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Discovering they\u2019d been betrayed left these women with long term scars and an aversion to secrets. But what drives someone to weave such a web of lies? Fiona Cowood reports.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/02\/Screenshot-2024-02-06-at-15.13.10.png” title_text=”Screenshot 2024-02-06 at 15.13.10″ force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” alt=”Kyle Walker” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
When England footballer Kyle Walker recently admitted to making \u201cidiot decisions\u201d and fathering two children outside his marriage to Annie Kilner, many of us reeled at the audacity of anyone \u2013 especially someone in the public eye \u2013 believing they could sustain such a huge deceit. Walker essentially had a secret family in tandem with the one he shares with Kilner, and according to Lauryn Goodman, the model and influencer with whom he had the children, he was happy to keep the \u201csecret family\u201d arrangement going until she decided to end it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a story that hit home for Beth*, 45, from Manchester. She had been with her then-partner Nick for 18 months when they had their first child together. After several miscarriages, Beth was firmly in the new baby bubble when she took her daughter for a stroll in her pram one day, and grabbed Nick\u2019s coat to wear as she left the house.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we were walking, I found an envelope in his pocket from the Child Support Agency, as it was called then,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI\u2019d recently registered the baby and mistook it for a letter from the Child Benefit Office so I opened it and had a look. But it was nothing to do with our daughter \u2013 it was a letter chasing Nick for unpaid child support for a child he\u2019d never told me about. I read it and re-read it and I just couldn\u2019t compute what it was saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beth says she walked home in a daze and left her baby asleep in the pram while she went upstairs to confront Nick.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked at it and said, \u2018This is none of your business. It has nothing to do with you\u2019. In that moment, I felt like I was falling. My whole world collapsed. Everything I knew to be true \u2013 that we\u2019d just had our first baby \u2013 wasn\u2019t the case. His mum knew, his friends (who were my friends) knew\u2026 It sent me into a complete spiral, and made me question everything. I felt paranoid. The trust that we\u2019d built our relationship on had been utterly obliterated.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Nick continued to duck questions and even dispute the truth, Beth had to navigate the disorientating early months of parenthood while feeling completely floored by Nick\u2019s betrayal. \u201cIt felt like something from Jeremy Kyle,\u201d she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it had happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beth ended the relationship and started again, but it left her with deep trust issues. And while she subsequently went on to marry and have more children, she says that for a long time, she had to check herself, and make sure she wasn\u2019t projecting her past hurt onto her new relationship. \u201cI could feel myself getting paranoid but I had to make myself stop and think, \u2018Hang on, this is a different person\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lies relating to children and secret families are often referred to as \u201chigh risk lies\u201d on account of the stress and effort it takes to cover them up, and the seismic fallout that takes place if and when they come to light.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grace*, 45, from Durham, had a father who wove an elaborate high-risk web of lies to cover up his multiple affairs. Grace explains: \u201cMy dad was an academic and as we grew up, my siblings and I came to suspect that the \u2018special students\u2019 he brought home were in fact his lovers. I think my mum\u2019s view was, \u2018If it isn\u2019t spoken about then it isn\u2019t happening.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But then Grace\u2019s father met a mature student who was more than just a fling, and he had a child with her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew her pretty well, and when she had this baby, he was vaguely explained away as belonging to someone else. I think my mum wanted to believe that was the case and so did we, although deep down, we all knew the truth. Dad still lived at home but he was often away for long periods, and it was only when my mother died that the full truth surfaced and we had to accept this half sibling.\u201d<\/p>\n
The legacy of growing up in a household mired with unspoken truths and deceits hiding in plain sight, was that Grace struggled to form healthy relationships in adulthood.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe result for me and all my siblings was that we\u2019re rubbish at relationships. If I got close to someone, I thought, \u2018No, this is too good \u2013 you\u2019re going to betray me\u2019 so therefore I went for bastards. I thought if they\u2019re going to turn out to be shitty then I might as well go for the fun shitty ones. So I went for very charming men \u2013 like my dad \u2013 who inevitably betrayed me or acted badly. The pattern was laid out for me, and I\u2019ve spent a lot of money on therapists to reach that conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
As these experiences show, being in the orbit of a serial liar has huge, lasting effects. But what of the liars themselves? What makes someone weigh up the potential pain and upset of their betrayal, and decide to do it anyway?<\/p>\n
Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar is a relational trauma therapist (redkitetherapy.com), and she has worked with individuals and couples who have experienced both sides of betrayal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBehaviour like Kyle\u2019s is often a coping mechanism \u2013 albeit a very unhelpful one \u2013 for some past or ongoing trauma,\u201d says Shaheen-Zaffar. \u201cFeeling \u2018safe\u2019 is a biological imperative \u2013 it underpins all of our actions. And when someone doesn\u2019t feel safe, they\u2019re unable to achieve true emotional intimacy. As a result, they may then make choices and behave in a way that can often be reckless and self-sabotaging. At the extreme end, they crash and burn their own lives, and take others down with them in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
While not excusing the actions of serial cheats, Shaheen-Zaffar says we need to start looking at behaviours \u2013 however shocking \u2013 as signs of what\u2019s going on at a deeper level. In her practice, she works on the basis that our nervous system is a threat detection system, constantly scanning for signs of safety and danger \u2013 think fight, flight or freeze. And while it\u2019s hard to rustle up sympathy for Walker, she says he falls into the category of high-profile people whose lifestyles \u2013 intense fame, wealth and scrutiny \u2013 activate their nervous systems, meaning they perceive themselves to be unsafe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis affects your decisions. We often see stories about public figures harbouring major secrets and think, how did they not expect this to come out? But perhaps on some level, the secret provides safety. Perhaps having a pocket of their lives that nobody knows about makes them feel safe, perhaps it\u2019s a place to escape to \u2013 a refuge from the rest of their public lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the men that Grace and Beth were betrayed by, psychotherapist and counsellor Nicholas Rose (nicholas-rose.co.uk) says that you can\u2019t underestimate the impact of other people\u2019s \u201cfamily systems\u201d and generational trauma, which sees people repeat patterns of behaviour \u2013 whether that relates to having affairs, harbouring secrets or simply acting with utter disregard for another\u2019s feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get families where conversations just don\u2019t happen, or aren\u2019t understood as being necessary. You get others where certain things aren\u2019t talked about because it\u2019s deemed too painful to even try,\u201d explains Rose. \u201cThis communication style is then modelled and repeated. Children and young people rarely get to see adults resolve difficult situations \u2013 it\u2019s usually done behind closed doors \u2013 so many of us don\u2019t see the deeper, honest conversations that we need to be having if we want healthy relationships.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now a mother, Grace says that growing up surrounded by dishonesty and deceit has made her vow to never inflict such heavy secrets on her children. \u201cI\u2019m absolutely utterly honest and open with mine,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s no more deep, dark family secrets. The pattern stops with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
*Names and details have been changed\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Photo: <\/b>Getty<\/p>\n
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