The Invisible Script Running Your Relationship (Betrayal)

If you read my last content piece,
you’ll remember that consult I mentioned yesterday– “Sophia”.

After she shared her story of repeated betrayal,
I asked her a question that caused a shift in her system:

"What happened when you were little,
the first time someone who was supposed to love you
chose something else instead?"

She froze.

"My dad," she whispered.
"He had this whole other family
we didn't know about until I was 11."

And there it was—the original template for her adult heartbreak.

The Wound (That keeps re-opening)

I'm sharing this because I've seen this pattern
hundreds of times in my practice.

The specifics vary, but the mechanism is the same:

Our earliest experiences of betrayal,
abandonment, or emotional neglect
become the unconscious blueprint for our adult relationships.

The most devastating part of this cycle
isn't just the repeated heartbreak.

It's the growing conviction that you're fundamentally flawed.

With each betrayal, the inner narrative gets darker:

• "There must be something wrong with me."

• "I'm just not the kind of person who gets faithful love."

• "Maybe I'm asking for too much."

• "I should just accept that this is how relationships are."

I see this especially in high-achievers.
The ones who have used this childhood pain
to drive them become successful in business.

They apply the same strategic thinking
that made them successful in business to their love lives:

They research "red flags" and vigilantly scan for them.
They interrogate potential partners about past infidelities.
They track locations and monitor social media.
They try not to be "too needy" or "too demanding."
They give endless second chances, hoping the pattern will break.

They have huge walls and become highly
reactive with freezing and fawning to protect them from that pain.

But it's like trying to solve a calculus problem with finger painting.
The tools simply don't match the challenge.

Because what's happening isn't logical—it's neurological.

It’s why we give such great relationship advice to a friend over coffee,
but suck at following said advice ourselves.

Your nervous system is following a script written decades ago,
when your developing brain made sense of early hurts
in the only way it knew how:

• Perhaps you learned that love and pain come together

• Or that your needs will always be secondary to someone else's desires

• Or that people who claim to love you can't be trusted

• Or that you have to perform perfectly to keep someone loyal

These aren't conscious beliefs.
They're embodied patterns—
templates for attachment that live in your nervous system,
quietly orchestrating your love life without your awareness.

The cruel irony is that the more you try to avoid repeating the pattern,
the more firmly entrenched it becomes.
Because the very fear of betrayal sends signals that attract precisely
the partners capable of fulfilling that fear.

Shitty. I know.
It’s like when you hurt your elbow last week,
and you keep on bumping into it for some reason.

It's an exhausting, soul-crushing cycle.
And it's not your fault.

Here's how it works:

1. Early experience creates a core belief
   Your young brain forms conclusions like
   "I'm not enough to keep someone faithful" or
   "Love always involves betrayal" or
   "I can't trust anyone fully"

2. This belief becomes your emotional filter
   You unconsciously seek evidence that confirms this belief
   while dismissing evidence that contradicts it

3. Your behavior aligns with the belief
   You might choose emotionally unavailable partners,
   ignore red flags, or create dynamics
   where you're always chasing validation

4. The pattern perpetuates itself
   When the betrayal happens (again),
   it reinforces your original belief:
   "See? This is just how relationships work for me"

What’s strange is the weird kinky high we get
in having our assumptions confirmed. 
“I KNEW IT!” I’M NOT CRAZY AFTER ALL!”

I spent years in this cycle myself.
Each trigger felt like confirmation of my deepest fear:
that women are not to be trusted and are there to extract from me.

What I didn't understand was that
I wasn't just having bad luck.

I was unconsciously creating the exact conditions
for the outcome I feared most.

Not because I wanted to be hurt.

But because my nervous system
was trying to resolve an original wound by recreating it,
hoping for a different ending this time.

Our body keeps recreating situations that feel familiar—
even painful ones—
because the familiarity itself feels safer than the unknown.

This isn't your fault.
But it is your opportunity to break the cycle.

Writing a new script

The good news is that our nervous systems can be rewired.

That the very pattern that causes us so much pain
can be transformed.

I've seen it happen hundreds of times in my practice.
Not through willpower or better partner selection,
but through a fundamental reprogramming
of the nervous system's response to intimacy.

The most beautiful transformation happens when you realize:
the pattern wasn't happening TO you.
It was happening FOR you.

It sounds so cheesy, I know– a part of me cringes when I write this
but look deeper:

Each betrayal was pointing you toward the original wound
that needed healing—the first time your trust was broken,
the first time you learned that love could be conditional,
the first time someone chose their desires over your well-being.

When you heal that original template, some incredible shifts happen:

• You develop what I call "emotional sonar"—an almost supernatural ability to detect incongruence in others (otherwise known as “discernment”)

• You stop being magnetically drawn to partners who will recreate your familiar pain

• The extreme vigilance that exhausted you gives way to genuine, embodied trust

• You recognize safe connection instantly because your body knows what it feels like

• The "walking on eggshells" sensation dissolves, replaced by authentic self-expression

Most profound of all, you stop expecting betrayal
as the inevitable conclusion to intimacy.

One of my clients described it like this:

"It's like I've been watching relationships through a dirty window
my whole life, and someone finally cleaned the glass.
I can see clearly now—both the red flags AND the green ones.
I trust myself completely."

This is not about becoming cynical or lowering your expectations.
It's about developing such precision in your emotional discernment
that betrayal becomes increasingly unlikely—
because you're no longer sending out the unconscious signals
that say “I expect you to betray me”.

The most powerful question I learned to ask myself
(and now ask my clients) is this:

"What am I getting from this pattern
that serves me in some way?"

For Sophia, the realization was profound:
by choosing partners likely to cheat,
she was actually protecting herself from true vulnerability
and the terror of real intimacy.

The betrayal, painful as it was,
felt safer than the alternative: being fully seen,
fully known, and potentially rejected for who she really is.

Tomorrow, I'll share the exact process that helped Sophia
(and many others) rewire this pattern at the nervous system level.

For now, consider this:
What if the repeated betrayals weren't about your worth at all...
but about an unconscious strategy to keep yourself emotionally safe?

With curiosity and compassion,
Your wingman on the adventure,

Nima