Do you ever feel ashamed?

[Cadbury]

Thank you Selkie and NPDdad...I think I will at least write the things I want to say. I don't have to send them, but I think just writing will help.

Thanks all again.

[Marta]

I just feel that I owe them some explanation. What do you think?

Opening up is always a risk. We can never predict how others will respond. So if it is a certain reaction you wish from them, and are too vulnerable right now to face any other response, then may be it is a good idea to hold off.

However, if I was your friend, I would be absolutely delighted to get something like that. It would show me that you cared, you acknowledged your mistake, it would not happen again in future, that I meant something to you.

I feel that communication is always a step towards intimacy. Sometimes however, our timing may be off and others may be out of synch, too busy annoyed preoccupied defensive to give us the response we want. That is the beauty of human life.

I say, if you can face some probability of rejection, go for it!

Hugs, Marta

[Cadbury]

Thank you Marta!

I think I will do it. I will definitely write them and then wait a couple of days to see if I want to post them.

At the moment I keep going over things that happened during the relationship and I am trying to feel guilt rather than shame. Guilt seems a more reasonable emotion somehow. It seems as though I will be sitting here and get hit by something new and the feelings start all over again....

I am trying to compare this to how it was last year, that way I know I am better, but it is still a struggle at times.


Thanks for listening everyone

[Chicken]

Do you care to explore the feeling of shame?  You can get it out of your system here! 

[Cadbury]

Selkie, Hopalong- thank you for your comments. I have been away from this thread for a while, just trying to see how I felt about everything. I have been going over all the things that happened during the relationship and trying to come to terms with my own reaction to them. I don't know how much it is helping, but it feels like I am letting myself experience them without collapsing, so maybe it is helping a little.

My biggest shame comes from the times where I don't feel I put my children first. I cannot understand that. They are my whole world, I love them above everything. It seems as though sometimes I let the force of my exN's personality over-ride my own good sense. He was so strict with them and I let him be. This is because the few times I dared interupt him or question him, he absolutely exploded. It was frightening and he did this in front of the children. I should have run then. Why did I put up with it? If I couldn't do it for myself, I should have done it for my girls. I feel terrible. I once asekd him not to get them over-excited before bedtime and he walked out of the house! Now it seems such a ridiculous thing for a grown man to do, but at the time I was so scared, I ran after him and spent a good hour calming him down enough that he would return. Why didn't I just tell him to f*&k off? It is so unlike me, I wouldn't dream of it now, so what did he do to me that stopped me being myself? I hate that part, the control. I hate the fact that he could just walk in and take control of me and I would let him. I didn't see it at the time, but I see it now. Textbook N, cut off all my friends and family. He said if I loved him I wouldn't need anyone else and I just went along with it.

It makes me feel so useless and lost, I just don't understand....

That's all for now. Venting a little at a time....

[Hopalong]

You're sounding really steady, you know, in spite of the pain. Not collapsing is a very strong thing.

I had so much guilt over sacrificing the second half of my daughter's childhood to her NStepdad.
It got better when I apologized to her. I just told her I am so sorry that I wasn't strong enough to do what you needed most at that time. But I just wasn't.

Her forgiveness was immediate. Obvious. Clean as rain. It reminded me to forgive myself.

I bet if you told your kids you're really sorry that when their Dad blew up you just didn't know back then how to stop it, they'll be just the same. You can just tell them you weren't strong enough and hadn't learned enough.

They love you. And you're there with them, loving them, right?
They know who's loving them.

Kids are SO smart. They can see who is trying to do the right thing, battling to grow and make things better. That's what they take away. They don't keep score of our mistakes half as much as we do. Their love for you is BIIIIIIIIIIG.

(They'd probably like it even more to see you laugh, start relaxing, stop banging yourself over the head with a frypan.)

Hugs,
Hopalong

[mum]

Cadbury, I can second Hop's comments. I can look back with a lot of regret for marrying my second N if I want to (I stopped doing that to myself, though).  He simply did not love (or actually even care for) my children.  I have had a few heart to hearts with my daughter in the last three years  (she seemed to take the brunt of his rudenss) and actually apologized for not recognizing her sadness sooner. We don't belabor it, but she knows I understand how she felt and that I recognize at times I let her down. I did divorce the guy, and not to make her feel responsible or anything, there is an understanding that his behavoir toward my children was a part of my no longer loving him.
Kids are amazingly resilient given lots of love and a healthy model for living. You do that for your kids....so don't fret.

[Sela]

I find shame one of the hardest feelings to understand and deal with.

I read that guilt is something we put on ourselves when we do wrong but shame is something others put on us.

In a way.....that makes sense.  These things are not spoken of and therefore seem shameful.  If society spoke of the things that happened between you and TH as being understandable, you would probably not feel any shame.    But such things aren't spoken of, even if two consentng adults are involved because there is something supposedly shameful in that speaking.   Being abused is seen as shameful.....by some.

I disagree.   Next century, the whole scene could change and stuff that is acceptable now might be the new shameful stuff and vice versa.  It's like eating meat on Friday suddenly became NOT a sin, one day.   I never got that.  I never thought it was a sin to begin with  (me and my rebel brain cell ).

Anyway....what I'm trying to say is Cadbury.......you were not acting shamefully.......he was.  He manipulated you, conned you, coaxed you, threatened you, isolated you, belittled you, played you, picked at you, toyed with you, tested you, trained you and on and on.  All you did was try to please him because when people love eachother......they do that.  And there is some:  autopilot (as Hopalong? put it) that seems to take hold when we are vunerable and hook up with such a snake.  It issssssss like a spell or something (imo).

That's how I see what happened to you and like everyone else who has posted here, I admire your strength and honesty.  I believe you are a very intelligent woman and perhaps part of your shame stems from the idea that intelligent woman don't get caught in the grip of snakes or fall into snake holes.  That's pitooey, if you ask me because it wasn't your brain that got caught.......it was your heart.  It was your brain that saved you, in the end!!!  And being an intelligent brain.......it won't let your heart fall for such stuff again!!

  Sela

[Mati]

During my last six months of counselling, I came to realise that shame had underpinned my whole life, right from early childhood where I was rejected by my mother and then sexually abused by an uncle.

The subject of shame has been littled studied or understood by psychologists but there is a very good book on the subject by John Bradshaw called Healing the Shame that Binds You that has been helpful to me.

One of the things that caused me great shame, has been the behaviour of my anti-social adult daughter, but going through her life and my relationship with her with my counsellor, and having her affirm that indeed her behaviour was not my fault, released me from a lot of the shame.

I also carry great shame and guilt because of my marriage with my last husband when I had two children from a previous marriage. I just cannot believe what I put up with, right from the start when he banned the children from mentioning their fathers family who they saw regularly. Their step father did not like the idea that I had been with another man, through sexual jealousy I suppose  and liekd to pretend that my first marriage had not happened. He has treat me like an object right from the start and I am amazed that I did not see it.

Everything that I have gone through in my life, left me with a feeling of shame attatched to it. But realising this and the fact that it was due to the way I saw myself and undeserved has freed me. My abusers shoudl be carrying the shame but as we all know, they do not, or rather it is burried so deep that they cannot get in touch with it.

However, I have learnt to value myself and see that all of the abuse I had, really meant that I should not be ashamed of myself (which is shame for who you are not what you do). The cycle has been broken now and I am healing and developing the self protection that would have stopped all of the abuse from the past.

ps just to enlarge a bit. That book says that there are two forms of shame; healthy shame and toxic shame. The healthy shame is necessary for us to learn how to behave; the toxic one is what makes you feel that you yourself are faulty and flawed as a human being, ususally from toxic parenting.

[Marta]

Cadbury:
My biggest shame comes from the times where I don't feel I put my children first.

Mum:
I recognize at times I let her down

Cadbury and Mum, thit is really brave of you, to admit this to even yourself. I think your children will appreciate this. It is one thing to admit to flaws in our N parents or partners, but when we admit our own shortcomings and wish to make amends, I think that is when true healing and change happens. It sounds as though your children are still doing OK and your relationship with them is loving, which is the main thing. I am proud of you both for saying this.

I just don't understand....

Cadbury, you have to recognize that there are forces greater than us in this world that can overpower us at times against our conscious will. Hitler could carry an entire nation with him and make them support him in doing shameful things. Everyone has his threshold when he can be seduced into doing shameful things, and just because your threshold was low does not mean that you are a shameful person. Your instincts and love for your children led you to take the right action, which is why you left him. Besides, if you could not protect even your own self, how could you have protected your children?
 

[October]

It did help to write a little about it all. The fact that none of you were disgusted by me made me feel a little better. It was also good to finally admit some of what went on.

My ex husband used to want me to do things that disturbed me at the time, but I tried to do them for him, because he made me feel inexperienced and - well, by implication, frigid or something. I had nobody to talk to about this.  We were married, and everyone looks the other way and leaves you to 'live happily ever after.'  There was no-one I could go to, to ask, is this right?  Should I agree to this?  Is this normal or not?  I knew that if two adults consented, it was supposed to be ok, but I was not consenting.  I was unhappy.

I am too ashamed even now to say what it was.   

It was not until many years later that I had a male counsellor who I managed to trust enough to ask some of this stuff.  We did not discuss it in detail, but he told me; 'no, that is not normal.'

This was a significant moment for me.  So in turn I will say to you, Cadbury, that what you described this man doing to you is not normal.  It is a sign of his antipathy towards you, and perhaps towards women in general.  It is not a part of love making for the majority of people.  I am sure you already know this, but sometimes it helps to hear it again.  This  man has problems, and I am glad you are away from him.

The shame you feel is his, so give it back where it belongs.  You have nothing to be ashamed of.

[Jaded911]

Hi Cadbury,

I had alot of the same feelings that you describe when I began to reflect on my relationship with my exN.  I felt dazed and confused over the events that took place.  I didnt have much clarity about the situation until I began to read about Stolkholm Syndrome.  I read so many stories about what happens to a person when they are in the midst of a traumatic event and I began to understand the human survival mechanism.

Hun, instead of considering all that you have experienced with your ex as mistakes, consider them learning experiences and learn from them as to make you a stronger person for the life that lies ahead of you.

You also have to remember these types of people are numero uno at mind control.  My gosh, look at Hitler, Sadaam Hussaan, etc....  These people manipulated others to do horrific acts.  Its all about mind control and you were under the spell of a master so please dont be hard on yourself.  It happened to the best of us!

[Cadbury]

Thank you for all your excellent replies. It helps put things into perspective. I have a terrible habit of going over and over things that made me unhappy and berating myself and my actions, even though I cannot change the past... daft I know, but this board and your replies are helping me to move on.

October - I too did a lot of things that he told me too that I cannot even bear to mention now. I have spoken to a very close friend about some of those things and she has assured me they weren't normal. However, I still find it disgusts me to think I actually did them in the first place.

He really does have a very low opinion of women, he was so rude to my solicitor because she was female. He is such a pig.

Luckily the father of my two eldest children is really nice so at least I only have one pig to deal with.

I do love all the feedback from this board. The feeling of calm I had when I firrst got here and discovered other people had been through what I had been through and actually understood what I was talking about was just amazing. I am so happy that I have this outlet.

(They'd probably like it even more to see you laugh, start relaxing, stop banging yourself over the head with a frypan.)

Thanks Hopalong... made me smile

That's how I see what happened to you and like everyone else who has posted here, I admire your strength and honesty. I believe you are a very intelligent woman and perhaps part of your shame stems from the idea that intelligent woman don't get caught in the grip of snakes or fall into snake holes. That's pitooey, if you ask me because it wasn't your brain that got caught.......it was your heart. It was your brain that saved you, in the end!!! And being an intelligent brain.......it won't let your heart fall for such stuff again!!

Thanks Sela - I think there is a lot of truth for me in that. I am far more cautious now about everything, well men anyway.

Hun, instead of considering all that you have experienced with your ex as mistakes, consider them learning experiences and learn from them as to make you a stronger person for the life that lies ahead of you.

thank you Jaded, again wise words! I should isten to you all more often, you help so much. I don't know about you though, but I find that sometimes I can get a bit lost within myself and forget to listen to advice that would bring me out of that Stupid me really!

All of you had such good advice... thanks again