In this second episode of Kevin Leaves, Kevin reflects on his first Christmas after leaving his family, a holiday filled with both warmth and grief. He talks about the good moments: time with his children and the pleasure in spending the holidays with his parents. But he also describes the painful parts: the tension with his ex-wife, the awkwardness of returning to a home he no longer lived in, and the sting of hearing his children say home didn’t feel much different since he left.

Kevin also opens up about the growing strain in his new relationship. His partner struggled with the attention he gave his children, and conflicts emerged as they navigated the reality of blending these two separate worlds. To make things more complicated, Kevin was processing the news that his wife had begun a relationship of her own—an emotional shift he hadn’t fully prepared for.

This episode gives a raw, unedited look at the push and pull of holiday nostalgia, parental longing, relational conflict, and the complex emotions that come with watching someone you once loved move on. It’s a glimpse into what the first year of separation really felt like from the inside.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode web page: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts?031

For unfaithful partners who want to understand their behavior and build a more fulfilling relationship: The RENOVATE Project

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

Kevin Leaves is a four-part series built from three years of recorded conversations with a man who walked away from his marriage and children to pursue a relationship that began as an affair. In this first episode, The First Few Months, we step into the early aftermath of that decision: the shockwaves, the doubts, and the small daily moments that reveal what leaving actually costs.

These early conversations follow Kevin as he moves out of the family home and tries to stay connected to his children while preparing to relocate for a new job and a new life with his affair partner. We hear the tension with his wife, the awkward and painful transitions with his kids, and the unexpected strain that begins surfacing in his new relationship. Kevin talks about longing and hope, but also about shame—the kind that rises quietly after the adrenaline fades.

This episode doesn’t excuse or condemn. It simply lets us sit with someone who made a life-altering choice and is now navigating all the complicated emotions that follow. The First Few Months offers an unfiltered look at the early days after leaving: the confusion, the small heartbreaks, the unresolved questions, and the weight of decisions that can’t be undone.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Webpage: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/030

For Involved Partners: The RENOVATE Project

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

In this follow-up to Some Bad Advice About Affair Recovery, Tim tackles five more common myths that often derail genuine healing after infidelity. These are the messages that sound certain: “Once a cheater, always a cheater,” “Just fix your marriage,” or “If you forgive, you should trust again.” But they oversimplify the work of affair recovery.

Through real stories, insight, and a few creative audio sketches, Tim explores what these familiar slogans get wrong and what healthier, more hopeful alternatives look like. Listeners will learn why change is possible, why trust can’t be rushed, and why even painful chapters don’t have to define the rest of the story.

This episode brings honesty and compassion together to remind us that recovery isn’t about quick fixes or perfection; it’s about truth, growth, and grace for what comes next.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Page: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/029

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to recover from infidelity. Not all of it is good. In this episode (the first of a two-part series), Tim Tedder explores some of the worst pieces of “bad advice” that couples often hear after an affair. From the pressure to instantly leave or immediately forgive, to the temptation to keep secrets or “stay friends” with an affair partner, these myths can quietly sabotage genuine healing.

Through insight and storytelling, Tim explains why quick fixes and black-and-white solutions don’t work. Real recovery takes honesty, courage, and self-awareness, not one-size-fits-all answers. Along the way, short audio sketches bring these ideas to life, revealing how common these faulty beliefs really are and how couples can move beyond them toward trust, growth, and connection.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode page: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/028

Information: The Renovate Project

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

“How long will this take?” It’s the question every betrayed and unfaithful partner asks after an affair. Some people want to move on as quickly as possible, while others remain frozen in the pain for years. But recovery isn’t measured by months or milestones; it’s measured by movement.

In this episode, Tim explores why healing timelines vary so widely and what really determines progress. Through two short audio sketches, he illustrates what happens when recovery moves too fast or lingers too long, when pain turns into pressure or when regret hardens into resentment. Then, he offers a clear picture of what healthy recovery looks like: honesty, empathy, consistent effort, and small moments of safety returning over time.

Whether you’re three weeks or three years past discovery, this episode will help you shift focus from “How long will it take?” to “How far have we come?” and “Where are we headed next?”

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Page: https://www.affairhealing.com/podcasts/027

Real change for Involved Partners: The Renovate Project

Articles: (1) Getting Over an Affair Too Quickly, (2) Can It Take Too Long to Get Over an Affair?

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

The question “Why did you do it?” is one of the hardest parts of affair recovery. In this episode, Tim Tedder explores why many unfaithful partners struggle to explain their behavior and why simple answers rarely satisfy the person who’s been betrayed. Through real-life comments and a new audio sketch, he illustrates how confusion, shame, and self-protection often block understanding in the early stages of healing.

Tim then offers a practical framework for finding real clarity. He walks listeners through five areas of reflection—steps of compromise, historical risks, personal risks, relationship risks, and circumstantial risks—that help reveal how an affair unfolded and what must change to prevent it from happening again. The goal isn’t just explanation, but transformation: learning from the past to build a more honest, secure, and fulfilling relationship.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Web Page: https://affairhealing.com/podcasts/026

Learn more about The RENOVATE Project

Other related episodes: Crossing the Line and 6 Affair Motives

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

What actually counts as cheating? A kiss? A message? A “like” on an ex’s beach photo? In this episode, Tim Tedder explores how couples define (and often misdefine) the lines that shape trust. Through candid street interviews, audio sketches, survey results, and insights from affair recovery specialists, he reveals why some boundaries feel universal while others depend entirely on a couple’s unique agreement.

Listeners will hear from Dr. Erin Weaver, a psychologist who works with clients in non-monogamous relationships, offering a fascinating look at how trust can be negotiated differently while still maintaining the same need for honesty and consent.

By the end, you’ll understand that boundaries aren’t about controlling behavior—they’re about defining what safety, respect, and loyalty mean for your relationship. Because when it comes to trust, the rules only work if you both helped write them.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Page: https://AffairHealing.com/podcasts/025

Couple’s Exercise: Clarify Your Relationship Boundaries

Information about Dr. Erin Weaver

More information about Tim Tedder’s new resources for involved partners.

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

After infidelity, many couples try to repair their marriage by patching cracks, setting up boundaries, and promising fidelity. While those steps are essential, they rarely restore the deep stability that betrayed partners long for. Why? Because real healing requires more than repair. It requires renovation.

In this episode, Tim Tedder uses the powerful metaphor of a house with a secret basement to show why repair alone often leaves couples stuck. Tim explains why authentic self-examination—especially for the unfaithful partner—is the missing piece in so many recovery efforts.

Through storytelling, a creative audio sketch, and real-life examples of two men who took very different paths after betrayal, this episode highlights the difference between settling for negotiated stability and building a new foundation of genuine trust.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Web Page: https://www.affairhealing.com/podcasts/024

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Need personal help? Schedule a Session with one of our coaches.

What does grace look like for those who feel beyond it? Tim Tedder and Betsy Prentice reflect on Light of Grace—a song that opens the door to honest conversation about shame, judgment, and redemption. They speak candidly about the experience of infidelity, the isolating weight of shame, and the messages that either helped or hindered healing. This is a vulnerable, hope-filled conversation for anyone lost in failure and longing for light to break through.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Link: https://www.affairhealing.com/podcasts/023

Download Light of Grace

Tim’s Full Story

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.

Light of Grace

With one page, the story turns
With one spark, the whole world burns
You gripped the sky that turned to stone
So far fallen, so alone

From the ruins of the fight
Shining through the walls of night
In this shattered, broken place
Look to the light of grace
Look to the light of grace

Whispers weaving through the room
Testimonies of your doom
Bowed before the scroll you wait
For judgement's hand to seal your fate

From the ruins of the fight
Shining through the walls of night
In this shattered, broken place
Look to the light of grace
Look to the light of grace

This is where the mystery bends
A failing start - a favored end
Choices you cannot undo
But now a hope for something new

In this shattered, broken place
Look to the light of grace
Look to the light of grace
Look to the light of grace

Forgiveness after betrayal can feel impossible. In our last episode, we explored three kinds of forgiveness that don’t work — premature, fake, and bartered. They may look like progress, but they keep couples stuck.

In this episode of The Affair Recovery Room, Tim Tedder turns to the two forms of forgiveness that actually bring healing: Decisional Forgiveness and Full Forgiveness. Decisional Forgiveness is the choice to release revenge, even if the feelings of anger remain. Full Forgiveness goes further, bringing emotional release and restoring connection when genuine remorse and change have been shown.

Tim unpacks why forgiveness matters in affair recovery, the heavy costs of refusing to forgive, and the unique benefits of each type of forgiveness. He clarifies common confusions (forgiveness isn’t condoning, excusing, or even the same as trust), and he shares practical guidance for both betrayed partners and offenders. From letting go of weapons to offering genuine apologies, this episode is filled with insights, stories, and encouragement to help you move toward freedom.

If forgiveness has ever felt like a burden, a cliché, or a word you don’t know what to do with, this conversation will help you see it in a new light — not as weakness, but as one of the most powerful steps toward healing.

LINKS and EXTRAS

Episode Webpage: https://www.affairhealing.com/podcasts/022

Course: Pain Mending for Injured Partners

Course: Pain Mending for Involved Partners

Recommended Book: Forgive for Good

Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter for encouragement and information about recommendations and new resources for affair healing, relationship growth, and personal change.