The Deeper Love Podcast: For the Woman Healing After Betraying Someone She Loved

One of the hardest parts of the aftermath of an affair is feeling like you’re the only one doing the work. You’re reading the books. Listening to the podcasts. Going to therapy. Reflecting. Trying to understand yourself. Trying to repair what happened. And he might still be angry or shut down, overwhelmed or frozen. Or simply not ready to do that work with you yet. And yes, he is allowed to feel what he feels, but that does not mean you have to stop having needs too. In this episode, I’m talking about what happens when you feel like you’re carrying the healing of the relationship on your own, and the resentment, guilt and exhaustion that can start to build underneath that. We talk about: Why this dynamic can happen after an affair Why doing all the emotional work alone can leave you exhausted and resentful How to ask for what you need without blaming him or immediately collapsing into guilt When couples therapy or coaching can help, and what to do if your partner isn’t ready Why his pain does not mean you have to abandon yourself again How to begin recognising the old patterns that can keep you silent, easy-going and carrying everything This is not about forcing your partner to heal on your timeline, and it is not about avoiding responsibility for the pain your affair caused. It is about recognising that repair cannot mean disappearing inside your guilt and deciding you no longer get to have needs, wants, feelings or a voice. You are allowed to want support. You are allowed to want honest conversations. And you are allowed to want a relationship where both of you are willing to look at what needs to change. If you’ve been asking yourself: “Why does this feel so heavy?” “Am I asking for too much?” “Why am I starting to feel resentful when I’m the one who caused this?” “What happens if I keep carrying all of this alone?” This episode is for you. Want to understand what’s underneath all of this? If listening to this makes you realise there are still things beneath your affair that you don’t fully understand, that’s exactly what we’re going to begin exploring inside Why You Cheated. A 3-day online experience to help you make more sense of how you got here, ease some of the shame and guilt, and begin trusting yourself again. 21st, 22nd & 23rd September 5pm BST · 90 minutes each day £37 + VAT 🔗 [Learn more about Why You Cheated] Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com

🌻This episode is taken from The Sanctuary - a private online community for women who’ve had an affair. Find out more and join today at https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary  — This is one of the most common experiences I see with women who've had affairs, and almost no one talks about it.You felt more alive in your body with your affair partner than you ever did with your husband.More present, more awake, more you. And now you're trying to make sense of what that means and whether you'll ever feel that again.In this episode I go there. Fully. We're talking about sex, self-pleasure, the body, and what was actually happening inside your nervous system during the affair, because understanding that changes everything.In this conversation we explore: why the aliveness you felt with your affair partner was real (but it wasn't about him) what novelty, danger and aliveness reveal about what was actually happening in your body why the good girl never got to have a body, and how that connects to everything how early shame shuts down our sexual and creative energy my own experience of realising, after my marriage ended, how completely I had been in my head during sex what I did to begin learning my own body, and why it had to start with me, alonethe difference between involuntary embodiment (the affair) and voluntary embodiment (the work) how to begin returning to the aliveness that belongs to you — without the chaos, without the secrecy, without the risk The aliveness you felt is not gone, it's just buried.This episode is the beginning of finding your way back to it. — Ready to go Deeper? If this resonated, and you’re ready to be supported in the real healing, the kind that shifts you at a soul + nervous system level, you’re so welcome inside The Sanctuary. It’s where we soften the survival strategies, and make space for a new kind of love to land.🔗 Learn more about The Sanctuary at https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com

🌻This episode is taken from The Sanctuary - a private online community for women who’ve had an affair. Find out more and join today at https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary  . The part of you that feels like the worst person alive - the part that's been waiting for someone to confirm that yes, you deserve every moment of this - that's who this episode is for. In this episode, Alex goes directly at one of the most urgent questions in the aftermath of an affair: whether suffering is the price you have to pay to become a good person again.  She talks about the difference between real accountability and self-punishment, why punishment keeps you stuck rather than changed, and what it actually means to meet the part of you that acted out - not condemn her. Listen to this when: You're caught in a loop of shame and can't see a way out of it You feel like you have to keep suffering to prove you're sorry You're doing everything "right" on the outside and still feel like you don't deserve to be okay Someone is punishing you and part of you thinks you have it coming This is not reassurance, but is is an invitation to stop using shame as a substitute for the real work. . Ready to go deeper? If this resonated, and you’re ready to be supported in the real healing, the kind that shifts you at a soul + nervous system level, you’re so welcome inside The Sanctuary. It’s where we soften the survival strategies, and make space for a new kind of love to land.🔗 Learn more about The Sanctuary at ⁠https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary⁠ Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com

🌻This episode is shared from The Sanctuary - a private online community for women who’ve had an affair. Find out more and join today at https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary  — It's the question that keeps so many women awake at night. Stay or go. Rebuild or walk away. And the more you turn it over in your mind, the more impossible it feels to answer. This week's question is one I suspect many of you are carrying right now — and the honest truth is, I can't tell you what to do. But what I can tell you is why the answer isn't coming yet, and what actually needs to happen before it can. In this conversation we explore: why your mind cannot find the answer you're looking for, no mattter how hard it works what it really means when you say you can't trust anyone anymore why staying or leaving without doing this work first will lead you to the same place how years of self-abandonment disconnect you from the part of you that already knows why the panic you're feeling is a nervous system response, not a life sentence how to begin coming back into your body so that truth can find you what it means to make a decision from ground rather than from fear This episode is not about choosing a direction. It's about finding the ground to stand on before you do. If you are spinning in your head right now, searching for the answer outside of yourself - this one is for you. . Ready to go deeper? If this resonated, and you’re ready to be supported in the real healing, the kind that shifts you at a soul + nervous system level, you’re so welcome inside The Sanctuary. It’s where we soften the survival strategies, and make space for a new kind of love to land. 🔗 Learn more about The Sanctuary at https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com

Nobody tells you how to have the conversations that come after an affair. The reveal is the biggest, followed by the questions that come after and the conversations that go round and round in circles and leave you both completely destroyed. The ones where you give every single detail, because you think that's what accountability looks like. In this episode, I'm joined by Eve Stanway - psychotherapist, divorce coach, bestselling author, and one of the leading experts in difficult conversations. Eve has worked with couples, with men, with families - all navigating some of the hardest moments a relationship can go through. And she brings something to this conversation that I think is genuinely rare: real compassion for both people in the room, and a practical framework for how to actually navigate these conversations without destroying yourself or each other in the process. We talk about what people get most wrong when they walk into the reveal conversation. Why the impulse to confess everything - to answer every question, share every detail - actually re-traumatises both people rather than helping. Why your needs and your partner's needs are in complete misalignment in those early conversations, and what to do about that. And Eve shares her five-step framework for structuring a difficult conversation - something I genuinely wish I'd had access to when I was in the middle of it. We also get into the idea that affairs don't happen in relationships where there is healthy conflict, emotional intimacy, and both people are having their needs met. That the affair isn't the beginning of the problem. And that the invitation of all of this pain, if you're willing to accept it, is to finally start having the conversations that should have been happening all along. This one is practical, honest, and full of things nobody else is saying out loud. I think you're going to want to listen to it more than once. What people get most wrong when they walk into the reveal conversation Why the impulse to confess everything re-traumatises both people, and what to do instead Why your needs and your partner's needs are completely misaligned in those early conversations Eve's five-step framework for structuring a difficult conversation, and how to use it even if you've already had the reveal Why you don't have to answer every question there and then, and how to say that with care Why affairs don't happen in deeply connected relationships, and what that means for both of you The grief cycle and why both the person who cheated and the person who was cheated on are going through it Why morality and affairs are not as connected as the world would have you believe Website: evestanway.co.uk Podcast: Dare to Speak: Difficult Conversations that Change Everything All socials: @evestanway The Aftermath Survival Guide (free) — your first step if you're right in the middle of it: [link] The Sanctuary — my private monthly community for women in the aftermath: alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary The Healed Heart™ — my six-month group programme for women ready to go to the root: [link] 1:1 Coaching — fully personalised six-month work with me: click here to book a call https://www.alexcroxford.com/1-to-1-coaching