When You’re Embarrassed by Your Husband’s Behavior: Setting Down Shame That Was Never Yours
Teresa Zuvela, LMHC, CSAT, CPTT · Stage: Integrate
You’re at dinner with friends. He’s telling the story again, the one that gets a little bigger every time. No one else has said a full sentence in twenty minutes.
Your face is getting hot. Under the table, your foot finds his shin. Later, on the way out, you find yourself apologizing to the hostess for him.
If you’ve ever been embarrassed by your husband’s behavior and felt like it said something about you, stay with me. I want to tell you about a woman who carried that feeling for years, and the day she set it down.
If Your Face Is Already Warm
Notice where it lives. Your cheeks, your jaw, the back of your neck. You don’t have to change it. Just notice it.
Let your hands rest open. Palms up on your lap or the table. Take three slow breaths, letting each exhale run a little longer than the inhale.
Say one true thing. “What he does belongs to him.”
Small steps like these tell your body it is safe enough to keep reading.
The Man Who Had to Be the Center of the Room
Joan’s husband needed to be the center of attention. He talked nonstop and rarely left room for anyone else to speak.
He also lied, often and easily. He made up stories. With his customers, he promised what he knew he couldn’t deliver, and then complained when they got angry with him for overpromising.
Joan was the opposite. She was careful that her values and her actions lined up. So every time he exaggerated or lied, something in her flinched. It felt like a verdict on her. What does it say about me that I married him?
She Became His Regulator
Joan gave him the look across the room. She kicked him under the table. She apologized for him. Sometimes she quietly warned people that he lied.
Without ever deciding to, she had become his emotional regulator. He didn’t manage himself, so she did it for him.
The embarrassment showed up in her face. Then came the irritation, and the annoyance at how big he made himself. What Joan didn’t know yet was that her anger was a signal. Her body already knew something her mind hadn’t put into words: this was asking too much of her, and something needed to change. Anger often works that way, as a signal that something important to us is being crossed (Lerner, 1985).
She Had Seen This Story Before
Joan had tried to leave a couple of times. Each time, he paid more attention for a while. Then the old behavior came back.
After a few rounds, she knew how the story ended. She had grown up believing marriage was for life, and she didn’t know what else to do.
So she stopped trying. Not because she had made peace with it, but because she was tired. She felt stuck.
“Why Didn’t I Think of That?”
Her therapist told her something simple: the cycle would keep going until she did something new. A different tool, to get some movement.
Then she named a few. Joan could stop a conversation and walk away, saying, “We’ve been here before. I don’t have the energy to do this again.” She could ask him to sleep in the guest room. She could ask him to move out for a while.
Joan was dumbfounded. Why hadn’t I thought of any of these? They make so much sense.
The answer was gentle and true. No one had ever taught her these were options. She had learned about marriage from her parents, who lived in a different world and passed on the only rules they knew. On Thursday I’ll say more about where those rules came from.
His behavior was never hers to manage.
His shame was never hers to carry.
She could set it down.
What She Set Down
Joan decided she didn’t need to be his emotional regulator anymore.
She stopped having the same conversations in the same cycle. When one started up again, she said, “I’m done with this conversation.” And she walked away.
She stopped kicking him under the table. She stopped apologizing for him. When he told a story too big or made a promise he couldn’t keep, she let it be his. She refused to be embarrassed by her husband’s behavior any longer, because it had never been hers.
She found her voice. She used it when she wanted to, and she stayed quiet when the same old conversation came around again. Both were her choice now.
Setting this down wasn’t a decision about her marriage. It was a decision about what she would carry. Some women in Joan’s place stay, and some eventually choose a different life. Either way, the choice belongs to her, made from her own knowing and on her own timeline.
What Comes Next: Where to Find Help
If you’re embarrassed by your husband’s behavior, the heat in your face is not proof that something is wrong with you. It may be your body telling you that you’ve been carrying something that belongs to someone else.
His choices, his lies, and his shame were never yours. You are allowed to put them down.
On Thursday I’ll walk through why so many women end up regulating a partner’s behavior, why the cycle keeps repeating, and how to step out of it.
Calm is a boundary choice, and for Joan, it sounded like “I’m done with this conversation.”
My free guide walks you through the first stage of the Woodland Pathways Model, Stabilize, so your body has somewhere steady to stand while you decide what is yours to carry.
If you are ready for more direct support, a Stabilization Intensive is a focused, two-day way to begin this work with a clinician who specializes in betrayal trauma. You do not have to have decided anything about your marriage to start.
Calm Your Nervous System After Betrayal
When you’ve spent years managing someone else, your body needs somewhere steady to come back to. This guide gives you body-level steps for settling your system after betrayal.
Get the Free GuideFrequently Asked Questions
Why do I feel responsible when my husband embarrasses me in public?
Many women feel his behavior reflects on them, especially women who work hard to live by their values. Being embarrassed by your husband’s behavior doesn’t mean you caused it. What he does belongs to him.
Is it normal to feel angry when he lies to other people?
Yes. Anger often signals that something important to you is being crossed. It is information, not a character flaw.
How do I stop making excuses for my husband?
Start small. Skip one apology, one kick under the table, one rescue. Let other people form their own view of him, and notice what your body does when you stop managing.
What can I do when we keep having the same argument?
Repeating the same steps tends to bring the same result. Something new, like calmly ending the conversation and walking away, can interrupt the loop without deciding anything about the marriage.
References
Lerner, H. G. (1985). The dance of anger: A woman’s guide to changing the patterns of intimate relationships. Harper & Row.
Teresa Zuvela, LMHC is a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT) and Certified Partner Trauma Therapist (CPTT) providing telehealth betrayal trauma therapy in Washington State.