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Something Was Wrong
S26 Ep6: Friendship, Attachment, and Betrayal with Dr. Marisa G. Franco, PhD
00:51:31
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- [00:01]
Tiffany Reese
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@broken cyclemedia.com thank you so much. Something Was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and includes topics that may be upsetting. This season we'll be discussing friendship, betrayal, religious abuse, stalking, sexual assault and other serious topics, so please listen 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.
- [01:17]
Podcast Host
I am honored today to be joined by Dr. Marissa G. Franco, who is an enlightening psychologist, international speaker and New York Times best selling 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 authored the New York Times bestseller 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, the Telegraph, and Vice. She speaks on belonging and self worth at corporations, government agencies, nonprofits and universities. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Franco.
- [02:10]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:13]
Podcast Host
As I said before we begin, 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.
- [02:29]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Yeah, so in my young twenties 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 with 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 worthy, 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 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.
- [03:23]
Podcast Host
Do you feel like the research you've done has helped yourself to become a better friend and have a clearer understanding about your relationships as well?
- [03:32]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 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. 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 happen. 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 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. 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.
- [05:04]
Podcast Host
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 listener's 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?
- [05:28]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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. 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 attuned 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, I'll 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 friends. 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. But it was a lot of emotional neglect. Their parents really tried to shut down any sort of emotional reaction, were not curious about their internal world. They learned to attach emotions to shame, 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, 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 lone 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. Then you have securely attached people who basically grew up with good enough parents who try 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, 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.
- [08:38]
Podcast Host
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?
- [08:52]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 SUV 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.
- [09:25]
Podcast Host
Your book mentioned something about attachment styles from childhood tend to carry those into adulthood. Is it possible for people who grow up in traumatic or abusive environments to over time change their attachment?
- [09:42]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 the secure things, but 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 got 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. 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 reassurance, eventually their friend may get 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 reconsolidation 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 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.
- [12:10]
Podcast Host
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- [13:01]
Tiffany Reese
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- [14:21]
Podcast Host
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?
- [14:33]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 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, inconsequential to another person, but can really affect then how you show up in 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 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. Rejecting 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 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.
- [15:53]
Podcast Host
I feel like my brain is growing while you're talking. It's awesome. 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?
- [16:10]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
You absolutely can. Because when I laid out the attachment styles, I didn't want to be prescriptive in terms of, like, you're avoidant. So you're avoidant everywhere. 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 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 threaten our 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 avoidant 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 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 styles certainly affect how we connect across the board.
- [17:48]
Podcast Host
What are some of the most common misconceptions people have about, quote, good friendships?
- [17:54]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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, 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, 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.
- [18:49]
Podcast Host
Good company does not equate being a good friend. Was such bars like that is such a good way of putting it. And what does research suggest creates that genuine emotional closeness with friends?
- [19:04]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 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 affectionate. 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.
- [20:01]
Podcast Host
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?
- [20:13]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Yeah, betrayals typically defined in the research as breaking a norm of the friendship 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 boasts on us, we were talking about the highly publicized, they are now dating our boyfriend after we dated our boyfriend, or they betray our confidence. That's a very common one in friendships. 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 feelings about your job. So there's levels to that. But the other thing is when we think about the 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 the 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 or 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 something negative to us, they would perceive that stranger as 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.
- [21:50]
Podcast Host
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 Summer House. Have never watched this show before. I did watch all three parts of the reunion, however. I'm a nerd. 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 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. 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 was the initial reaction was like, who cares? Like, they were broken up.
- [22:53]
Tiffany Reese
Da da da da da.
- [22:54]
Podcast Host
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, 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
- [23:27]
Tiffany Reese
relate to or understand.
- [23:29]
Podcast Host
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, 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 within those feelings. Why is friendship betrayal sometimes less socially validated than romantic betrayal, do you think?
- [23:53]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Yeah. So if we talk about the intensity of their relationship determining the intensity of the betrayal, people, on average, when they think about a friend and they think about a spouse, they devalue 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 their 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 card, send them 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 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.
- [25:42]
Podcast Host
What are some of the psychological and emotional effects that people experience after this kind of friendship betrayal?
- [25:50]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 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 actually heal from the root cause because we're carrying around this sort of anxiety and suspicion everywhere. People will assume that what happened before is going to happen again. 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, 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 we 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.
- [28:13]
Podcast Host
How can societal invalidation regarding friendship betrayal affect the way survivors heal? I can't help but think about Ciara. And some people are just like, get over it. Invalidating. And it's just like, how can you not See how painful this is?
- [28:30]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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. 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 loss, 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 in friendship. And that also makes grief a little bit hard to process.
- [29:21]
Podcast Host
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 that folks can take?
- [29:37]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 onto the fact that this friendship really made me who I am within those 10 years. James Helmond, he has a great approach to betrayal that I think really helps me, which is that betrayal should happen. 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 foreign to 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 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, 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, but something to take away from that is this wasn't this unpredictable, unfathomable experience that's impossible to process. And the third thing I think is when it comes to our sense of self again, people often go through betrayal and see themselves as at 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? 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 open heartedly connect with other people. It didn't work in this context, but that doesn't mean that you were wrong for engaging in good faith.
- [32:30]
Podcast Host
Absolutely. I'm going to use another pop culture reference. I'm like so feeling the pop culture references today. Another amazing show that I think really digs into friendship 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 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.
- [33:26]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Yeah. I think a lot of this is going to depend on people's ability to perspective, take, and take accountability. 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, 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 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 science of self worth. 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.
- [35:13]
Podcast Host
Absolutely.
- [35:23]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Well, well, well.
- [35:24]
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Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Ugh, Is that coming from the trash?
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- [35:48]
Podcast Promo Announcer
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- [35:58]
Podcast Host
What can meaningful accountability look like between friends?
- [36:03]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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, 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 harm. And that's why it's important to both experience perspective taking if you were hurt, 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 re engage 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 were talking about the closeness of the connection and how that really impacts how betrayal affects us. I was thinking about this study that found that half of our friends don't consider us their friends and how that can be part of the.
- [37:43]
Tiffany Reese
Yes, that's like a record scratch moment. Say that again.
- [37:47]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Half of our friends, people we consider friends, don't consider us friends.
- [37:51]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [37:53]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 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 this 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. 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 if the perpetrator doesn't necessarily feel like they're as much of a friend to us.
- [38:56]
Podcast Host
Oof. And that makes such a difference. Right? Like what you were saying. It's like acquaintance versus friend versus a best friend betrayed you.
- [39:04]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Exactly.
- [39:05]
Podcast Host
That's why it's so different, because a best friend can be even closer than a romantic partner. But somebody who knows your insecurity or knows your trauma, 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.
- [39:30]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 I'm pathetic or I'm cringy. Right. But isn't it beautiful to be the one that loves more? And if we understand attachment theory, like 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. 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 I 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. 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 are 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 trying to never go back to again. 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, if 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 or 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 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 love.
- [41:58]
Podcast Promo Announcer
Love.
- [41:59]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 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, as a rupture outside of the human experience. And that felt really powerful and healing to me.
- [42:34]
Podcast Host
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?
- [42:45]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
I think continuous low stakes acts of good faith. That means checking in on you and seeing how you're doing. 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 engagement that show care over time can really repair a friendship. I think the most beautiful thing you can offer someone an act of repair is acts of care 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 maybe healing from the betrayal. We're not as close as we were before. It doesn't have to be what it was before. 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 and the more that becomes more of a self fulfilling 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.
- [44:35]
Podcast Host
What are some general friendship red flags that folks may want to be on the lookout for versus green flags, things that we can all do to be better friends?
- [44:47]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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 flag, softer ones. I think beige flags can be a lack of reciprocity where you're the only one reaching out. 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 your 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 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 too. All of these are 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 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.
- [46:49]
Podcast Host
You have two incredible books, Platonic and Worth, which you mentioned a little bit about earlier. What can readers anticipate from both books?
- [46:59]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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. 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 could 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 of me. I realized 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. 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.
- [48:11]
Podcast Host
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?
- [48:18]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Yeah, so my new book, the New Signs of Self Esteem and Secure attachment and Platonic 2 available wherever books are sold. You can get signed copies at Lost city books in D.C. 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. Marissa Gfranco that's D R M A R I S A G F R A N C O. I share tips on the science of building relationships with others and with yourself.
- [48:55]
Podcast Host
Amazing. Thank you so so much.
- [48:57]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
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.
- [49:09]
Podcast Host
Thank you for the work you're doing. 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.
- [49:19]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Oh it's my pleasure.
- [49:27]
Tiffany Reese
Thank you endlessly to every Survivor guest and expert who has contributed to our community.
- [49:32]
Podcast Host
We are eternally grateful for your bravery, energy and time.
- [49:37]
Tiffany Reese
Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and produced by Tiffany Reese. Thank you to our incredible team, Associate producer Amy B. Chesler, 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 AD audio editing and our partners at AudioBoom. 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@brokencyclemedia.com or tell everyone you know like your neighbor, sister, brother, yoga instructor, florist, telemarketer, reiki, healer, stylist, trainer, mentor, parents, cousins, aunties, uncs, coaches, librarians, matcha artist, dance instructor, balloon artist, wedding planner, bridesmaids, bank teller, driver, dog groomer, dentist, orthodontist, esthetician, tattoo artist, house cleaner, accountant, tax breaker, preparer, insurance agent, mail carrier, crossing guard, barista, beekeeper, notary, public lifeguard, camp counselor, flight attendant, dog walker, pet sitter, Pilates instructor, spin instructor, Tarot 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 officiant, travel agent, locksmith, Ferris wheel operator, hot air balloon pilot, llama 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.
- [51:23]
Dr. Marissa G. Franco
Until next time, this is Amy, and
- [51:26]
Podcast Promo Announcer
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, diving into healing, justice, advocacy, and the lasting impact of trauma and media exposure. Co created and co produced by Tiffany Reiss, 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 podcasts.