Does this sound familiar?
A part of you feels grateful other people care about you, but guilty at the same time. While you can put on a good face and try your best, if your friends really knew you, they wouldn’t want anything to do with you. You have to stay positive and be there for them no matter what. After all, you’re the broken one. If you fall through on too many things or they feel like you’re a burden, friends and family will have no reason to spend time with you. Why would they want to be around someone who makes them feel worse?
Many, many people feel this way. Guilt and shame run rampant through our culture, forcing us to feel the need to hide our true selves. We hide, burying pieces of ourselves deep within us, determined never to let them see daylight. When others get too close to finding them, we might flee or lash out, knowing our friends will leave us if they see those parts. For that matter, if we face those parts too directly, we might want to leave or hate ourselves.
These pieces often relate to feeling loved. Unfortunately, this means those we love are the most likely to see these pieces we shame, also leaving them the most likely to receive our wrath for getting too close. While we crave connection with friends and family, connection might feel as though a barrier keeps us from feeling fully honest and true. This barrier hurts, but nowhere near as much as risking these same loved ones seeing what lays beyond it.
This gets worse if you and your partner reinforce each others’ shame. Getting too close to your partner’s guilt and shame might lead to their lashing out or running from you. It then makes a lot of sense to stigmatize those pieces and try to avoid them as well. This means your relationship develops topics that cannot be discussed. Over time, you both might feel you never talk about anything that matters, or talk at all. Safe topics don’t usually feel very meaningful.
You and your partner might avoid talking most of the time, using distractions when around each other instead of engaging meaningfully. Deeper conversations likely lead to flare ups and arguments, so why even go there? Well, as both of you learn the importance of avoiding these conversations, you both also learn the importance of avoiding those shameful pieces. Over time, this ramps up the guilt and shame, potentially adding traps to that barrier that keeps you from facing those parts.
Guilt and shame in our closest relationships damage our brains physically. Early in life, this sets our attachment style, determining our brains expectations for loved ones for the rest of our lives. Kids neglected by their parents before 2 years old grow up expecting their partner to neglect them too. Their shameful and guilty parts tend to watch for these moments, lashing out or running when it seems loved ones aren’t paying attention to them.
Your connection with your partner provides a beautiful opportunity to change your attachment style. I can’t meaningfully tell you people care about you. Your partner can’t meaningfully tell you they care about you. Both of us, however, can show you we care about you. Your logical brain might already accept that, but your emotional brain needs proof. When your emotional brain gets that proof, your body brain starts to accept it and rewire your brain to accept that proof.
Marriage counseling teaches your emotional brain you’re lovable. With a marriage therapist, you and your partner learn to accept your own guilt and shame, eventually providing love and support for one another as well. Initially, your therapist might do most of this work, slowly teaching you to express yourself fully. Shame and all. Eventually, your partner might be able to do the rest, finally teaching you to love yourself fully.