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I think I feel more humiliated than I am shame that I’m feeling shame from my husband’s actions. And I think it’s important to distinguish the difference of humiliation versus shame. Humiliation is a different emotion you feel like outrage, like I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. Where shame you don’t really talk about it. I can relate to you, that you have a lot of people in your life and good friends and family and relationships and a career, and you guys all sound pretty amazing. And so you feel like, I don’t feel like this is about me. I can relate to that. I felt similar that I had all of these relationships, I knew people loved me. I didn’t realize the kind of deep rooted belief that I’m not good enough, I didn’t realize that feeling until divorce and fear of what if I’m alone the rest of my life? What if nobody will ever love me? And I didn’t realize that until I was pushed up against having to really unroot those beliefs about myself. Because I knew, okay, I don’t deserve to be cheated on, I don’t deserve that. And I knew how loved I was by everyone except the person I chose to be my partner, which creates just a lot of trauma and difficulty. So the shame I went to with that is, I’m so stupid. How did I pick somebody like, I’m so stupid, I should have known better. I went to some shame there. So there is a difference of shame and humiliation feeling like I don’t deserve this.
Sometimes the intimate things, at least for me, the handholding, like those intimate things, hurt me more than sex. And so please don’t minimize those intimate, emotional affection, signs of affections that are so hurtful.