I believed I was honoring my word. In truth, I may have been abandoning myself. What is a promise? How does keeping a promise betray my sense of self and at the same time support my identity of being a man of integrity?

Promises come with a certain amount of shared values, shared beliefs, trust, and an understanding of the fundamental nature of what is being promised. I found myself in the middle of a situation where I promised to be there. I felt internally compelled (impelled?) to continue because of my identity of integrity. I see it as one of my core values to live with integrity and keep to what I said I was going to do. The promises became my prison. I would remind myself that I chose this, I promised this, and I am the person that sees it through. I falsely (wrongly) conflated the idea of sticking with it and the idea of being true to my integrity. I had a crude and limited view of integrity. The fuller picture is much more complex. The old concept of integrity was at odds with honesty. My understanding of integrity became detached and isolated from honesty. I sacrificed parts of myself because it was supporting my false sense of virtue.

Betrayal has often been an outward set of circumstances, what someone else has done that affected me. The reality of betrayal begins with myself. I betrayed the self in a misguided attempt to honor the literal meaning; I betrayed myself in the name of virtue because "I promised." This betrayal is made clear after analyzing the purpose of keeping that promise.

Loyalty to an external promise became greater than loyalty to my internal truth. The distilled nature of self-betrayal is contained in that sentence. I find it useful to analyze how this dynamic actually functions to fracture my sense of identity.

I knew something was wrong. I voiced this concern to myself. I couldn't bring myself to make a new decision in that moment because I made a promise. The promise was not to run away when things got difficult. I had pushed people away and run away in the past because I "didn't like it," "couldn't handle it," "didn't agree with the way things were run," etc. I learned a bit about how that behavior was harming me, and in response to the new information, I made a promise to not run away. I would stick it out.

That something wrong became a pattern over time. I saw the pattern, and I still looked to the promise and rested well knowing that I was keeping the promise. I believed it would change; I believed I could be the one to change it; I believed I was fundamentally correct in my view, and the other would see it if only I could explain and provide the context.

I set boundaries that I allowed to be crossed. I allowed this because of some sense that keeping the boundary would break the promise. Keeping the promise was more central to my virtues than keeping the boundary. Over time, reality became distorted. I would feel disdain for myself in not keeping the boundaries, but I could convince myself that I was a man of integrity and that was more important. I remained because of the promise. The promise became central to my staying. I promised. The promise became the source of self-abandonment. The promise conflated integrity and commitment to the words; the promise turned against me. I was outwardly showing integrity, but internally, I was struggling because something was misaligned with inward integrity.

This is part of the reason I got married, not entirely, but partially for sure. I abandoned myself for someone else out of a promise that I made to them. I couldn't bring myself to call off the engagement because of the promise. I couldn't take it back; that was being outwardly inconsistent. I mistook integrity for consistency. I said this once, so I must keep saying it forever. I was consistent, but lacked inward integrity. I struggled to be who I thought I was because I abandoned myself. I didn't abandon the other. But, but, but, yeah.... There's the struggle, in just one word, repeated. It goes back and forth, trying to make sense of how this is what I think it is, what it must be; I convinced myself it was virtuous because I kept to the literal words, kept the promise. I could sacrifice myself for another, and there was false virtue in that. This was vanity of the moral variety. There was a blend of pride, fear, hubris, and identity all wrapped together in the integrity burrito.

Where did this confusion come from? How did I get it twisted? Culture? Childhood? TV?

I place value in "sticking it out." Quotes here because the definition is muddled. Sticking it out is praised. Longevity has a certain kind of value. I give high value to someone who went through the most difficult times and didn't change course. There is something to that. To be fair, that's not entirely false. In relationships, movies tell me that fighting for the relationship has the highest of values. Never give up! That sentiment pervades the television and big screen. What is Love, Actually? (see what I did there...)

I never give up. That's a central tenet to my being. I do take pride in being the man who never gives up, no matter what the obstacle, I will get through it. I'll say it here because it seems fitting, virtues to the extreme can become destructive liabilities. It doesn't matter the hardship, I must remain committed to the objective. It doesn't strike me as any kind of odd that I developed this sense of commitment. I have been told from all sources that I am good for doing so, I am righteous, I am to be envied for my blind faith in a future that doesn't quit.

Let's back off this a minute and discuss the times where these traits are not admirable. These are dangerous slogans used as affirmations. I didn't step back to ask the question, "what if staying is the failure?" That's unsettling to consider. Have my virtues become my failure? I even said it once, "This is my greatest challenge; I must stick it out." I avoided questioning myself in such a way because it was painful to look at, even more painful to accept. It had the effect of shattering what I believed was the highest honor, my greatest strength: endurance. I'll succeed or die trying. I will either come out on top, or I will not be able to stand, and when I would rise again, I would fight again, until the other person gave up. I was going to win, no matter the cost! I could not face the "moral defeat" of quitting.

If I left (quit), was I a failure? Was I weak? Did I break a promise, break my word? A man is only as good as his word, right? Was my love conditional? I am not a failure. I am not weak. I do not break my word. My love is not conditioned.

Those are core principles of my being. Staying became the way to preserve the core of who I am. It became self-preservation, identity preservation. This was not rooted in wisdom and caring. It was sourced from a rigid sense of, I said I would do it, so I must continue to do it. The slippery slope gets more slippery as I look at this rigidity. As I see it now, that wasn't integrity, it was self-image protection. Because of my actions, no one could say that I lacked integrity or broke a promise. I could say that others broke their promise, and I could place myself in moral superiority because they don't understand what it actually means to be true to your word. I now recognize that for what it is: ego. It is meant to protect the image of self rather than keeping true to self. I wanted to be outwardly seen as a man of integrity, consistency, and endurance. That smacks of ego on my part, not integrity for the sake of truth, but for the sake of image.

Using these insights, a reframe becomes possible. Integrity is not doing something simply because I said I would do it, I promised. I can frame this as something a bit more textured and present, today. Integrity can be: I remain truthful, especially to myself, even when that truth requires painful change that doesn't keep to the words of the promise. Integrity can be keeping to the truth, even if not in keeping with prior declarations. Maybe it wasn't a promise after all, it was an offer. Although calling it an offer implies for me an expiration and a condition. Maybe that's okay.

Staying for the sake of keeping a promise became a warped sense of integrity when staying required abandoning myself. This definition is important for me because integrity is important for me. I cannot allow my virtues to betray me, to harm me, or to place me in a situation where I am unsafe, just because I said I would be there. I can have integrity and break "promises." They are not broken promises, they are new decisions made at the introduction of new information. Some promises become incompatible, and integrity requires discernment about which of the promises remains aligned with truth. At the end of it all, I still have to live with myself and want to love myself. I must keep the promises that align with my truth to be able to look in the mirror with a healthy sense of pride. I must not knowingly, nor blindly, participate in my own demise.

I did break a promise. But that stops being the point. I am forced to ask: "Which promise mattered more, the promise to others, or the promise to myself?"