The Day My Husband Found Out

Hey, Cadre. Family doctor Carey here. Today I want to share about a particular traumatizing memory that I have from my marriage. And this memory is particularly traumatizing because of the amount of shame that comes up for me when I recall it. And I just want to first touch a little bit on what guilt and shame are and how they're different. So you can understand in the context of the situation, guilt is basically your conscience, and it's kind of your guidepost for what is right and wrong and basically your internal mechanism of recognizing when maybe you did or said something that was wrong or didn't do something.

And it's really that moral compass. Shame, on the other hand, is a belief about yourself that you are bad. So that's when guilt turns into shame. That you are a bad person, that you deserve to be hurt, that there's something like wrong with you. That's where shame differs from guilt. Now, guilt is actually a healthy emotion because it helps us have that moral compass. But when it turns into shame, it usually is a result of not dealing with the guilt. Continued behavior that you have. Guilt about that then is turning into shame.

But really, shame is just a place where people get to and they're very stuck, because the whole point of shame is to keep you in a spiral of shame so that you continue doing whatever you're doing or not doing, and it just keeps you in that perpetual state of I'm a bad person often involves self punishment, whether that could be, you know, using drugs, things like that, just in a very detrimental, destructive place, is really what the point of shame is. And when I think back to this memory from my marriage, I was doing what I consider the most shameful thing I've ever done in my life, and I was having an affair.

When I was married, I had mentally decided that I wanted to be done with my marriage. I felt really stuck. I had no idea how to get out of my marriage because the second I decided, I'm done, I want a divorce. I was done working on it, too. Up until that point, I was working on it. But when I made that conscious decision, I was done working on it. And to be honest, the only reason I actually stayed with my ex husband for those several months and while I was having the affair was because my dog was dying and I couldn't bear to be away from my dog, and I knew he would take my dog from me.

So I've had to work through the shame that I've experienced from this entire thing. But I just remember on this particular day in this memory, what shame can do to you, because any sane human being can share with someone. No, I don't believe human beings deserve to be hurt or, you know, beat or abused in any way. Right. That's like a basic human understanding that people don't deserve to be hurt. And you might have a lot of anger in your heart towards someone and deserve that that person needs to be hurt.

But in general, you believe that we shouldn't hurt other human beings, and we don't deserve to be hurt. But this is where that magic of shame comes in. Because I remember on this particular day was the day that my ex husband found out that I was having an affair. I didn't hide it very well. I subconsciously wanted him to find out. As I look back on it, I was just waiting for him to find out so that he would divorce me and I could be free, because I didn't know how to get out of my marriage. And so I remember I was in the bath drinking, and I had started drinking a lot more during this time.

And he came upstairs with my phone in his hand, and he started reading off a text message and asking me who this person was and demanding answers. And I remember I had this mixed feeling of my heart just, like, sunk in my body. And I had this immense gut pain. Seeing how hurt he was, even though he was hurting me on a regular basis, I had so much hurt from hurting him that it was literally causing me physical pain. But at the same time, I also had this sense of relief. I had this almost lightness lifted off my shoulders, this weight.

So part of my body was feeling super heavy, and part of it was feeling super light from the relief that I had that he finally found out that I didn't have to keep this a secret any longer. And I remember getting out of the bathtub and following him downstairs. And he was so hurt, he didn't even know how to comprehend this. Because out of all the people in the world, his loyal wife, who values honesty and loyalty and integrity as some of my highest values, he would have never imagined I would do something like that.

I still struggle with wondering how I did this because this is just so out of character for me. But that's a topic for another day. But I remember just sitting there telling him, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you. And then what I did can only be explained by shame. I asked him to beat me. I said, I want you to hurt me. I want you to hit me. I want you to beat me to a pulp right now because I deserve it. And that's just where that power of shame came in. I had so much shame about what I was doing because I didn't want to hurt my ex husband as much as he was hurting me.

I didn't want to hurt him. I'm not a malicious, vindictive person, and I didn't want to hurt him. And to see him hurting really hurt me. But I actually believed that I deserved to get beat. I wanted him to physically beat me to within an inch of my life because that's how much I deserved it. And I can tell you years later, this memory is still so vivid for me because that shame still has a slight hold over me. And I'm still working through this. The shame of having an affair and just doing something like that, that I never imagined I would do.

I never in a million years thought I would be that kind of person. But as I think back to the situation and what caused it, what led up to it, and I've done a lot of healing. Reflecting on my marriage and all the things that I've learned from it, I recognize that it's not something I will likely ever do again because I won't put myself in a situation where I would even want to do something like that. I obviously going to choose a partner who's going to have a healthy relationship. But what I still struggle with a little bit is that I actually made that conscious decision to do that.

And the amount of shame that came with it, I mean, it was literally like dripping off me. I had so much shame. I was just drenched in shame. And I've pulled back, layer by layer that shame over the years. And I can tell you that I'm not 100% because I still sometimes make comments about myself or about that person I used to be, in a shameful way. Instead of forgiving myself for it and recognizing the situation I was in and understanding that I'm not going to make that decision again. Because if we think about this just from a pure, like, sinful act of things that we do in life, none of us are perfect.

None of us are perfect. We never can be perfect. And so we're going to make mistakes. And sure, we can rank those mistakes that some are worse than others, which I've definitely done, and said, this is the worst mistake I've ever made in my life. But really, what does it matter? I have forgiven my ex husband, but yet I can't forgive myself. So I know I could talk more on the topic of forgiveness, too, which really goes hand in hand with shame. But I would just encourage you to recognize if there is a situation in your life where you are holding so much shame, try to separate yourself from that.

Recognize the triggering memory, because this memory, for me, is still pretty triggering and understanding. If I'm looking at my situation now, I'm not saying that what I did was okay, but I can say, you know what? I really need to forgive myself for what I did because I was hurting. Hurt people. Hurt people. And I ended up inadvertently hurting someone that I deeply loved and cared about, even though I was in a destructive relationship. So I need to learn to forgive myself. And I'll delve more into this topic as we continue to talk about shame and forgiveness.

But I would just encourage you to recognize that there's something in your life that's holding you bondage. Because that's really the whole point of shame, is to keep you in that bondage, keep you from experiencing something. And what this has done for me is it's actually hindered the health of my current relationship with someone who is healthy, because I still have that unforgiveness towards myself for something that I did years ago. I hope this was inspirational. I know this is a really tough topic to cover in a short video, so I'm going to do several more on these.

But I just. I hope it was. I hope it was helpful to. For me to just share my experience with shame. Because just know that shame and forgiveness, it's never just a one and done. It's never just a one time thing. Oh, I forgive myself for how I acted. I sure as heck don't help to ever do that again. And it's not. It's not as easy as that. Especially when the shame goes so deep. So just know that you are a beautiful human being and that you aren't perfect. You make mistakes. And that's okay. It's okay to make mistakes.

Learn from them, forgive yourself, and move on. Because the worst place you can be is to let that shame just fester inside of you like it wants to do. So thank you for tuning in today, guys. God bless.