Misplaced guilt???

Helping someone navigate someone leaving abuse, I am revisiting a lot in my head.

I find myself saying things and then thinking I wish I had had someone tell me these things when I was in it.

But I can’t be sure I would have listened and believed these things yet.

One conversation I have had with my children over the years on guilt and shame is coming to me now.

The convo would go something like this. Child feeling guilty about xyz (usually stated as feeling “bad”). Me restating the circumstances and asking “did you do something wrong? If so, what specifically?”

Helping them discern between empathy, guilt for wrongdoing, and misplaced guilt is somehow not as simple for adults.

Why did this come easily to me when helping them but not to apply to myself? I don’t know.

So let’s talk about this.

If you make a choice that affects another person but the choice was a direct consequence of that person’s behaviors and choices, should you feel “bad” or guilty?

All the years of my marriage, I felt empathy towards my husband for childhood experiences. In fact, I kept a picture of him as a small boy taped on the inside of my Bible as a reminder.

I felt bad for things he had gone through. I tried to remember this when his behaviors and choices negatively affected me and our children.

I spent years agonizing over whether to stay or go. And at the time I separated from him, I knew with certainty that I had done everything I possibly could to save our marriage. I gave him so so so many chances.

I used to wear that like a badge of honor.

I’m Catholic and I left abuse, BUT I MADE SURE I DID EVERY POSSIBLE THING before I got us to safety.

I guess I didn’t want to be considered in the same group as those selfish Catholics who just gave up on marriage.

It didn’t take long for me to wonder if I should have left sooner, though I didn’t think of it in this context.

So much damage was done in those years.

I can’t dwell on that, but I am thinking about it now.

I guess my point is twofold.

You do not have to feel guilty (nor should you) when someone has exhibited abusive behavior and then suffers the consequences of those behaviors.

You can have empathy for what they have lost and what they will suffer, but you did not choose this.

You chose safety, for yourself and/or your kid/s. and that is a GOOD thing. It is in no way wrong to do this, and you don’t have to feel bad or guilty.

And two, there is no threshold for abuse that you have to endure before it’s ok to leave.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk