37. Identity - Who Am I Now?

When your relationship ends, especially after infidelity, it's not just your partner you lose. You lose the you that existed in that relationship. The roles you once clung to (wife, husband, partner, family unit) suddenly vanish, leaving you wondering, Who am I now?

In this episode, I explore the painful identity shifts that often follow betrayal and separation. If you’ve ever felt like a stranger in your own life after infidelity, this one’s for you.

Key Takeaways:

• Reflecting on identity loss after breakup and why it hurts more than you expect.

• Understanding the difference between societal roles and your authentic self.

• Recognising how internal conflict (not external drama) often holds us back.

• Learning how to act from aligned values, not emotional reactivity.

• Reclaiming your emotional power by questioning your inherited “shoulds.”

💬 Reflection questions:

Have you ever questioned who you are now that your relationship has changed? What parts of your identity feel lost or ready to be reborn?

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:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hello and welcome to episode number 37 of the After The Affair podcast with myself Luke Shillings. I've been thinking a lot recently about identity and the identities that we form, the identities that we fall into and how they affect the ways in which we show up and in some cases the way that we judge ourselves based on the expectations that we have to match those identities.

So for example, for many years I considered myself a father, family man, husband, you know, man of the house. There's these certain ways in which I identified and there were certain ways in which people knew who I was and that was kind of my identity and I know that's not a particularly unique identity in the grand scheme of things but it was still an identity in itself and of course when my marriage broke down and I ended up separating and then divorcing, actually one of the most difficult parts of that was the letting go or the sort of relinquishing that identity. It was as though it had been taken from me and it's like I didn't know who I was anymore.

I didn't know who I was supposed to be. That was an incredibly scary time because I really did feel safe and secure in my own identity whilst I was within the married relationship and when that came to an end I then no longer had that. I had nothing to hang on to.

So that's just one example of how you might identify but you can identify by a wide range of things, a maybe you might define yourself as or identify as a teacher or as an engineer or as a customer service expert, as a sports person, an athlete, a electrician or tradesperson. There are these identities which there are some stereotypes of course attached to each one of these. There are some societal expectations about what each one of these things looks like and then when people look from the outside in they judge in some way potentially.

Of course more often than not that judgement is just the self judgement that we put on ourselves. It's not necessarily a judgement that's really coming externally. So rewind the clock 12, 13 years maybe a little bit longer and I was a pub landlord.

I used to own a pub in the village that I grew up in. It had a fairly large restaurant. It was predominantly a food led business.

There was a public bar with pool table, jukebox and the like but I also had four bed and breakfast rooms. So it was almost like a 24-7 business and I identified as a pub landlord. I mean I was only in my late 20s at the time but the role I was embodying was still that of the pub landlord and there was a certain expectation that I set for myself in terms of how I thought I should show up and it was very easy to judge myself when I didn't show up that way.

There were expectations that were then put on me from friends and people that I knew well and people that maybe came to visit the pub over the years that I was there and maybe hadn't seen me since school and the moment they saw me in this new role it was almost like they were looking at me from a completely different perspective and that's okay of course but I found myself at a point, especially given that that business ultimately came to an end and not a successful end I'm sad to say, but it was again a example where my identity was very much within the role that I had embodied and being removed from that was again quite a difficult thing to experience. So because of that and now if I think about who I am now and what I do now well I currently, I mean one of my identities, I have a range of identities of course, but one is as a relationship coach. So what does being a relationship coach mean? What does it mean that I should or shouldn't do? And of course I've spoken about shoulds and shouldn'ts on the podcast before so if you've been an avid listener then you'll already be calling me out hopefully however I'm still human and we still have these underlying expectations of ourselves.

So because I'm a relationship coach I put these standards upon myself that I should be good at all relationships whether that be relationships with business connections, fellow coaches, whether it be with family members or close friends. Maybe it's just a relationship with the lady that works behind the counter at the local village shop but it also applies of course to our romantic relationships. And because I know what it takes I am well educated and experienced and and trained in what is required to build a solid, clean, connected, loving, intentional relationship then there's this underlying pressure. It is a self-inflicted pressure and I recognise that. Still, it's this underlying pressure that I should be good at all relationships and therefore should any of these relationships fail or break down then it's giving me, I'm also, I'm kind of authorising myself to be to beat myself up about it.

Which of course if you came to me as a client then I would quickly coach you through that and we would resolve that actually it's useless to self-inflict these things upon ourselves and to hand the power, our emotional power, to the opinions and ideas of other people, the expectations that either we have or we think that other people have about how we should do our jobs or how we should show up in our specific identity roles. Now assuming that you've managed to follow some of that and you are still with me then you might be wondering well what's brought this about? Why is Luke talking to me about this today? Well I had a recent business arrangement, a business agreement between myself and another local business owner. They were helping me with a specific element within my business and we'd agreed some terms and there was sort of some standards put in place in terms of what we both expected, what I expected and what they were prepared to offer and anyway long story short it came to a point where I didn't feel that I got what it was that I wanted from the the relationship, this business relationship and the other person thought that they had provided everything that they could or should have within their part of the relationship and there was ultimately this point where it came to a conflict where there was just this disagreement, I didn't feel like I'd got the value for money, they thought well I've done everything I can and to be honest the details aren't important.

What mattered was there was part of me that was wanting to step down and just take it on the chin because I didn't want to damage a relationship, in part because I'm a relationship coach and my identity is about maintaining good relationships no matter what they are. But of course there was also another part of me and this might ring true from the episode when I was talking about compromise, there was another part of me that wanted to stand my ground, I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't happy and that I didn't feel like I'd received value for money and ultimately we'd spent several months and I didn't really feel like we got any further along and it just it was just a financial expense that achieved no specific outcome. But the the point being that there was this misalignment of expectations.

So to begin with I felt like I was in conflict with this other person, this other business owner, but then what I really realised was I was actually just in conflict with myself because I had these two parts of me. One part wanting to show up as a relationship coach and be able to uphold those standards that I set for myself about maintaining good relationships and the other part of me wanted to stand my ground and you know maybe even a little bit of sort of like stamp my feet and you know and kick and rebel and and offer some resistance. There was these two opposing parts internally and actually that's what the real battle was, that's what the real conflict was.

It actually had nothing to do with the other person, it was just about me not being clear about what it was I wanted. Once I had got clarity about these two opposing parts of me, these bits of inner conflict and I was able to ask that question of myself, what is it that I really want, which of these and which parts of these align with my core values and my intentions going forward and how do I want to show up independently from my inner self rather than from this perceived identity of who I should be and that freed me and I was able to make a clean decision and act accordingly and feel much much better about it and not feeling like I had compromised, not feeling resentful for the part in which I hadn't answered and I was able to act from a much cleaner place. So I ask you to think about a scenario maybe where you're in conflict with another person, maybe you've had a disagreement, maybe somebody has done something to annoy you or perhaps they have wronged you in some way, maybe they've even betrayed you.

What point can you recognise that part of you wants to deal with this situation in one way and another part of you perhaps wants to deal with it in another way? Maybe there's even a third part and a fourth part all wanting to do slightly different things and can you recognise that all of those things are conflicting internally, they're in your own mind. The other person has just done a thing, whatever that is, that's something that we would consider the circumstance. You know, go back to the episode when I talk about the self-coaching model, I think probably episode 20, the circumstance is just the thing that happened in the world and things that other people do and say are just circumstances.

We then have multiple thoughts which apply multiple meanings, which create multiple feelings and then get us wanting to do multiple actions and it's at this point we've got this inner conflict and we're not clear in what it is that we want to do and the temptation is just to blame the other person and it can often be easy just to react and in some cases maybe even avoid. But how about you acknowledge that this conflict is internal and not external? This is really just about you being able to communicate the different inner parts of yourself to align with your core values, your core objectives and then use your effort and energy and bring things into alignment so that you can better answer your core beliefs. Because let's just think about this in a minute, how many times have you been in a situation where you've wanted to react, you've wanted to maybe seek revenge, you've wanted to maybe blame, get angry, shout, scream, whatever it is or control perhaps and then you reflect back on that, you know, a week later, a month later, a year later, a decade later and it was just this insignificant thing that happened at the time.

Okay, maybe that might not be as easy to apply to the idea of infidelity, at least not in the moment. Over time it's definitely a possibility but certainly not in the short time or unlikely in the short time. But think about all of the other conflicts you have, the inner conflicts, the smaller things that make up the battles and fights that we have in our relationships.

How many of those have actually gone on to cause you long-term problems? They're usually dealt with, there's a reaction, something goes on, maybe you fall out with someone, maybe you don't, maybe it gets swept under the carpet but in some way shape or form that frustration, that challenging emotional state that you're experiencing in the moment when you're in conflict, it passes, it goes. So if it's going to go anyway then wouldn't it be better to act in a way that's in a line with our values rather than a way that's just reactive, just because we want to get our own back, just because we want revenge, just because we want to have the last word or the last say. And let me remind you when we bring this all the way back round, full loop to how I started this conversation today, many of these things that we want to do, these reactions, the way that we want to respond in a particular situation, is based on our identity, is based on who we think we are or who we think other people think we are and then we're trying to act into that role.

Is that really who you are? Is that really your core? When was the last time that you sat down with a pen and paper and wrote down your top 10 values, your core values, maybe your top five, maybe even just your top three, just something on paper where you can say actually this is who I am, this is who I align with, this is what is true for me, this isn't some fabricated identity which I've fallen into or which society expects me to be or other people expect me to be, this is me. And when I align with my own values then I'm able to get much clearer on those inner conflicts. I'm no longer fighting because I know how to talk to them all and I know how to use that information to better act and behave in the world in a way that improves my own relationships, improves my own objectives and ultimately I just feel better.

So why wouldn't I do it? And you get to do exactly the same too, just question your identity, question your values, explore, live into those values, live into that identity and move forward on purpose. If you or anybody you know are struggling with the aftermath of infidelity or betrayal, any other kind of deep challenging problem within your relationship that you just don't seem to be able to get past, you feel like you've been banging your head against a metaphorical brick wall for what seems like forever. You can't communicate properly with your spouse and things are not improving.

Perhaps it's starting to affect your sleep, your work, you're struggling to focus for lengths of time and you are becoming quite fearful about what the future might look like. If any of that sounds like you then we probably ought to talk. It's possible that you've not discussed this with anybody.

This has just been stuff that's going on in your mind and the idea of even talking to somebody might feel quite scary. But let me assure you that if you were to sit in front of me on a call we have 30 minutes where you just have that free reign to just get things off your chest. Maybe I can offer some alternative perspectives for you, maybe you'll have a breakthrough, maybe you'll go away from that call feeling different.

And ultimately that's what we all want in life. We want to feel better or we want to stop feeling worse. That's our goal, that's what we are experiencing as human beings and if I can help you on that journey through 30 minutes time together then I would love to be a part of that journey for you.

If it seems that we are a good fit and we want to discuss the possibility of working together over a longer period then that option is always available but that's not the objective. So visit the website it's lifecoachluke.com. Scroll to the bottom and you'll find the Let's Talk booking calendar. Find a time that's convenient for you and I look forward to speaking to you soon.

I'll pop the links to the booking calendar in the show notes. I did have somebody point out to me recently that on some of the podcast platforms the links that I put in the show notes are not as easily accessible as others. So if the particular platform that you're using you are struggling then you can always go directly to my website as I've mentioned already it's lifecoachluke.com and then you can either click the podcast button at the top of the page or you can just put podcast and you will then find all of the show notes there with the relevant links to all of the episodes should you be looking for something specific that I've mentioned on any of the episodes.

So great I'll talk to you all next week.