On Wednesdays couples counselling, my husband shared about his self-harm. I wasn’t aware of his bulimia until a few years ago, although that is the oldest of his self-harming activities. The one I first became aware of was him burning himself with cigarettes.

He’d had the original scars of burns done years before I met him. There were no fresh ones at the time.

He went through a major crisis, which caused him to start drinking. When I met him he was in alcoholic recovery, so this was a big thing.

Some time later, he started burning himself with cigarettes again.

I didn’t understand this at all and was greatly disturbed by it.

I’m afraid that I tried a number of things to get him to stop doing this, from crying to telling him that the smell of burning flesh was disgusting.

That was shaming him. Again.

I simply did not get that his self-harming was already about shame and self-disgust.

Many years later, when I told my husband about my dysphoria, he said, “You could have shared your body shame with me—that would have helped me!”

However, it wasn’t until over a year later in couples counselling that the penny truly dropped. The counsellor was visibly moved by what my husband was sharing and I could feel her feelings.

I had been around his illness for such a long time that I think I have become immune to their impact. That’s a horrible realisation.

The moment I realised that banding my balls was just another form of self-harm, I saw how much more love and support I could have given my husband if I’d recognised that sooner.

He has often said that I don’t give very much of myself, and this was one way I could have done just that and bridged the gap between us – if I’d been able to see that what he was doing and what I was doing was the same.

What do I take from this?

I am concerned that I am immune to his pain and that I cannot empathise with him.

I understand a little more about “giving of myself”.

I understand a little more why my husband felt so alone in our marriage.

And I feel shame for how I tried to use shame to change a behaviour that was itself rooted in shame.