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

Episoder

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  S2#062 - I Feel Numb With My Husband. Does That Mean My Marriage Is Over? with Lucy Maeve 13.10.2026 42min

  This week, I chat with therapeutic mentor and relational‑anxiety expert Lucy Maeve for a conversation that will land deeply for anyone who has ever felt confused, numb, avoidant, or full of doubt inside their relationship… especially in the aftermath of an affair. Together, we explore the often‑misunderstood world of relational anxiety and relational doubt: why it shows up, how it disguises itself, and why it becomes so painfully loud in safe, stable relationships. Lucy shares her own story of believing she was anxiously attached, only to discover that beneath the chase, the cortisol, and the addiction to unavailability lived a profound fear of being seen. She and Alex unpack how avoidance, numbness, disgust, “the ick,” and obsessive doubt often have very little to do with a partner’s shoes, job, laugh, or personality, and everything to do with old wounds low self‑worth, and the fear of true intimacy. This episode is a compassionate, eye‑opening guide for anyone who has felt alive in an affair but flat in their marriage, who has questioned whether numbness means the relationship is over, or who has struggled to understand why stability feels suffocating while fantasy feels electric. Alex and Lucy illuminate the deeper truth: wherever you go, there you are — and the work is learning to meet yourself, not just change partners. . We talk about: What relational anxiety really is, and why it’s so misunderstood The link between avoidance, numbness, “the ick,” and fear of being seen Why fantasy feels safe and primary relationships feel terrifying The role of self‑worth, achievement, and external validation in relational doubt How to begin working with relational anxiety through the body, not the mind If you’ve ever wondered whether your doubt is intuition or fear, or whether your numbness is truth or protection, then this episode will help you see yourself more clearly. . Connect with Lucy: Website - https://www.lucymaeve.com/  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lucy__maeve/  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-maeve/  . Ready to go deeper with your healing? If you can understand so much about why you cheated but still find yourself wondering how the hell do I actually move forward from here?, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart™. The Healed Heart™ is my six-month intimate group programme for women healing after their own affair. Six months gives us the time to work with what actually comes up in your life while we’re together. The guilt and shame that can still hit you out of nowhere. The old patterns you understand but still find yourself falling into. Your relationships, your boundaries, your needs, the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way, and what it looks like to begin trusting yourself again. Because I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking backwards at the woman who cheated. The goal isn’t to get you back to the woman you were before the affair. It’s to help you become a woman who doesn’t abandon herself in the same ways anymore. That’s how self-trust gets rebuilt. The next round of The Healed Heart™ begins Tuesday 13th October. ❤️‍🩹 Find out more about The Healed Heart™:https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-healed-heart If you read through the page and think this might be what I need, you can book a Discovery Call with me from there and we’ll talk about where you are, what you need support with and whether The Healed Heart™ feels like the right next step for you. Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com
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  S2#061 - You Understand Why You Cheated. So Why Do You Still Feel So Much Shame? 06.10.2026 26min

  When I was married to my ex-husband, I never knew how little I felt. I mean real emotions - the kind that make you burst into tears or throw something in anger, or laugh uncontrollably. When did you last do that? Because learning how to feel all the things can be such an important part of moving beyond shame, and really processing the why, the how, and the what next of your affair. So today I share the real story behind how I went from hiding my affair to speaking about it publicly - on social media, in newspapers, on radio, and in rooms full of women. Spoiler alert: I learnt how to feel. In this episode I talk about why understanding your patterns and having all the insight in the world doesn’t necessarily mean the shame disappears. Healing requires you to learn to sit with the guilt, shame, fear, grief, anger, and sadness without numbing, avoiding, over-analysing, or running. . We talk about: Why insight alone can’t heal shame, and why learning to feel matters too The role of numbing, avoidance, and emotional disconnection after an affair Learning to feel guilt, fear, sadness, and shame without immediately trying to make them go away Accepting the parts of yourself you might not particularly like How learning to feel helped me find the courage to tell the truth publicly Consider this episode your invitation to stop just talking about your feelings and actually start experiencing them. To stop rejecting the parts of yourself you don’t like, and start getting curious about them. To stop punishing yourself for what happened and begin accepting that all of these parts belong to you too. This is about looking back in order to move forward, and if you need permission to do this, then this episode is for you. . Ready to go deeper with your healing? If you can understand so much about why you cheated but still find yourself wondering how the hell do I actually move forward from here?, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart™. The Healed Heart™ is my six-month intimate group programme for women healing after their own affair. Six months gives us the time to work with what actually comes up in your life while we’re together. The guilt and shame that can still hit you out of nowhere. The old patterns you understand but still find yourself falling into. Your relationships, your boundaries, your needs, the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way, and what it looks like to begin trusting yourself again. Because I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking backwards at the woman who cheated. The goal isn’t to get you back to the woman you were before the affair. It’s to help you become a woman who doesn’t abandon herself in the same ways anymore. That’s how self-trust gets rebuilt. The next round of The Healed Heart™ begins Tuesday 13th October. ❤️‍🩹 Find out more about The Healed Heart™:https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-healed-heart If you read through the page and think this might be what I need, you can book a Discovery Call with me from there and we’ll talk about where you are, what you need support with and whether The Healed Heart™ feels like the right next step for you. Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com
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  S2#060 - What Does Healing After Your Affair Actually Look Like? 29.09.2026 33min

  What does healing really look like after an affair? Not the fantasy of “being fully healed”, not the obsession with timelines, and not the pressure to return to who you were before everything blew apart, but the reality we don’t talk about enough. In this episode, I’m looking at some of the ideas we have about what healing is supposed to look like after you’ve been the one who cheated. Maybe you think being healed means you’ll eventually stop feeling guilty about what you did, forget your affair partner, know exactly what you want from your marriage, trust yourself completely, or somehow get back to the woman you were before all of this happened. I don’t think healing works like that. For me, healing is much more about who you’re becoming and what happens when real life happens. Because suffering isn’t proof that you’re taking responsibility. Shame can’t transform you. And you can have an incredibly intellectual understanding of your patterns and still find yourself repeating them when you’re triggered, scared, lonely or disconnected from yourself. Healing happens in those moments. It’s noticing yourself starting to disappear in a relationship and doing something differently. It’s feeling guilt without immediately deciding that its presence means you’re a terrible person. It’s recognising when an old pattern is showing up before you’re six months down the road wondering how the hell you got there again. It’s slowly beginning to trust yourself because you’re actually learning how to stay connected to yourself. I also talk about something I think is REALLY important after an affair: what happens to the parts of you that came alive within it. Maybe you felt more sexual. More playful. More desired. More free. More alive. Those parts of you didn’t belong to your affair partner. They belong to YOU. Part of this work can be learning how to bring those parts of yourself home, without needing the affair, the secrecy or another person to access them. So if you’re wondering how you’ll know when you’re actually healing, this episode is for you. . We talk about: Why “being fully healed” is a myth and what healing can actually look like The difference between guilt, shame and taking responsibility Why understanding your patterns doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to change them What happens to the parts of you that came alive during the affair Rebuilding self-trust through the small choices you make in everyday life If you’ve spent years being responsible, capable, accommodating, easygoing or the woman who keeps everything together, while slowly losing touch with your own needs and wants along the way, I think there’ll be a lot in this episode for you. Ready to go deeper with your healing? If you can understand so much about why you cheated but still find yourself wondering how the hell do I actually move forward from here?, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart™. The Healed Heart is my six-month intimate group programme for women healing after their own affair. Six months gives us the time to work with what actually comes up in your life while we’re together. The guilt and shame that can still hit you out of nowhere. The old patterns you understand but still find yourself falling into. Your relationships, your boundaries, your needs, the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way, and what it looks like to begin trusting yourself again. Because I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking backwards at the woman who cheated. The goal isn’t to get you back to the woman you were before the affair. It’s to help you become a woman who doesn’t abandon herself in the same ways anymore. That’s how self-trust gets rebuilt. The next round of The Healed Heart™ begins Tuesday 13th October. ❤️‍🩹 Find out more about The Healed Heart™: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart If you read through the page and think this might be what I need, you can book a Discovery Call with me from there and we’ll talk about where you are, what you need support with and whether The Healed Heart feels like the right next step for you. Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com
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  S2#059 - I Know Why I Cheated. So Why Don’t I Know What I Want 22.09.2026 26min

  This episode speaks directly to the woman who can explain her affair with absolute clarity - the patterns, the wounds, the childhood conditioning, the emotional disconnection - yet still feels paralysed when asked the simplest, most confronting question: What do you actually want now? I unpack the profound difference between understanding the past and being able to choose your future, and why so many women like you are stuck in painful indecision, even after months of therapy, analysis, and self‑reflection. A lifetime of people‑pleasing, conflict avoidance, responsibility, perfectionism, and hyper‑attunement to everyone else’s needs can leave you fluent in self‑analysis but unable to hear their own voice. When your entire identity has been built around keeping the peace, being the good wife, the sensible one, the achiever, the caretaker - desire becomes foreign territory. And when guilt enters the room, it becomes almost impossible to believe you deserve to choose at all. This episode is a grounded, compassionate guide for navigating the chaos of grief, shame, longing, fantasy, fear, attachment, and pressure — without forcing a premature decision. Alex shows how clarity emerges not from intellectual analysis, but from rebuilding self‑trust in the smallest moments: noticing resentment, telling the truth, saying no, honouring your energy, and listening to the parts of you that have been silent for decades. We talk about: Why understanding your patterns doesn’t automatically reveal what you want The paralysis of indecision after an affair — and why it’s so common Guilt, shame, fantasy, attachment, and the pressure to “choose correctly” Rebuilding self‑trust through small, everyday acts of honesty How to begin hearing your own voice after a lifetime of pleasing others So if you’ve ever felt stuck between staying, leaving, repairing, or letting go, this episode will help you stop searching for the “perfect answer” and start reconnecting with the woman who has to make it. . 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 Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com
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  S2#058 - How Did I Become the Woman Who Cheated? 15.09.2026 25min

  This episode is a deep, unflinching exploration of the question almost every woman asks herself after an affair: how the hell did I become this woman? I break open the identity rupture that happens when the “good girl,” the responsible one, the achiever, the caretaker, the one who holds everything together… becomes the woman who crossed a line she never imagined she would. This is about so much more than cheating; I’m talking about the psychological, emotional, and relational blind spots that shape who we become long before your affair ever happens. So let’s cancel the myth that infidelity appears out of nowhere, and instead explore the hidden patterns - perfectionism, overgiving, hyper‑independence, conflict avoidance, disappearing, rebellion - that evolve from self-protection to self-imprisonment, and eventually manifest as cheating. This episode is your invitation to stop asking “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking the real questions: what had I stopped feeling? What had I buried? What had I been performing? What part of me finally found oxygen? Because your affair wasn’t the beginning - it was the moment something long‑buried finally came to the surface. We talk about: The identity rupture of becoming “the woman who cheated” Blind‑spot behaviours: perfectionism, overgiving, hyper‑independence, conflict avoidance How childhood conditioning shapes adult relational patterns Why the affair felt like aliveness - and what that actually reveals The real accountability: understanding the patterns that existed long before the affair So if you’ve ever felt confused, ashamed, or shattered by your own choices, this episode will help you understand the woman you were, meet the woman underneath her, and begin becoming the woman you’re meant to be. . 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 Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com
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  S2#057 - What a Betrayed Wife Taught Me About Shame, Accountability & Healing After an Affair, with Amity Rose 08.09.2026 1t 8min

  Betrayal, alcoholism, shame, self-destruction, and the breakdown of a marriage. My guest this week is Amity Rose, and she’s been through all of the above, and via a lot of personal reflection, taught herself how to face her husband’s infidelity with clarity, compassion, and power. In our brutally honest conversation we dismantle the cultural narrative that treats cheating as an unforgivable crime, and instead reveal the deeper truth that none of us like to admit - cheating is a reflection on everyone. Yeah, even you. Amity shares the moment that shattered her, the years of healing that followed, and how her husband’s betrayal became his own catalyst for transformation. This is a masterclass in finding the courage required to rebuild your life. We talk about: Infidelity as a symptom of deeper wounds, not the root problem Amity’s story of addiction, shame, awakening, and long‑term sobriety How childhood conditioning shapes adult relationships and coping patterns Rebuilding a marriage through individual transformation, not quick fixes The “divine invitation” inside devastation: choosing awakening over victimhood So if you’ve ever faced betrayal, felt broken by your own choices, or wondered how to rebuild trust in yourself or another, 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 Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com
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  S2#056 - When You’re Doing the Healing… and He Isn’t 01.09.2026 16min

  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
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  S2#055 - Why Sex With My Affair Partner Got Me Out of My Head, And What It's Actually Telling You 25.08.2026 23min

  🌻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
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  S2#054 - Am I damned for eternity & have to suffer for the rest of my life for what I’ve done? 18.08.2026 14min

  🌻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
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  S2#053 - Should I stay & rebuild with my husband or leave and start again without him? 11.08.2026 14min

  🌻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
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  S2#052 - How To Have The Difficult Conversations After An Affair (with Eve Stanway) 04.08.2026 55min

  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
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  S2#051 – 6 Things I Believe About Affairs That No One Else Is Saying 28.07.2026 20min
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  S2#050 – How To Forgive Yourself For Cheating (And Why That's Not Actually What You Need) 21.07.2026 24min
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  S2#049 – "Once A Cheat, Always A Cheat" Actually True? 14.07.2026 22min
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  S2#048 – The Year We Tried To Save Our Marriage After My Affair 07.07.2026 31min
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  S2#047 – How My Spiritual Awakening Helped Me Heal The Shame Of My Affair 30.06.2026 29min
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  S2#046 – The Affair Wasn't the First Sign Something Was Wrong 23.06.2026 31min
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  S2#045 – What Nobody Told Me About The Year After The Affair 16.06.2026 22min
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  S2#044 – After My Affair, I Thought The World Was Better Without Me. This Is How I Found My Way Back. 09.06.2026 24min
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  S2#043 – The Secret That's Eating You Alive 02.06.2026 21min