WTR, You seem to "like" focusing on shame to avoid changing your behaviour.
Think about this.
WTR, I read a lot of your posts as coming from a place of seeing yourself as a victim. It's a viscous cycle: I'm a failure.... I'm a victim... I can't do anything right..... so I won't do anything... so I'm a failure. The TWO years for a key is a good example of that.
And the thing is that ALL of that is within YOUR control. Baby steps, like get the effing key made.
Another oft repeated theme I sense is you internalizing your BS' feelings. It's a pretty basic premise that we all get to feel how we feel. We can empathize. We can have compassion for those feelings..... AND we can do with without necessarily agreeing or disagreeing.
trying to pull an example off the top of my head.... I, as the BS, can sometimes feel my WH is nothing more than an abusive asshat. That's on me. I've learned that my holding/carrying those feelings actually hurts ME... but I still sometimes feel that way. And it's up to me to figure out how I want to relate to or manage those feelings. Nothing my WH can do to change that feeling - only person that can reframe it is me.
AND my WH's "job" (so to speak) in his recovery/healing as the WS, is to find ways that he can hear and see my FEELINGS about him (or really about anything), w/o internalizing it and agreeing with it.
IOW, WS is working to learn ways for his self talk to become something like: well, frack. GMC thinks I'm an asshole and unredeemable, and that must suck FOR HER (empathy here) to feel that way about her husband (and I can kind of relate, bc sometimes I feel that way about her... like when I was in my As). AND I know in my heart that I'm not unredeemable, that I CAN and I WILL change.... but in this moment when she's being vulnerable and expressing it, I can put my feelings of shame & victimization aside (here's where compartmentalization can be a GOOD thing) in order to hear her and see her pain and apologize, and recognize it's a feeling.... that it comes from pain that I caused... and that whether or not it feels true TO HER right now, it does NOT make it true FOR ME.
I once heard a Brene Brown lecture about her trying to listen to her husband or kid ... I can't remember the specifics, but what I do remember is her self talk being "be the container, be the container, be the container". That has always really resonated with me and has become a kind of mantra when I am listening to others express feelings, esp when it's about me (eg when my kid is expressing her pain and vulnerability by describing some pretty effed up things I've done as her mom). I'm learning to just LISTEN to them, to their pain, and to SEE them and the ways they feel my behavior has impacted them.
It can be really hard, bc our brains (or my brain) has a long history of not really LISTENING, but instead moving into defensiveness, or all the coping we do about shame. But man oh man, it's a really WONDERFUL feeling to be able to HEAR another's criticism / hurt feelings, even when I don't remember the history or offense the same way, and to find the strength to apologize for my behavior, even when my brain can come up with all sorts of rationalizations or justifications for it (which I can control and NOT share).
So in practice, my DD can say how I screwed her up bc I did X.... Let's say I never went to her sports games, but WH did. My shame immediately sends my self talk to "that's not true, I went to a ton of those games... and even if it is true, I was working or dealing with something else and she can't expect me to have gone to every effing game... and just bc WH went to those games, it was only bc he's CoD and hustling for his worth and balls deep in his PA and why does he get to be the "good guy" and DD thinks I'm a POS...." You get the idea.
But what I've learned is that NONE of my self talk actually matters TO MY DD when she's in the midst of that pain of feeling abandoned by her mom at her soccer games. She doesn't give a fuck about what was going on with me.... she cares about how that feels FOR HER. And she gets to feel however she wants to about it.
So, when I hear her pain today, I'm able to turn off my shame and do all I can to LISTEN to what she is saying, which is basically "I HURT" and "I NEEDED YOU but you weren't there" or whatever else is going on. And I can chant my Brene Brown to myself: "be the container, be the container, be the container" and accept her pain. Just let it come to and through me. And empathize with her and hurt WITH her bc feeling abandoned by your mom sucks (even if that mom was ME). And I can apologize that I wasn't at the games, and I can apologize that I was not the mom SHE needed me to be. I can VALIDATE her feelings and apologize for my role (even if I don't agree completely), and give her what she needs TODAY. Because I love her and because we both need for me to find strength in addressing this stuff. As the mom / offender, I heal by learning to hold her pain w/o my shame taking over and without making HER pain about ME or my excuses. She heals bc she can feel seen & heard & validated... bc she can find, one small sliver at a time, ways to begin to trust me with her anger & pain & vulnerability.
It can be super hard, esp when that other person is angry and behaving in ways that make it super hard to stop my own self talk. It takes practice.
Dunno if that helps one bit, but I hope it gives something to ponder.
[This message edited by gmc94 at 1:16 PM, September 19th, 2020 (Saturday)]