Question:

I feel so ashamed of my past behaviour, but I have also come to realise that if I am going to save my marriage I cannot continue to indulge in my feelings of unworthiness because of my past actions.

Answer:

It is good to see that you are FINALLY standing up and fighting for yourself! It is impossible to win the respect of others, including your wife’s respect, if you do not have SELF-RESPECT! Neither can you have any form of MEANINGFUL relationship with another person until you CAN and DO have a relationship with yourself! Whilst you continue to look outside of yourself for value and worth, you will merely continue to call forth one failed relationship after another!

Also, you CANNOT base a relationship upon GUILT and REPENTANCE! If you try, you are merely ASKING to be beaten up again and again! Therefore grasp with BOTH HANDS everything you have learned about YOURSELF in this relationship with your wife, for it is THIS knowledge that you are going to be NEEDING in order to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move forward! Your wife CANNOT forgive you, my friend! Only YOU, through your OWN learning, through your OWN actions, can learn to forgive yourself! Therefore to crawl around on all fours at your wife’s feet will only serve to turn you into a BEGGAR for that which your wife cannot give you, namely, forgiveness!

Remember also that there is NO DISGRACE within the act of learning! Our behaviour can be disgraceful, but KNOWLEDGE gained cannot possibly be a disgrace! Therefore you can choose to INDULGE in your feelings of having acted in a disgraceful manner, or you can choose to take OWNERSHIP of your behaviour and say, “Yes! I have screwed up badly, and right now I feel terribly ashamed of my behaviour. BUT I am going to LEARN from this mistake, and WITH the knowledge gained I will UPLIFT myself and thereby also uplift those around me!” That ACT, my friend, is the act of TRANSMUTATION that leads to death of the old, TRANSFORMATION!

So lift your EYES, my friend, and look the world SQUARELY in the face! YOU are not a disgrace, even though your behaviour cannot be condoned! Take your COURAGE into both hands and FIGHT like a warrior! Now is your chance to PROVE to yourself that you do have what it takes to be a warrior, and that you DO have value!

Relevant Courses:

Journey of Adjustment – Relationships in General

Relationships II – Relationship with the Self

Threshold to Excellence

Frontiers of the Self

Power of the Male

Mysteries of the Female

Théun Mares
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Article Forgiveness Relationships Respect Self