When we think of trauma, we don’t usually think of betrayal as the source of it.

Your partner calls you derogatory, uses you for money, doesn’t respect your boundaries, or sleeps with your neighbor. Your friends tell you to leave them.

Your mother insults your appearance, asks intrusive questions, and causes a rift between you and your siblings. Your friends say that the relationship is not healthy and that you should set boundaries.

But you don’t leave your toxic partner or set boundaries with your mother.

Instead, you avoid spending time with these friends and strengthen your relationship with your abusers.

The bonds of betrayal are the glue that keeps you attached to the abuse. It is a form of brainwashing that feeds on the trauma of breaking spoken or unspoken “contracts” within intimate relationships that require trust.

Make no mistake: You can’t heal from the bond of betrayal (aka bonding trauma) if you don’t actively accept that it happened. Unfortunately, many people in abusive relationships with narcissists tend to develop a tolerance for repeated betrayals. This is especially common for victims of narcissistic abuse who depend on the narcissist in their lives for housing, financing, or employment.

For many, bringing the betrayal out of conscious awareness is a survival strategy, but ultimately, it becomes harmful to the targeted individual on a mental, physical, and spiritual level.

What are the bonds of treason?

Narcissists use the trauma of betrayal as reinforcement to control their victims.

Imagine that you and your friend got into a car accident together. After the accident, your friendship is strengthened because you both went through a traumatic experience together. But, this kind of trauma isn’t rooted in betrayal.

However, narcissists use the trauma of betrayal to manipulate and control your emotions.

The narcissist knows that bringing up fights, digging into your deepest fears, and betraying you repeatedly is powerful. These events trigger your emotions. The narcissist understands that trauma will cause you to experience feelings such as shame, guilt, and worthlessness. That’s the whole point.

However, it goes deeper than that.

Narcissists also understand that the deep valleys of trauma make you crave positive peaks, too. They are holding (albeit superficial) feelings like love and gratitude hostage and doling them out in small amounts to keep you begging for more.

I think it is this way.

Being subjected to narcissistic abuse is a form of biochemical addiction. When someone gets addicted to drugs, it’s fun at first – that’s why they start using. However, their tolerance increases as they continue to take the drug. Ultimately, they build dependence. They have more bad days avoiding withdrawal than good days being high.

In the depths of narcissistic abuse, you are in the codependent stage of addiction.

The narcissist gives you little “blows” of love while overwhelming you most of the time. An example of this is they vow to you that they will stop being unfaithful, but you later find out that they never stopped.

It is important to realize that these love “successes” are not real. It is simply a strategic part of the bonds of betrayal.

How bonds of betrayal hinder narcissistic recovery from abuse
Stockholm Syndrome, Betrayal Bonding, Trauma Bonding – these are all terms that describe similar phenomena.

Trauma bonds are vital for narcissists to manipulate your emotions, thoughts, and actions. It is like belonging to a cult.

The narcissist thrives on the attention you give them during the trauma. They love that you care so much about responding, arguing, and standing up for yourself that they can keep tearing you apart. This is what they live for.

They also love that the shock strengthens the bond you share.

You certainly wouldn’t tolerate this behavior from anyone else. Surely you must care deeply about them if you don’t leave.

They will use this as evidence to claim that your relationship is intimate and unlike anything else. They will tell you that other people can’t understand the complexities and layers you face together.

So you isolate yourself. You stop talking to your friends. You spend all of your time, energy, and thoughts on the narcissist. Being abused seems normal, and you assume it’s fine the way it is.

Trauma interconnectedness and the path to betrayal

Bonds of betrayal are vital components of brainwashing.

Abusers isolate their victims, diminish their identity, and expose them to a traumatic event. The goal is to normalize the abuse so that the victim no longer sees a problem or may leave.

Narcissists follow a similar strategy with bonding between traumas – this is called the path to betrayal.

Love bombing

The narcissist first needs you to falsely believe that they are sympathetic and loving. They will shower you with gifts and attention. They will make you believe that you are soulmates.

What you remember as a captivating and exhilarating period of the relationship was actually a ploy of emotional manipulation to rope you into the narcissist’s trap. It’s also what activates the addiction’s “excitatory” neural pathway.

Initial shock

The narcissist will begin to test your limits with insults, compliments, or belittling your personality. They want to know your reaction so they know if you are a good source of abuse in the long term. Once they have been cleared of the initial shock, they will begin to “pre-level up” to gauge how far they can go. Slowly, like the metaphor of a boiled frog, you will begin to endure greater levels of betrayal and trauma.

Mind manipulation

If you defend yourself after the initial shock, the narcissist will try to manipulate your thoughts and emotions with gaslighting. They will try to convince you that you took their words the wrong way or that they didn’t actually mean what they said/did.

When it comes to narcissists, the perspective destroyer is always the end goal: Narcissists don’t want you to think for yourself, they want you to think for them.

More shocks

Now that the narcissist knows that you will accept his gasping technique, he will turn the abuse up a few notches. Narcissists will often wait until you are in a vulnerable position before they begin their most severe forms of abuse, such as after marriage, living together, or distancing yourself from your support system.

Zoom out and drop

In addition to the constant gaslighting, the narcissist will also follow up on severe abuse by reducing it and bringing it back to you. The narcissist will tell you that they really are the victim, and what they did/said wasn’t so bad.

Maintenance love pounding

At this point, the initial bombardment of the relationship ends, and you find yourself suffering from worthlessness, guilt, and isolation. You welcome the short bursts of love the narcissist offers in small chunks between fights. These cases of love bombing are important for strengthening the bonds of betrayal. This is why the bombing of love is always followed by the bombing of hate.

Iterative cycle

The cycle of shock, gaslighting, manipulation, and love bombing continues indefinitely until you leave or the narcissist ignores you for a new source.

What does the bonds of betrayal feel like? 9 marks

Infidelity bonds are hard to spot when in the grip of narcissistic abuse. After all, the whole point is to brainwash you. Here are some of the symptoms and signs that you may be in the midst of bonding trauma.

You defend, justify, or explain the narcissist’s abusive behavior to friends and family.
You have given up explaining the abuse and isolating yourself from your support system – often at the suggestion or request of a narcissist.
You expect the narcissist to change one day even though he keeps repeating the same abuse.
Battles are unproductive (this is by design). There is no healthy communication, and the narcissist is always twisting your words.
The narcissist is always the victim – even when you’re talking about an obvious situation in which they hurt you. You may be mislabeled as an abuser.
You focus on the “good” (shallow) qualities of narcissists such as their natural talents, gender, money, job, or social status.
You find yourself mourning the trial stages of a relationship and think things can go back to the way they were during the initial love-bombing phase.
You hide the narcissist’s narcissist’s nastier behavior out of embarrassment or fear.
You have accepted this situation as your destiny. You assume that no one will ever love you like a narcissist.
How to begin to break the bonds of betrayal and begin recovery from narcissistic abuse
The first step is to accept that the narcissist will not change. If they could change, they would have made some effort or at least made some effort. Narcissists have no intention of changing for the better. They only offer love bombing as a reward for keeping you hooked and solidifying the bonds of betrayal. It is strategic and artificial.

Then, it’s important to talk to someone you trust about the abuse openly. The narcissist has strategically isolated you from your support system to avoid this. Connect with old friends or find new ones you trust.