SHAME WORK: DAY 1:

Today's video is for both partners, to prepare you for your writing exercise:

Betraying Partner:

Last month we worked on creating safety for your partner through consistent displays of empathy and LVR. As we move forward, do not stop utilizing these daily practices!

Start each day by placing yourself in your partner's shoes and expressing what their experience of the day ahead must be like based on the betrayal that they have sustained. Convey this to your partner in words or writing before doing anything else in your day. In every conversation, make LVR your top priority.

Again, this month's direction:

1) Empathy letter to partner upon awakening

2) Practice LVR

3) Daily assignment

Betrayed Partners have already been introduced to this exercise, so it's time for    betraying partners to join in.

Writing Exercise for both the Betraying and Betrayed Partner:

In our journey toward healing, there comes a moment when we are called to speak directly from our core - a deep, unwavering presence that has always known love. This exercise is designed to help you connect with that authentic self, to reach into the quiet places within, and to offer a heartfelt message to the part of you that carries shame.

The goal of this exercise is simple yet profound: to set aside the harsh judgments and criticisms that have long been imposed upon you and to embrace your inner shame with empathy and compassion. Rather than viewing shame as a burden to be discarded or hidden away, you are invited to see it as a wounded part of yourself - a part that has been waiting for your acknowledgment, your love, and your gentle understanding.

Before you begin, find a quiet, safe space where nothing is demanded of you - where you can simply be. Close your eyes, take a few deep, slow breaths, and allow your heart to settle. Imagine your core self - a wise, expansive, and tender presence - ready to reach out to your inner shame. Let that image fill you with warmth.

Now, with a spirit of curiosity and kindness, write a letter from your core self to your inner shame. Speak as though you are talking to a dear friend or a beloved child, one who has been silently carrying pain, who has felt isolated and unworthy. Let your words affirm that you see this part, you acknowledge its struggles, and, most importantly, you love it unconditionally.

May this letter be a bridge to deeper healing - a reminder that every piece of you, even those touched by shame, is deserving of love.

Send your letter to your partner and your coach at: [email protected].

Betraying Partner:

Last month we worked on creating safety for your partner through consistent displays of empathy and LVR. As we move forward, do not stop utilizing these daily practices!

Start each day by placing yourself in your partner's shoes and expressing what their experience of the day ahead must be like based on the betrayal that they have sustained. Convey this to your partner in words or writing before doing anything else in your day. In every conversation, make LVR your top priority.

Again, this month's direction:

1) Empathy letter to partner upon awakening

2) Practice LVR

3) Daily assignment

The Rage Cycle of the Betraying Partner

Betraying partners often experience a cycle of entitlement, rage, and self-pity post-infidelity. This cycle is deeply tied to their pre-existing patterns of avoidance, self-justification, and suppressed emotions.

Pre-Infidelity: The Entitlement Was Already There

The act of betrayal itself is often rooted in a pre-existing entitlement - a belief (often unconscious) that they deserve to have their needs met outside the relationship, that they are owed something, that their dissatisfaction justifies secrecy. This entitlement can stem from unexamined wounds, suppressed resentment, or a deeply ingrained avoidance of accountability.

But once the infidelity is exposed, the entitlement doesn't disappear - it just mutates.

Post-Infidelity: The Rage of Entitlement

After exposure, many betrayers experience an overwhelming rage at being held accountable.

"I'm doing everything I can - why isn't it enough?"

"I already feel guilty - why do you keep punishing me?"

"I said I was sorry - when will this end?"

This rage isn't just frustration - it's an existential panic. They are losing the control they once had over their partner's perception of them. Their ability to compartmentalize, to keep their actions separate from their self-image, has been shattered. And instead of facing their own shame, they direct their rage outward.

Swinging from Rage to Self-Pity

Once they realize that their rage won't restore control, it often collapses into self-pity.

"I'm the worst person in the world."

"I'll never be good enough, so why even try?"

"No matter what I do, you'll never see me as anything other than a monster."

Self-pity functions as a retreat from accountability. Instead of staying in the fire of shame and using it as a doorway to transformation, they implode inward and become emotionally unavailable in a different way. They shut down, leaving the betrayed partner alone - not because of deception this time, but because of their collapse.

The Core of This Cycle: Avoidance of Shame

At its root, both rage and self-pity are defenses against shame.

• Rage keeps them fighting, trying to force reality back into the shape that suits them.

• Self-pity keeps them frozen, preventing them from moving toward true repair.

But true healing requires neither fight nor freeze - it requires facing shame head-on.

Breaking the Cycle: What Needs to Happen

1. Recognizing the Pattern: The betraying partner must become aware of their swings between rage and self-pity and see how both keep them from true accountability.

2. Naming the Shame Beneath It: What is the deeper wound they are avoiding? What does it mean about them if they truly let themselves feel the full weight of their choices?

3. Choosing Humility Over Entitlement: Instead of "I've done enough, leave me alone," the shift must be toward "There is no finish line for earning back trust. My only job is to keep showing up."

4. Staying Present in Discomfort: Rather than collapsing into self-pity, they must learn to sit with their own shame without asking their partner to take care of them.

Final Truth: Self-Pity and Entitlement Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

Both come from a belief that they should not have to feel this much pain.

• The rage says: "You're making me feel too much. Stop it."

• The self-pity says: "I can't handle this. It's too much."

But healing requires the opposite belief: I can handle this. I must handle this. Because this is what love and integrity demand. I am not my shame. I am the riverbank.

The Rage Cycle of the Betrayed Partner

Watching this cycle unfold - watching the betrayer swing from rage to self-pity, watching them make it about their pain when they were the one who caused mine - it does something inside me that I did not think was possible. It wakes up a rage that feels catastrophic.

I did not ask for this rage.

I did not ask for the sickening heat that rises in my body when I hear, "I'm doing everything I can - why isn't it enough?"

I did not ask for the unbearable tension in my chest when I hear, "I already feel guilty - why do you keep punishing me?"

I did not ask for the white-hot fury when I see them sink into self-pity instead of standing in the fire of what they did.

But it is here.

And I hate it.

I hate what this rage does to me. I hate how it grips me and won't let go. How it hijacks my voice, my body, my sanity. How I say things I don't recognize, how I shake with it, how I want to throw something, break something, make them feel it.

I hate that I even have to want them to feel it. That I have to fight for the obvious truth - that this isn't about them. That they don't get to be the victim. That I am the one who was left with the shards of something that was supposed to be safe.

And then, just like them, I collapse.

Because what is the point? What does my rage even do? It doesn't fix this. It doesn't rewind time. It doesn't make them suddenly see, suddenly understand, suddenly become the person I needed them to be.

So I sink into hopelessness.

I stop fighting. I sit in the wreckage. I look at the mess and wonder if this is just where I live now - in the ruins of something I can't put back together, with a person who claims to want to fix it but doesn't even understand what it is.

And this is what makes my rage worse.

Because they get to check out. They get to cycle between anger and self-pity, and somehow that cycle keeps them from having to feel the thing they are most terrified of - shame.

But I do not get that escape.

I do not get to be too exhausted to show up. I do not get to be too ashamed to be present. I do not get to drown in my own guilt instead of holding what I have done.

I have no guilt to drown in.

I have only this.

The weight of it. The truth of it. The brutal, unchangeable fact that they did this. And that I am still here.

And that I do not know if I will ever be able to forgive the fact that they got to have their self-pity, their excuses, their avoidance - while I got the endless, merciless waves of everything they were too cowardly to feel.

Journal Prompts for the Betraying Partner:

These prompts are designed to help you face the shame, avoidance, and emotional swings that keep you from true accountability. This is not about self-flagellation or defensiveness - it's about becoming a person who can hold the weight of their actions with integrity, without running, without collapsing.

1. The Pre-Existing Entitlement: Uncovering the Wound

• Before the infidelity, what unspoken beliefs did I carry about my relationship, my needs, and what I was "owed"?

• What emotions, desires, or unmet needs did I suppress instead of communicating? How did I justify my choice to betray instead of confront?

• When I look at my entitlement, where does it come from? Is it a learned behavior from my upbringing, cultural conditioning, or past experiences? What story did I tell myself to make my actions feel acceptable?

• If my entitlement had a voice, what would it say? If I were to challenge it, what truth might it be avoiding?

2. The Rage of Being Held Accountable

• What is the hardest part about my partner's pain for me to witness? Why?

• When my partner asks for reassurance, when they cry, when they rage - what happens in my body? What am I feeling underneath my frustration?

• When I say, "I'm doing everything I can, what am I really asking for? Their forgiveness? Their reassurance? For them to take away my discomfort?

• How much of my anger is about my partner, and how much is really about me - about feeling exposed, feeling powerless, feeling like I'm losing control?

• If I didn't resist their pain - if I let it be as big as it needs to be - what am I afraid will happen?

3. The Collapse Into Self-Pity

• What do I tell myself when I start to withdraw? What does that inner voice sound like?

• Is my self-pity truly about my remorse, or is it about escaping the weight of accountability?

• How does my self-pity serve me? What does it protect me from having to face?

• What am I asking from my partner when I collapse? Their comfort? Their reassurance? Their pity? How does this shift the emotional burden back onto them?

• If I believed I could handle my shame instead of drowning in it, how would I show up differently?

4. Facing the Shame Directly

• If I stopped running from my shame - if I let myself fully feel it without distraction - what comes up? Describe the sensation in your body.

• What does my shame say about me? What am I most afraid is true about who I am?

• What if shame wasn't my enemy? What if it was a signal guiding me toward something deeper? What would it be trying to tell me?

• Who do I become if I no longer run from my shame? What changes? What stays the same?

5. Rebuilding with Humility Instead of Entitlement

• What does true accountability look like, without expectation of reward?

• If I didn't need my partner to "get over it" or "move on" in order for me to stay steady, what would my daily actions look like? If I didn't collapse into "I am the worst person alive," what would my actions look like?

• Am I willing to keep showing up even if my partner never forgives me? Why or why not?

• If I shift from thinking I deserve forgiveness to I deserve to do what's right no matter the outcome, what changes inside me?

• What does integrity demand of me now? What does love (not self-interest, not guilt - love) require of me?

Final Reflection:

The only way through this is to stay. Stay present in the discomfort. Stay with your partner's pain without trying to fix it or erase it. Stay with yourself without collapsing into self-loathing. Your healing and your partner's healing both depend on your willingness to hold your own weight - without entitlement, without rage, without escape.

What would it look like, today, to show up for both yourself and your partner with unwavering humility?

Send your responses to your partner and your coach.

Journal Prompts for the Betrayed Partner:

These prompts are designed to help you move through your rage, not to suppress it or be consumed by it. Rage is a messenger - it is here to show you something about yourself, about your needs, about your pain. Let yourself write uncensored. Let yourself be honest. There are no right or wrong answers, only what is true for you in this moment.

1. Witnessing Your Rage Without Judging It

• If my rage could speak without consequence, what would it scream? Write in full, uncensored detail. Let it out. Let it be as big as it wants to be.

• Rage is a protector. It is here to defend something precious. What is my rage trying to protect? My dignity? My heart? My sense of justice? What is it standing guard over?

• If I could sit across from my rage and look it in the eyes, what would it look like? How old is it? What does it need from me?

2. Unmasking the Pain Beneath the Rage

• If I weren't allowed to be angry, what feeling would be underneath? What terrifies me about feeling that instead?

• When I collapse into hopelessness, what thoughts flood my mind? What beliefs surface about myself, about my partner, about love?

• If I imagine my rage softening - not disappearing, just softening - what emotion immediately rushes in? Is it grief? Fear? Powerlessness? What do I do with that feeling when it comes?

3. The Betrayer's Cycle vs. My Own Cycle

• When my betraying partner swings between rage and self-pity, what do I wish they would do instead? If I could script their perfect response, what would it be?

• How do I react when they enter the entitlement-rage-self-pity loop? How does my own body react? How does my voice change? How does my mind respond?

• In what ways am I in a cycle of my own? Does my rage turn into exhaustion? Into hopelessness? Into self-abandonment? If I zoom out, what is my pattern?

4. Moving from Rage to Self-Leadership

• My rage has been necessary. It has carried something important. But if I were to hold my pain from a place of self-leadership - without needing my partner to fix it - what would change?

• If I did not need them to understand in order to heal, what would I do differently?

• What does radical self-respect look like in this moment? What choices align with my dignity, even if I never get the apology, the remorse, or the change I crave?

5. Giving the Rage a Different Job

• My rage has been a warrior, but warriors fight. And I am tired of fighting. If I were to give my rage a new role - not to battle, but to protect and advocate for me - what would that role be?

• If my rage could write me a letter, what would it say? If it could ask me for something, what would it ask?

6. Reclaiming My Power

• What do I not need from my partner in order to move forward? What is in my hands alone?

• Who am I becoming through this pain? If this experience were forging me into something new, what would I want that to be?

• If I could embody the strongest, clearest, most self-led version of myself right now, what would I tell my rage? What would I tell my hopelessness? What would I tell my heart?

These prompts are not meant to erase your anger. They are meant to show you what is beneath it - to remind you that you are not just rage, not just grief, not just betrayal. You are you, and you are still here. You are still whole. Even in this. Even now.

Send your responses to your partner and your coach at: [email protected].