When the Person Who Hurt You Wasn’t Held Accountable

Trust is often called the “oxygen of all human relationships”. While relationships are desired, they inherently require risk, which means experiencing broken trust and disappointment is inevitable. Understanding and overcoming the challenge of trust issues—which arise from betrayal, letdowns, and systemic dishonesty—is essential for moving forward in healing and achieving emotional resilience.

The sources explore the roots of trust issues, practical steps to manage skepticism, and the spiritual necessity of surrendering the desire for vengeance to unlock personal healing.

The Problem: Ubiquitous Lies and Betrayal

Trust issues are understandable because deception is woven into everyday life.

• Prevalence of Lying: Statistics suggest the average American lies approximately four times a day. Specifically, the average male lies about six times a day, and the average female lies about three times a day.
• Types of Lies: Many lies are courtesy lies told for social graces (e.g., complimenting an outfit you dislike) or minor deceptions to avoid accountability (e.g., blaming bad traffic for being late when you left late).
• Compounding Hurts: This general environment of uncertainty is compounded by major disappointments, such as rejections and hurts from childhood, infidelity in marriage, or friendship breakups, which feed a general sense of skepticism.

Everyday Trust Issues and Skepticism

Skepticism born from broken trust can manifest in small, daily actions, demonstrating a lack of confidence in others.

• Checking Orders: Many people stop to check their fast food or coffee order at a drive-through before pulling off.
• Confirming Plans: Some individuals feel the need to follow up several times with friends or significant others to ensure they will still show up for plans.
• Safety Checks: Habitually checking multiple times at night to ensure the door is locked, or checking that appliances like irons or curling irons are turned off before leaving the house, signals a lack of trust in one’s own memory or safety.
• Potluck Anxiety: Skepticism regarding the food brought to a potluck dinner due to concerns about hygiene (e.g., witnessing people not washing their hands or seeing pets on counters) is also a common trust issue.

Healing from Major Betrayal: The Journey to Freedom

Major betrayal—such as infidelity or Church hurt from a leader who was not held accountable—is life-altering and requires specific steps to prevent it from becoming life-ruining.

1. Surrender the Need for Accountability and Justice

When betrayed, the natural desire is to see the person who caused the hurt held accountable and suffer consequences. However, focusing on the perpetrator’s fate is unhelpful and derails personal healing.

• It’s Not Your Job: It is crucial to recognize that it is not the victim’s job to worry about how or when the betrayer will be held accountable. This requires trusting that God will take care of it.
• Consequences are Built-In: Every sin has consequences built inside of it. While the betrayer experiences pleasure from the selfish action, they also unleash consequences. Knowing that they will eventually reap what they sow—and that the fruit of their schemes will be the produce of their life—can bring peace, even if the victim never sees the external consequences.

2. Detach Healing from the Perpetrator’s Actions

A major obstacle to healing is attaching the ability to heal and move forward to actions that the person who hurt you may never take.

• Refusing Power: No other person should have the kind of power that derails your life permanently. Their actions can affect and alter life, but they should never be life-ruining.
• The Desire for Acknowledgment: The deep desire for the betrayer to come back and acknowledge, “This was so wrong; I have really hurt you,” is understandable but can stall recovery if it is made a prerequisite for moving on.

3. Cultivate Empathy and Perspective

A powerful step toward healing is reaching a place of empathy for the person who caused the hurt.

• Grieving for Them: The speaker shared grieving for a church leader, recognizing that they initially set out to build the Kingdom but fell into sin and never reached the great destiny God had planned for them.
• Hurt People Hurt People: If someone is causing hurt, chances are it stems from an unhealed place where they were hurt earlier in their life. Having empathy for them as a younger child who was hurt can aid the healing process.

4. Practice Resilience Through Rebellious Acts

Healing requires active resilience—refusing to reduce your life down to the limitations of living hurt. This involves taking smart, calculated, wise risks.

• Transforming “Can’t” into “Will”: When betrayed or hurt, limitations often turn into a “can’t” or “don’t” (e.g., “I can’t go into big crowds” or “I won’t trust anyone at work”). The challenge is to recognize these limits as a chance for a challenge and decide to do the brave thing, transforming the “cans and don’ts” into “won’ts”.
• The Ice Maker Victory: An example of resilience is taking the time to fix a broken ice maker instead of lamenting the absence of the person who normally fixes it. The victory lies in refusing to let the limitations of the past dictate present capability.
• Creating Belonging for Others: A powerful act of resilience is stepping into a situation where you feel anxious (like walking into a room alone) and instead focusing on seeking out people who are also alone and making them feel like they belong.