Sometimes I hear of spouses who are overwhelmed with emotion after realizing the big mistake they made in cheating on their spouse. They often struggle with overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame.

I recently heard from a wife who said, “Last week, I had a one-night stand with a guy from my work. There was alcohol involved and I didn’t mean it to happen. I have been happily married for ten years. I never cheated on anyone in my life until last week. And I never intended to cheat on my husband. But I did. I told the other guy it would never happen again. And it won’t happen. Because I will never do it again. Drink at work again. But in the meantime, I can’t even look in the mirror. It’s hard for me to act normally with my husband. I can’t look at my children without feeling overwhelmed with shame at the way I’ve risked their family. How do people live with shame after cheating? I’m really struggling. I’ll tell my husband about my cheating one day. But right now, I can’t even face myself. I’ve never hated myself so much. I can’t believe I was so stupid. so ashamed of me same “.

I really felt sorry for this wife because it was obvious that she was really sorry for what she had done. And she was very happy to punish herself and not give herself enough credit. Because, before the deception, she had contributed to a happy and faithful marriage and was raising two beautiful children. Of course, cheating is a big mistake. But this wife suddenly saw herself as a horrible person when this was not the case. So in the following article, I will share some of the advice I gave you on how to leave embarrassment behind after an affair.

As much as you probably don’t feel this way, feeling embarrassed after cheating or having an affair is a positive sign: There was no doubt that the wife in this situation felt very bad. He knew he had made a serious mistake that could change his life. Because this behavior was so atypical of the type of person he was, the embarrassment intensified.

This actually says something positive rather than negative about her. I dialogue with many people who are struggling with the aftermath of an adventure. And an alarming number of cheating spouses seem almost defensive about their cheating and their behavior. Many feel they were justified in betraying their spouse or think that it is simply not possible to remain faithful and magnanimous forever. And frankly, when people say these things to me, I have doubts about their marriage.

Neither of these things was the case with this wife. She was incredibly sorry and was adamant that her husband did absolutely nothing to deserve this kind of betrayal. This said a lot about her and her marriage. In fact, shame and guilt can be positive as long as you use them as a motivator to move on and make things better instead of using them as a crutch to keep you stuck and in pain.

You cannot change your past actions, but you only determine your future actions: The wife needed to understand that despite her guilt, shame, and pain, there was nothing she could do to change her actions. The deception was in the past, but there was no way to remove it. Living in deception was not going to change him or improve the future.

In fact, the more you focus on your guilt and shame and the horrible things you’ve done, the more you freeze to move on. Yes, cheating on your spouse is a huge mistake that you may regret for the rest of your life. But you can’t change it. Continuing to insist on that can prevent you from focusing on what is important right now, which is your marriage, your healing, moving on and ensuring that you never make the same mistake again.

So my best advice is to focus on changing what you can. Unfortunately, you cannot change the traps or the past. But it can change the way you deal with both. You can focus on making the future as positive as possible. You can focus on getting this right instead of dwelling on what has already gone wrong. You can be the best wife and mother possible.

Don’t let your embarrassment turn you off: There is a real danger in allowing shame to shut you down. Some people experience a real ripple effect of negativity in their lives. Because she cannot bear to look at her husband, her marriage begins to change for the worse. Since she no longer thinks that she is a good mother, she withdraws from her children and family. And do you know what happens then? You allow one mistake to turn into months or even years of mistakes. Please don’t fall into this trap.

If the embarrassment and resulting pain are too much for you, seek help to overcome this. As someone who has been deceived, you would never defend deception. However, a person who makes a mistake should not believe that they have suddenly become a horrible person who no longer deserves the love or love of their own family. This wife’s family probably wouldn’t be better off if she was so embarrassed that she retired. Yes, he made a mistake. But the biggest mistake would be to allow the adventure to contribute to her losing the things that mattered most to her. Or lose those things about which, except for a brief moment in time, she had always been sincere.