“Babies learn that crying doesn’t always work. From their little self-centered place, babies start doubting their power. Babies start thinking that there is something wrong with themselves, something flawed, when they can’t make their environment provide what they want.”
Shame often can’t be seen directly, what stands out are the defensive behaviors that people use to camouflage and to attempt to escape their experience of shame, such as desperate measures including violence that people may use in attempting to shift unbearable shame off themselves and onto others.
Feelings of shame, or the attempts to avoid such feelings, are at the root of all relationship discord. Furthermore, the painful experience of shame is so unbearable that it is often bypassed or repressed. This results in one or both members of the couple withdrawing, blaming, criticizing, rejecting or being dismissive towards the other.