170.5 You Didn’t Fail Because They Had Unmet Needs

Christmas Day can stir up a complicated mix of emotions, especially after betrayal. In this short bonus episode, I offer a compassionate reminder to those spending the day feeling raw, reflective, or responsible for someone else’s choices. If you’ve caught yourself thinking, “If only I’d been more…”, you are not alone.

This gentle message speaks directly to that hidden self-blame so many betrayed partners carry. I break down the illusion of responsibility and offer permission to be without fixing, reviewing, or performing simply.

This episode is your reminder: loyalty isn't earned through effort, and healing doesn’t require you to carry someone else’s unmet needs.

Key Takeaways:

• Why unmet needs don’t justify betrayal and never make it your fault

• How believing you “should have been more” leads to emotional self-erasure

• The subtle shift from compassion to self-abandonment and how to stop it

• The truth about adult responsibility in relationships

• A powerful invitation to rest, reflect, and reclaim your sense of self

💬 Reflection Questions:

Have you ever felt responsible for someone else's infidelity? What belief has been hardest to let go of in your healing journey?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

Hey, it's great to have you here. Welcome to this special episode of the After The Affair podcast with me, Luke Shillings. This is just a short Christmas Day bonus episode.

No teaching, no fixing, just a few steady words that hopefully I can offer gently. If you're listening today, I want to start by acknowledging something. Christmas Day can be tender after betrayal.

There's often a strange mix of expectation and emptiness, togetherness and loneliness, tradition, loss, and when things slow down, when there's less distraction, sometimes a particular belief has a way of resurfacing. It can often sound like, if I'd just been more... they wouldn't have needed somebody else, more attentive, more affectionate, more fun, more sexual, more stressed, maybe less tired, less me. If that belief has been hovering nearby today, you're not alone.

So let's talk about it. After betrayal, many people quietly carry this thought. They cheated because they had unmet needs, and I failed to meet them.

It can seem so logical, even responsible, but responsibility and self-blame are not the same thing. And this belief quietly places you somewhere you were never meant to be. So, the grounding truth.

Needs are internal experiences. They arise inside a person. They belong to the person who feels them.

Adults are responsible for recognising their own needs, expressing them honestly, and managing them ethically, including choosing how they respond when those needs aren't met. Having unmet needs does not cause betrayal. Unmet needs are common.

Betrayal is a choice. When you start believing you were responsible for somebody else's unmet needs, something subtle happens. You begin to shrink.

You scan yourself constantly. What should I have been? What should I have done differently? And over time, that leads to self-erasure. You become the manager of somebody else's inner world, at the cost of your own.

That, my friend, is not love. That is not partnership. And it was never your role.

You can hold compassion for somebody's struggles, without taking ownership of their choices. You can acknowledge that a relationship wasn't perfect, without turning yourself into the problem. And you can release the idea that being enough would have protected you.

Because loyalty is not earned by performance. So today, especially today, I want to offer you permission. You don't need to review the relationship.

You don't need to understand their inner world. You don't need to fix anything. You are allowed to rest.

To eat. To breathe. To step outside.

To be present for a moment. Even if it's imperfect. Today isn't about fixing the past.

It's about not punishing yourself for it. If you're listening on Christmas Day, I'm really glad you're here. Be gentle with yourself.

That, in itself, is enough.