The “Perfect” Couple and Infidelity: Why High-Achieving Relationships Break (And What to Do Next)

You did everything right.

You were the smart couple. The committed couple. The high-achieving, “we’ve got this” couple.

Date nights. Careers. Kids. Goals. You worked hard. You showed up. You performed well.

So how did infidelity happen to you?

If you’ve ever thought, “We were the perfect couple. This doesn’t make sense,” this episode will open your eyes in the most grounded, compassionate way.

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Rachel Dornianu of Sage Counseling & Wellness to unpack the hidden dynamics behind the “perfect couple” myth — and why high-achieving, Type A, perfectionistic relationships are often more vulnerable than they appear. We explore how perfectionism, people-pleasing, high sensitivity, emotional avoidance, and the Gottman “Four Horsemen” quietly erode intimacy over time — even in relationships that look beautiful on the outside. If you’re navigating infidelity, feeling blindsided, or wondering how something could fall apart when you both “did everything right,” this episode will help you understand what really happened — and what healing actually requires.

Top 3 Takeaways

Favorite Quote

“Perfection isn’t intimacy. Performance isn’t connection. And infidelity doesn’t create the cracks — it exposes the ones that were already there.”

Loving this show? Ready to go deeper?

If this episode hit close to home and you’re thinking, “This is exactly what happened in my relationship,” you don’t have to figure this out alone. Download your free Betrayal Recovery Toolkit at www.BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com and begin making sense of the chaos.

If you’re ready for personalized support — whether through Voxer coaching, private sessions, or deeper transformational work — visit www.LoraCheadle.com.

And if this conversation resonated, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear that perfection is not the goal — connection is.

Favorite Hash Tags

#PerfectCoupleMyth #InfidelityRecovery #BetrayalHealing #PerfectionismInMarriage #HighAchievingWomen #RelationshipAfterInfidelity #EmotionalIntimacy #MarriageAfterAffair #FlauntPodcast---

About Rachel Dorneanu

Rachel Dorneanu (she/her) is a licensed therapist, AASECT- certified sex therapist, and board-certified coach specializing in Anxiety, HSPs, People Pleasing, Perfectionism, and Sex Therapy, with a passion for helping people reconnect with their bodies, reduce shame, and find freedom in their wellness journey. She holds a Master's in Counseling and brings over 8 years of experience working with millennial women and moms.

Through her work as a therapist and coach, Rachel integrates evidence-based approaches with compassionate education to normalize topics often left in the dark—like pelvic pain, pleasure, and embodiment. She is known for her relatable, down-to-earth style and her ability to make complex or uncomfortable topics accessible and affirming.

Outside of her professional life, Rachel enjoys practicing yoga, spending time with her husband and 2 children, and traveling.

Learn more at: www.sagecounselingtherapyandwellness.com  or www.racheldorneanu.com

CBT Workbook for Perfectionism: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B91P55R?linkCode=ssc&tag=onamzrach0e83-20&creativeASIN=B07B91P55R&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.3HY29OX8D6BTK&ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ons_d_asin

LOVE THE SHOW? TAKE THE NEXT STEP

Don’t just listen—start healing.

Get your free downloadable guide on the “The Top Three Ways You Betray Yourself Every Day, and How to Stop” at www.burnoutorbetrayal.com. https://workplace-burnout.com/the-top-3-ways-you-betray-yourself-every-day-and-how-to-stop/

If you’re ready to Rise Up & Reign as the creator and queen of your life, let’s talk. I will walk by your side and give you the perspective, permission, and wisdom needed to turn your betrayal experience into something constructive, empowering, and transformative in all the right ways. 

Learn more at www.loracheadle.com and follow me across all social!

Download your Sparkle After Betrayal Recovery Guide at www.BetrayalRecoveryGuide.com, a guide designed to help you take the first steps in feeling better, so you can reclaim your power, own your worth, and start putting yourself, and your life, back together again.

About Lora:

Lora Cheadle, JD, CHt is a betrayal recovery coach, attorney, TEDx speaker, and author of FLAUNT! and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal.

After uncovering her husband’s 15-year affair, she turned her own pain into purpose—helping high-achieving women reclaim their identity, power, and joy.

A trauma-aware coach, somatic therapist, and former attorney, Lora blends legal insight with emotional and spiritual healing for full-spectrum recovery.

She is the author of FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self (an International Book Awards Finalist and Tattered Cover Bestseller) and It’s Not Burnout, It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive. She also hosts the podcast FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity and Betrayal. Learn more at www.loracheadle.com and follow me across all social!

Get the support you need to find your footing, begin making sense of it all, and feel better fast. As an attorney, betrayal recovery expert, and survivor of infidelity I can help you find the clarity and confidence to create a life that you love on the other side of betrayal. Book Your Session Here: https://calendly.com/loras-schedule/coaching-session

Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this podcast! Take charge of your mental health and get 10% off your first month of therapy at https://BetterHelp.com/FLAUNT 

READY TO START A BETTER CHAPTER? Step into the future you’ve always dreamed of with the power of transformative rituals with the Mindful Subscription Box. Get a monthly box full of crystals, aromatherapy, and other spiritual tools worth $120. You deserve high-quality gems, crystals, oils, and mindfulness tools for self-care that truly work. It’s a monthly dose of self-love delivered right to your door! Go to www.Mindfulsouls.com  and use Discount Code LORA25 for 25% off your order!

Gaea Star Crystal #658 is an hour of dynamic, improvised visionary acoustic music played by The Gaea Star Band with Mariam Massaro on vocals, Native flute, double flute, kalimba, ukulele, mandolin, acoustic guitar and Tibetan bowls, Bob Sherwood on piano and Craig Harris on Native drum and congas. Recorded live at Singing Brook Studio in Worthington, Massachusetts on a cold, mid-winter afternoon in mid-February of 2026, today’s show begins with “Liberation”, a peaceful, prayerful raga that begins with singing bowls and features kalimba, piano and Native drum supporting Mariam’s message of peace and soaring, echoing Native flute fanfares bring in “Oh, Let’s Revel In Our Own Happiness”, a restless, complexly beautiful song with a fine flute-and-voice conversation over galloping Native drum and evocative, modern minor piano figurations. “Embracing The Grace” is an expansive ballad that features a fine vocal and overtone-producing double flute from Mariam with a beautifully emotional coda and “Fire Horse New Year” is a kinetic, energized minor with a powerful lyric from Mariam about new beginnings over skipping, racing piano, chiming ukulele and fundamental Native drum that resolves into a powerful, mysterious coda. “Isis”, a stately song from Mariam’s “Gaea Star Goddesses” LP is rendered with a reverent, classical approach and “Reborn” from the “Gaea Star Crystal” LP is a racing, breathless minor rocker with fine vocals and a powerful instrumental hook. “Burning Ember” from Mariam’s “Smooth Sailin’ Love Songs” album features another powerful vocal from Mariam and we conclude this week’s show with a mandolin-driven re-imagining of “All Life Unfolds” a powerful, fundamental raga with a British Isles feel.  

Learn more about Mariam here: http://www.mariammassaro.com

Sheryl Glick host of Healing From Within Interviews Guy Joseph Ale author of Best Version of Yourself at Every Age: Tapping the Wisdom and Wellness of Your Body. Guy is considered to be one of the world’s visionaries in the field of human lifespan. In discussing mind body and energy coherence as well as universal intelligence and innate intelligence we begin to focus on infinite human potential as well as thoughts of our physical body consciousness in relation to Cosmic consciousness and to develop strategies and techniques to live our longest and healthiest life in the body.

Learn more about Sheryl here: http://www.sherylglick.com/

Soul Alignment Through Creativity, Love, and Self-Trust with Joy Taylor

You’re in for a powerful and heartfelt episode of Look for the Good as Carrie welcomes author, speaker, and spiritual mentor Joy Taylor to explore how aligning your life with your soul begins with creativity. You may be surprised to learn that Joy renamed herself as a child — a powerful clue into the identity journey she shares in this moving conversation.

Joy explains why we are all inherently creative beings and how practicing creativity opens the door to deeper joy, purpose, and inner alignment. The conversation also explores relationships, where Joy reveals the surprising truth about the two wings of love — and why chemistry isn’t one of them.

Stay with us through the end for Joy’s deeply moving personal story of loss, transformation, and awakening. What once looked like tragedy became the very experience that brought her home to herself. This episode is a beautiful reminder that even life’s most painful moments can become the catalyst for soul alignment, healing, and a more authentic life.

BIO: Joy Taylor is an author, speaker, Intuitive Business Strategist, and Spiritual Mentor with over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience, blending soulful wisdom with practical, embodied tools for everyday life and leadership. She empowers women to trust themselves deeply, awaken vitality, and create lives and businesses aligned with what truly matters. Find her at https://www.asoulinspiredlife.com/

Does Valentine’s Day have a sneaky way of pointing out what’s missing in your love life?

Still wondering why relationships feel harder than they should?

Here’s the good news — real connection is closer than you think.

Join The Real Us, a powerful monthly online workshop with spiritual mentor Joy Taylor and her husband. With over 70 years of combined experience, they create a warm, honest space where you can speak your truth, heal old patterns, and build the kind of connection you've been craving! 

Single, dating, or coupled — you belong here.

Learn more at asoulinspiredlife.com click group programs, then The Real Us.

The Real Us — where you can finally exhale… and be yourself! 

For a one time complimentary pass for The Real Us use coupon code GOOD here: https://www.asoulinspiredlife.com/tru-workshop

Hey listeners, as you heard Joy and I were speaking of the incredible stream of consciousness that created my song, "I Am Life." 

Feel free to listen to it at the link below. Performed by my former duo, Stefilia's Stone featuring myself, Carrie Rowan with Adrienne Fawkes: 

https://open.spotify.com/track/4RbFR3zVfWFz5pTpJVlxFx?si=3623c5120ba24215

Want to find out when the next incredible episode of Look for the Good is dropping? Sign up for the Look for the Good Podcast Chat weekly newsletter to get behind the scenes insights, special tips, and insider only offers. Click HERE to sign up today!

Learn More about Carrie here: https://carrierowan.com/

Leigh Ann Phillips is an award-winning singer songwriter and sound healing educator.

She is on a mission to merge sound and music to assist people in leading more fulfilling lives in healthier bodies. Her work is taking her all over the world and back again.

Leigh Ann has developed a method of brainwave entrainment through the use of her voice and the quartz crystal singing bowls. It is a form of sound healing based on research on the brain as well as the musical system called the Circle of Fifths. The purpose of the work is to help people release emotions from the body, as well as raise the level of health and well being physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. She has developed a method of shifting and slowing the brain states, allowing people to not just relax but release emotional blocks that are allowing dis-ease in the body. Her method incorporates the use of the quartz crystal singing bowls, Tibetan singing bowls, tingshaws, harp, piano, herbal medicine as well as her voice. Using mantras in languages such as Sanskrit, Enochian and Aramaic, Leigh Ann incorporates ancient mantras and prayers to enhance the power of the sound. This method actually places the bowls on the person, so the person is receiving not just music and sound, but also vibration.

Her passion is to assist people in building an awareness of consciousness to the mind, body and spirit. Some people would call this allowing sound and music to be a bridge to the soul.

Leigh Ann is now back in Crestone, Colorado!

She has been bringing sound healing and the music of the quartz crystal singing bowls into the mainstream. She has given demonstrations and sound healing sessions most recently in Taiwan, the Hawaiian islands, at the Gem Exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C, as well as at a Playboy event in the Los Angeles area. She has also made television and radio appearances on various health, and lifestyle programs in Hawaii, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, New Mexico, as well as the Orient.

The sound and the music have merged, and Leigh Ann’s passion for life has sounded into a path where music can bring not just beauty, but health, peace and the evolution of the soul.

Leigh Ann’s latest recorded album release, Mik’ael (2013), is a musical tapestry of mantras, sung in the Enochian language, accompanied by quartz crystal singing bowls and world instruments. Mik’ael is a musical collaboration with writer and producer, Thomas Barquee, recorded at Zenden Studios in California. Ideal for yoga and meditation, Mik’ael is a healing offering to the Archangel Michael, and all that is peaceful in nature and ourselves. Her next recording project will be spoken word, co-created again with Thomas Barquee.

She is also the Executive Director of The Shimmering Sounds Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to bringing sound healing as a complimentary therapy to the masses. The foundation has given hundreds of free sessions to people that could not normally afford holistic health sessions.

The foundation incorporates the use of a crystal healing bed as well, a complementary treatment to the sound using color, vibration and light.

Currently she has developed her own line of quartz crystal singing bowls, using unusual gemstones to infuse the bowls, as well as etching ancient mandalas that amplify the intention of this sacred art through the power of the sound. https://www.leighannphillips.com/

Call In and Chat with Deborah during Live Show: 833-220-1200 or 319-527-2638

Learn more about Deborah here:  www.lovebyintuition.com

From Vision to Impact: The Launch of LoveLife L;ve

On this episode of the Make Mental Health Matter Show host Kelli Melissa Reinhardt has two special guests Alicia Nolan and Alex Vaughan.

Little bit about the episode:

Find out more about the LoveLife L;ve Program here: 

https://www.mmhm.org/lovelifelive 

How Human Design Shapes Love and Relationships

What if the key to healthier relationships and deeper self understanding was already written into your energetic blueprint?

In this episode of Midlife Love Out Loud, Junie Moon sits down with human design expert Nancy O’Keefe to explore how human design reveals how you are wired for love, partnership, communication, and purpose.

You’ll learn how different human design types show up in relationships, why certain conflicts repeat themselves, and how understanding your design can change the way you connect with others in midlife and beyond.

This conversation is especially powerful for women starting over in love, navigating long term relationships, or seeking clarity about who they truly are in the second half of life.

What you’ll learn

Nancy OKeefe is a Certified Quantum Human Design Specialist and intuitive business coach, who helps women entrepreneurs peel back the layers of who they have been taught to be and how they have been conditioned to do business so they can build a business that feeds their soul.

Nancy is an author, a certified Executive Coach from the College of Executive Coaching and holds an MBA from Babson College in Entrepreneurship.

www.NancyOKeefeCoaching.com

Facebook.com/NancyOKeefeHumanDesignBizCoach

Free personalized Human Design chart and Report https://calendly.com/nancyokeefe/free-basic-human-design-reading

Learn more about Junie here: https://www.midlifeloveoutloud.com

Episode 4: High‑Achieving Women Who Are Silently Struggling

In this episode of Paperclips & Periods, hosts Dr. Emily K. Cabrera, EdD, MSN, CAGS, PMHNP‑BC, and Katharine “Katie” Krych, MSN, RN, Graduate Certificate in Nursing Education, PEL‑CSN, sit down with special guest Dr. Arlicia Miller, founder and Chief Transformation Officer of the Umbrella of Artistic Expression and life transformation coach with Dual Minds Integrative Psychiatry.

Together, they dive into a topic so many women live with daily but rarely name out loud: the experience of being a high‑functioning woman who is quietly, persistently struggling beneath the surface.

Drawing from Dr. Miller’s transformational coaching work, Dr. Cabrera’s psychiatric mental health expertise, and Katie’s background in nursing and education, the conversation unpacks the hidden challenges that accompany competence, ambition, caregiving roles, and emotional labor. They explore why high‑functioning women often feel obligated to “push through,” how early conditioning reinforces silence, and why vulnerability can feel risky—even among friends, colleagues, and partners.

From motherhood and marriage, to career advancement, to the weight of societal expectations, this episode explores how women learn to hold everything together externally while internally battling exhaustion, depletion, and self‑doubt. The hosts also examine how gender norms, family roles, trauma histories, and cultural narratives shape women’s measurements of worthiness and success. With compassion and honesty, they discuss the “struggle bus,” the fear of judgment, the stigma around asking for help, and the labels women often carry without realizing how deeply they shape identity.

Grounded in lived experience, psychology, and integrative wellness, this episode reframes “high‑functioning” not as a badge of honor, but as a clue—an invitation to pause, rest, and reconnect with one’s authentic self.

As always, the hosts offer thoughtful takeaways and practical strategies, including the importance of small resets, the power of journaling, the need for safe relationships, and even a guided moment of box breathing to help listeners regulate their nervous systems in real time.

Reflective, relatable, and deeply human, this episode encourages women to release the myth of having it all together and replace it with a more compassionate truth: you don’t have to carry everything alone.

Dreamvisions 7 Radio Network syndicates content widely, partnering with dozens of platforms and directories (including TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Spotify, and more), giving Paperclips & Periods ongoing global exposure beyond traditional podcast outlets.Paperclips & Periods aligns with the mission of Dual Minds Integrative Psychiatry, supporting whole-person care and conversations that promote emotional well-being, understanding, and growth.

Learn more: www.dualmindspsychiatry.com | Listen on Dream Visions 7 Radio

Paperclips & Periods Podcast

[email protected]

Dual Minds Integrative Psychiatry

www.dualmindspsychiatry.com

Liz Entin Talks About WTF Just Happened?

The fact is pretty universally known that for all of us, those that we love, who are older than we are, will likely go on ahead of us to the next stage of life. And for some of us, as it was for our great friend, Sandra Champlain, to have someone we love die is going to be the occasion for deciding that it is time for us to really research death, and to figure it all out! And so it was as well for Elizabeth Entin, who is our guest today. Liz Entin began researching the afterlife evidence and everything paranormal in 2015, following the passing of her father. While she still considers herself to be skeptical, and even an atheist, (although she is a cultural Jew), the evidence that she discovered for the afterlife really blew her away.

She is the author of two books in the WTF Just Happened series: The first is Book One – WTF Just Happened?!: A sciencey-skeptic explores grief, healing, and evidence of an afterlife  And the second is Book Two –  WTF Just Happened?!: A sciencey skeptic investigates even more evidence of an afterlife and fights for justice with her dead dog. She is the host of a podcast called, WTF Just Happened?!: All about the afterlife. No woo. She also runs “Science and Spirituality”, which is a private events group, an intimate group of just you and your friends, where you can learn more about the science behind an afterlife, and get readings from highly evidential mediums who have been tested by scientists. All the underlined words are links that will take you to her relevant websites.

Learn more about Roberta here:

http://robertagrimes.com

https://seekreality.com

Dreams Unlocked with Phil George

Biochemist Phil George thought this episode would be all science and supplements—until a listener email about lucid dreaming took the show in a whole new direction.

What started as a quick detour turned into a full-on dream dive, as callers flooded the lines with their own surreal, vivid, and sometimes hilarious dream experiences. From flying through cities to meeting long-lost relatives, this episode explores the strange and powerful world of dreams—and what they might reveal about our minds.

Science meets the subconscious in this unexpected, unforgettable episode.

Available now on all podcast platforms.

Please feel free to email Phil at [email protected] with any health/nutrition/exercise questions. https://www.wellnesswave.net/