Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Navigating Guilt And Regret After An Affair
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What if the secrets we hold closest are the ones that weigh us down the most? Join us for a powerful conversation with Ren Bester from South Africa as we unravel the intricate emotions of guilt, shame, and regret within the context of marriage and personal actions. Ren's journey of overcoming these burdens, especially given his religious upbringing and the pressure of performance-based acceptance, offers profound insights. Together, we navigate the delicate balance between acknowledging wrongdoing and the deeper self-condemnation that can accompany it. Ren's candid recounting of his struggles underscores the transformative power of confession, forgiveness, and faith, showcasing how embracing spiritual practices can renew the mind and offer emotional release.
Ren's story doesn't stop at recognition—it's about redemption. By embracing the grace of salvation, Ren found a way to cleanse his past and alleviate the weight of guilt, despite skepticism from those affected by his past actions. He shares the challenges of removing negative influences and how redefining one's identity through humility can pave the path to healing and reconciliation. Even when forgiveness from others isn't promised, the journey to emotional and spiritual freedom remains impactful. Join us as Ren illustrates the potential for transformative change, offering hope and guidance to anyone grappling with their own burdens.
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You ever feel guilty about what you've done. Maybe you've asked God to forgive you. Maybe you've asked your spouse to forgive you. Maybe whoever it is that you hurt you asked to forgive you. But you still feel guilty and you still react negatively in your own heart. You can't get past it. Somehow you have this deep, deep regret. Or maybe you haven't told anybody you did this thing, whatever it was, and it's never come up and nobody's ever asked the right question. So you haven't even lied about it, but it's still a secret. Say, for example, a businessman's on a trip and gets approached by a beautiful woman and it turns out that she's a prostitute and that night he actually participates in that activity and has never told anybody and there's no way anybody else could ever find out. There could be all kinds of things that a man or a woman can still be feeling guilty about and even feel some shame about and definitely feel some regret about, and they're thinking how in the world do I get past this? Well, welcome to Relationship Radio.
Speaker 1:I'm Dr Joe Beam. I can teach a lot about guilt, a lot about regret, even about shame, which is kind of a side part to all that stuff, because not just the fact that I have studied, in the sense that I have a bachelor's degree in Bible. Almost all of them have a master's degree in Bible before I turned over to psychology to study, and so my doctorate is not in Bible, but I'm a student of the book, not a scholar, but a student, and the bigger part of it, though, would not be my teaching theology. The bigger part would be the fact that I've been there totally eaten up with guilt. Well, how do you handle that, particularly when you have guilt about something, about your marriage? Our guest today is Ren Bester from the great. It's a country South Africa almost called it a colony. I'm sorry, forgive me.
Speaker 2:It's so far away it's fine.
Speaker 1:So far away, nobody will know no, so I think that you have felt a tad of regret.
Speaker 2:Oh, I have no idea. Yes, I have, yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Now. You started off in a Christian home, that's right. So you had a good religious base. You were taught the difference in right and wrong, and so, therefore, you've been a good little boy your whole life, right?
Speaker 2:Oh, sir, unfortunately not. Why? Well, my parents are wonderful, wonderful people, god-fearing. They came to faith in Jesus before I was born and I was raised in church. There was an undertone of performance in the way that I was raised. No one's perfect. My parents are great that I was raised. No one's perfect. My parents are great, I honor them, but no one's perfect. So I felt this intense need to perform, to be accepted and loved, and if I did something wrong, I didn't feel that I could confess that. I felt like I would be rejected, and so that's the way that I formed my view of how you are as a life.
Speaker 1:Rejected by your parents, rejected by your church, rejected by God? Rejected by whom? All of the above? All of the above? Yes, so God didn't know about the things you did wrong? Well, I was hoping he was looking the other way.
Speaker 2:Fair enough, yeah, yeah, and so what tends to happen. Really, the way for us to be free from shame and guilt and regret, like we speak of, is to confess the things that we've done and to receive the forgiveness of God, and then we can live free. But the confession part was too scary for me because of my fear of rejection, and so for years and years decades in fact there was no confession on my part, and so I'm very well versed with shame and guilt. It's what drove my behavior.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's just for a second now explain the difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is a sense of I did wrong, I violated the rules. As I understand them, Shame at least the way it's used now. In psychology and sociology, shame is used to represent I am no good. Not just that I did wrong, but there's something wrong with me. And because there's something wrong with me I can't do what's right. So did you actually, in that sense of the word, feel shame?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in fact, the words what is wrong with you came out of my mouth so many times over the 23 years that I lived the way that I lived To yourself or to others, to myself, to myself, under my breath, sometimes out loud in the car when I was by myself I would say that out loud.
Speaker 1:So you definitely felt shame as well. Yes, absolutely Okay. But today, I mean, you're strong spiritually. You're strong mentally, emotionally, physically, etc. You've got a good marriage, one that's continuing to grow. So how did you get past? What's wrong with you?
Speaker 2:Well, my beliefs are I'm a Christian, are I'm a Christian, and what we believe is that Jesus died on the cross to take away our sin and our shame and our guilt the penalty for sin that we deserve. I don't believe that I deserve forgiveness, and so the fact that I can live free from guilt and shame and regret is only because the Son of God took it away from me. If I had to try, if I had to weigh up the things that I'd done wrong and the list would be I couldn't even remember the amount of things that I've done wrong. To try to justify that and find a way in myself to not feel guilt and not feel shameful. There is something wrong with someone who does what I did.
Speaker 1:Okay, but that's more of an intellectual understanding. So how does that emotionally remove the shame and guilt?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a scripture that says do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and so the process for me was spending time in the word of God, in the Bible, reading, praying, and allowing that to transform my mind, the way that I think, to align with what God thinks about me. He thinks I'm pretty cool, not because of anything I've done, but because of the blood of his son that covers me, the cross that I've put my faith in, and so that's the only reason I get to live the way that I live, not from a place of and I hope my heart comes across not from a place of arrogance that, well, I could do whatever the heck I want. And now I'm forgiven and off we go. But that really grace is amazing and it's unfair. It doesn't make any, it's a free gift. I receive it not because of anything that I did certainly not because of anything that I did, but because God so loved the world that he gave his son for people like me and people like you.
Speaker 1:I remember the lyrics of a song I saw many years ago Others see what I have done. The Father sees me through the Son and I thought that's a great song. I like that. I don't remember the name of the song. I don't remember anything else about the song, but I remember that line. So here's the question. Ren, you were well-known by a lot of people and are well-known by a lot of people in South Africa. So when you accepted forgiveness spiritually, like, okay, my religion is Christianity, I accept that Jesus died for my sins and therefore I have been washed clean, Were there people in your world that wanted you to continue to feel guilty?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm sure there were. I did a complete clean out of my life and so the people that might've thought that either didn't. Either there were people in my life who didn't say that or I removed those people from my past, from my life. Now, certainly there were people who I'd hurt. You know, this is a 23 year journey for me, so there was.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry for what I did because I got caught out and I'll never do it again and then doing it again and I'm so sorry and not doing it again. You know that that there were, uh, there were folks who, great folks, people who are, who now love us and support us and are there, who who thought I don't think what's going on here is true, this is not our first rodeo ren, we've heard this before and we've seen this kind of thing before, and so they were, um, not convinced that the change in me was real. And I'm very sure that I hurt a lot of people. Dr Beam, I really did, and I'm sure that there are people who must still struggle Does that bother you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, emotionally. Yeah, I can't say that I think about it often, but I'm human and there are times when I think about it and I feel bad.
Speaker 1:So is that not?
Speaker 2:guilt or regret? Yes, I do think it's regret.
Speaker 1:So how does one get past that?
Speaker 2:My identity is no longer that person. If I were to ever meet somebody who I have wronged, I would, with humility, ask for forgiveness, and if they didn't forgive me, that would be okay. But I don't live under the weight of the things that I've done. I live with a sense of owning what I've done and taking responsibility for what I've done, but I don't carry the weight of the punishment along with me simply because of the free gift of salvation and grace.
Speaker 1:So is regret for you more an intellectual process or more of an emotional process?
Speaker 2:I think the regret was more. Well, it's a great question. You don't wallow in it. You don't wallow in it. I don't wallow in it. No, no. And again, I'm sure that there are folks who maybe they haven't moved on from what I did to them all those years ago and it might infuriate them to hear what I'm saying. And that's not again. I don't mean to be arrogant, but I do believe that there's look, he makes all things new. You know, it's a freedom that Christ has set us free, and and uh, and so I don't live under the weight of what I've done.
Speaker 1:So, while there may be some people out there who would see you now and go, this is shallow, this is not real, this is pretend, whatever, but he's a bad man in heart, et cetera. That does not deter you, it doesn't slow you down.
Speaker 2:No, no, it doesn't slow me down. I believe that there's new life and there are things for us to do, and that, in fact, god has opened doors for my wife and I to do what we do because of our past not in spite of it's because of what a horrendous human being I was then, and the turnaround that happened that we get to help marriages and speak life and hope, hopefully into folks who might be going through the same thing, and so the very thing that I should be ashamed of is the thing that God has turned around and is using for His glory and for other people's good.
Speaker 1:Good, excellent. So let's see if we can make kind of a pattern out of that. If you're struggling with guilt, shame, regret, whatever it might be, and it continues to impair you, not just that, sometimes you remember it and you think I wish I hadn't done that, but I mean, it's something that has hold of you, that limits your ability to enjoy life, to enjoy your relationships, to help other people, etc. So the first thing I would think and see if you agree with this you've got to admit to yourself that what you did was wrong, absolutely, absolutely. As long as you continue to justify it, you're never going to get anywhere, definitely. And people can justify it in different ways. I did this for a while. Well, as a matter of fact, you did too, based on what you said earlier in the sense that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know I did that, but it's really my wife's fault.
Speaker 1:And as long as you're doing that, it's my dad's fault, it's my mom's fault, it's society's fault, it's the Democrats, it's the Republicans, it's the whomever, it's somebody else not taking responsibility, and until you take responsibility, there's no way to get past that. You say but if I don't take responsibility, I don't feel guilt. It just buries itself in there. Because if you have a basic sense of right and wrong, then you know that some of the things you've done have been dreadfully hurtful to other people. And if you say, well, it's not my fault, it's because of Charlie, fred, henry, whatever, then it's in there somewhere and until you admit it you can't deal with it. But then you've got to do something with it, meaning that I can't just acknowledge I did wrong, I've got to change.
Speaker 1:Now in our religion we call that repent. I was going that direction, now I'm going to go this direction. So repentance becomes a key and it's not always as easy as zip zip. Sometimes you have to have some help because this has been so attractive for so long. You need some people to help you make that turn and go back the other way. And then you confessed to Adele. Tell us about that, how that happened to Adele? Yeah, tell us about that how that happened?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, lockdown was announced, if you'll remember, in 2020. And in South Africa, certainly, the first lockdown was meant to be 21 days. They called it 21 days to flatten the curve, and Adele had called me. We were separated at the time and she asked if I'd come and stay to help with the kids for those three weeks. And it was a.
Speaker 2:There was turmoil in my heart because of that, because I was in all these affairs, and in particular the one and I started using drugs again and I was drinking and I couldn't look my wife in the eyes because of the guilt, the shame that I felt.
Speaker 2:But I decided to kill myself because of all the things that I'd done wrong and not being able to confess them and feeling so terrible about myself and feeling no way out. That was the way, the only way that I saw out, and the reason I went and stayed with Adele and the kids was to say goodbye to my kids. I thought I'd spend three weeks with them before I ended my life and Adele created an opportunity the second Saturday morning of lockdown for me to confess everything. So she had to push a little bit and she wasn't controlling or pushy, so to speak. Just there was a sense of urgency. She really felt that something was wrong. So she asked me to confess and of course I lied. I said there's nothing to confess. And she kept asking and eventually I thought I'll confess three things that are kind of bad, but not the worst of the lot, just kind of a little off the top. Maybe she'll leave me alone and we can move on, yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 2:So I confessed those three things which historically in our marriage would have resulted in a glorious disaster and phones in the fish pond, and instruments in the pool and things like that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Just give me a quick example of what you mean there.
Speaker 2:Yes, in a previous affair that was discovered, adele threw my phone into the fish pond and emptied the contents of my studio into our swimming pool Guitars and MacBookbooks and live pa and strings and plectrum. She did, she did the job very well. Uh, yes, this is before we found marriage helper and there was some healing.
Speaker 1:How does a waterlogged electric guitar play?
Speaker 2:well, it doesn't. It's good. It's good for a music video. It's no good for playing guitar. Um, yeah, and, and interestingly enough, when that happened you know I say that and my wife is not here to defend herself when I saw that, my first thought was you deserve this.
Speaker 1:So you're taking responsibility Well To some degree, to some degree, but not all.
Speaker 2:Yes, this was quite a few years before I finally came to my senses. But back to the confession that you asked me about. She, instead of the reaction that I was expecting from her after confessing the three things, her response was thank you so much for sharing that with me. It was really brave, but it's not everything.
Speaker 1:Wise woman.
Speaker 2:And I'd love to say that I've made a. That was an honorable decision. But it was not an honorable decision. I was in a corner. I thought I'm going to kill myself anyway. I can't leave it's hard lockdown, whatever I'm going to just to get her off my back. And I confessed for about 45 minutes 40 to 45 minutes, woman and lies and drug relapses and financial indiscretions and really everything I could think of. And, um, when I was finished, she she came and sat next to me and she put her arms around me. And she said she came and sat next to me and she put her arms around me and she said I love you so much, I'm so glad you're free and I.
Speaker 2:The significance of that moment is why we are here today.
Speaker 2:For the first time in my adult life, I had a clear conscience and I was loved and forgiven and accepted and experienced the grace and the mercy of God through my wife grace and the mercy of God through my wife and, for the first time, realized that the things that I'd been preaching about and singing, the worship songs I'd been singing, were actually true for me, not just for other people, that I really was forgiven, and I still get emotional about it five years later and that confession you see, the Bible says confess your sins one to another so that you may be healed.
Speaker 2:Now the context there is around physical healing, but my experience is that there's emotional and spiritual healing through that confession as well. And what that did was, after 23 years of being in and out of rehab and hating myself and saying I'll never do it, I'll never cheat on my wife again, and doing it again and trying and not being able to change In a moment, I got set free from those things In a moment, miraculously, the way that I view woman and my wife and work and God and my children, and everything changed in that moment because my wife created an opportunity for me to confess and she was safe off the back of that. Now she needed some time to process what I told her, but she has never thrown that in my face, dr Bean. Not once has she thrown any of that in my face.
Speaker 1:She's a very strong woman, she's an incredible woman. Yeah, now, if we follow the pattern we've been developing, first is to admit culpability admit the fact that I did this, not blame it on anybody else but me and the other is repent, which means you're going to be turning direction. And then comes this confession thing. Now you mentioned that passage which is in James, chapter 5. If you're going to confess your sins and there is great power in it, there really is. We'll talk about that just a little bit more Make sure that whomever you confess to is a person that's not going to use it to hurt you, because there are some people if you confess your sins to, they're going to hurt you with it. They're going to find some way to manipulate it, use it, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Well, he had Adele, which was a good source, and that particular context. It talks about the elders of a church assuming that they're good people, which is an assumption, and it says if you're happy, sing. Is that right? Am I getting that verse right? I can't remember. And if you're weeping oh man, I forget pray. I think that's. I'm getting it a little mixed up and I'm close. It's how many? If you're mourning, you pray. If you're happy, you sing, and if you're sick, you call for the elders of the church. If you have elders of a church, at least call good people and confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
Speaker 1:Now, that was in the context of happiness and misery and sinfulness, and I'm convinced that it's a principle. If you are not religious whatsoever, if you don't believe there's a God in heaven, that's your decision, not mine. I know what my decision is. But if that's your decision, finding a person that you can confess to, that will understand rather than sit in judgment on you, who can reassure you that they still care about you even though you've done some really crappy stuff, and who can assure you that they forgive you. There is healing power in that can assure you that they forgive you. There is healing power in that, in psychology and sociology, just if that's the only person who says I forgive you and shows you care, it's a powerful, powerful moment of catharsis Let me use a Freudian word there. And if you believe that there is a God and if you believe in his son, jesus, as we do, then you also have that spiritual element into it that I am forgiven. Many years ago I started saying this Wren, see, if you think I'm off base, the three most powerful words in English are not I love you. The three most powerful words in English are I forgive you. I agree, I agree, because it changes everything. Everything, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So my confession to Alice was similar, except in the sense that sometimes she would say and tell me about blank, and I'd say I will if you want to know. But understand that if I tell you that specific detail, I can never untell you. Do you really want to know it or not? And often she would say, yes, I want to know. And just saying it out loud I'm sure I imagine you experienced this just saying it out loud hurt me, because it's like saying it out loud, is you're dealing with it in reality. Good grief, I really did that and of course it would hurt her. And sometimes she would say no, I don't want to know that specific detail. But if ever I do, will you tell me? Yes, ma'am, I will, and so admitting your culpability. I did wrong, repentance I can't keep doing the same thing. I've got to change course. And confession if you're going to reach a sense of forgiveness inside. But when that person says they forgive you.
Speaker 1:There's one other aspect to that I discovered years ago. People have told me I've confessed to my wife. She said she forgave me, but she can't. You're making your wife's decisions. Listen. If a person says I forgive you and you think they're lying, it means nothing. So do you think your wife is lying? When she said that, no, I think she thought she meant it. Well, how can you dare say that you know more about what's inside her head than she does? Is she going to have to process it as you say, yeah, yeah, are you going to see some blips and emotions? Yes, yes. But if she says I forgive you if you doubt it, you say do you really? And if they say I really, do you have to believe it? Now, in our religion of Christianity, that's extremely important.
Speaker 1:A guy told me once he'd been praying about a particular sin he'd committed 15 years ago and still couldn't feel forgiven. And I said, son, that just means you don't believe your father. He said what the one you're asking? It just means you don't believe him Because he told you that he forgives you for that. And so that last aspect. And so if I were to confess everything to Alice and she said I forgive you, but the next day I heard her telling her best friend what I did. I wouldn't think she forgave me.
Speaker 1:Or if, and you said that Adele never brought it up again. Alice has never brought it up again. Well, you mean it ceased to exist in their memory? No, it's there, but they refuse to access it. It's like that's off over there somewhere. Will they ever have flashbacks where it hurts them all over again? Sure they will. They're human beings, but they'll just push it back aside again. So if you're the one seeking forgiveness, you've got to admit it's your fault. You've got to change course and if you need help to get that done, you get the help. I went through alcoholics, anonymous, for example, and you did. You go through a 12-step group or just do it on your own?
Speaker 2:I, I did rehab for and support groups for many years now, with the specifics, the, the, the beginning of our true reconciliation. No, no, I it. It was instant. Good yeah, that doesn't happen very often and I tried for 23 years, so so it took a long time. As you said, you call that a miracle. It is a miracle, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I have many friends who are in recovery and I don't know anyone else who this has happened to, so this't be my go-to. This is how things get done. I think you do. Very more often than not. You need help and apologies, even if it's not from an addictive perspective, just accountability, to have somebody to help you walk through the initial phases of your new life. And there were things that I naturally did. I would naturally flirted or kept doors open and would want to speak to people on social media or whatever, and to be open enough to be accountable and to be held accountable. So, even if it's not from a drugs or alcohol perspective, just for your new life sake and to build trust with your spouse and that's then the next step.
Speaker 1:Once they say, I forgive you, do something to rebuild trust, and that will require some kind of accountability. Now, as we talked about in a previous episode, accountability forced on me will tend to make me irritable, make me frustrated, like why can't you trust me? But if I say, okay, I can understand why you need this accountability so you can trust me again, and then you build a system of checks and balances so that you can be, so the other person doesn't have to worry about what you're doing. And then one last thing, not so much with you, but definitely with me don't listen to the people who still despise you.
Speaker 1:I heard a lot of people too. I was a very well-known evangelist in my brotherhood in the Southeast back when all that happened, which makes my sin pretty bad because I was a minister when I did it. It was bad, but that even made it worse, in my opinion. And there are still people to this day and Alice and I have been remarried 37 years but there are people to this day who, if they get a shot, will remind me of how much I hurt them. I found on my Facebook page a couple of years ago. It was in there a couple of days before I found it, some guy said I was a teenager in that church Joe Beam was a pastor of when he did those things and fell and lost his marriage. Blah, blah, blah, he said. And so most of my life, every bad decision I have made I have justified by saying at least I'm not as bad as Joe Beam.
Speaker 2:Now, that was on my.
Speaker 1:Facebook page for a couple of days before I even saw it, and there are still people who do that. I had a guy walk up to me once at a big speaking event and he said do you know how many people you heard? And I said, no, I can't begin to tally how many people I heard. He said well, you should feel guilty the rest of your life. And I said well, here's the deal. If you think guilt should be felt from now on for that, you carry it, because I've been forgiven. God took mine off me, but if you want to carry it, that's your choice. And then I walked away. Now, I didn't mean to be arrogant by that, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I'd love to know what you do if you're feeling that sense of shame and guilt. And so maybe there are two people we can speak to, two groups of people. Some folks would be those who are Christians and of course, there are folks who are not. That's correct. That would be an interesting group of people to address. I'd love for them to have some tools.
Speaker 1:So to Christians. We pretty well outline the process. Interestingly, if you're not religious whatsoever, or of a different religion, it's still the same process. And if by any chance we've intrigued you about Christianity, just let us know. We'll do a program trying to explain the basics of that. If you're interested, we're glad to share it with you. We're not going to force it on you, we don't do that kind of thing. But if you'd like to know about it, I might be saying right now well, I kind of grew up in church like Wren talked about, but I mean, I've been off for a long time and I felt guilty for the last 20 years. While we are not a predominantly religious organization, everybody in our organization is faithful and therefore, if we can help you with that, although it's not our first mission, it's always part of our life mission and we'll be willing to help you with that if we can. Ren, thank you for flying all the way from South Africa just to be with me on this program.
Speaker 2:It was for this specific one. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me, Dr Beam.
Speaker 1:He has. You can call me Joe he has been here or Dr Joe A lot of people call me Dr Joe, isn't that interesting? He has been here a couple of weeks helping us on some really big projects. We love him. We love his wife Adele. We have other people in South Africa we love them as well who work with us, people around America who work with us, but really we're all here for you, all of us. So thank you for watching Relationship Radio.
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