I’ve seen many people who have experienced emotional betrayal and heard many stories of betrayal, so I’ve noticed some patterns. People often ask me: How do those who have been betrayed manage to come out of it? Did they all get divorced?

If they can heal from the pain of betrayal, emerge from its shadow, start a new life, and even regain happiness, then they must have put in a lot of effort. Behind this effort, there must be qualities like strength, courage, and independence. If I had to summarize, it would be this:

After being betrayed, their efforts were not focused on trying to make the other person love them again, but on learning to love themselves and taking responsibility for their own happiness.

As for whether they got divorced—as long as they learned to love themselves, whether they got divorced or not was not important to them. So, they were not really fixated on getting divorced.

In reality, the decision to divorce was based on their own wishes. For example, if the other person continued to betray them without remorse, they would choose to divorce because staying in that marriage would hinder their own happiness. On the other hand, some people might not divorce because of their children, but by taking responsibility for themselves, they lived positively and energetically, without needing the marriage to provide them with other things like financial support or dependence, and therefore, they were not bound by this relationship.

After experiencing betrayal, whether to hope for the other person to love them again or to learn to love themselves becomes an important turning point in dealing with betrayal.

Many people tend to choose the former.

So, they get caught up in questions like:

Does he/she still love me? Does he/she still have feelings for me? Is the relationship between him/her and the third party genuine?

What went wrong in our marriage? Did I neglect something or was I never good enough?

How should I speak for him/her to realize his/her mistake? What should I do to make him/her genuinely repent and never repeat the mistake…

If we continue, we can list hundreds of such questions. You may have noticed that all these questions revolve around the other person—your focus is on the other person, and what you hope for is the other person’s adjustment and change.

Because your hope is on the other person, if they are not around, you will feel anxious, and if they act slightly unusual, you will have various suspicions. You will keep pestering them, asking about their past or their future plans… and even after repeating this for years, it doesn’t actually solve the problem.

However, those who eventually overcome the obstacles and get their lives and state back on track after experiencing betrayal, actually did all the work themselves. They were actually pondering over questions like:

When there is betrayal in a relationship, it’s difficult for this person to take responsibility for me. They cannot take responsibility for the hurt, my emotions, or my future, so everything depends on me. Consequently, they would learn to heal themselves, take initiative in managing their emotions, and plan their future based on self-reliance.

If I need to rely on myself, what do I need to do? What are the areas I need to adjust and change?

When faced with difficulties and obstacles, their first instinct is to seek their own solutions. When they can’t, they further analyze where they might have problems (this problem differs from the type where the other person’s betrayal is your problem). Through this self-reflection, they eventually see the deep-rooted issues in their own character, such as being indecisive or weak, and then they further proceed to change themselves on a deeper level—only then can the experience of betrayal become meaningful.

Why do these people have more and more energy? It’s because they are taking care of themselves, changing themselves—it’s like they are “exercising”, and “exercising” generates energy. This is a simple fact of physics. After generating energy, they become very confident, and this sets off a virtuous cycle, driving themselves to improve.

Ask yourself two questions:

Is it harder to change others or yourself?

Is it more meaningful for others to become better for yourself or for yourself to become better for yourself?

Therefore, after experiencing emotional betrayal, I hope you can understand that focusing on yourself is crucial. Firstly, give up reliance and expectations on the other person—the less you depend on the other person, the more you can rely on yourself. Secondly, learn to love yourself. Many people say this, but very few actually do it. Truly loving yourself is not just about superficial things like buying nice clothes or eating fancy meals, but about introspection and taking responsibility for yourself through your efforts, doing things you love, and becoming the person you love.

This process of effort is not about indulgence but a difficult journey. Therefore, loving yourself also involves overcoming your shortcomings and weaknesses, forcing yourself to grow, because fundamentally, “love” is a kind of ability.

Only when you have enough “self-love” ability can you achieve the state of “loving yourself well”.