Shame and Embarrassment

Harry and I are involved in a lawsuit over work that we did for another couple who promised us a percentage of ownership of a motel they were purchasing. The benefit for the other couple was that in order for them to obtain financing, they needed someone to be involved who had hotel experience and Harry, indeed, found them the loan. In addition, we helped them get a business up and running and were supposed to work on an ongoing basis to get the property up to snuff. But, as I have written in a previous blog, once we had done the work, they reneged on the deal.

This lawsuit has taken over a year and a half and is starting to get close to being brought to trial. I have already been deposed, and the remaining three depositions will occur this week.

In addition, the other couple's attorney is starting to prod and pry into our business affairs and sought court permission to look over our motel loan and how we have been paying it. Is it on time, late, in default, etc. The court approved a part of their request and I was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of, what? Embarrassment, shame, guilt? I wasn't sure. I worried whether I had been late on a payment. Would the jury think I was trying to squeeze money out of this couple to manage my own finances. When I presented my ire at their request, Harry scoffed and said, who cares? Let them dig as much as they want. They are just wasting time on their attorney's fees.

The defendants' attorneys also asked the court to force me to answer questions that I would not answer at the deposition and that my attorney intervened on in my behalf. I did not want to mention names of persons who had commented on how difficult and dishonest these people were in the business world. I felt I would jeopardize the persons who had made the comments. And I felt anxious, distressed and ashamed. I questioned whether I was doing the right thing by bringing on this suit.

I actually had to force myself to remember how infuriated, and angry I had been over how shabbily this couple had treated us. I could not understand why I would not feel that I deserved what they had verbally promised and why I would hesitate in any way to demand reimbursement for my efforts. I needed to picture their website depicting their motel rooms with the very same furniture I had used originally in our property. I had to recount how many vendors and how much privileged information I had shared on how to make their property successful. I had to review the hours of work and emails and contacts I had made on behalf of this couple. Why would I feel embarrassed that they could see what my loan was and my payment history? Would a jury see that this couple had more money than us and judge that we were trying to milk them?

When their attorney asked me to define my skills and why I felt I was worth what I was demanding in the lawsuit, I again, felt flustered and doubted what my skills were worth. He picked apart my experience and my education. Later, I had to remind myself that I had more accumulative education than he did, so why was he intimidating me? That I had learned to successfully operate a motel which was consistently rated highly on travel review sites and that this couple had not succeeded in that way. Why did I need to defer in my thinking to Harry being the commanding force in this equation when indeed, I had actually spend more time on preparing for their property to open under their management.

This is of course, not the first time I have experienced these feelings. Harry has often commented that my biggest fear is embarrassment. That being said, why would I be attracted to, and marry, a man who has absolutely no sense of that emotion! Maybe the truth is that opposites really do attract. Maybe Harry's strong ego and sense of security about himself is what I want to emulate. Because over the past 25 years, this man's actions have definitely embarrassed me on many an occasion. Just last week he was speaking to Asian vendor at an orchid show and he said "welcome to our country." The man said, this is my country. Oops. Or when someone "looks" Hispanic, he starts speaking Spanish to them. Half of the time they don't know what he is saying because they do not speak Spanish. Oh well. Fortunately, I have learned to walk away from any potentially embarrassing situation. As for shame, well I have lived a life that has had a serious amount of turmoil in light of my own standards and shame follows me regarding that.

But why the embarrassment and the shame? Should I attribute it to my mother who had high standards for my performance and behaviour? I may be looking for excuses and wanting to heap my own deficiencies on a parent as most children eventually do. But I think as my mother was pushing me forward, it was heard as disappointment. And somehow, that disappointment gets turned into "I am not good enough and do not deserve better." And even more so, it gets turned in to a disappointment in one's own self. Which means that a parent who sets a very high example of behaviour also sets a child up to feel unable to achieve and consequently feel a lifetime of shame and embarrassment? It doesn't make sense. Who can perform that perfect balance of parenting that allows a child to feel no shame and yet encourages a child to succeed without feeling guilt when they do not.