Be careful of those you trust

By Jerry Lester

Why family or friends back-stab: trying to understand why some people “back-stab” or double-cross …

A backstabber is someone who pretends to be your friend, or to be on your side, and then turns around and does or says things that lead to you being harmed, exposed, or treated badly as a result of things they suggest or reveal.

Backstabbing is a form of manipulation and reveals a person who is disloyal, insecure, and very unsure of their own place.

Understanding the motivations behind backstabbing can help you find ways to deal with it, as well as showing that the backstabber is very often a person with poor emotional resources and is probably a very unhappy individual.

While that doesn’t excuse their behavior, it can reassure you that the backstabber is probably like this with many people and needs to be treated objectively as someone to be careful of. Reasons why people resort to backstabbing include:

– Inability to make close friendships or keep friendships, and perhaps a fear of getting too close to other people in case they’re hurt. Gossiping in a mean-spirited way can cause them to feel they’re more attractive to people they’d like to have a friendships with.

– Inability to get where they want to in life because they’re not talented, dislike hard work, cannot figure things out, or they’re afraid of doing the innovative things themselves. Their greed for promotions, profit, or bettering their position can cause them to see backstabbing as an easy path through.

– Seeking to impress someone else. This can be the case where the person doesn’t feel they’re getting enough attention or respect from someone in authority or someone they wish they could spend more time with. It can be made worse where you’re spending time with the person the backstabber would like to befriend.

– Jealousy. An insecure person who also harbors jealous thoughts about someone else can easily resort to backstabbing as a way of feeling superior over the subject of their desire and can even view this as a sort of “revenge,” as a way of taking down someone’s strengths, to make themselves appear and feel stronger.

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Jerry Lester and his wife have been married 48 years and live in southwestern Virginia. He is a military veteran and businessman who has, among other things, owned a coal mine before buying the construction company which he still owns. A tireless volunteer, his involvement in politics in the Fightin’ 9th Congressional District includes his service as long-time chairman of the Buchanan County Republican Committee, a decade on RPV’s State Central Committee, and in 2010 he was honored as State Republican Chairman of the Year.