Is Self Compassion a Scam?

An Honest Review from an Evil Adultress

Shame has been a constant companion in my life.

My height of shame was in September 2022. Two months after my affair was uncovered followed by the discovery that I continued contact after promising I would discontinue contact. I made a series of continuous bad choices that I had to take responsibility for or lose my marriage. Somehow, I didn’t lose everything, despite doing everything wrong as I confessed the truth. Lies followed by deflection and minimizing.

Shame kept me hiding, and self-compassion would save me.

Shame is the belief that you are a bad person.

I had a three-year affair, lying to my husband every damn day. During the affair and the eight months of discovery since, I have struggled with shame.

For the last eight months, I have felt crushed by shame while trying to heal from my awful betrayal. I have cried, screamed, raged, beat myself up, and called myself names. Shame is a horrendous heavy feeling that weighs you down. It also stops you from taking responsibility. All I have wanted to do for most of the eight months is stop feeling evil.

With the burden of shame, I have been too busy with self pity to help my husband. Stuck in anguish, I wanted to hide the truth of my deeds. Any discussion regarding my responsibility ended with me in tears.

My shame kept us stuck from healing.

Lying during an affair becomes normalized like breathing, and inherent to shame.

Lying is an attempt to deny the reality of hurt and shame. I wanted to convince my husband that what I had done was not as bad as he suspected.

My actions were way worse when I covered them with lies. Lying induced more shame, which made me want to hide even more. I am embarrassed to say how long it took me to speak the truth. Self-compassion, including not feeling alone in my mistakes, made a vast difference in what details I could finally speak. When the truth finally came out, there was tremendous relief in our relationship and healing.

Shame makes us stay silent. With self-compassion, I could finally admit to my evil actions. And take responsibility that I had full freedom over my behavior.

Lying and shame are a cycle. The shame makes me protect myself and leads to more shame.

Once the lies ended, I still wanted to hide.

And the number one way I hid was minimizing and deflecting. The shame of hurting my spouse overwhelmed me most days.

Even though I had taken responsibility, it was still incredibly painful. Because I continued to judge myself, thinking I was the only bad person in the world. The only person to hurt my spouse. I had to minimize his pain as well by hiding my actions. This didn’t help us heal, because he needed details. I needed to unburden myself.

By finally forgiving myself, I could take responsibility. I could tell the whole truth. And we could start healing.

I am still dealing with shame, but self-compassion has taught me many lessons.

The most important lesson is self-compassion fights shame.

Self-compassion is about radical acceptance. This means I see a human who makes mistakes, instead of an evil adulteress.

I wasn’t the first, worst, or only person to have an affair. My husband didn’t hate me. He wanted to love me through this, if I could be open. It was me who wanted to punish myself and saw myself as an evil person, not a person who took evil actions. I was certain he would struggle to forgive me. But it was me who struggled to forgive myself.

By hurting myself, I kept hurting my husband and blocking his healing. I didn’t need to suffer and punish myself to find forgiveness from him or myself. I had to forgive myself, so I stopped being so angry all the time.

Self-compassion eased my shame and negative emotions that caused me to lash out.

Self-compassion brings you to the present.

The bad things I had done were in the past. Yes, we needed to talk about them, but I was no longer actively engaging in betrayal.

Being mindful meant I wasn’t judging myself. Instead of self-punishment for being evil, I was worthy of kindness and soothing activities. I had space to be present with my husband, and meet his needs to know the details of my affair and show an understanding of the effects of my actions on him. Healing could finally take the place of pain. We could finally start moving past the anger, sadness, and anxious rumination.

Shame kept me in hiding in the past. Self compassion brought me to the present. Without judgement.

The only way you can heal is by being present.

Self-compassion allows you to accept your mistakes.

Many think self-compassion lets you off the hook. A free pass for unacceptable behavior.

In reality, when you let go of hating yourself, you can take full responsibility. Once I stopped judging and hating myself, I could say with ease: I wanted to fuck this other man, and it was wrong of me, and I can’t imagine how much you hurt because of me. I spent all day, every day thinking about him and talking to him, and I am sorry for the hurt I caused. I finally could be brutally and totally honest with details of my affair. And I did it without beating the shit out of myself.

I made mistakes. And I am very sorry for hurting my spouse and betraying him. I wasn’t given a free pass, but I have been able to admit the wrongs I committed.

I didn’t need to be shamed, insulted, or harmed to know I did wrong.

Self-compassion stopped me from continuing to hurt my spouse.

We could discuss all the truths of the affair. Knowing the truth was what my husband needed to heal. And for a long time I hid in shame from those truths.

Self-compassion was the healing balm that allowed the truth to set us free.