Ep 34 - Is It Guilt or Grief? What Happens When Someone You Love Is Disappointed

Two weeks before a dream trip to Italy, I made one of the hardest decisions I've made in a long time: I asked my husband not to come.

What followed wasn't relief. It was guilt. Or at least I thought it was guilt.

In this deeply personal episode of Midlife Audacity, I share the story behind that decision, the emotional weight that followed, and the surprising realization that changed everything:

Sometimes we're not carrying guilt at all. Sometimes we're carrying grief.

Together, we'll explore:

✨ Why feeling guilty doesn't automatically mean you've done something wrong

✨ Brené Brown's distinction between guilt and shame

✨ How caring people often confuse someone else's disappointment with evidence that they've made a bad decision

✨ The emotional maturity required to let people be different than we wish they were

✨ Why grief and guilt can feel surprisingly similar

✨ The powerful question: What fantasy am I still holding onto that reality is asking me to release?

If you've ever set a boundary, chosen yourself, changed directions, disappointed someone you love, or questioned a decision that felt right but uncomfortable, this episode is for you.

Because sometimes the hardest part isn't making the decision. It's grieving the version of the story you hoped would happen. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today, I want to talk about something that's been sitting heavily on my heart. You know, sometimes life hands us lessons we'd rather not learn. And I've been in the middle of one of those lessons recently, and I thought, what better way to work it all out than alongside all of you. So, um, I've been in the middle. It's been a lesson of guilt, a lesson about responsibility, a lesson about the stories we tell ourselves when someone else's pain collides with our own heart. And it all started because in two weeks I'm leaving for Italy without my husband. And yes, I asked him not to come. And I've also been feeling a tremendous amount of guilt. So let's talk about it. Welcome to Midlife Audacity. I'm your host, Celeste Dona, teacher, writer, speaker, and guide for women who are ready to rise into their next chapter boldly, soulfully, and unapologetically. Alright, guys, so to understand why this has been weighing on me so heavily, I need to give you some backstory. My husband and I have dated since we were 17 years old, and the end of this month will be our 24th wedding anniversary. So, in total, we have been together for 37 years. That's a long time. And like all relationships, you go through seasons that feel easy and you go through seasons that feel difficult. And since Steve and I met so young, there were a lot of red flags probably early on that neither one of us were mature enough to really dive into and understand. But when you get married and then start having kids, and you work and life kind of comes at you, um, you can start to feel very unhappy and alone and not comfortable with the way things are in your marriage. And that was happening for Steve and I probably about 10 years ago. And so we started to do the work. Uh, it started out together, which for us was really not very beneficial. I'm sure it works well for some couples, but it did not work very well for us. What really worked for us was when we decided to take really radical responsibility and do the work separately. So we spent at least five years each really healing some of the parts of ourselves, as Pink would say, that weren't all that pretty. And it wasn't easy for either of us. There were a lot of difficult moments as we worked on ourselves. There were painful conversations, there were moments of growth, but there were definitely a lot of moments of resistance. And we really had to step back and look at ourselves, honestly. And that takes a lot of bravery to do. And thankfully, that work really did repair a lot of the issues that we had in our marriage. Definitely did not happen overnight, and it was definitely not a smooth road, but with that work came an enormous amount of awareness. And because we both became aware of who we were, because remember, we had met so young that we really didn't have an opportunity to develop our own sense of self. So the time that we spent working on ourselves were not only things that we needed to heal, but also I think it was a time for us to each kind of step into who we are, our own identity, and then to kind of come together as a partnership. And we learned to definitely be more respectful of each other, to be more compassionate, and to understand each other as people, right? Not just as teens, but now as actual adults. And that was a really good thing for us to do. So that brings me to travel. Always have. Growing up, my parents were both teachers and they used to plan trips for us every summer. It wasn't necessarily extravagant vacations to the Caribbean or to these exotic places. Um, but they were definitely special and they were absolutely treasured by myself and my two siblings. Um, you know, sometimes it was a trip down the East Coast, which we ended up doing repetitively, uh, because we ended up getting a condo down in South Carolina. Sometimes it was a trip up the California coast. Sometimes it was renting a motor home, exploring places we had never seen before, always stopping and making it somehow unique or different in some way. And those trips became a part of me. Um, travel came to mean adventure, freedom, possibility, curiosity, expansion, and connection. It was definitely a bonding experience with our family. And it's one of the things that really makes me feel most alive. But Steve didn't grow up with that same experience. For him, travel often meant stress. Arguments, pressure, frustration. And here's something that I've learned that I think applies far beyond vacations. The brain is a meaning-making machine. We experience something and then we assign meaning to it. The meaning becomes the story. And the more times we tell ourselves that story, it becomes embedded as a belief, a belief that we have. So in this case, a belief about traveling. And if we're not paying attention, we start treating that story as if it's the truth. So in this case, Steve and I were very different in the meaning that we assigned to travel. Like I said, when I travel, I feel free. I feel excited, I feel curious. I know things will go wrong. I mean, that's reality. I know flights are gonna get delayed. I know that weather is not going to be always what I had hoped. I know that we will attend restaurants that will probably disappoint, right? Plans are gonna shift. But to me, that's part of the adventure. And I accept that that kind of comes with the territory. It's not that I love those things, but I've learned to accept that that's just part of what traveling is. Steve's experiences of those same things are very different. What he feels is stress. I feel excitement. He feels that this is not necessary. Like, why do that if it's going to be that way? I'm the person on vacation that's like, yes, let's go, let's do this. And he's often the one holding back, saying, Is it necessary? Let's go tomorrow. Why rush it? We'll see. No, that's so expensive. So you can see that there's like some differences here, right? For years, I think, well, I know, I tried to make travel mean to Steve what it means to me. I wanted him to experience the freedom and the adventure and the excitement and the possibility. I wanted him to love it the way that I love it. But you can't make someone love something just because you love it. You can't rewrite another person's story. Only they can do that. And unless they choose to, the pattern will remain. Which brings me to Italy. This trip has been on my vision board for years. I actually studied in Rome, my junior year of college, and I've only been back one other time, and that was to visit my brother, who also studied abroad in college. And I haven't been back since. So for me, this is a trip of a lifetime to be able to take my children to the very place that I hold so dear in my heart. It's been a dream. And as I started planning it, I found myself facing a really uncomfortable truth. I didn't think Steve should come. Not because I don't love him, not because we're having problems, not because I wanted to exclude him, but because I know exactly what this trip will require. Long days, crowds, lots of walking, lots of flexibility. I mean, after all, we are in a new country with a different language, a different currency, things can easily change. And you need a lot of patience for this kind of a trip. And you have to be willing to surrender to unexpected changes. Knowing all this, because like I said, I'm a traveler and I have traveled all through Europe. Knowing all of this, I really felt in my heart that this was not something that was going to bring him joy and ultimately may impact everyone else's experience. So I hinted, I tried to paint a picture of what it was gonna be like, I described what the trip was going to involve, really in hopes that he would realize, yeah, this is not something that I really want to do or can do. I don't think I should go. But he did not make that decision. He was still trying to figure it out, but all along, I could tell that he wasn't really excited about the planning, he was already starting to cut back the days, he was already wondering about the dogs and the money and the time off, etc. etc. So eventually I had to make the decision for him. And truthfully, the decision felt awful. I asked him to stay home. And now here I am, two weeks away from Italy, feeling guilty as hell. So as I've been sitting with all of this, one question keeps coming back up. And it's that I don't think that I made the wrong decision. But why do I feel so bad? Right? And maybe you've been in a similar situation, right? You may have also been in a place where you've set a boundary, but you feel really guilty about it. You've left a job and you feel really guilty. You've said no and you feel guilty. You've choose chosen yourself and you feel guilty. You changed, and now you feel guilty. You stopped rescuing someone, and there it is, you feel guilty. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has felt that. And I have a feeling that as I share this episode, this conversation is going to evolve into something a lot more than just Italy. Italy is just the situation that I'm in right now. But really, there's a much deeper lesson here. You know, feeling guilty is not proof that you've done something wrong. In fact, sometimes guilt shows up when we're actually doing something right. It's just unfamiliar. Sometimes guilt appears when we're growing, when we're changing, when we're no longer willing to abandon ourselves to keep everyone else comfortable. And that's a really big realization that has been the one thing on my mind. Like that's what I'm really realizing right now. I began to see something that I really hadn't noticed before. I realized I was confusing Steve's disappointment, because yes, he certainly feels disappointed that he's not coming with us on this trip. Even though I know deep down he probably feels a lot of relief, he is disappointed. And I've been confusing his disappointment with evidence that says, I made a bad decision. And I think this is common for people who are caring people, people who are compassionate, right? Someone's hurt, someone's disappointed, someone doesn't like our choice, and we immediately assume we must have done something wrong. But what if that's not true? What if someone else's disappointment is simply information? What if it's not evidence? What if it's not proof? What if it's simply part of being in relationship with other human beings who have their own desires, expectations, hopes, and stories? Because the more I've reflected on this, and believe me, I have done a lot of reflecting, the more I realize something else. For years, I've tried to make travel mean to Steve what it means to me. I wanted him to experience all the fun that I know to be true about travel. I wanted him to love it the way that I love it. But love isn't convincing someone to share your meaning. Love is allowing them to have their own. That's marriage. Actually, that's parenting. That's real friendship. That's actually leadership. The emotional maturity to allow someone to see the world differently than you do. The emotional maturity to stop trying to convince, fix, change, or convert, to simply say, this is what it means to me, and this is what it means to you, and both are allowed. Now, I'll tell you, Steve and I, when we first met at the young age of 17, we did not have that emotional maturity. So we grew together in our marriage, kind of like in that constant battle of trying to convince each other and fix and change each other. And I think that that was really the power and the testament to the work that we did on ourselves that we have been able to step into emotional maturity, even if it took us a long time, it's so significant, it's so significant, and now what we're able to show our children as a result of that work is pretty damn powerful. I'll say that. So as I've gone deeper into this and really have been reflecting a lot on this entire situation, I've also realized something else. The hardest part actually wasn't the decision to ask him not to come. That really wasn't it. The hardest part has been what the decision made me think about myself. And this is really important because underneath the guilt was fear. What if this makes me a bad wife? We've worked so hard. Will this bring us backward? What if this makes me selfish? What if this isn't what a loving partner would do? And suddenly I wasn't evaluating the decision anymore. This is what I've been doing. I've been evaluating myself. And I think many of us do this. I mean, think about it. We build these. Identity identities around being good, right? Quote unquote good. The good wife, the good mother, the good friend, the good daughter, the good person. So when someone is unhappy with us, we don't question the decision. I certainly didn't question the decision. What I ended up doing and why this has been such a hard couple of weeks, months maybe, is I questioned my worth. I stopped asking, did I handle this well? And I started asking, what does this say about me? Mmm. Right? A slippery slope. That's when guilt turns into shame. And I remember reading about that in Brene Brown's book. I think it was in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, where she differentiates between guilt and shame. And she explains that guilt is when you do something wrong, right? And then you feel bad about it. But shame is more like I am bad. I didn't do something bad, I am bad. One focuses on the behavior, the other attacks identity. And that's a big distinction. Because when you think about it, guilt can inspire growth, right? Like if you did something bad and then you feel guilty, you can actually change behavior and then do something that rectifies that behavior, that changes that behavior. But shame doesn't inspire growth at all. Shame creates hiding, silence, self-punishment, disconnection from your true self. It creates self-abandoning. And I noticed that that was starting to happen. And I always say, I'm so thankful that I have done a lot of the work. And if we're not aware, they can very quickly take us down a really deep dark path. Because this is the stuff that I get clarity on. This is the stuff that helps me to discern the difference between guilt and shame and what's really happening here. And then I'm able to choose differently, speak differently about the situation, and then move forward with more clarity. So, you know, through this entire process of dealing with this, you know, and there was crying and I was praying, and I was really trying to work through all of the understanding of why I felt so heavy. And that's when I really realized that, you know, it wasn't, it's not just guilt. When I when I first was thinking about this, I really thought that it was I felt guilty for asking my husband not to come. And then I realized that I was really starting to shame myself around it. And now that I'm moving past some of that and really like understanding, I also realized that in addition, that there was grief. Now I didn't expect that to come up, but that's what has come up. That's that's what's surfacing, and that's also something that is really interesting when you sit in silence and really detach from the mind and become an observer of the mind because so many things actually download for you. And so what was what was coming up also was grief and not grief like I'm sad about the decision I made, but grief about a fantasy that I had, right? A fantasy that when I had this trip on my vision board all those years ago, and I dreamed of going to Italy and taking my family there and showing them all the things that I have experienced, um, that we were doing it as a family of five, that Steve was with us on the trip, that he was wandering through the Italian cities together with us, right? And so I realized that part of understanding who he is and who I am, and that he doesn't have to like the same things that I like. I was grieving a loss, you know, a loss that we're different. And that's okay, you know, it's an emotional cost of allowing people to be different, and that was really big for me. Like finally stopping this cycle of trying to make Steve love travel the way that I love travel and just accepting the reality, right? And to be honest with you, I made the decision in the first place from that reality. But what I realized is that I'm really grieving what I wanted, which is not what is, and maybe that's one of the deepest acts of love is accepting reality, right? Not trying to fix it, not trying to manipulate it, not wishing it away, but really accepting it. And I can be excited for Italy and sad that he's not coming. I can love him deeply and know that this trip isn't for him. I can make the right decision and still grieve the version of the story that I hoped would have been. That's okay. And grief deserves compassion, right? It really does. Not criticism. So what I'm learning in all of this is that love and guilt are not the same thing. Feeling guilty doesn't prove I'm loving. It doesn't prove I made the wrong decision, it doesn't prove I'm a good wife, it doesn't prove I'm a bad wife. It simply proves that I care. And caring people often feel deeply when someone they love is disappointed. But disappointment and wrongdoing are not the same thing. And I realize that for much of my life I treated someone's disappointment as evidence that I made a mistake. As if their feelings were somehow proof. Proof that I should have chosen differently, proof that I should have sacrificed more, proof that I should have ignored what I knew to be true. And that's all self-abandoning behavior. But feelings aren't evidence, they are information, and sometimes the information is simply this. Someone wanted a different outcome that doesn't automatically make me wrong. And the deeper lesson for me here has been learning that two truths can exist at the same time. I can love Steve deeply and know this trip isn't for him. I can be excited about Italy and sad he's not coming. I can wish the story looked different and accept the reality of what is. I can feel grief without turning it into guilt. That's that's the mic drop. That's what I really want you guys to walk away knowing and understanding because that was a really, really big aha for me. I can feel grief without turning it into guilt. And even worse, shaming myself about it. And maybe that's what real maturity looks like. Not getting rid of the uncomfortable feelings, you guys, but learning to name them accurately. Because this whole time I was thinking that I was feeling guilty. But maybe it was just I was grieving. Because when we can name something accurately, we can finally respond to it appropriately. Guilt asks for accountability. Grief asks for compassion. And those are different things. So as I sit here today, two weeks before Italy, I feel a little sad. Not because I made the wrong decision, but because I'm human. Because there was a version of this story I hoped for, a version where Steve and I shared this dream exactly the same way. And that's not the story. The story is I love to travel. The story is that Steve experiences travel differently. The story is that we're two people who've spent years learning how to allow each other to be exactly who we are. And honestly, that's a beautiful story, too. And that's not one that I've imagined. And so maybe that's what acceptance looks like. Not loving every part of reality, not pretending we're okay when we're sad, not forcing ourselves to be grateful before we're ready. Maybe acceptance looks like allowing ourselves to grieve what isn't while still appreciating what is. So if you're carrying guilt today, I want you to leave with a few questions. Did you actually do something wrong? Or is it someone simply is disappointed? Are you carrying responsibility that belongs to someone else? Is it guilt or is it grief? And perhaps the most important question of all: what fantasy are you still holding on to that reality is asking you to release? Because that's the question that I was sitting with. And maybe it's the question you're sitting with too. So I'm gonna wrap up this episode. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. This was really, really healing for me to be able to talk all of this out. And I truthfully hope that it was able to help you in some way when these kinds of things come up in your life. So if this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a message on Instagram, share this episode with a friend, or simply take a few minutes today to sit with whatever emotions are asking for your attention. Until next time, keep choosing courage, curiosity, and your own audacious path forward. Bye bye.