I'm curious as to what prevented you from learning it to a level that doesn't embarass you?

Time goes by quickly and suddenly it's been 10 years is a perfectly fine answer.

Swedes are excellent at speaking English (better than some British people from deprived areas).. and I work in international companies where English is the lingua franca...

My partner actively prevented it also, she was ethnically Russian (Estonian) and wanted me to learn Russian before Swedish.