simple.

Trusting yourself means that even if love blinds me for a moment, I trust myself enough to eventually face the reality.

This means we are no longer scared to be hurt, to be vulnerable, to suffer, to fall in love again.

You know what the biggest betrayal is?

It is not what another person did to you!

The biggest betrayal is seeing red flags, wrong partner's behavior, feeling that something is off in this relationship, and still convincing yourself to stay while betraying your own soul.

Self-abandonment happens slowly, every time we ignore our intuition, minimize disrespect, justify harmful behavior, or silence our own needs to avoid losing someone.

Eventually, the relationship survives, but the relationship with ourselves does not.

Self-trust is choosing yourself, no matter how painful it is to break from the connection.

You stop needing another person to regulate your emotional safety because your sense of safety is no longer attached to their behavior.

So, when you meet someone new, you stop controlling every outcome. You stop interrogating every text, every action, every little detail. It might be hard, I agree, but doable.

There are no guarantees that nobody will ever hurt you again. That’s impossible. People wear masks, lie, betray, change, disappoint. Life is unpredictable.

Say this to yourself:

“I allow myself to fully experience this person, openly, and honestly. And if one day they hurt me, betray me or disappoint me, I trust myself enough to deal with it.”

You are basically saying to your brain that pain is survivable, but self-abandonment is not an option because it will destroy you, and you’ve got this.

When you trust yourself, you stop being afraid of experiences.

You tell yourself:
“I trust myself enough to handle whatever happens."

Instead of trusting another person with your entire sense of safety, you learn to trust yourself enough to handle whatever happens.