52. Ignoring Red Flags - The Guilt of Not Acting Sooner

Sometimes the deepest guilt isn’t about what we did, but about what we didn’t do. If you ever sensed something was wrong but pushed those feelings aside, you’re not alone. The guilt of ignoring red flags in a relationship is a quiet, corrosive weight that many betrayed partners carry in silence. It whispers, “Why didn’t I act sooner?” and feeds an exhausting cycle of self-blame and emotional isolation.

In this episode, I explore the lesser-talked-about side of betrayal recovery: the inaction guilt felt by the betrayed. With raw honesty and practical tools, I break down how this form of guilt impacts your healing so you can finally start moving forward with clarity and self-compassion.

Key Takeaways:

• How to recognise and reframe the guilt of not acting on red flags

• The key difference between guilt and shame, and why it matters

• Practical steps to process guilt without getting stuck in self-blame

• How ignoring red flags can shape your self-image (and how to reclaim it)

• Why healing begins when you stop trying to control what you can’t

💬 Reflection questions:

Have you ever felt paralysed by guilt over not acting sooner? What red flags did you notice but dismiss at the time?

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 the After The Affair podcast episode number 52 with myself Luke Shillings. Now you know how every week I like to take a deep dive into the uncharted waters of infidelity, recovery, understanding and of course growth.

Well today is no different. We are going to explore a lesser discussed nuance topic in the realm of betrayal, guilt but not as you know it. This is inaction guilt.

We often attribute guilt to the person who has been unfaithful. Still there's another side to guilt that the betrayed partner may also experience and it often gets swept under the rug. Ironic.

We're talking about guilt due to inaction where the betrayed partner might have had suspicions or even concrete signs of the affair but still did nothing. But first let's quickly define guilt due to action and guilt due to inaction. Guilt due to action relates to feelings of regret over something that we have done like an unfaithful partner who cheated.

Whereas guilt due to inaction on the other hand is a regret for something that we did not do like a betrayed partner who might have seen signs of an affair but ignored or dismissed them. So how does this play out? Well when infidelity is discovered the initial focus is on the unfaithful partners guilt. The guilt due to action.

They are the ones who betrayed the trust. They broke the commitment and as a result bear the guilt of those actions. They may carry a heavy burden, the weight of hurting someone they cared about deeply.

But let's flip the coin. The betrayed partners in processing their emotions often end up asking themselves how did I not see this? Why didn't I act when I saw the signs? This introspection while useful in certain respects can lead to a kind of self-inflicted guilt. The guilt due to inaction.

I remember this vividly from my own personal situation. For a period of time I had these ideas that something wasn't quite right. Like the connection, the level of communication, the amount of time being spent together had just tipped over the point from being just a friendship to potentially something more.

Of course I have very little, if any, evidence specifically. It was predominantly subjective and circumstantial and made it very difficult to prove in any kind of way. For much of that period I really felt like I was just being paranoid.

I was going crazy. Was I actually in fact going to damage the relationship by not trusting? By not allowing my wife's friendships to flourish in whatever direction that she saw fit? I didn't then and I still don't now want to control and manipulate the relationships that my partners have. However this guilt of inaction may have even amplified the pain of betrayal.

It can lead to an internal narrative that ends up berating yourself for ignoring or missing the signs of infidelity. This self-blame however often goes unacknowledged and it can be as corrosive as the guilt felt by the unfaithful partner. It's a complex emotion to navigate as both kinds of guilt, inaction and inaction, let me reframe, in-action and in-inaction can lead to self-doubt, loss of self-esteem and a sense of failure.

But it's essential to understand and acknowledge this to heal and move forward. Both parties, the unfaithful and the betrayed, must confront their guilt. They must acknowledge it, understand its roots and then work through it.

This can often be done independently through journaling and self-reflection and self-help and meditation but can be accelerated significantly with the additional support of a professional such as a therapist or a coach. Only then can you begin the process of healing and moving forward. Today I'd really like to discuss how to do just that.

So if you're sitting with feelings of guilt, stick around, you're not alone on this journey and understanding these emotions is the first step towards healing. So as we've mentioned there's guilt due to action, that's the unfaithful partner's domain and guilt due to inaction, commonly experienced by the betrayed. Now if you're a betrayed partner and find yourself thinking, I should have done something when I saw the signs, let me tell you it's not your fault.

Ignorance, denial, fear of conflict, these are all very human responses to situations that seem threatening to our sense of safety, security or just the relationship as a whole. It's vital first and foremost to recognise that infidelity is a decision made by the unfaithful partner, not you. They chose to betray the trust, not you.

It's important to let go of self-blame and understand that the guilt you're feeling is not a result of your inaction but rather the action of your partner or at least the way you're interpreting it. In the same way if you're the unfaithful partner listening, understand that guilt due to action can be overwhelming, yes, but it's not an insurmountable hurdle. The actions that led to this moment do not define your entire self-worth or potential for change.

Guilt, while painful, can be a catalyst for change. It's the eternal moral compass pointing out that there's something wrong. It's an opportunity to pause, reflect and decide how to act differently in the future.

In either case the question then becomes, how do we move forward? Well, we begin by acknowledging our feelings. It's okay to feel guilty. It's a natural response to the situation.

Pay attention to how that guilt shows up in your body. Remember, an emotion is just a vibration. It's a physical feeling that you can feel within your body.

It's something that you can describe. It's something that you can pinpoint exactly. You can become familiar with it.

You can get comfortable with it. You can recognise it. You can see it as an alarm or an alert or a warning or a signal that something's not right and that you should actively pay attention to it.

Our temptations are often to react, to resist or to avoid feeling the emotion, which usually leads to undesirable outcomes. When we act from those places we tend to not get the things in life that we want. If you're feeling guilt and therefore are withdrawing, hiding away, then we're not engaging.

We're not making connections. We're not building relationships. We're becoming a shadow of ourselves.

But it's essential to differentiate between guilt, which is the feeling that you've done something wrong, and shame, the belief that you are wrong. The former can motivate change, while the latter can lead to a negative self-image and repeat or begin a repetition of a negative cycle. We often use guilt and blame to protect ourselves from the shame that we're really feeling deeper in.

We do everything we can to avoid feeling this emotion, which is very very unpleasant and never ever leads anywhere positive. Then we can focus on healing. For the betrayed this may mean self-forgiveness for any perceived inaction.

So when we think about the questions that we've been asking ourselves, why didn't I see this? Why didn't I act sooner? How could I not have seen this? Why did I allow this to continue? Well now we can start to let go of that, to recognise that they're just judgments that we're making about ourselves, but they're not actually true. And for the unfaithful it means accepting responsibility, expressing sincere remorse and demonstrating change. But it ultimately is just about acknowledging what has happened, acknowledging that it was your choice, acknowledging that even if on reflection it's not an action that you thought you were capable of or thought that you wanted or you maybe never imagined that you could actively do something that you believe would hurt the people you actually care about, like your partner, then it's okay.

Just own that that is the case. And not all of our previous actions, in fact not any of our previous actions, define who we become in the future. They only tell the story up until that point.

You get to change from this moment onwards. It's completely within your control. The journey to recovery, as I've often said, is not linear.

It really does have its ups and downs. It's very common for the journeys that I see my clients and my own journey when I went through this process too, to have some real like growth and everything seems really positive and there's been some huge change and you start to see the world from a different perspective. And then all of a sudden something happens, a trigger, some memory, some situation, which brings it all back to the forefront again.

And it's like you right back at the beginning, or at least that's how it feels in the moment. Of course that's not true. You've actually completely changed how you've seen the situation and it's taken a very different thing to actually re-trigger the initial trauma, but paying attention to how far you've come, using markers in your journey to be able to register them against, to actually give you an overall picture.

I was talking to somebody the other day about the stock market and how you can, depending on how zoomed in or zoomed out you are, looking at, you know, the chart on growth of a stock market, it can paint such a different picture. You can make something look like there's been massive growth, yet if you zoom out even just from a week view to a month view, all of a sudden that could be actually just a little peak at the end of a real back decline. Zoom out a bit further and it turns out that actually was just a peak of a really long-term growth, you know.

So this journey never is linear and you don't know what the next day looks like. So it's really about the trend line over time. That's the thing that we're measuring against.

So start looking at that and the only way you can do that is by paying attention to how you're feeling now. Journaling, thought downloads, just prompting these things, having conversations with people, working with a professional, these are all effective ways of being able to put that marker in the sand so that you can start to judge your progress over a period of time. Another fantastic approach is by re-exposing yourself gently to situations or memories or thoughts or physical items and objects that have previously caused like a trigger to be able to test yourself, test your growth, test how you feel in that situation.

Perhaps there was a particular song that used to cause you to feel really intense anxiety and sadness and hurt. But after you've worked through a lot of these emotions, you've learned some new concepts, you've listened to these podcasts and maybe read some self-help books. Now you can maybe listen to that music and although it might not be your favourite song, it no longer brings up that intense feeling of anxiety.

Using things like this as a marker to your progress is an amazing way to teach yourself, to teach your brain how far you've come and how much progress you are making. As we wrap up this conversation on guilt, remember that guilt is not a life sentence. It's just a signpost.

It's pointing out where you've strayed from your path and where you can improve. So use it as that, use it as fuel to propel you forward towards healing, understanding and eventually forgiveness. I will continue to explore these challenging topics in our upcoming episodes.

We're virtually on a year now since I launched the podcast and it's been such a pleasure to have... I feel like I'm saying this all the time but it's because it's so true. I really do love being able to talk to you, to be able to share my journey, to be able to pass on these tips and tricks from both my personal experience, my training, the conversations and things that happen with my clients to hopefully help you as well. Of course this can sometimes only take you so far.

If you feel like you need something a little bit more, a bit more accountability, you want to transform your life, you've got to a point where there's been this shift where no longer do you want to wear the victim label. You don't want to feel like you are trapped by betrayal, paralysed by betrayal. You want to free yourself and you want to take control back.

You want to take full responsibility but you still don't quite know exactly how to do it or maybe you're lacking a little bit of confidence in belief in yourself in terms of whether you think you can follow through on your desire. I've been there. We all are able to set these short-term goals and maybe we can do it.

Maybe we can hang on for a week or a month but then if we haven't got the support, the direction, the guidance, the accountability, it's so easy to let things slip back into old habits. Our brains are designed to form habits and they do a damn good job of it. So it's perfectly understandable that it can be difficult to change them and modify them and make them last.

If any of this resonates with you and you'd like some more support then reach out. You can contact me directly at luke at lifecoachluke.com. You can visit the website lifecoachluke.com. Watch the two videos. Get a better understanding of what the On Purpose Coaching Programme looks like and how it can help and benefit you.

Check out the video regarding the Discovery Course. You've got an idea what to expect so it's not as frightening. I recognise that for many people who talk to me, a. they've been listening to me on the podcast just like you are right now and b. they're often or I'm often the first person that they've really shared these these specific details about their relationship, about their situation, about the infidelity itself.

I know how uncomfortable and frightening and intimidating that can be so please know that you are absolutely safe. You can share anything you like. I can help you provide clarity in your situation and give you some specific pointers about what direction to go.

Of course if it looks like we're a good fit and we want to explore what working together looks like then that is always an option but it's not the only objective. Most importantly I want to help you move forward from where you are now. Remember that question how do we move forward? How do I move forward? I can definitely help you there.

So please if the next thing you do, if it's available to you right now, if you're listening to this on your phone, go to the website, check the videos out, book the discovery call, let's talk. I'll speak to you all next week.