Why so often is it that the victim of shameful behaviour ends up also sharing the shame? For example, a man cheats on his wife, and she now feels the shame of being cheated on, and also added guilt if she leaves and ‘breaks up the family’? She didn’t do this, he did. Or a woman is assaulted by a man and feels ashamed, again, through zero fault of her own. Why do we do this to ourselves, and to others in terms of society as a whole blaming victims? Why do we spread the shame onto the innocent party? Do we feel if the victim is also somehow responsible, we can avoid the same fate by avoiding her ‘mistakes’?