Aftershock - Can I Trust My Emotions?Sample

Feeling Bad or Ashamed

Feeling bad is often the result of anger turned inward. You may blame yourself for not suspecting your husband’s pornography use or compulsive sexual behaviors sooner. Many women who feel ashamed berate themselves for being so unaware.

If you’re one of those women, realize that a person doesn’t have to be stupid to be deceived. People who engage in deception and who fear being exposed are clever and skilled in covering up their adulterous actions. After years of lying, they become masters of deception.

When a typically honest person tells a lie, the conscience produces an internal tension that usually shows up on the outside. That’s why it’s generally easy to catch children in a lie. They haven’t lived long enough to become skilled in the art of masking their actions. It’s different with habitual liars. Such people deceive themselves before they deceive others. A woman can be competent at seeing through a ruse most of the time and still overlook the signs of her husband’s infidelity. After all, this is the man you pledged your loyalty to and allowed access to the most intimate aspects of your mind, body, and spirit.

If you continue to feel bad and ashamed of yourself, you might be carrying transferred guilt. A transfer of guilt happens when the guilty party lays his guilt on the innocent party. For example, your husband has committed an act of betrayal against you and your marriage, but he convinces you – or you convince yourself – that you’re the one to blame for the act.

The result is that you feel ashamed even though you aren’t the one to blame. If you’re carrying transferred guilt, work on changing your thinking from the damaging lie to the freeing truth: Your husband is responsible for his own actions. While you always want to examine your own life and heart with integrity and humility, don’t take his guilt upon yourself. It’s not yours!

Next, we’ll look more closely at dealing with sadness or grief.