Welcome to Happily Even After Betrayal with Life Coach Jen, the podcast where we don’t sugarcoat betrayal, we transform it. If your heart is shattered, your nervous system is buzzing, and your future feels uncertain, you’re in the right place. Here we rebuild identity, confidence, and peace. One brave episode at a time. Hey friends, welcome to today’s podcast. Today, the topic I’m going to be talking about is blame shifting, and it happens a lot after betrayal, and it’s devastating. One of the most painful things after betrayal isn’t just the affair, it’s being told you’re the reason the marriage fell apart. And this happens often. I didn’t realize how much blame shifting was done in my own marriage, but it happened a lot because as I’ve been researching it, it’s like lots of little triggers and pings, and my heart’s like, ah. But if you’ve ever been told I didn’t cheat because I’m broken, I cheated because of you. This episode is for you. So I don’t, I’m not wanting to villainize anyone, right? Like I don’t know if people, the betrayers, right? I don’t know if they intentionally are doing this. I’m just going to give them the benefit of the doubt. And it’s just their like protective mechanisms going off inside of them. And they don’t want to own it. It’s the shame blame that I talk about often. But I think it’s important to recognize, like, okay, this happened. Now what? So I think blame shifting, if you don’t really understand or aren’t familiar with that term, it’s a manipulative tactic where the unfaithful partner deflects responsibility by blaming the betrayed spouse for the cheating. You know, things like they’re going to say things like, if you weren’t so distant, I wouldn’t have cheated. And they’re just trying to preserve their self-image or guilt that they feel from the affair. And a lot of gaslighting and projection intensifies the betrayed partner’s pain. It creates a lot of confusion and self-blame. And it really is the choice of the cheater to have an affair. It’s not the victim’s fault. So if you can just get this through your mind and thoughts, that it isn’t your fault, but they will try to blame you sometimes. People think marriage problems equal justification for betrayal, but absolutely not, right? Every marriage has issues, but every marriage doesn’t experience betrayal. And so there are lots of other choices to do to fix and heal a marriage than to have an affair. Just know two things can be true. The marriage may have had issues, and the affair was still their choice. So don’t make it mean that, okay, well, our marriage did have problems, right? I was struggling and it makes sense. No, absolutely not. Do not do that. So, some other examples. If you’re like, did I experience blame shifting? I’m gonna tell you some things that betrayers say often. The affair isn’t why we’re divorcing, it’s how they reacted to the affair. This I hear all the time. Well, if you would have reacted better, we wouldn’t have to get divorced. And that’s simply a false narrative and very hurtful and harmful and simply not true. If you hadn’t nagged so much, I wouldn’t have looked elsewhere. You just won’t get over it. People say this all the time: like you’re taking too long to get over it. Well, remember, grief is a process and betrayal is grief. And so there isn’t a timeline for getting over it. Now, some people actively choose not to heal, and that’s a different story. But if someone’s actively trying to heal, you’ve got to give them time and space to do so. You made it impossible to come back because you’re always upset. Of course they’re upset. You cheated on them. And so you have to hold space for that. You’re gonna have to figure that out. You’re choosing to stay stuck. Now, some people do stay stuck. I don’t think it’s a choice. I think it’s their nervous system. And so, yes, there are tools to get out of stuckness, but they’re not choosing that. Their body has taken them into freeze position because of protection, right? They do not feel safe to feel otherwise. You never met my needs. I love this one. I heard this one a lot. Really, it’s not your spouse’s job to meet your needs, it’s your job to meet your needs and to speak them, not to go find someone else to meet them for you. We’re a person, we’re not property, and we need to be treated as such. So this is not okay to say this. I was lonely because you pushed me away. A better question is why is my spouse pushing me away? What’s going on with them? Right? Be curious. Like, can you imagine if more couples were curious about their spouse why they were behaving in certain ways, as opposed to just deciding going outside their marriage would fix their problem? I guarantee it’s gonna make your problems a million times worse. If you weren’t so controlling, why are you so upset? It was just meaningless sex. I’ve heard this one before too. It didn’t mean anything, really? Well, it meant something to your partner. You made our home miserable, right? So all this deflecting, all this blame shifting is really more traumatizing and hurtful and harmful. Healing doesn’t have necessarily a timeline, it has to be processed. It’s processing the emotions out of your body. Betrayal causes trauma, not drama. And so people bring a lot of drama into affairs because it’s almost like they’re trying to deflect your like so dramatic, right? No, they’re traumatized. And when people want safety, right? They’re trying to get safe, is often why they freeze or their, you know, bodies react a certain way, doesn’t deserve to be punished, right? They’re just trying to heal, they’re just trying to figure out something that is so out of body, so unprecedented. They trusted you, they didn’t know that you were gonna have an affair. And now that you did, they’re trying to figure it out. It’s very disorienting. So why blame shifting happens? Well, shame is a huge one, right? Facing reality is is really unbearable and hard. So they want to blame it on someone else. The shame does that to someone. Ego is huge. They don’t want to be the villain in the story, they don’t want to be the demise of their marriage is because of them. So it has to be because of you. And so that happens a lot. Emotional immaturity, lack of capacity to feel uncomfortable. So when people have struggles in their marriage, they go outside of their marriage to try to fix themselves, not fix themselves, but to fix it, to make them feel better because they don’t want to be uncomfortable, right? They don’t have the capacity, their emotions, they just can’t deal with them or they don’t know how to deal with yours. They want to create a narrative, right? I always find it fascinating. I mean, I’m not gonna go into my story, but the reason why we got divorced would never be because he was unfaithful. That’s not his narrative to his friends, to his family. Now, his kids and his family know, but you know, they want to believe his narrative so it feels better, right? And so that’s why a lot of times we have they have to shift it on their spouse, is to create a different narrative. So it doesn’t make them look bad. I think it’s a defense mechanism, right? To avoid confronting their choices or their self-image. They just get defensive, they feel defensive, so they have to blame you. They want to avoid accountability. It’s easier to blame someone else than to take responsibility for the pain that they’ve caused. I think a lot of people, after when they their spouse finds out they’re having an affair, it’s kind of a relief. And then they’re not ready for the complete devastation of their spouse. And so it’s really hard for them to recognize like, wow, I caused this pain. And so it’s just easier to blame them for however they’re reacting. Um, many people really disconnect, right? They disconnect from what they did to the reality, and so they can’t, they’ve created a whole scenario of that person that they were having an affair with is their soulmate, is their person, right? And you know, unfortunately, they’re married. Oops, right? Like they just they have this disconnect from themselves and created a narrative to support that. A lot of control and manipulation comes with blame shifting, right? Gaslighting, and they want to manage the fallout for them, and so they make it hell for you. Blame shifting is not proof you’re wrong, it’s proof they’re uncomfortable, right? So realize like it wasn’t your fault. They just can’t deal with what they did. They’re very uncomfortable. Someone who takes responsibility doesn’t rush your healing. So really pay attention if you’re trying to reconcile with your spouse. How are they doing this to you? Right. If they are, it’s a red flag, it’s a problem. If they’re unaware and they become aware that they’re doing this and they change, that can be something, right, to pay attention to. But oftentimes, um, this is a tactic, right? This is how they’re getting out of their marriage without any accountability or ownership for what they did. Why this is so damaging to the betrayed partner is because it causes so much self-doubt and so much shame. Like I remember having so much shame about what my spouse did because I believed it was my fault. If I was a better wife, a better person, like surely something was wrong with me because if a spouse wouldn’t do that. And so I fell into this trap for decades, really. I mean, it’s it’s really alarming, but so much confusion, feeling crazy all the time, like, right? I’m like, no, I was not crazy, but I felt that way and questioning your reality, you stay longer in a marriage than you probably should or want to, and feeling responsible for saving the marriage. Those all I’ve experienced all of those, right? Totally like, I can save this, I can fix this, right? I can totally figure this out. And definitely wasn’t my problem to fix. And just remember like an affair causes betrayal trauma, right? So your nervous system is completely dysregulated and you cannot heal from a dysregulated state. And so that is why blame shifting is so cruel and mean, because it dysregulates you even more, yet you’re trying to grasp for any safety, and you’re just thinking, like, okay, maybe, maybe this was my fault. Okay, if it was my fault, then I can fix it. Then I can do something, right? If it’s their fault, then I don’t have any control over it. And then I have to just sit here in the pain. And so our brain, of course, wants to create something familiar. It wants to stay in that marriage and it wants to fix it. You cannot heal in an environment where injury is denied. So if your spouse is telling you, just get over it, this isn’t a big deal, quit crying, right? Like you’re ruining our marriage. You cannot heal. It is impossible. And I finally, finally waved the white flag and realized this and realized I was never going to heal in my marriage because I had no marriage. I just had lots of lies and blaming and shame. And so now I’ve been able to heal outside of my marriage. I really did start inside of my marriage, but not in my marriage, right? Just my healing myself. And I think people get confused. It’s like, well, if we’re not staying together, then why do I need to heal? Because I’m divorcing the person that just betrayed me. No, you still need to heal because all those things that you were told to you, they come with you. They don’t leave your mind or your body. You have to heal those. So if you’re experiencing this right now, or if you have experienced it, I think it’s important to recognize it and recognize that it was manipulation. Understand that cheating is a choice and blame shifting is a tactic to avoid accountability, not a reflection of your worth. And so once you can recognize that, I think it can be very empowering and very freeing, right? So just recognizing it can help you heal. Learning to set boundaries, right? You don’t have to engage. Like so many people, it’s like, but they need to know what they’re doing is wrong. I don’t care. You can tell them that they’re wrong, they will not listen to you because they don’t believe they are. You can just say, you know what, thank you for sharing with me. I’m glad you think that, but I do not believe that. And you don’t have to have an argument just because they’re yelling at you. You can, as long as you know the truth, that’s all that matters. You really need outside support. I think a therapist, a coach are very important in healing, and especially if you’ve experienced blame shifting because it’s emotionally abusive and it it’s just another layer of healing that you need to do. And so recognizing it is important and then working on healing it and knowing that it was never about you, it was about them. And so having someone outside of yourself helping you see what you often cannot see. And I think figuring out like when you create safety for yourself, understanding like what you deserve and what kind of relationship you want. And it’s okay to rebuild your relationship if you can, if that other person is willing to change and take full ownership, but also know if they can’t that you deserve loyalty, you deserve respect, and blame shifting is not respectful. So I think a moment that I thought, I mean, I have so many moments that I’ve experienced this, but one in particular, I was in Disney World, I’d taken my boys there, and my husband called and said he wanted a divorce. And my first reaction was, who was she? And of course, there was no one, right? And in that moment, I had the knowledge to we had cameras outside of our house, and I had I had an app on my phone, and I got on and I saw the cameras and the videos, and I think since I I should have just kept that to myself, but because you know me, I’m like called him back and was like, I have video, I have, I know someone’s at our house right now. I don’t know who she is, I’ve never seen her before, but I there was someone there, of course, lots of gaslighting in that moment too. But how that ended turning out, right? Like when I got home, then he just like unloaded about he wasn’t happy, all the problems, all the things that were wrong with me, all the reasons we shouldn’t stay married, right? And not to mention, like, I mean, I had full-on proof that there was another woman in my home, but that was all glossed over and random. I won’t get into that, all the gaslighting that happened there, but just him blaming me. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, like what? And then believing, okay, maybe I I didn’t forgive him or I wasn’t nice enough, or I I didn’t give him enough attention or whatever. Like I just got caught in that loop of then going down the thought of, okay, well, if it is my fault, then I can fix it. Now, we ended up not getting divorced and reconciling. And but there were so many moments that as I re have been researching blame shifting, because a lot of my clients have been experiencing it. And I’m like, I want to talk about this a little bit more, but it’s really detrimental and not a good thing to do to someone that you supposedly love and care about, right? It’s very cruel. And it is something that takes a lot of healing, a lot of realization that it’s just important to understand, like, oh, this is what’s happening. I’m not crazy. I I’m not perfect, but no, I did not cause all of this to happen. If you’re trying to stay married and you want to know, like, okay, what if my spouse does this? What would you be looking for? And things that when they’re not blame shifting, it’s like they’re recognizing that this was their choice, not yours. And that your reaction makes sense, right? Like there’s all levels of reactions, but I just always tell people, right? It gets bad when people start throwing punches and, you know, actually hurting people, right? There, there may be lines, right, when you do something illegal, but general reactions are that’s normal. Your body’s reacting to something very devastating that you just Heard. It feels very dangerous when you hear your spouse has been having an affair. If they acknowledge that they hurt you, if they don’t ask you, like, when are you going to get over this? Right? If they’re supportive, I’ll sit with you as long as this takes. They recognize that they need help too, that they need to do some healing. They need to figure this out. And I think that they are honest and can give you true hope and healing without lying and false assurances. Like just as sorry without any action behind it is something to watch for. So if they’re willing to do this, I think that’s a good sign. I just want you to know that you didn’t cause the affair. Your reaction to the betrayal is totally valid. And of course, that’s how you reacted. And healing is not a character flaw. Like healing is a beautiful thing that strong people do, that people that want to have an amazing life do and choose. And if you’re going to reconcile accountability, 100% accountability and ownership are necessary if your marriage is going to make it through this. And so I hope that if any of this resonates with you, if you’re like, wow, a lot of blame shifting has happened in my experience with betrayal and learning about the betrayal, something to take note of and you can heal from it. And it wasn’t your fault. Anyways, thanks so much for listening. Have a beautiful day, and I’ll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. If this episode helped you breathe deeper or see your next step more clearly, share it with someone who needs it. And when you’re ready for real support in your healing, you know where to find me. At lifecoachgen.com. That’s Jen with one N. Your happily even after is possible. And it starts today.
