Something Was Wrong - S26 Ep6: Friendship, Attachment, and Betrayal with Dr. Marisa G. Franco, PhD

Starting point is 00:00:00 An inspirational portrait of a farmer's son who rises from humble beginnings to build a luxury fashion empire. Brunello, the gracious visionary, traces Brunello Cucinelli's life journey, his commitment to craftsmanship, ethical values, and humanistic philosophy. Directed by Academy Award winner Giuseppe Tonatore, the film blends documentary and fiction. An intimate look at the Italian entrepreneur known as the King of Kashmir. See Brunello, the gracious visionary, in Select Theatres, July 24th. If you love Something Was Wrong and want to help support the show, become a community contributor on Apple Podcasts. Or purchase a sticker from our sticker shop at brokencyclemedia.com.

Starting point is 00:00:41 Thank you so much. Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and includes topics that may be upsetting. This season will be discussing friendship betrayal, religious abuse, stalking, sexual assault, and other serious topics. So please listen to me. with care. Some names have been changed for safety or anonymity purposes. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Sources and resources can be found in the episode notes. Thank you so much for listening. I am honored today to be joined by Dr. Marissa G. Franco, who is an enlightening psychologist,

Starting point is 00:01:52 international speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. Dr. Franco is known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives. She works as a professor at the University of Maryland and author of the New York Times bestseller, Plotonic, how the science of attachment can help you make and keep friends and worth, the new science of self-esteem and secure attachment. She writes about friendship for psychology today. and she has been a featured connection expert for major publications like the New York Times,

Starting point is 00:02:27 The Telegraph, and Vice. She speaks on belonging and self-worth at corporations, government agencies, non-profits, and universities. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Franco. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. As I said before we began, I have been diving into your book, and it is incredible. I've already learned so much about myself and the ways that I think about friendship. I'd love to hear from you, your path to friendship science and what led you to get into this work. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:02:59 So in my young 20s, I had friends, but I didn't necessarily value them as much as I do now. Then I went through this breakup. So I approached my friend Heather and I was like, oh, do you want to start this wellness group? We could meet up and meditate and cook and do yoga, a group of friends. And looking back, I took the breakup so bad because I thought romantic love was the only love that made me worried. is the only love that could truly complete me. But meeting up with these friends every week showed me just how powerful a force platonic love was

Starting point is 00:03:30 and made me really rethink some of those assumptions and question, why didn't this form of love matter or count? And I felt like my reactions, my thoughts, my interpretations were really reflecting a larger culture and zeitgeist wherein we create this hierarchy of love. And I wanted to be part of leveling that hierarchy. So that's why I wrote Platonic on the science of making and keeping friends.

Starting point is 00:03:52 Do you feel like the research you've done has helped yourself to become a better friend and have a clear understanding about your relationships as well? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, before I wrote Platonic, it was all a mystery to me. I felt like there was some magic that happened. People just sort of chose you. It didn't feel like something you can be intentional about doing. Either you had friends or you don't. But since writing Platonic, I'm like, okay, you have power over whether you have friends or not.

Starting point is 00:04:21 You can influence this outcome. There are certain things that you can do to make it much more likely that you have friends. And I think I was just really afraid of liking people too much or showing interest in people too much. I thought friendships just happened. And I talk about how in Platonic, that belief is actually related to being lonelier over time. If you think friendship happens organically because you don't make the effort. People that make the effort, they're less depressed, more connected, more popular. So I realized the importance of really initiating.

Starting point is 00:04:50 and also this interesting research that we tend to overestimate how likely we are to be rejected. It's called the liking gap when strangers interact and they estimate how much did that person like me. They underestimate how likely they are to be rejected. So I tell people to try to assume that people will like you because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. When people are told to make that assumption, even when it's not necessarily true, they interact with people. They're warmer, friendlier, more open. So now I'll always shoot my friendship shot if there's someone that I think is cool. and I'm a lot less shy about showing people in my life just how much I like and value them

Starting point is 00:05:26 because I realize instead of that feeling like too much or over the top, that's actually what makes people want to be your friend. Absolutely. And how cool for your friends that they have the flex of my friend literally wrote the book on friendship. Yeah, no pressure there. For the listeners understanding something obviously you discuss at length in platonic is attachment theory. Can you talk a little bit about attachment theory for those who are less familiar, what it is and how it influences the way that we live? Absolutely. So attachment theory is basically this idea that in our early relationships with our parents, through those relationships, we develop this internal template about how people will respond to us.

Starting point is 00:06:09 And so if our parents were perhaps inconsistent in their love, like distracted, focusing on their own triggers, maybe a parent was so focused on the other parent that they weren't necessarily tuned to you. you become anxiously attached, which means you learn you had to earn love and that people are going to reject you. From that, you navigate friendships in a way where you tend to assume you're being rejected when you're not. You put a lot of effort into connection, but it tends to blow up because you tend to move fast in connection, because again, your core fears all be abandoned. And so if you move faster, then that's kind of soothing your fear of abandonment, but then it creates less of a strong foundation. You tend to not bring up problems or issues because you're afraid again that then people will abandon you. Maybe you don't reach out as much because you assume you're burdening your

Starting point is 00:06:53 friend. So that's your core issue. People are going to reject me, even though you really want to connect with people. And you tend to be preoccupied by your relationships. And so you might be thinking a lot about, does this friend really like me? Did I do the wrong thing? That kind of thing. Then you have avoidantly attached people. And their parents typically give them like food, water, shelter, a lot of emotional neglect. Their parents really tried to shut down any sort of emotional reaction. We're not curious about their internal world. They learn to attach emotions to shame,

Starting point is 00:07:24 that it's shameful to experience any emotions. Maybe you're too sensitive. It's your fault if you have a reaction to something. So these avoidantly attached people have learned if I get too close to someone, it's going to be scary and it's going to be unsafe. And so they keep people at a distance. Typically, they have fewer friends.

Starting point is 00:07:41 Or if they do have friends, the friends feel like they don't really know them, because the avoidantly attached people, rarely vulnerable, rarely affectionate, very passive when it comes to connection and don't actually feel connected to people. But also it doesn't tend to bother them as much because they don't really see the value in connection. Because again, it's just associated with in your head lack of safety. And so they can be sort of like more mown wolves. They pull away from friendships more easily. And they don't show a lot of emotion, which can affect their friendships in various ways.

Starting point is 00:08:11 then you have securely attached people who basically grew up with good and them of parents who tried to meet their needs and hear them out and understand them when they're sad and give them support and hear them out when they're angry. They grow up to be people, I call them super friends. They're better at initiating. They're better at working through conflict. They're more forgiving, more empathic. They're vulnerable, but the anxiously attached person will overshare without the other person reciprocating. The secure person is vulnerable, but will attenuate their vulnerability based on the other person. They're very affectionate. And so they tend to make really good friends. But of course, some of us, we're not always secure in every friendship.

Starting point is 00:08:52 Different friendships can bring up different sides of ourselves. So in my new book, Worth, I talk about the importance of being secure-ish other than secure, because if there's parts of you that are insecure, it's important to acknowledge them and care for those parts of you because you can only regulate what you acknowledge. I've seen research that suggests that friendship can be. just as important, if not more important for people's long-term mental health, longevity of life, all sorts of things. Like, you've done the research. How important is friendship?

Starting point is 00:09:22 Yeah. So when we look at longevity, there's things like your diet and your exercise, which obviously contribute to a longer lifespan. But having a large diverse social network actually contributes to living longer, more than the diet and exercise combined. So it's really important both mentally and physically for us to be connecting with a lot of different people. Just like we need oxygen, need water to be alive and functioning at our best, we also need connection to be at a healthy homeostasis. Your book mentioned something about attachment styles from childhood tend to carry those into adulthood.

Starting point is 00:10:01 Is it possible for people who grow up in traumatic or abusive environments to, over time change their attachment? Oof, this is a great question because this is almost like you're asking about my body of work because Platonic was all about sharing the ways that you can show up in a secure way. But a reaction that I got from Platonic was like, I know how to say all this secure things,

Starting point is 00:10:27 but like how do I feel that way in my nervous system? How do I actually feel safe? How do I actually feel more regulated? And so I took that on for my second book, Worth. And here's what I've come up with. Why are we insecure? Well, foundationally, it's because of our memories. We have memories of harm, abuse, neglect, rejection that have created these insecurities.

Starting point is 00:10:50 Researchers say memories are the database of self-esteem. But the thing about memories is they don't just record the past. They predict the future. So for the insecure attachment styles, they think that it's going to happen again. And that's why you show up in friendship the ways that you do, because the anxious person assumes they're going to get abandoned again, the avoidant person assumes they're going to get harmed again, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if the anxious person's constantly needing reinsurance, eventually their friend may get

Starting point is 00:11:15 a little fed up and back way, or if the avoidant person is always looking out for signs of harm, they might actually find it and miss the larger context of the friendship. But the thing about memories is because they're made to predict the future and not record the past, we can actually change them so that they could better predict the future. We can change the emotional valence of the memory, we can change how it sits in our brain. And that's really, according to memory reconciliation theory, which I go into a lot in the new book worth. It's kind of the founding theory of the book. But it's this idea that every time we revisit a memory, we can change how it sits in our brain. And so the research has looked like people go back to a memory of harm

Starting point is 00:11:53 and they intervene as their adult self. And they say all the things that they needed to hear at the time. Maybe they're being bullied and they say, there's nothing wrong with you. The way this person's reacting to you is more about them than you. You're a beautiful person. I'm so proud of you for being who you are. And they try to relive the memory as viscerally as possible while picturing themselves intervening. And doing so will actually not only improve sense of self-esteem, also you see changes at the neural level in people's brains in terms of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that records the memory. And so you can sort of change the past in a way. I'd like to thank our sponsor Avocado Green Mattress.

Starting point is 00:12:43 What I love best about avocado is that they focus on real materials and thoughtful craftsmanship. Their mattresses like Avocado's best-selling green mattress are supportive, comfortable, and feel intentionally made, not mass-produced. Unlike most mattress brands that only sell online, avocado has real showrooms and retail partners across the country where you can walk in, lie down, and feel the difference before you buy. Avocado products are made, not manufactured, and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support. You can experience them in person at an avocado showroom or a premier retailer near you. Or shop online at avocadogreenmatress.com slash SWW to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado green mattress.com slash SW. Avocadogreen mattress.com slash.

Starting point is 00:13:38 SWW. Thank you. If you've tried to quit vaping or smoking and keep ending up right back where you started, perhaps you just didn't have the right tools. Fume is a flavored air device that gives your hands, mouth, and brain a better habit when cravings hit. It has no nicotine, no vapor, no batteries. Because fume isn't a vape. It's a device designed to distract you from your cravings when your willpower isn't enough. With over 10 interchangeable flavors, like my favorite classic peppermint crisp mint or peach blush. Plus, I love Fume's fidget-friendly design, and my fellow fidget friends will totally get that. Over a million people have already used Fume to quit differently. Join them today and grab a journey pack, plus a free gift with purchase when using

Starting point is 00:14:27 my code SWW. Addiction is really good at saying later, don't let it. Head to try fume.com. That's t-R-Y-f-f-U-M-com and use code S-W-W for a free gift with your first purchase. Thank you, Fume, for sponsoring this episode. Okay, I'm really going off outline here, so forgive me, but it just came into my head. How does neurodivergency change attachment if it does at all? some things that I have read or learned have been people that are autistic tend to take in the senses more acutely. And so that means, quote unquote, everyday harms could impact you more

Starting point is 00:15:17 because you're sort of more sensitive to your environment. You're taking it in more deeply. So you might have memories that may seem smaller and consequential to another person that can really affect then how you show up in a relationship. There's never a memory that's too small. You're never too sensitive. It just is what it is. What has affected you has affected you.

Starting point is 00:15:35 And there's no shame in what's affected you. It's just how our bodies work. And that's okay. And so that's something for people that are artistic, particular. But also, there's strong correlations between like ADHD and rejection sensitive dysphoria. Rejection sensitive dysphoria basically means that you tend to be very prime to see rejection. And it hurts you a lot more than other people. Maybe you have a physical reaction to rejection.

Starting point is 00:16:01 And that, again, can be based off of a deeper sensitivity, but can also be based on the realities of living in an environment where you are often rejected because your brain works differently. And maybe you socialize sort of differently. And so you can have more of those sort of memories of rejection and the memories can affect you more deeply. I feel like my brain is growing while you're talking. It's awesome.

Starting point is 00:16:26 How do attachment styles show up differently in platonic relationships than romantic ones. Like, for example, could I have one type of attachment style with a romantic partner and a completely different one with friends? You absolutely can because when I laid out the attachment styles,

Starting point is 00:16:43 I didn't want to be prescriptive in terms of like your avoidance, so you're avoiding everywhere, and it'll never change. Because just like any personality trait, you might be a funny person who's more funny around some people than others. There's, I think we call it trait

Starting point is 00:16:56 and state-based trait is like it's part of who you are. State is, it depends on the circumstance, whether that trait will come out. Attachment styles can often be a dynamic. And so when you're around someone who's very avoidant and they never text you back and they're withdrawn and they never tell you that they like you and are very detached, you're going to start to feel a little bit anxious, even if you're typically secure and often how you feel, if you feel a different way than your typical baseline in a relationship, it might indicate something about the other person and what their attachment style is. And if someone's really anxious, sometimes anxious people can

Starting point is 00:17:32 threaten their autonomy because they need so much reassurance and proof of interest and proof of engagement that sometimes it's like, I can't hang out with my other friends without you getting upset. You're always asking to be invited to things, even though it's not personal that I'm just hanging out with these people so people can get more avoided because they're trying to find their autonomy again. Across romantic relationships and friendships, our attachment styles can absolutely change. This is one of the contributions of Platonic that people used to think attachment styles

Starting point is 00:18:00 were just confined to romance. But the research that I read in Platonic showcases how, no, actually, these styles also come out in our friendships too. And sometimes it can be perhaps a little bit more subtle, but our attachment cells certainly affect how we connect across the board. What are some of the most common misconceptions people have

Starting point is 00:18:21 about, quote, good friendships? Well, I think one big one is people confuse good friendship with good company. Good company is someone you enjoy spending time with. Now, that doesn't make a good friend. A good friend is someone where there's reciprocity, where you confide in them and they don't tell another person. They try to show up for you when you're in times of need, try to offer you support, where you feel safe being vulnerable with them and not being judged,

Starting point is 00:18:50 where they're responsive when you engage with them. and not kind of ignoring you. I think the issue is we'll often seek good company rather than good friends. Just because I like this person and I like this time together, doesn't mean that's necessarily a relationship, a friendship to pursue. You also want to look for, is this person meeting my needs as a friend? And if we keep pursuing good company when someone's not actually a good friend, we're going to end up in friendships of poor quality.

Starting point is 00:19:18 Good company does not equate being a good friend. was such bars. That is such a good way of putting it. And what does research suggest creates that genuine emotional closeness with friends? A few things. A big one is vulnerability. And so sharing your unique internal world. You can go through the day and maybe you spilled coffee on yourself. Maybe your boss gave you critical feedback. But how did you react to it? What went on inside of you when those things happen? That sort of vulnerability can really cement. connections and similarly pulling for that vulnerability from other people. So asking people questions like, oh my gosh, how did you react? How did that affect you? How did you feel? Being very curious

Starting point is 00:20:02 about others can create mutual vulnerability. There was friendship pairs that were tracked for 12 weeks and researchers investigated. What are the factors that predict whether these friendships continue and deepen? And one of the biggest factors was affection, how much affection was shared between the two of them. Now, this is a theory called the theory of inferred attraction. People like people that they think like them. So the more that you can show people that you like and value them, the more they're going to want to be your friend. Shifting a bit to friendship betrayal and the topic that we're really digging into this season, in your opinion, are there levels of friendship betrayal? Yeah. Betrayals typically defined in the research is breaking a norm of the friendship

Starting point is 00:20:47 in a way that harms someone in the friendship. So we almost have like an implicit set of rules based off of how the friendship has gone so far. If someone suddenly posts on us, we were talking about the highly publicized, they are now dating our boyfriend after we dated our boyfriend, where they betray our confidence. That's a very common one in friendships.

Starting point is 00:21:06 These are examples of sort of breaking a norm or an expectation in a way that causes harm. And so there's depths to that. You can think of someone broke your confidence around your mental health diagnosis. That might be more serious than you telling them your feeling, about your job. So there's levels to that. But the other thing is when we think about the

Starting point is 00:21:27 levels to the intensity of betrayal, interestingly, research shows, this is a theory called betrayal theory, that the same betrayal impacts us more severely depending on the closeness of their relationship. And so if a best friend does the same harm to you that an acquaintance did, that's actually going to affect you even physiologically in terms of predicting PTSD symptoms they're predicting physiological reactions to the betrayal. It's going to affect you a lot more deeply if it's the best friend. But interestingly, research finds that if a stranger were to harm us, so a stranger out of nowhere said something negative to us versus our best friend saying

Starting point is 00:22:04 something negative to us, they would perceive that stranger is more culpable than our best friend. And so when someone's very close to us and they harm us, it hurts us more. But there's not always validation for and permission for us to be as hurt as we are, particularly in friendship. We had originally come across your work because you were quoted in an article done by the cut regarding friendship betrayal in the most recent season of Bravo's Summerhouse. I have never watched this show before. I did watch all three parts of the reunion. I'm a nerd.

Starting point is 00:22:40 I watch documentaries. But studying the friendship dynamics of the reunion and because of what has come out has made it really interesting because I actually came. because I actually came across it while I was digging into friendship betrayal research. And so I think it's a good example to use if you're okay with that because you've publicly spoken about it a little bit and because it's something that people are really discussing right now. And I think there's a lot of relatability in that. I think West is a walking something was wrong season. He could be multiple seasons.

Starting point is 00:23:10 Like he just gives me all the spidey sense. But what seemed to be lost on a lot of folks in some of the comments I was reading and commentary, but the initial reaction was like, who cares? Like, they were broken out, da, da, da, da, da. But I really think at the root of it, it's about what you described. It's about the level of closeness of the person who is betraying you. I can say for certain I have had some of the deepest and most vulnerable conversations with my best friend, probably deeper than I've had with romantic partners at times

Starting point is 00:23:44 because of the shared experience of being women, both me and my best friend are women. And so we have a lot of shared experiences and things like that that romantic partners I've been with can't necessarily relate to or understand. And so it makes complete sense to me why what you're saying is an important thing to keep in mind when we're considering,

Starting point is 00:24:06 like, why is this person so hurt? Well, it's a deep reflection of how much this relationship meant to them and how harmed they felt or betrayed. trade within those feelings. Why is friendship betrayal sometimes less socially validated than romantic betrayal, do you think? Yeah. So if we talk about the intensity of the relationship determining the intensity of betrayal, people on average, when they think about a friend, when they think about a spouse, they devalue

Starting point is 00:24:35 just how close a friend can be. And it's often trivialized as a relationship. And that's what I've sort of pushed for in Platonic, that, hey, friendships can be every bit as close as spousal relationships. In fact, many women do report just like you did. They're more vulnerable with their friends than with a romantic partner. And so because of that, when the betrayal happens, you're getting these reactions like, oh, why are you so hurt? Get over it. It was just a friend. Like, you're still thinking about that versus if someone goes through a divorce and there's the, we're going to sign up for the casserole train. So this person has food every day. I'm going to check in on them. I'm going to rate them a cart. money for coffee to treat themselves. There's just such a different validation around the pain that when there's a friendship loss, friendship betrayal, it can trigger what's called disenfranchised grief, which is when you feel like you're grieving and you're really hurt, but nobody's giving you permission for that hurt. It's also applied to miscarriages and to loss

Starting point is 00:25:34 of pets. And because of that, it can feel like we don't actually heal because we never give ourselves permission to fully grieve. There's this way that I see that betrayal and friendship, it can stick with people. It can feel like a dull ache that you're sort of carrying throughout your life because you don't feel the permission to fully embody and fully acknowledge the depths to which a friendship betrayal has hurt you. What are some of the psychological and emotional effects that people experience after this kind of friendship betrayal?

Starting point is 00:26:19 What happens when we have a really negative memory is that because memories don't just record the past, they predict the future, you're constantly primed to think that that might happen to you again. And so instead of each person having a sort of clean slate, each potential friend, you're sort of assuming the worst, you're going into relationships much more cynical, you're much more suspicious of other people, much more closed off to connecting with people, because again, you might assume that you're going to get hurt if you connect too deeply. And you might almost look at your former self with a sense of disdain. Why was I so naive? But there's this great psychologist who writes about

Starting point is 00:26:59 betrayal, James Hillman, and he says that the goal of healing from betrayal is to actually get back to that naive state because no connection can be formed without risk of harm. And then there's Carl Jung, another psychologist, he calls it sort of inauthentic suffering, that when we're in this place of constantly being mistrusting and suspicious of others, now we're suffering from that, rather than the initial betrayal. So we can't actually heal from the root cause because we're carrying around the sort of anxiety and suspicion everywhere. People will assume that what happened before is going to happen again.

Starting point is 00:27:36 They may have a more avoidant approach to friendships. They don't get as close to people. They see betrayal and harm where it's not necessarily there. They begin to assume the worst in other people. One of the best ways to make friends is to try to assume that people will like you. They're kind of assuming the opposite. And when we think we'll be rejected, we reject people. We tend to be more closed off.

Starting point is 00:27:58 We tend to be more withdrawn. We're making people feel rejected and then they can end up rejecting us back. And so we can get caught in these cycles and it can be really hard to get out of, again, because some of the defense mechanisms that come up around betrayal can keep us from finding new connections that might give us a new experience where you feel more safe. So the goal is not to forever be suspicious of everybody and keep everyone at arm's distance, but rather to get back to the innocence that you had earlier and recognize that the potential for harm is just a part of life that all of us are going to face at some point, harm in our most intimate connections, rather than constantly bracing against it.

Starting point is 00:28:42 How can societal invalidation regarding friendship betrayal affect the way survivors heal? I can't help but think about Sierra and some people are just like, get over it, invalidating. And it's just like, how can you not see how painful this is? Exactly. It can absolutely complicate the experience of grief. And what I see in like friendship betrayals, friendship hurts in particular is that people really carry it around for so long. And sometimes I think healing from a romantic relationship can feel like an acute experience of torture. whereas the friendship pain feels like 10 years later and you still can't think about that friend or it still feels like such a sore spot.

Starting point is 00:29:23 And I think that's really a reflection of the level of invalidation that if people can't validate this as a hurt, we have a lot of trouble validating it internally as a hurt. It could also create what's called a sense of ambiguous laws, which is when we feel like the person isn't there physically but is still there psychologically with us. We're still thinking about it. We're still ruminating on it. It's still shaping how we show up. up in friendship, and that also makes grief a little bit hard to process. If someone has experienced betrayal or going back to like traumatic childhood or has experienced harm that is influencing our attachment, what are some powerful first steps towards healing

Starting point is 00:30:04 that folks can take? James Hillman, who's the psychologist who writes about betrayal that I mentioned before, he says that forgiveness is hurt in context. And forgiveness, I don't say, is you need to forgive the other person and move forward with the relationship, but it's just being at peace with what happened. And so what context can you add to the betrayal that doesn't make it just a single-minded story of hurt? So maybe that's this helped me recognize what I really need in a connection. Maybe that's, we had 10 good years. Then the betrayal happened, but I still hold on to the fact that this friendship really made me who I am. Within those 10 years, James Helen, he has a great approach to betrayal that I think really helps me, which is that betrayal should happen.

Starting point is 00:30:52 He talks about how we have this primal trust with our parents and we only live in the reality that we can't trust everyone and that human beings are imperfect when our parents break our trust. So that's what leads us to sort of living in the reality of how things are. And so it's not that when we experience betrayal, we're having this experience that's like far into being human. we're actually having this deeply human experience. And I think another thing that he says that is helpful is that one of the reasons why betrayal really devastates us is because it's often a sign that we were idealizing a relationship and then it fell from its grace. And how to make it not devastate us is that we see people with complexity from the beginning that even this friend we thought was always going to be there for us and always going to be on our side, that that's not necessarily true. and we can tolerate that. There's some parts of this friendship that are good

Starting point is 00:31:44 and some parts that we struggle with. And he says betrayal is a continuity of a connection rather than this jarring, unpredictable rupture that maybe there were some signs before of the incompatibility before the betrayal happened. Because if we're stuck in this narrative that, first of all, I wasted all of my time with this person, which you've probably had good moments if they were a friend.

Starting point is 00:32:06 Or you're stuck in this narrative, like, how could this happen? I can't even fathom it. I'm just so confused. This is outside of my realm of understanding. There's probably some continuity. There might have been some signs before, which is not a sign to be vigilant this whole time,

Starting point is 00:32:20 but something to take away from that is this wasn't this unpredictable, unsatimal experience. That's impossible to a process. And the third thing I think is when it comes to our sense itself, again, people often go through betrayal and see themselves as that fault. I was so innocent. I was so naive. I wasn't seeing the red flags. but honestly, how beautiful that you were naive, right?

Starting point is 00:32:41 How beautiful that you were so vigilant to see harm everywhere. That's not a state to use against yourself, but rather it's the state in which you were able to openheartedly connect with other people. It didn't work in this context, but that doesn't mean that you are wrong for engaging in good faith. Absolutely. I'm going to use another pop culture reference. I'm like so feeling the pop culture references today.

Starting point is 00:33:05 Another amazing show that I think really digs into friends. is the show Hacks that just wrapped its final season. What was interesting to me watching that show is it's these two characters who are very different generations and they both harm each other back and forth over the seasons and really do some fucked up shit to each other. And yet they're able to somehow work through it. It works for them. And in the end, it really does lead to like this significant personal and relational growth

Starting point is 00:33:36 within their relationship. and obviously this is a TV show, but like under what conditions can friendship realistically be repaired and what distinguishes irreversible damage versus the sometimes just natural discomfort that comes with having to work through things with friends? Yeah, I think a lot of this is going to depend on people's ability to perspective take and take accountability.

Starting point is 00:34:02 So can the other person recognize the harm that they've committed? Can the other person acknowledge how it affected you? Can the other person make amends, which is how do they take action going forward to treat you better? So if like a friend broke your confidence, for example, maybe they shared your mental health diagnosis. Instead of saying, why are you making a big deal out of this? I just told one person, they're able to say, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have told them. That was my bad in the future.

Starting point is 00:34:31 I'm definitely going to be better at keeping your confidence. Thank you so much for telling me, right? that is an honest repair versus if the other person isn't doing those things and we continue to move forward in the friendship, then we might be exposing ourselves to more harm because this person hasn't showed themselves as someone that's going to correct

Starting point is 00:34:48 when they do something that harms us. And so I think people's access to us should be dependent on their treatment of us. That's actually been revelatory for me because as someone who studies friendship, thinking about myself as a ride or die friend and that if I get to a certain level of closeness, I'm going to be invested in always trying to repair and always trying to stay close. But in fact, I guess it's really from writing my book on the sites of self-worth.

Starting point is 00:35:15 It's not that I always need to stay close to the people that have historically been close to me when it feels like it's happening at harm to myself. But now it's like I feel like I have unconditional love for the closest people in my life, even if we're not close anymore. but I don't have unconditional presence because I have to have unconditional love for myself, which means that people's access to me has to be based off of whether they're treating me in the way that I need. Absolutely. What can meaningful accountability look like between friends? It looks like not attacking people's character, but instead sharing their impact on you. So instead of you're so lousy, you're a bad person,

Starting point is 00:36:14 you've been cruel. It looks like I was really hurt when that happened. Here's how this affected me and inviting your friend to understand your world. And it looks like also perspective taking for the person that harmed you in a way. Because maybe that friend who sort of suddenly stopped responding for a couple months, maybe someone close to them in their life died or they were going through a period of depression. And maybe they have a circumstance that shapes how you receive the act of heart of harm, and that's why it's important to, well, to experience perspective taking if you were hurt,

Starting point is 00:36:49 but also ask for that perspective taking too. I also think there's a precious timing to everything. Sometimes, particularly if we're anxiously attached, we might just want to get over it and move forward and forget the harm, even though it's still with us. We're still thinking about it, and we might just not be ready. So sometimes, especially when it comes to betrayal, you might need to take some time apart and take a break for you to authentically reengage in the friendship in a way that which you're actually open and not consistently vigilant that harm is going to come again, where you feel actually at peace with the connection. We're talking about the closest of the connection and how that really impacts how betrayal affects us.

Starting point is 00:37:33 I was thinking about this study that found that half of our friends don't consider us their friends and how that could be part of the... Yes. That's like a record. scratch moment. Say that again. Half of our friends, people we consider friends, don't consider us friends. Wow. Yeah. And when I remember that study, I thought about the sort of difficulties of working through betrayal in friendship because you might be like, this person is so close to me, how could they do this to me? And the other person may be like, we weren't that close. So I don't

Starting point is 00:38:09 know why they're having such a strong reaction. And that is what makes betrayal a little easier the shared sense of reality. Maybe we're married to each other. So we know that we are a priority in each other's life and that we might have the shared understanding of what the betrayal means or the impact of it. But in friendship, because we don't necessarily know if our friend thinks of us as we think of them. If they feel as close to us as we do to them, there's this way that someone can really hurt us or really underestimate the extent to which they're hurting us. And that's the great tragedy of friendship betrayal, is that it's almost the betrayal with no perpetrator

Starting point is 00:38:49 if the perpetrator doesn't necessarily feel like there is much of a friend to us. And that makes such a difference, right? Like what you were saying, it's like acquaintance versus friend versus a best friend betrayal. Exactly. That's why it's so hard. That is so different because a best friend can be even closer than a romantic partner. But somebody who knows. your insecurity or knows your trauma.

Starting point is 00:39:15 If that were weaponized, people who know you so well, they have all your vulnerable pieces. And when those are weaponized, that's where that really deep friendship wound seems to come from. Yeah, it really does. I also want to say that if you're the person that loves more, there's no shame in that. I think we have the social script around I like them better than they like me, so empathetic, or I'm cringy, right? But isn't it beautiful to be the one that loves more? And if we understand attachment theory, like,

Starting point is 00:39:47 sometimes people don't have the capacity to love because of their childhood. And it's not really about you and how they feel about you. It's just that they kind of have struggles, feeling intimacy with people in general. And so there's no shame in having been the one that loved more. There's no shame in having been the one that was more invested. It can be a sign of you're more open-hearted and you have the ability to connect with more people. So you find yourself on the other end of that friendship betrayal.

Starting point is 00:40:13 And for me, sometimes I do because I'm someone who really values friendship. And I question these beliefs that friendship is secondary or friendship shouldn't matter. And having a different narrative than most people, I feel fully able to be hurt by friends, fully invested in repairing if there's an opportunity for repair. But I've had friends that we have one hard conversation and then the friendship is over. And that's inconsistent with how I view friendship, but maybe consistent with how they do. There's also these different relationship and ideals around friendship that can influence our ability to repair. But if you're someone who's loved more, that's okay.

Starting point is 00:40:51 I think that's just really what I'm trying to emphasize in this episode, which is, it's okay that you were innocent. It's okay that you were naive. And that's in fact a beautiful state. And it's not about closing your heart off. So it never happens again. It's about recognizing that you're going to be open-hearted. And sometimes you're going to get hurt. and that's a part of life rather than something to feel bad about or try to never go back to again.

Starting point is 00:41:14 Also, there's another study that found that every seven years we lose about half our friends. And so this betrayal thing, friendship rupture in general of people wouldn't use a stronger term of betrayal. Like, it is really a part of life. And we don't talk about it enough. So people feel so ashamed and isolated when they lose a friend. But hey, we are all losing friends on the regular and we are all growing out of friends. miscommunicating or having difficult moments, it's nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, one of the things that really helped me when I went through a friendship breakup was

Starting point is 00:41:46 I attended this documentary called one another. And it was on friendships that broke up and trying to kind of understand them. And this is out South by Southwest. And at the end, they had a panel. Love, love. Yeah, yeah. They had a panel with two of the friends who reconnected through the creation of the documentary. And I asked them, is there anything you could have done at the time?

Starting point is 00:42:06 so that your friendship didn't break. And they said, there's nothing we could have done. It had to happen. And I was like, wow, that's so powerful. It has to happen sometimes. We don't have to internalize this as reflecting something devious about ourselves as something to be ashamed of

Starting point is 00:42:25 as a rupture outside of the human experience. And that felt really powerful in healing to me. Wow. This is going to be really validating for folks. after there has been harm or betrayal in a friendship, how can people learn to trust one another again? I think continuous low stakes acts of good faith. That means checking in on you and seeing how you're doing.

Starting point is 00:42:49 That means inviting you to the gathering. That means texting you to say, I really value you having you in my life. I'm so glad that I was given a second chance. Continuous low-stake acts of engagements that show care over time can really repair a friendship. I think the most beautiful thing you can offer someone an active repair is acts of care

Starting point is 00:43:12 that don't put any pressure on the other person to accept it or to be in a place where they're not, maybe in terms of moving forward in the connection, being able to sort of pace it or reconnect more slowly and respecting the ebb and flow of a connection that may be healing from the betrayal or not as close as we were before. It doesn't have to be what it was before.

Starting point is 00:43:32 It can be something new. It can be something different. And maybe eventually it will be what it was before, but it doesn't have to be like that right now. And I've seen so many friendships blow up because of this assumption that we have to be as close now as we've always been. And if someone's going through a difficult period at work or in their personal life and you're not in communication as much, people receiving that as this is an act of grave harm rather than life circumstances. I think one way to sort of protect ourselves against that feeling of betrayal is to really accept that your friendships in particular are going to ebb and flow throughout your life. And that's inherent. And that's not a sign that something has gone awry. And in fact, the more we perceive it as something that's gone awry, the more we withdraw on, the more that becomes more of a self-suffilling prophecy. So also just giving friendships the space they need to repair and not trying to yank them back into a level of intimacy that they had prior, but to see in this moment what's right for this friendship, what level of connection is right for. us. What are some general friendship red flags that folks may want to be on the lookout for versus

Starting point is 00:44:41 green flags, things that we can all do to be better friends? Yeah. So I would say red flags are the person seems really inconsiderate of you. Maybe they're always wanting you to meet right by them in their house and they're never coming to you or they're expecting you to show up to something even when you're sick, they just don't have a lot of perspective taking consideration of your circumstance. Other red flags, things like breaking confidence, get a lot of reactivity where it seems like this person is quick to assume the worst about other people or is sort of snapping at you. Those can be signs of red flags. So after ones, I think beige flags can be a lack of reciprocity where you're the only one reaching out.

Starting point is 00:45:24 I say this is a beige flag because I know that often people don't reach out because their own self-worth issues rather than because they hate you. But I think it's fair for all of us to want friendships where we feel like there's a sort of mutual engagement and we're not the only one continuing a friendship. And I think it's really valid if people redirect their energies to friendships where they do feel like they have that level of mutuality. Think about how this person treats their other friends. Sometimes we hear a friend doing something shady and we think we're like the protected class. But if someone's willing to do a lot of harm onto someone else, then they might be willing to do that onto you too. And so if they're doing things to other people where that feels ethically

Starting point is 00:46:01 questionable, then I would say, consider that as something that could also happen in the context of your friendship. Then green flags are people that make you feel safe. They're vulnerable with you, and there's a certain pacing of the vulnerability where it feels like both of you are gradually increasing your vulnerability together. They show affection and interest in you. They ask you questions. They reach out to. All of these are really. really good signs. And just like, how does your nervous system feel around them? This is a very subjective one. Some people feel really calm around a certain type of person. The same person might trigger the other person. So subjectively for you, you can take ownership of what a

Starting point is 00:46:40 green flag feels like for you because it's someone who makes you feel at ease, makes you feel comfortable, makes you feel free to share. You have two incredible books, Platonic and Worth, which you mentioned a little bit about earlier. What can readers anticipate from both books? Well, Platonic was a book where I really shared the science of how to better connect with other people. After Platonic, there's this theory that I thought about. It was the theory that got away. And it was called self-verification theory. And it's the idea that we, in a way, are attracted to people that reflect back our sense of self.

Starting point is 00:47:17 So if we have low self-worth and people love us a lot, people compliment us a lot, people see the best in us in a way that can feel quite threatening. because you're anticipating, you're going to let them down, and they're going to see the real you, and eventually they're going to find out that you're not as great as they think you are. So because of that, often if we struggle with self-worth, unworthiness can really be an inability to receive love because it's like, oh my gosh, love is all this pressure to live up to this vision that this other person sees with me. I realize between writing the two books that, wow, being able to connect with people is about how you treat them, but it's also about how you treat yourself. And what does it mean to be able to tolerate healthy and positive relationships better?

Starting point is 00:48:02 And part of that is working on your own self-worth. And so that's what I go into in my new book, Worth. Amazing. Where else can people follow you and read your work? Where's the best places for folks to go to find out more about what you do? Yeah. So my new book, Worth, The New Science of Self-Sem and Secure Attachment and Platonic 2, available wherever books are sold.

Starting point is 00:48:23 You can get signed copies at Lost City Books in D.C. You order them online on pre-order. On my website, Dr. Marissa G-Franco, that's D-R-M-A-R-I-S-G-F-R-A-N-C-O. You can reach out for speaking engagements on belonging at work or self-worth at work. And you can also get a list of practices to build your worth. And then my Instagram, Dr. Mar-R-M-A-S-A-G-F-R-A-G-F-R-A-S-O. I share tips on the science of building relationships with others and with yourself.

Starting point is 00:48:54 Amazing. Thank you so, so much. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And my heart goes out to everyone trying to work through friendship breakups. We're all going to go through it at some point in our life. And so it's okay if you're going through it too. Thank you for the work you're doing.

Starting point is 00:49:09 It's really important. And like I mentioned before, it's personally already helped me see things so much more clearly. And that is very important work. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you endlessly to every survivor, guest, an expert who has contributed to our community. We are eternally grateful for your bravery, energy, and time. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media Production, created and produced by Tiffany Reese.

Starting point is 00:49:41 Thank you to our incredible team. Associate producer Amy B. Chessler, audio engineer, Becca High, and social media marketing manager, Lauren Barkman. Special thanks to Sarah Stewart for our amazing Season 26 artwork, Stephen Wack for AdWADD editing and our partners at Audio Boom. If you love something was wrong and you want to help support the show and listen ad-free, become a community contributor on Apple Podcasts. Or purchase a sticker from our sticker shop at brokencyclemedia.com.

Starting point is 00:50:12 Or tell everyone you know, like your neighbor, sister, brother, yoga instructor, florist, telemarketer, Reiki healer, stylist, trainer, mentor, parents, cousins, aunties, unks, coaches, librarians, Macha artists, dance instructor, balloon artist, wedding planner, bridesmaids, bank teller, driver, dog groomer, dentist, orthodontist, esthetic, tattoo artist, house cleaner, accountant, tax prepar, insurance agent, mail carrier, crossingard, barista, beekeeper, beekeeper, beekeeper, beekeeper, beekeeper, beekeeper, beekeeper, lifeguard, camp counselor, flight attendant, dog walker, pet sitter, Pilates instructor, spin instructor, tarotor reader, acupuncturist, landscaper, electrician, plumber, contractor, real estate agent, mortgage broker, optometrist, veterinarian, park ranger, farmer's market vendor, little league coach, PTA president, school librarian, substitute teacher, driving instructor, wedding efficient, travel agent locksmith, ferris wheel operator, hot air balloon pilot, Lama,

Starting point is 00:51:11 farmer, falconer, puppeteer, professional mermaid, or that one friend who's somehow just in everyone's business, if you know, you know. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, Stacey Chessler. And if you've been loving listening to something was wrong, you'll definitely want to check out Broken Cycle Media's sister podcast What Came Next. With more than 170 episodes available, the series explores what happens after Survivors share their stories publicly. into healing, justice, advocacy, and the lasting impact of trauma and media exposure. Co-created and co-produced by Tiffany Reese, the show gives survivors a platform to discuss not just what happened, but where life led them next. Follow and listen to what came next wherever you get your

Starting point is 00:52:00 podcasts.

Something Was Wrong - S26 Ep6: Friendship, Attachment, and Betrayal with Dr. Marisa G. Franco, PhD

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.