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32 Times Being A Good Person Ended In Total Betrayal And Left Everyone Shocked
There are very few “truly good” people left out there. The people who remember your birthday, cover your shift without being asked, and bring snacks to meetings that didn't require snacks. They are, by every measurable standard, genuinely good. But for some reason that nobody has ever been able to fully explain, they are also the person most likely to find a knife in their back before the year is out.
An online community recently asked people to share the most painful examples of good people getting betrayed for absolutely no reason, and the thread is equal parts enraging and heartbreaking. You have been warned.
More info: Reddit
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#1
I found out a colleague hadn't applied for a big promotion so I asked why as she had shown a lot of interest in the past having covered the position quite enthusiastically.
She told me that she had been off for a few weeks and on her 1st day back had given another colleague a lift home (massively out of her way). It was common knowledge in the office the vacancy was coming up and we were just waiting for HR to open up applications so whilst driving it came up but the other person said that applications hadn't opened yet and they hadn't heard anything about the role in a while.
Applications closed the following day and I know for fact the person who denied knowing about the vacancy had already put their own application in a few days before.
My colleague missed out on the role and we all learned there was a snake in the office. What's worse is the petty jerk never stood a chance of even getting an interview for the role because she was known as lazy and quite argumentative.
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#2
My roommate's long-distance relationship wasn't going very well, so she lied to him and told him she was pregnant. He's very gullible and being a dad is probably his #1 goal in life, so he was super excited. And then he found out she was having twins!! Dude was already looking for babysitters, but then the due date passed and he hadn't heard from her.
He called and sent lots of messages, and really began to worry that she'd had some sort of emergency. 2 weeks after his twins were due, he decided enough was enough and drove all the way out there to see her in person. My poor gullible roommate thought he was about to meet his twins, but nope.
Not only was he not a father, but his girl had lied to keep him around while she was seeing another guy. It broke his heart. Here he was about to become a father to two perfect little babies, and then all of a sudden they never existed.
**TLDR; My roommate's long-distance girlfriend told him she was pregnant with twins, but when the due date came, she disappeared. She was never pregnant and he was crushed because he loved all 3 of them.**.
#3
My cousin is genuinely one of the nicest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. She is an elementary school teacher who apparently is bad at teaching too because she has won numerous teaching awards.
Her husband lost his job in the recession and that's when she said he turned into a different person. He ended up cheating on her, claiming he was driven to it because my cousin is infertile. She begged him to see a couples counselor. He agreed. She set up and did all the work to get the appointment. Even though he was unemployed and the one that cheated. The morning they were supposed to go, he gave her divorce papers. She was crushed.
Good news is, more than a decade one she is doing better than ever. Has met a great guy that worships her. The guy has a son and they all get along great with the boyfriend's ex wife. They all even celebrate holidays and vacation together. She deserves every drop of happiness.
There's an old fable about a gardener and two trees. The first tree is left completely alone, never touched, never challenged. It grows tall quickly, but its roots stay shallow, its wood soft, its fruit unremarkable. The second tree gets pruned heavily, repeatedly, in ways that look from the outside like damage. It loses branches. It goes through seasons of looking worse than the tree next to it.
But underground, quietly and without any fanfare, its roots are pushing deeper with every cut. The point of the story is uncomfortable but hard to argue with. The pruning isn't punishment. It's preparation. The pain of being betrayed, undercut, or stabbed in the back by someone you trusted supposedly builds something in a person that comfort and ease simply cannot.
None of this makes betrayal okay. Let's be very clear about that. The people in this thread did not deserve what happened to them, and the people who did it to them are not gardeners. They're just people who behaved badly. But the ones who came out the other side, roots deeper and fruit better than before? They are, almost without exception, the most interesting people in the room.
#4
In highschool we had a genuinely great IT teacher. Just a swell guy who was good enough at teaching but what made him excel so much is his down to earth attitude.
He treated us like mature adults, with respect, in his class the students and him were on the same talking level, none of that 'im a teacher, you're the students' bullcrap. He just had a sort of, treat people the same way you wish to be treated attitude and EVERYONE loved him.
He had to leave because the school higher ups were horrible and liked the screamy type of teachers more, and he constantly had disagreements with them over issues I've mentioned above.
As far as i know, he became loved in the next school he went to aswell, but i feel like he's disappointed in me because i was always his favourite and i didn't talk to him once he left (i hate facebook).
#5
My dad literally supported his family after moving to America for years. He sent money to his dad and stepmother, plus paid for his half siblings' education, despite barely scraping by in the US. Fast-forward to today, and all but one of them are doing super well financially. None of them showed up to my mom's funeral or did anything to offer support to my dad. Despite overcoming incredible mistreatment from his stepmother, I was still never allowed to call her out on it and always told to look at things from her side (which was not justifiable in any way).
#6
My mom allowed my sister and her alcoholic husband to stay with us in our already cramped house with 3 teens and my sister and I bc they got kicked out of HIS parents house for being disrespectful. My mom has brain cancer and it's affected her memory. She cannot make new memories. They would say things like "oh don't worry she won't remember" or "just do it and tell her you told her but she forgot". I don't remember ever being THAT red eyed before. The real kicker was after all of that, my sister's husband did not allow anyone to touch my niece for the first month she was living there even though he hurt her while drunk. I'm still trying to learn to forgive my sister. Don't mistreat my mother, period.
The thing about people who backstab the truly good ones is that they tend to be remarkably bad at covering their tracks. Not because they're careless, but because the kind of person who would betray someone kind and undeserving is also, almost always, the kind of person who does it more than once. Patterns emerge. Reputations form.
84% of Americans believe that what goes around comes around, and this thread is just the preview to a karma highlight reel. Story after story follows the same satisfying arc: a good person gets betrayed, the betrayer enjoys a brief window of whatever they thought they were going to get out of it, and then the universe quietly clears its throat. We are simply waiting for the part twos...
#7
There was this girl in high school who was probably the kindest person I have ever met. During a football game, she would always have 200 or so cupcakes to pass out. All types of different flavors and designs on them and everyone loved them. Well, a group of girls didn't like the attention she was getting at all and asked to help pass out the cup cakes to "help".
Instead they took the cupcakes and caked them quite literally on the girls new car. It was everywhere. The windows, the exhaust, the wheels, and a back window was also open a bit so anything they didn't smear on the car was shoved into that window. I felt terrible seeing the car afterwards and only ONE of the girls took the blame for it and didn't even end up getting into too much trouble.
Sorry about your cupcakes Hannah :(
UPDATE: Hello! Everyone asking for an update on Hannah... I dont have one :( She seems to live a perfectly normal happy life with 2 kids and no shes not a baker (although that would be a great way to end the story).
#8
A woman I taught with, Mary, who was the sweetest, most helpful patient Special Ed teacher I have ever met, finished her degree and she and I started teaching the same year. She worked miracles with kids everyone else just gave up on.
The principal was new to the school and let her go through two years of new teacher probation and let her think she was getting a continuing contract. He ousted her. Because he had final say on non-renewal and because she was probationary, he didn’t have to provide justification.
The justification was that he installed a 25 year old leggy blonde teacher from his former school.
She hated kids.
#9
My little neice at 5 years old asked her mother to stop the car and let her rescue a turtle in the middle of the road. While they were standing patiently by the roadside waiting for traffic to clear, a carload of teenage boys aimed for the turtle and ran right over it in front of her. She cried for a long time. I know it was "just a turtle," but to intentionally hurt and horrify a little girl just trying to help a fellow creature is sick. I hope those boys have matured by now, maybe having kind little girls (or boys) of their own.
Shakespeare understood the backstabbing of good people better than almost any writer in history. Hamlet is, at its core, a story about a good person destroyed by the calculated betrayal of someone close to him. A trusted family member, motivated by greed and ambition, removes the most beloved and righteous person in the room in order to take what they want.
If that plot sounds familiar but you can't quite place it, it's because you've seen it. You've definitely seen it. You watched it as a child, probably more than once. The Lion King is, almost beat for beat, the story of Hamlet, a good king destroyed by a jealous brother, a traumatized heir who has to find his way back. Shakespeare wrote it in 1600. Disney gave it a soundtrack and made it significantly more fun to sit through.
The point, whether you're watching it in the Globe Theatre or on a Tuesday afternoon with a bowl of cereal, is exactly the same. Betrayal is as old as storytelling itself. The snake in the office has been there since the beginning. And Simba, much like every other good person in this thread, eventually comes back.
#10
I was a McDonald's manager and there was this kid who worked grill/fryer. He was a little dumb, but this kid TRIED and had an amazing attitude even when the kitchen messed up his every move. Loved that kid. Anyway...
The tiles around the oven and fryers needed to be relaid so they were and cardboard was thrown over them to cover the new grout. I told the kid when he came in "be careful, blah blah blah" and then it happened. He was moving from the cabinet above the oven to the fryers to the right and slipped. He wasn't around, I tried to catch him but missed and he hit hard.
I witnessed the entire thing from INCHES away and wrote the incident report personally, he literally stepped on it, gently, and the grease from the kitchen must have built up because he straight went back, head hit tile. He had a concussion, but was otherwise alright except "some" back pain, which I think was worse than he let on.
He filed for workman's comp and they denied it. Said he had a "history" of unsafe workplace practices or something formal for "go away." Yet they didn't call me, the CERTIFIED SHIFT MANAGER ON DUTY or even acknowledge the incident report.
#11
A good friend of mine got cheated on by his girlfriend after they were together for over 3 years. He was the best to her, he literally would empty his bank to get her things and she was obviously leeching off of him. He was so nice to her though. Sadly after that happened to him he changed and became a jerk himself.
#12
"Melvin" and "Marjorie" had been married 40 years and looking forward to a comfortable retirement when Melvin told Marjorie God had called him to be a missionary in the Philippines. Marjorie, being a good Christian, supported her husband's decision, bought him luggage and drove him to the airport as a good wife does.
Melvin wrote emails every day talking about his ministry and how things were going and asked Marjorie to send him money occasionally. Months passed this way and soon it was time for Melvin to come home. And he did. With a new 18 year old bride.
As it turns out, Melvin had divorced Marjorie in secret by forging her names on a do-it-yourself divorce kit and filing it with the Court. Marjorie defaulted, of course, and the divorce was finalized without her ever knowing. So when Melvin returned from the Phillippines, he dropped the news that not only had they been divorced for a year and a half but he now had this new "wife" and Marjorie would need to move out of the house and in to another which he "graciously" agreed she could have in the divorce she never knew about.
Coldest thing I've ever seen.
If we're talking about the most famous backstabbing in recorded history, there is really only one place to start. Julius Caesar, by most accounts, was a very popular leader. On the 15th of March, 44 BC, he walked into the Theatre of Pompey and was stabbed twenty-three times by a group of senators that included some of his closest allies.
The phrase "and you, Brutus," Caesar's alleged last words to his friend Brutus, has become the single most enduring shorthand for betrayal in human history. What makes Caesar's story so permanently relevant is the motivation behind it. His assassins didn't betray him because he was cruel or corrupt. They did it because he was powerful, popular, and making them feel irrelevant. Sound familiar?
The backstabbing stories in this thread follow the same blueprint almost every time. The person who gets betrayed isn't targeted despite being good. They're targeted because of it. Goodness, competence, and genuine likability make people feel threatened in ways that are apparently still producing the same results they did in ancient Rome. The setting changes. The behaviour does not.
#13
A genuinely good older Roman Catholic priest was falsely accused by a former parishioner of molesting him back when the accuser was an altar server numerous years ago.
The parishioner later *withdrew* his charge, claiming that he was "unclear in his thinking because of troubled dreams that had no basis in reality."
Sadly, the priest's otherwise sterling reputation was sullied for no legitimate reason.
#14
I went to a very poor high school. There was a girl who would volunteer to work concessions and baked hundreds of cookies to sell and raise money for girl's athletics, as she herself played 3 sports. Over her 4 years, she had to have raised over $1000. Her senior year, she was a manager for the volleyball team. Having been a starter the year before, I assumed she was injured and asked when she would be able to play again. I was shocked to hear she had been cut from the team. No one knew why, but you could tell she was heartbroken.
#15
I once made a small, but fairly popular Instagram fishing account so my friends and I could share all of our fishing pictures.
I was the one who made the account and did most of the posting. Put in all the work to get it where it was.
One day I find that my password isn’t working on the account, and I can’t log in. Turns out my “friends” decided that they didn’t like how I was posting everything and wouldn’t put up pictures from their hunts (I’m not a hunter, and the page was for fishing) and decided they would change the password and not tell me, and completely rebrand the page.
I’m still upset about this, because I put so much work into it ):.
Here's what Caesar, Hamlet, Simba, and every person in this thread have in common. They were all, at some point, the most undeniably good person in the room. And they were all, at some point, betrayed by someone who mistook that goodness for weakness. It is one of history's most consistent mistakes, made by people who fundamentally misunderstand what they're looking at.
Kindness is not softness. Trust is not naivety. And the person bringing snacks to the meeting is not, as it turns out, the easiest target in the building. But this arc bends consistently in one direction. The roots of the pruned tree go deeper. Simba comes back. The accounts get settled. Not always on the timeline you'd like, but with a consistency that borders on mathematical.
So if you're currently in the middle of your betrayal arc, sitting in what feels very much like the "before" of a very difficult story, take some comfort in the fact that you are in extraordinarily good company. Caesar had his Brutus. Hamlet had his Claudius. And you, apparently, have Karen from accounts. The ending, historically speaking, is not hers.
Have you ever been betrayed in a disgusting way? Share your trauma with us in the comments!
#16
My pops worked for an oil company. Started entry level and worked his way up. I honestly cannot remember him ever taking a sick day. Quiet man, never caused a problem. The kind of guys you would want to work in your company. Full retirement was at 35 years, they laid him off at 32 just so they wouldn’t have to pay full retirement. It crushed him. I watched him decline, struggle with depression and eventually was gone a few years after being laid off. It’s just sad that corporations can’t honor employees who give their lives honoring the corporations.
#17
My best mate Nick. This guy had worked hard for 4 years through GCSE and A levels and almost never had a second of time to himself because he was constantly just grinding for As so he could get to his dream university to study Astrophysics. Every piece of homework he handed in had hours of work poured in and of course he was one of the top students getting the highest marks in the class. The teachers all loved him because he was so friendly and respectful and was never late with homework. Anyways we've both got our grades back by email due to coronavirus and the teachers gave him a B in physics so he can't get into his dream uni. This wasn't even the government downgrading him. It was the teachers. His mock grade was C but somehow they felt that all the work he had put in over the years wasn't enough to give him at least an A. He's gutted and I'm pissed at the teachers for dashing the dreams of the best student the school had probably ever seen.
#18
I like to think I'm nice... A few years ago I went through an entry level tech program and met a group of people that I regularly hung out with. 2 months after meeting them, my birthday comes up and I'm not into huge gatherings, but they all insisted we have a party and we go out after.
So, I planned a party at my apartment. I invited them all to attend then go out after. However, I noticed hours before the party that none of them were answering my messages. Thinking I was skeptical, I trusted they would still come.
Nobody came. Nobody decided to tell me they were ALL not coming. I saw on Snapchat later they went out without me. And they all wondered why I was angry on Monday morning at work.
#19
When my mom who was (and still is) the most caring woman I have ever gotten the chance to be around was cheated on by my frankly not so good (at the time) father. Luckily he has gotten his act together and isn't nearly as bad as he could have gotten and luckily my mom saw the signs he wasn't gonna be the best guy in a couple years. This truly crushed her and she still can't date anybody without feeling that she's not good enough for them or something else.
Edit:didn't expect this to get this upvoted. Thanks yall.
#20
I was supposed to become a lawn mower employee by the time the grass begins to grow.
But my boss noticed that I'm performing exceptionally well with manual work and decided to keep me for manual work, which had lower wage, and send someone else for the lawn.
Yeah I got demoted and discounted for overperforming.
#21
I'm a moderator in a small but active Discord server for teens to hang out in. The owner is one of the greatest people I've ever met. He's cool, calm, nice, down to earth and a great supporr for people who need it. But he has had some people trying to copy his server, the server he worked incredibly hard for setting up and getting it to where it is now. Everyone who did try that, which was about 4 people/times, is now gone, but I just don't understand why you'd want your own knock-off version of a great server that you're already a part of.
#22
I knew I nice guy. People were gossiping about him and making fun of him. A woman he liked ruined his friendships by spreading lies about him.
He really doesn't have any friends anymore, thanks to that jerk.
#23
There were two people in our circle of friends who had been together for about two years since shortly after first meeting. They were always together, always happy and pretty much a model couple for the rest of us.
She was effortlessly beautiful inside and out. Gentle, thoughtful, supportive and enthusiastic with all of us. An absolute sweetheart and a lovely person. He was fun to be around, smart and reliable. Then she goes to the other side of the country for a few weeks to visit with family.
At some point before this trip he found out that the sister of someone else in our circle (let's call them L) was very into him. She lived an hour away with her parents. As soon as the gf was gone he was giggle-bragging about planning to hook up with the sister. He told *everybody* about it and he and L would laugh and joke about it like it was a jolly win. It made the rest of us very uncomfortable.
So eventually the sister, who we'd never seen before, shows up one weekend to 'hang out'. It was awkward with a lot of wink-wink nudge-nudge and then they did the deed and she went home and we never saw her again. The bf and L had some more high fives. Oh, and somebody called the gf to rat him out and she wound up taking him back anyway after she got back. It was all so strange and I felt awful for her. She didn't deserve it at all, to not only have her bf cheat on her but also treat it like the grand opening of a chain store.
#24
It was just a normal day on a tf2 2fort server. Hoovies and friendlies walking around.
But then the try hard spies showed up. Things have never been the same.
#25
Knew a guy who was the first employee hired at a new paint store. He Worked there 28 years when he was finally let go because he was earning too much and having too many health issues (mostly breathing related and lungs so maybe from working with paint for so long). Owners thought they could hire a 20 year old kid to do the job for 1/4 the pay. There were no safety measures when handling paint, heavy items, thinners and other flammables, no ventilation. I quit after two years.
The fired employee was quickly picked up by the competition and also started a fried chicken thing on the side. Really helpful dude, was the only one in the store who actually knew what he was offering and what was best for your project.
#27
My buddy who was an actor in a few Star Trek movies, 90210 stuff back in the day said when he got out to Hollywood it was so cutthroat that he told a friend that he had a gig out in the desert in the morning. When he got up his tires were slashed and that friend had showed up on set saying he was able to work. Fake nice is a real thing in CA.
#28
A friend of mine from a different region was dating this girl in my town, who was known to be a nasty piece of work, but he didn't know her rep. My sister and I warned him, but he seemed to be genuinely in love with her so we let it be, he's a lovely guy I've known him since he was born, babysat him, he's like a younger bro to me.
Anyways she tell him she's pregnant, and he's excited because he genuinely wants to be a dad and have a family. He starts making plans, buying baby gear and starts looking for jobs in my area so he can move here.
Without a word, she goes and gets an abortion and tells him after the fact, and in my country it takes several appointments + counciling before it's signed off, so it's not a quick process that can be done within days, it's a process over a few weeks so she knew in advance that she was doing it despite how excited he was.
It absolutely devastated him. Just totally rocked him to the core that she'd do that to him, without even discussing it with him first. Obviously they split up, and he's with someone else now, finally getting back to being happy again.
#29
My wife.
She is honestly the sweetest, most loving, caring person. If there were angels on earth, she’d be one. That’s part of what attracted me to her, I was going down a bad path, she helped me change my life around, and we are happy as can be together.
Her family screws her over however they can. She tried buying a vehicle from her dad, a mechanic (right before we met), and before signing over the title, he spent the money and sold the truck to another buyer.
Her mom chooses anybody over her (men, their children, it is ALWAYS someone else), and it leaves my wife so broken. She tries so hard to have relationships with her bad parents, and is always hurt in the end. We make plans, have her family stay with us (we live in different towns), and always at the very last minute, they cancel. Normally for her mom to be with her boyfriend, or because her dad gets “sick” when he wants to hang out with his friends. My wife is ALWAYS picked last. There is so much more, so many ways they have hurt my wife, I could write a book.
She has such a view of “family”, that she keeps trying. I try to help, I try to tell her it is ok to cut toxic people out of your life, that family doesn’t mean they are deserving of our time, but she never gives up.
I’m so blessed to have met her, and to be in this relationship. Every time they hurt her, take advantage of her (financially), cut her out of plans, it kills me. I don’t know how to help, she deserves their love but by now, they don’t deserve hers. Any time I try to help, it makes it worse. But she doesn’t deserve to be broken by them.
#30
It happened to my bestie and still affects me too...she hardly cries but on the day we were returning from our batch's school trip she got emotional because I told her to tell whatever she feels without bottling them in(she hardly speaks what she really feels) and so she tried to and started crying...and some of our other 4-5 friends(we kinda used to be a group)asked for my phone and went Into our group chat removed me and started making fun of us for crying...I wish we didn't atleast get to know about that but one of the girl in that group felt sorry for us and came and told about it...the point is that the girl who started this chat about us crying didn't even feel sorry and said that she felt a bit out of mind and did so to us...but I still think common sense says if u don't wanna comfort a crying person atleast don't make fun of them crying..that too a person who hardly cries...
#31
Guy I know was 17, dating a girl who said she was 16, but was actually 15. She decided a few years later to come forward, messing up his life completely.
#32
He was my pocket medic. He'd been healing me all game and then all of a sudden a spy jumped at him out of now where and trick stabbed him. It was the saddest day of my life.
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