Trust. It’s a small word, but it’s the entire foundation of a relationship. It’s the quiet confidence that your partner has your back, that they’re your safe harbor in a storm. But like glass, once trust is shattered, it’s almost impossible to piece back together without seeing the cracks.
Some mistakes are forgivable. We’re all human, after all. But some actions aren’t just mistakes; they’re fundamental violations of the agreement you have with another person. They don’t just crack the foundation—they poison the ground it was built on. In fact, a study published by the NIH showed that issues like lack of commitment (cited by 75% of divorced couples) and infidelity (cited by nearly 60%) are the top reasons marriages end.
As renowned relationship expert Dr. John Gottman explains, the most damaging betrayals are often the everyday ones that pile up over time, repeatedly asking the question, “Can I trust you?” When the answer clearly turns to no, there are violations that are too deep to mend: they break a relationship.
The Slow Poison: Chronic Lying
This isn’t about a one-time affair; it’s about a consistent pattern of dishonesty. It could be small lies about where they were or bigger lies about their past. When lying becomes a habit, it makes it impossible for the other person to feel secure. It’s so important, in fact, that a whopping 63% of respondents in The Knot’s 2024 study said that a lack of trust and honesty was a big-time relationship deal-breaker.
Author Robert Louis Stevenson notes that “The cruelest lies are often told in silence”. This pattern of deception forces the honest partner into a constant state of detective work, second-guessing everything. Gradually, this doesn’t just undermine trust in the partner, it undermines trust in one’s own judgment. It’s tiring to exist in a reality that you cannot count on, and for many, it’s an irrevocable breach of the trust that is necessary to any relationship.
The Hidden Deceit: Financial Infidelity
Financial infidelity — hiding or lying about debt, secretly maintaining credit cards, or making another significant purchase without telling your partner — is an all too common, deeply harmful betrayal. In 2024, a survey found that a whopping 42% of U.S. adults in a relationship have perpetrated one form of financial infidelity or another. For some of these people, that’s quite nearly as bad as if he had cheated in the flesh, with 28% regarding it as equivalent and 7% going so far as to say it’s even worse.
This is not just a question of money; it’s a question of common purpose and shared destiny. So when one partner goes it alone, they’re also saying, “My pleasure is worth more than the safety of the community with which I have chosen to associate myself.” This is enough to shatter the capacity of a couple to plan for their future and instill a kind of earthquake of uncertainty. Financial expert Suze Orman says money is the biggest cause of divorce, and if you’re prioritizing communication to talk openly about it, you’re making your marriage a priority.
The Silent Weapon: Withholding Affection as Punishment
This is a subtle but deeply cruel form of emotional abuse. A partner uses connection as a weapon when they intentionally withhold intimacy, affection, or even conversation to punish the other. This is not the same as simply having a natural decrease in libido; this is a tactical attempt to control and manipulate.
This sets up a toxic dynamic wherein one partner continuously walks on eggshells, attempting to “earn” back the love that should come freely. This tears apart the emotional safety and can cause the person to feel very alienated and rejected inside the marriage. After a while, the receiving partner learns that love is contingent on their performance and can vanish at any moment, and realizing that can be unforgivable.
The Obvious Betrayal: Infidelity
This is the big one, the violation that most people think of first. A physical tryst or an emotional connection kind of cheating violates the trust inherent in a committed relationship. The issue is not just the act, but about the deceit that accompanies it. According to a study by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, as many as 25% of married men and 15% of married women have had extramarital affairs.
There are couples who can and do recover, but for many, the wound is too deep. The discovery relies on what professionals refer to as “betrayal trauma,” pushing the hurt partner to suffer symptoms such as intrusive thoughts, self-doubt, and hypervigilance. “One fine lie will always outweigh a hundred truths”. For many, the wound of knowing their partner had it in them to deceive so entirely somehow never heals.
The Public Wound: Humiliation and Shaming
A partner is supposed to be your biggest cheerleader, the person who builds you up. When, instead, they decide to embarrass you — by making you the point of the joke in front of friends, downplaying your achievements, or recounting a mortifying anecdote from your past — it is the most profound form of disrespect. This isn’t merely a bad joke; it’s a contemptuous public spectacle.
Humiliation is what I call a “public emotion,” and it can be terribly damaging to self-esteem as well as an avenue for long-term psychological damage, including depression and anxiety. When the one you think should be your safety and shame-care-taker becomes the cause of your public humiliation, it creates a wound that festers. It means they do not respect you, and without respect, you can’t trust them.
The Ultimate Betrayal of Confidence: Sharing Private Secrets
In a healthy relationship, you open yourself up to your greatest vulnerabilities and trust that your partner will keep your systems secure. When they break that trust by sharing your secrets with others—whether it’s telling their family about your insecurities or gossiping with friends about your private struggles—it’s a devastating violation.
As researcher Brené Brown explains, trust isn’t easy… it requires us to be vulnerable. When that vulnerability is weaponized against you, it feels unforgivable. It teaches you that being open with your partner is unsafe, forcing you to build walls where there should be bridges. This kind of betrayal can make it impossible to ever feel truly secure with that person again.
The Fair-Weather Partner: Lack of Support in a Crisis
A true partnership is tested in times of crisis—a serious illness, the loss of a job, or the death of a parent. When your partner emotionally or physically abandons you during these moments, it’s a betrayal of the fundamental promise to be there “in sickness and in health.”
This is a core component of what experts call betrayal trauma: the trauma that occurs when the person you depend on for support becomes the source of your pain. A partner who can’t bear the weight of your suffering, or who resents your illness, or who takes off when you are at your absolute neediest is not proving “they will love you no matter what.” This conclusion can permanently destroy the connection between the couple.
The Underminer: Sabotaging Your Success or Friendships
This is a particularly insidious form of betrayal. A partner who is secretly threatened by your success might subtly sabotage your career, belittle your ambitions, or create drama with your friends to isolate you. This behavior often stems from their own insecurity, but the impact is devastating.
An abusive partner may try to keep you from making friends at work or attending team events as a way to maintain control. This isn’t just unsupportive; it’s actively working against your happiness and well-being. Realizing that the person who is supposed to be on your team is actually playing for the other side is a betrayal that many can’t forgive.
The Cowardly Act: Refusing to Defend You to Their Family
When you marry someone, you become a family. If your partner allows their parents or siblings to disrespect, criticize, or mistreat you without ever stepping in, it sends a clear message: you are not their priority. They are choosing their family of origin over the family you are building together.
While it’s not a partner’s job to “fight your battles,” ignoring a pattern of disrespect is a form of abandonment. It leaves you feeling isolated and unprotected within their family unit. This repeated failure to have your back can undermine trust to the extent that you no longer see them as a bona fide partner.
The Slow Erosion: Verbal and Emotional Abuse
Unlike a single act, verbal and emotional abuse is a relentless campaign that chips away at your self-worth. It can include constant criticism, name-calling, gaslighting, and threats.
This type of abuse is a profound betrayal because it turns the person who is supposed to love and cherish you into your primary source of pain. Gone unchecked, it has the potential of causing psychological trauma like anxiety, depression, or C-PTSD. For many, there is no way to heal other than to escape the abuse, and forgiveness and reconciliation is impossible.
The Ultimate Predictor of Divorce: Contempt
Dr. John Gottman has spent decades researching what makes or breaks a marriage, and he identifies contempt as the single greatest predictor of divorce. Contempt isn’t just criticism; it’s communicating with disgust. It’s sarcasm, cynicism, name-calling, eye-rolling, and mockery—all of which signal that you see your partner as beneath you.
Contempt is “sulfuric acid for love” because it’s an attack on someone’s very sense of self. It’s virtually impossible to resolve conflict when one person is communicating from a place of moral superiority. When contempt becomes a regular feature of a relationship, it poisons any fondness and admiration that once existed, often beyond repair.
The Silent Killer: Stonewalling
Another one of Gottman’s four “horsemen,” stonewalling, is when one partner gets totally unresponsive and/or leaves the conversation entirely. This isn’t merely taking a healthy time out; it’s refusing to engage, giving the silent treatment or physically leaving the room to avoid conflict. Higher percentage of stonewallers in heterosexual relationships are men, often because they are more easily physiologically overwhelmed by conflict.
Stonewalling makes communication and problem-solving impossible. It signals to the other partner that their feelings and concerns are not important enough to even be discussed. Over time, this emotional abandonment creates a massive chasm in the relationship that often becomes too wide to bridge.
The Shift from “We” to “I”
This is a subtle, science-backed sign that your relationship is beginning to crumble. Pay attention to pronouns. What are we doing this weekend? translates as “What can I do this weekend?”, it represents a huge psychological change.
A 2021 study found that an increase in “I-words” can be detected in a person’s language up to three months before a breakup occurs. This linguistic shift shows that one partner has already started to mentally and emotionally detach from the couple’s shared identity. They are no longer thinking as part of a team; they are planning a future for one.
The Final Surrender: Apathy
Perhaps the most heartbreaking and unforgivable violation is when a partner simply stops caring. The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference. When arguments stop, when they no longer get upset by things that used to bother them, it’s often a sign they’ve completely checked out.
Apathy is the strongest red flag for long-term relationships because it signals a total emotional disengagement. As relationship expert Sharon Pope says, “Women leave a relationship mentally before women leave physically”. When a partner reaches a state of apathy, they’ve often given up hope that things can change, and at that point, the trust that the relationship is worth fighting for is gone for good.
Key Takeaway
Trust is the lifeblood of a relationship, built through countless small acts of reliability and care. While minor mistakes can be forgiven, these 14 violations represent fundamental betrayals that can shatter the very foundation of a partnership. They go beyond simple errors in judgment and often point to deeper issues of disrespect, contempt, or a complete emotional withdrawal.
Recognizing these deal-breakers isn’t about keeping score; it’s about understanding which actions are so damaging that they can make it impossible to rebuild the safety and security a healthy relationship requires.
Disclaimer – This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information. It is not intended to be professional advice.
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