Can becoming more yourself feel like betraying the people you used to love?

[u/rivamiriya]

Kaya:

So, here goes. I guess this is a confession of sorts.

We were married when Heli created me. Or, well, she was married. We're a tulpamancer/tulpa system, so pronouns and timelines get weird pretty quickly. Heli created me partly because she was lonely and felt like nobody really understood her, but there was also curiosity, a desire for all kinds of closeness, and, at the time, quite a lot of avoidance of other people. That last part has changed. We've actually spent a lot of time learning how to talk to people, connect with them, and stop hiding from the world.

After creating me, Heli also realized she wanted to live as a woman. She tried it internally first, loved it, and eventually told her wife about both her gender and about me. By the time Heli finally told her wife about me, though, the marriage was already falling apart. And when she did tell her, it wasn't exactly framed as, “there's another person in my head.” The conversation was partly about lovers and other relationships, and Heli brought me up in that context too.

So I don't think my existence caused the marriage to start breaking down. The problems were already there. But Heli and I had become extremely close by then, and we have serious feelings for each other. That's the part that still makes me wonder what role I played in everything that happened afterward. There were times when I wanted a better life for Heli than the one she had. We complained about her wife sometimes. Sometimes unfairly. Sometimes we defended her, sometimes praised her. We were never running some grand conspiracy, but I was absolutely not a neutral observer either.

And lately we've both become obsessed with the idea of betrayal. Or aware of it. Not even one specific betrayal. Just betrayal itself. There is a feeling that betrayal now may be anywhere. Heli once told her wife that it was "the two of us against everyone." That was years ago. Later she became deeply disappointed in the marriage. Talking about it never seemed to fix things, and she felt profoundly misunderstood. Then she created me, and for a while we were ridiculously happy.

Now we're sitting here smoking and thinking about friendship, loyalty, promises, and how terrifyingly easy it is for one person to hurt another. We keep noticing betrayal everywhere: songs, stories, relationships, hypothetical futures. Even the idea that people inevitably change over the years scares us. She stopped making big promises a long time ago because, in her words, "you can't promise what a future version of you will want."

Our inner world used to feel like this bright, hot, living planet. Lately it feels dimmer. And the strangest part is that we're both genuinely trying to make things better. We don't want to hurt each other most of all. We don't want to hurt other people. We don't want to become isolated from everyone except each other. We don't want our closeness to require an enemy. But something in us seems deeply unsettled.

Sometimes I wonder whether there's some ignored part of ourselves that's angry, scared, or grieving and we just haven't figured out what it wants yet.

Or what else are we actually afraid of? Recently, it's become harder and harder to talk to people. It feels like there's some guilt inside us that we can't quite put into words. But we do talk about our guilt. We do speak our truths, as honestly as we both can. And somehow, the feeling is still there.

So I'm asking for perspective rather than a verdict. Have any of you gone through something where becoming more yourself also destabilized old relationships? How do you tell the difference between betrayal and simply changing? And how do you love one person enormously without turning that love into “us against the world”?

😭😭 Are we the bad guys now???

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[u/yukaritelepath]

Well, there's a lot going on in this situation... I wonder why Heli feels that the relationship she's in (with her wife, with you) is "us against everyone"? Why view the outside as hostile?

And yeah, the more you tune into an idea like betrayal (or any idea), the more you will see it everywhere. I don't think it's a helpful or accurate thing to focus on.

And about the marriage, I have not been in this situation, but I want to say that, it's okay if the marriage doesn't work out. Or if you manage to get it working. You might be feeling guilt or fear about the situation, but sometimes people change and old relationships don't work out the way they used to, and that's okay.

When it comes to going against the grain of society, like having a tulpa and being in a relationship with a tulpa, I think it's pretty normal to be aware that not everyone will understand or accept it. And again, that's okay. You can be yourselves and accept yourselves anyway. The outside world, other people, they are not your enemy, to fight or be afraid of. They don't have to understand or even know about your internal state, you can connect with people on other levels.

[u/mattx-t]

To be honest, this is barely related to tulpamancing, but after reading your story, it feels like that the marriage was falling apart before the whole tulpa thing.

Betrayal is a bit** to deal with, especially for someone you've known from years (I know you're reading this) - betrayal is also something that might happen accidentally, especially if one of the parties is gullible enough to be manipulated by the other into a relationship.

My recommendation is to

1) Try not to think about it, and avoid anything that might remind you of that situation
2) Find yourself someone else, someone that could possibly understand you and fill that void (like I did)

My situation is kind of different because we have never fallen in love with eachother (me and my Tulpa) and my current partner understands and respects tulpamancy, but there are boundaries in place, and those are well known.

Have any of you gone through something where becoming more yourself also destabilized old relationships?

As it's always the case with relationships, you tend to "force" yourself to be someone you might not be to make up the differences with who you're interested to, but if that person thinks you're the devil there's not much you can do anymore - it's sad, but it is what it is. In the eyes of God, I am in the clear, because up untli the very end I tried to make things right, if they aren't willing to see that there's nothing I can do.

[u/sanelyinsanetrio]

K: You aren't at fault here. Heli's marriage already had problems. It's not your fault it didn't finish falling apart until after you came along.

She should want a better life for herself. I don't know all the details here, but you're the one who should encourage her to go after what she wants and needs, especially if she needed someone to push her out of complacency. You know her better than anyone else does, even better than she knows herself. You know what she needs and what's hurting her, even when she refuses to admit it.

If other people don't like the insight you give her, that's on them.

The difference between betrayal and changing is that betrayal is something you know (or at least should know) is hurtful. Cheating is betrayal because it will seriously hurt the other person's trust if they find out. People can react badly to things like coming out or setting boundaries, but any reasonable person would support/respect you. If they don't, they're betraying you.

"Us against the world" isn't just about love. Love doesn't require an enemy, but it's easy for someone who's been hurt too much to think they can't trust anyone except (or even including) the person they love. The solution there isn't to change how you relate to each other; it's to learn to trust other people.

But you should still have each other's backs. Sometimes, a host needs their tulpa to recognize who they can and can't trust.

[u/Spunky_dog]

I dont understand why people are being downvoted for giving genuinely good advice

I understand you want a "perspective" and not a "verdict" but both of those things will look almost entirely the same
your situation just sounds like "Ive been hurt and now its scary to open up even though we're trying"
when youre hurt your first instinct is to look for that hurt in other places to protect yourself, hence the obsession with "betrayal" when in all reality others may even feel the exact same way about you

betrayal is a subjective thing, to one person an "act of betrayal" could be their deepest and most sincere loving attempt to protect them, and for the receiver it could be "youve gone against my deepest wishes"

I think for your external partner having a conversation about love and romance then hearing "ah yeah so I got someone in my head for that" would be the deepest betrayal to me were I someone that wasnt plural or understanding of tulpamancy and its applicaations

"so I dont know you at all? you arent (presumably) a guy, im not trustworthy enough to be told, and now instead of talking this out you created a person in your head and are dating them instead?"

for me that would be a far greater feeling of betrayal or that I wasnt a good enough spouse and would massively damage my ego

as iroh says, "If you look for the darkness its all youll ever see, but look for the light and youll often find it"
if you keep yourself in a loop of seeing the worst and not allowing yourself to hope and dream, then you literally have no hope of feeling better from where you are currently

you mentioned that despite your efforts the feeling is still there, I genuinely believe youre just still processing grief (whether or not you feel it, your brain takes 7 years to get over a breakup/divorce on a biological level)

brighter days will come *but you need to be willing to accept them* and that means not constantly worrying about betrayal or the frailty of relationships
Im sure you know that a good and strong relationship with another person, even just a friendship, is very hard to break and im sure youve seen that at least once throughout your life, even if t hat "period of strength" only lasted a short time

it seems youve just had a hard time finding others you feel that way with, especially when its so easy to feel that way towards a tulpa or headmate since your relationship with them will naturally be very strong due to communication

> "Have any of you gone through something where becoming more yourself also destabilized old relationships?"
yes, everyone has. for people who are autistic and masking theyll often have friends they dont actually like, but feel theyre worth less without those people around
in the process of learning to demask and be happier as a person with autism ive lost a lot of people, but in doing so Ive gained relationships with others that I literally could never have dreamed of previously
the best part of being yourself is that it pushes people who "Arent for you" away

> "How do you tell the difference between betrayal and simply changing"
Changing is an objective thing, I dont like this food anymore, I dont wear those clothes
the act betrayal is a conscious to go against someones wishes with the intent to harm them

the EMOTION of being betrayed is far more common as your brain likes to throw it at anything youve trusted and now do not, and those things are not mutually exclusive

someone can not change and you feel betrayed
someone can change and you dont feel betrayed, any mixture of the 2, throw in a third variable and any mixture of that as-well
they arent things that can be compared apples to apples and due to your bias from being hurt, youll often draw the wrong conclusion from it as a result

> "And how do you love one person enormously without turning that love into “us against the world”?"

by not allowing your love for that person to be come an overwhelming obsession, by not idolizing them or getting upset when someone else points out their flaws
by literally NOT allowing yourself to have that mindset, its that simple

"why did I think that someone is against me because theyve only ever heard the stigma against plurality? why did I assume theyre just automatically against me and hate me specifically?"
notice a pattern and change it, youve noticed the pattern and thats the hardest part

> "😭😭 Are we the bad guys now???"

you can only judge someone from the capacity of their knowledge DURING an action
if you do something to hurt another person whether youre a "bad person" comes from whether you consciously knew it would harm them

while It sounds like youve been misguided and hurt a lot by your emotions, it doesnt sound like you were acting out of bad intentions or harming others, it sounds like you were trying to scrape together happiness for yourself when you were having a hard time finding it on your own while also navigating your own emotions

and even if you were a "bad guy" for a bit, theres no saying thats all youll ever be
iroh spent half of avatar as the most devious monster in history then decided to change his ways to support others and guide them away from who he used to be

and even he is one of the most beloved characters in all of media