Welcome to Healing Broken Trust. I'm Morgan

Robinson.

And I'm Brad Robinson.

And this video we're talking about why your partner freezes, shuts down, or says the wrong thing when you're falling apart.

And we break down the hidden pain points many unfaithful partners carry

after an affair, not to excuse what happened, but to name what's going on inside. And the shame

that says, I am bad, the fear of losing everything and the panic of not knowing how to respond your spouse is devastated.

So we also cover the feeling that nothing you do is ever enough and the heavy weight of guilt

and moral injury and why many people withdraw or avoid because the conversations fear or

they feel unbearable. So we have 11 different things to cover today. Brad, do you want to start

talking about the first reason your spouse freezes or shut down? Yeah. And this is a really

common problem that I would say literally every couple faces, especially the person who's been

betrayed. They're like, why do you freeze? Why do you withdraw? Why aren't you near me?

Why aren't you trying to help me heal? And these aren't in any particular order. But the first

reason that people freeze and shut down and really like do the wrong thing is basically that

they feel this crushing shame. They feel at their core, I'm a terrible person. Some people will feel this immediately

after, like we've talked about before, like the more intentional it is, the more somebody went

another way to have an affair. This may come later. Sometimes the more in love somebody was with

the affair partner. This may come later. They may not feel this immediately. Maybe a few months before somebody feels this. And when you're on the receiving end of somebody who doesn't feel bad or remorseful for what they've done, it feels horrible. It also feels horrible when they're under the weight of crushing shame. Because when somebody feels shame, they don't necessarily feel guilty, which, you know, when we feel guilty,

we feel like our actions are bad, we feel remorseful, we are more motivated to repair. But when

somebody feels shame, they actually feel like I'm a bad person. I am wrong. I'm no good. And that

makes it hard to look their partner in the eye, to look their spouse in the eye and say, you know what, I screwed up, let's fix this. They feel like I'm doing you a favor by leaving you. Oh, yeah. And, you know, that doesn't always mean I'm leaving for the affair partner, but it makes people feel like, okay, I'm ready to forgive you. But you're the one walking away because of the shame. Like, what's going on here? Like, it's really hurtful for people when their spouse has that kind of shame. That's right. After they've been unfaithful. So when people have shame, they can act in ways that look cold or defensive. They can shut down. They can get angry. They can minimize. They can go numb. not minimize they can go numb not because they don't care

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