[Grammar] ... the mud-spattered chagrin of the bystanders in our life.

[zysr202]

"So much energy goes into pretending to ourselves and others that we are not stuck in the mud that we spin our wheels furiously, to the mud-spattered chagrin of the bystanders in our life."

Book [EPUB]：Learning to love yourself
Author： Gay Hendricks

Hello,everyone , I'm a learner of English. I'm confused about this sentence above.

Please help me, What is the relationship between the red part and the rest?

 

[Rover_KE]

Welcome to the forum, zysr.

Please tell us the source and author of any text you quote. In what context did you read this sentence?

Please note that I have changed your thread title.

Extract from the Posting Guidelines:

'Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed.'

 

[zysr202]

Sorry, this is my first post. I edited it as you said, Is that right now?

 

[Tdol]

We pretend so much that we are not stuck in life that we spray other people with the dirt thrown up by our failure to move- our lack of progress affects other people and annoys them, while we pretend that we're doing fine.

 

[SoothingDave]

I would expect "splattered" rather than "spattered."

And I don't think "chagrin" is the right word. If your actions are getting other people all dirty, they are not likely to be chagrined.

 

[Tdol]

Both spattered and splattered work in BrE.