36 Double-Crossing Stories That Forced People To Cut All Ties With Former Friends

In fact, betrayal and backstabbing have accompanied humanity since the earliest centuries of history. Biblical heroes and characters from the Mahabharata, ancient mighty warriors, described by Homer, and majestic Norse gods all betrayed each other. If you take any even slightly significant figure in world culture, you can be sure that betrayal will feature in their story.

But why does this actually happen? Why do people who have stood by our side for so long, for years and decades, supporting us and always offering good advice, suddenly do a 180 and leave us speechless at the very least? Well, in this collection of stories, we will try to figure this out.

Let’s start with the fact that history, as usual, is written by the victors. So what we consider a famous historical betrayal could well have gone down in history from a completely different angle. Take, for example, Julius Caesar and Brutus, who orchestrated and carried out a conspiracy against his former friend. Brutus is forever etched in world history as the epitome of a traitor.

But everything could’ve turned out differently if Brutus, rather than Caesar’s lieutenants, had won the civil war that erupted in Rome following the conspiracy. Then historians would undoubtedly write that Brutus simply rid Rome of a cruel tyrant (and they would be partly right), and the traitor would become a hero.

As we can see, people encounter betrayal everywhere in their lives. But why are people prone to backstabbing others? Well, this dedicated study, published at Psychology Today, explains that the issue lies in our trust in people who can intentionally harm us. At the same time, we often overestimate how well others treat us, not expecting any kind of betrayal.

As a result, the violation of friendship expectations sharply impacts our self-esteem and sense of security, ultimately lowering our overall level of trust in people. Betrayal by those closest to us is especially traumatic. The authors of this study at PubMed Central show a direct correlation between the closeness of the traitor and the traumatic nature of the incident.

Betrayal is often explained by “rational” and pragmatic motives. That is, when choosing between a “losing” course of action, while still being loyal to a friend, and a clearly “winning” one, a person often picks selfishness over loyalty. However, the reactions of betrayal victims can also be rather pragmatic.

For example, this study, published at UCLA Newsroom, shows that people tend not to automatically judge a betrayer as completely untrustworthy if the act ultimately benefits or does no harm. In other words, we, too, tend to perceive betrayal through personal gain and consequences. After all, we’re only human.

Okay, in any case, the main thing in any collection of stories is not the explanation of why people act one way or another, but the stories themselves. So now, our dear readers, please feel free to read this list to the very end, and maybe add your own similar tales in the comments, in case you've also faced something like this in your lives.