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

Six years ago, I genuinely didn't know if I wanted to keep living. The shame of what I had done felt unbearable. I couldn't think straight, I couldn't be present, and I couldn't imagine a future where I felt okay again.

And yet today, I'm sitting behind a microphone telling that story publicly.

So what happened? How did I get from there to here? Because I can tell you, it wasn't time. It wasn't understanding what went wrong in my relationship. And it definitely wasn't listening to podcasts.

In this episode, I share the part of my story I've never told in this much detail: the year after my affair, when I was convinced that forgetting was my only option. We were about to start IVF. We were mid-way through a huge house extension. My then husband was deep in his accountancy exams. Telling him felt like it would collapse everything, so I said nothing, looked functional on the outside, and quietly fell apart on the inside.

I talk about the pressure in my chest I didn't recognise as anxiety, the obsessive overthinking, the secret crying, and the loneliness of carrying something 99% of my friends knew nothing about.

And I share the realisation that changed everything: the affair wasn't actually the thing I needed to heal. The affair was the thing that exposed everything that had been running underneath my life without me even realising. The mask of perfectionism. The self-abandonment that started long before the betrayal. The needs I didn't know I was allowed to have.

In this episode, I explore:

• Why "just forgetting it" felt like my only option, and why it quietly destroyed me instead
• What it's really like to look functional on the outside while falling apart on the inside
• How shame lives in the body: the chest pressure, the bracing, the obsessive overthinking
• The moment my first mentor said "let's put the affair to one side and focus on you," and why that changed everything
• How I'd abandoned myself long before I betrayed my husband
• Why I couldn't ask for my needs to be met, and the IVF clinic moment that blew my mind
• The mask of perfectionism: the achieving, the control, the confidence that wasn't real
• Why books, insight, and even therapy alone weren't enough, and why the work had to go into the body
• What the willingness to be seen as my most messy, raw, vulnerable self actually gave me
• Why the shame might not be the punishment. It might be the doorway.

If you're carrying this right now

If you're desperately trying to forget. If you're trying to figure out why you did it. If you feel like you're drowning with no way of getting to shore.

I want you to know that everything I was trying to avoid became the path back to myself. And the best first step you can take is one I wish I'd taken sooner: letting yourself be supported.

The Sanctuary is my community for women in the aftermath of their own betrayal. We meet twice a month on Zoom, and it might be the first space where you get to share your truth out loud and have it met with nothing but compassion, and no judgement.

That is the first step to becoming truly free from the shame and guilt you're carrying.

Click here to discover more.

For two years after the affair, I told no one. Not my husband. Not the friends I’d call sisters, the ones who’d held me through my own heartbreak years earlier. I sat at New Year’s parties and weddings and birthdays, keeping it light, breezy, fine. And inside, I was dying. Dying of shame. Dying of guilt. Dying of the fear that if anyone really saw me, they’d stop loving me.

In this episode, I talk about the secret almost no one names: not the affair itself, but the secrecy that comes after it. The mask of “I’m fine.” The exhaustion that sleep can’t touch. The way secrecy and shame feed each other in a loop that feels like it will never end.

I share how this particular mask wasn’t new. It was one I’d been wearing since childhood, a survival strategy that told me I had to have it all together to stay safe and stay loved. And I share what finally began to loosen its grip: not more hiding, but being witnessed by other women who had walked the same path and simply understood.

This is an honest look at why we keep the secret, what it costs us, and why being truly seen, even in the smallest, most terrifying moment, is where the healing starts.

In this episode, I explore:

• Why the secrecy after an affair can be lonelier and heavier than the affair itself
• The “I’m fine” mask, and how it can be a survival strategy first learned in childhood
• How living as “two different people” depletes your life force and exhausts you in a way sleep can’t heal
• The vicious cycle where secrecy compounds shame, and shame demands more secrecy
• Why public affair scandals (and the conversations around them) can leave you bracing in silent terror
• What changed when Alex was witnessed by women who had been through the same thing
• Why we don’t feel seen in our marriages, and the first step to changing that
• How allowing yourself to be seen in your messiest moment radiates out into the rest of your life

Key takeaways

• Secrecy keeps shame firmly in place. The energy it takes to suppress the truth is what depletes you, not the truth itself.
• The mask of “having it all together” often predates the affair. The affair simply cracked it open.
• Healing accelerates when you’re witnessed by someone who genuinely gets it. Not to be validated or excused, but to be held without judgement.
• We aren’t seen in our relationships partly because we don’t let ourselves be seen. Being witnessed by other women who understand is the first step toward changing that.

If this resonated

If you recognised yourself in the mask, in the exhaustion, in sitting among people you love while feeling completely alone, that matters.

The Sanctuary is an ongoing, gentle space for women in the aftermath of their own betrayal who are tired of carrying it in secret. It exists for the woman who is doing all the right things on the outside but still feels tight, disconnected, and alone inside: the woman who needs somewhere she can finally take the mask off.

Inside, you’re not asked to explain yourself, justify what happened, or rehash the past. You’re witnessed by other women who simply get it, while you learn to stay connected to yourself and regulate your nervous system. It’s completely confidential, with two calls a month and a sisterhood circle on Telegram for the in-between moments, so you’re always held.

You don’t have to do this part alone anymore. Click here to explore The Sanctuary.

Why is a podcast about healing after betrayal is called The Deeper Love Podcast.

In this episode, I'm answering that.

At my core, I believe the detonation that an affair brings to your life can absolutely become the portal to the deepest love of your life.

You don’t have to leave your husband, but you do have to be willing to face and heal the story that has been running your life, way before the affair happened.

How do I know? Because I lived it.

In the ep, I share the story of being three years old at my nan's house, and a traumatic moment in which my nervous system decided I don't matter. My feelings don't matter. I have to be okay. I have to be strong.

That belief ran my entire life. It made me the strong one, the together one, the woman who looked fine on the outside and was completely numb underneath. It chose the marriage I co-created. And eventually, it was the wound underneath the affair.

It was only because I was in so much pain after my affair that I did the work to heal in this story from the root, by meeting the frozen pain in my nervous system, that I began to start to be the woman who knows she matters. Who no longer puts everyone else’s feelings and needs before hers. Not because she’s selfish, but because she knows her value, and her worth.

And it’s from this place that I attracted the deepest love of my life, because he was a mirror to how I treated myself.

This is the episode I'd want every woman in the aftermath to hear. Because the affair doesn't have to be the end of love. It can be the beginning of the deepest, most connected love you've ever known, including with yourself.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why this podcast is called The Deeper Love Podcast and what that name actually means
• The shadow part that bursts up and out through an affair, and why burying it again creates more pain
• Why every human has shadow parts, and why women who have affairs are treated like lepers for theirs
• The childhood moment that imprinted "I don't matter" into my nervous system and ran my adult relationships
• Why seeing your patterns isn't enough to change them
• The difference between understanding a wound and meeting the part of you that's carrying it
• How we co-create the marriages and relationships that fit our deepest wounds
• Why leaving your marriage for your affair partner won't free you from the pattern
• How meeting my own shadow opened me to the most connected love of my life
• What it really means to take accountability without self-annihilation

If this episode landed

If you recognised yourself in the numbness, in the strong one who never let anyone see, in the part of you that's been screaming to be met.

If you've spent years understanding your patterns and you're still stuck inside them.

The Sanctuary is my private, ongoing community for women in the aftermath of an affair. If you’re feeling like a monster, and alone in your pain, The Sanctuary is the place where you can put some of that down.

You don't have to do this alone anymore.

Click here to discover more.

You probably know what it feels like to live two lives at once.

The one that everyone can see - where you're capable, together, achieving, holding it all together.

And the one underneath, where you feel lonely, disconnected, asking yourself, is this it? Where you stopped being desired. Stopped being seen as anything other than the wife, the mother, the high-flying executive, the one that doesn’t need anything.

And then the affair happened. And even though this feels terrifying to say out loud, you felt more alive than you had in years.

In this episode of The Deeper Love Podcast, I'm joined by trauma-informed coach Lauren Tobey for a conversation about who you actually are underneath the mask of the high achieving good girl you've worn your whole life.

After ten years of marriage, an executive career, and a life that looked enviable from the outside, she found herself numb, divorced, and disconnected. Through her own inward journey she realised there was someone much more real and true that had been hiding underneath all the achievement. And from there she could experience love and connection in a whole new way.

Together, we explore:

• Why so many high-achieving women feel numb on the inside while looking impressive from the outside
• What the affair was actually doing for your nervous system
• How childhood patterns of mirroring and keeping-the-peace taught you to abandon yourself long before your marriage
• Why marriages slowly become transactional, and how that quietly sets the stage for everything else
• Why talk therapy alone often can't shift what's frozen in the body
• The myth of the finish line of healing, and why selling it is doing real harm to women
• What becomes possible when you stop running from yourself and start walking towards her

This is a conversation about the woman underneath the mask, and the long, non-linear work of meeting her.

If this resonated

If something in this episode landed, if you recognised the mask, the numbness, the sense of having quietly disappeared from your own life, this is the work I hold space for inside The Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary is my ongoing, gentle space for women in the aftermath of their own betrayal who are tired of holding everything together on their own. It exists for the woman who is doing 'all the right things' but still feels tight, disconnected, and alone inside. For the woman who needs somewhere her body can finally exhale.

Inside The Sanctuary, you're not asked to explain yourself, justify what happened, or earn your place by being forgiven. You are held where you are, while learning how to stay connected to yourself, regulate your nervous system, and live with responsibility without self-abandonment.

You don't have to do this part alone anymore.

Click here to discover more

About Lauren Tobey

Lauren Tobey is a double-certified trauma specialist, NLP master practitioner, and the creator of the spiral framework, a body of work that helps women understand healing as a non-linear process of returning to themselves again and again.

Her own journey began in 2020 when, after a decade-long marriage, an adoption, and an executive role at a non-profit, she found herself in a complete identity rupture: divorced, dissociated, and unable to locate the woman beneath the high-achiever mask she had worn her whole life. A subsequent layoff a few years later confirmed what she'd begun to suspect: her sense of self had been quietly outsourced for as long as she could remember.

Lauren is the host of The Spiral Podcast and the author of Spiraling Into Control, a book that reframes 'spiralling' from a sign of breakdown into a natural rhythm of human evolution.

You can find Lauren at:

LaurenTobey.com

The Spiral Podcast (wherever you listen to podcasts) - https://open.spotify.com/show/6rkXUS2gvWdzDU5DyabECh?si=8f8c0b8e595e4c2d

A lot of women think accountability means suffering.

That if you punish yourself long enough… if you accept enough rage… if you hand over every detail… if you shrink yourself into the smallest, most “perfect” version of you… then maybe you’ll finally have paid for what you did.

But punishment isn’t the same as accountability.

In this episode, Alex responds to a question she hears often: “Are you letting women off the hook?”, especially from betrayed partners who fear that compassion equals excuse-making.

Alex speaks directly to the husbands who are listening, validates the devastation of betrayal trauma and then names something most people miss:

A woman drowning in shame cannot love well from that place.

This isn’t about justifying an affair. It’s about understanding the deeper pattern beneath it, the part of you that learned to bury your truth just to be loved, so you can stop performing remorse and start doing the real work of change.

Because real accountability isn’t passive. It’s not “take the punishment and hope it fixes you.”

It’s the harder path: meeting what was underneath, taking responsibility for your unmet needs, and learning to meet them in a way that doesn’t destroy what you love.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why affairs don’t begin in the bedroom: they begin in the parts of you that learned to bury your truth to be loved
• The common fear: “Is this work just giving women an excuse?”
• A message directly to betrayed partners: your rage, fear, shame, anxiety and disbelief are valid
• Why shame keeps a woman disconnected and why she can’t love well from that place
• The difference between wanting the relationship to go “back to normal” vs creating something new and real
• Why punishment doesn’t change patterns (and a powerful story from Alex’s time as a TV executive to explain why)
• What accountability actually looks like: active, confronting, and deeply honest
• Why “performing accountability” keeps the mask intact (strong, capable, perfect on the outside)
• The real question: What was the affair trying to fill in you, not in your relationship, but in you?
• How to begin: locating what you’re feeling in the body (chest, throat, belly) and letting that be the starting point
• Why breaking the cycle is bigger than “never cheat again”, it’s ending the pattern of always putting yourself last

If This Resonated:

If you’re in the aftermath and you can feel something shifting as you listen, if you’re tired of performing remorse, tired of spiralling alone, tired of carrying this in secret, The Sanctuary is where you start.

The Sanctuary is a completely confidential space for women whose affair is over, but everything is still raw and unresolved. Nothing is recorded. Nothing leaves the room. We meet twice a month on Zoom, with a private Telegram community for the moments you need to say the thing you’ve never been able to say out loud.

£97/month (3-month minimum).

https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary

And if you feel ready for deeper private support, you’ll also find ways to work with Alex 1:1 in the show notes.

In this raw, deeply human conversation, Alex is joined by Hope Manzano: Mum, entrepreneur and content creator who shares publicly about her affair online.

It is rare to find another woman who is willing to stand up and say I made a mistake too, and in this episode, Hope shares the real story behind her affair - there was no abuse, or unbearable arguments, but instead a perfect looking marriage on the outside and years of emotional disconnection on the inside.

Together, Alex and Hope explore what it’s like to live in secrecy and shame, what happens when the truth finally comes out, and why taking accountability is not the same as accepting punishment.

This episode is for anyone who has cheated and wants to feel less alone. It’s a conversation about what happens when the truth comes out and the possibility of building a new life from the rubble.

In this episode, we explore:

• How Hope’s affair began even though she believed “I’m not that kind of person”
• The loneliness of being in a marriage that looks fine on the outside but feels dead on the inside
• Why fear of being “the bad guy” can keep you trapped in an unhappy marriage for years
• The moment Hope’s ex-husband discovered the affair and why she chose full disclosure (no trickle truth)
• The cost of secrecy on the nervous system, and the relief that can come when the truth is finally out
• Telling your children the truth: shame, repair, and rebuilding respect over time
• Why sharing every detail can be more harmful than healing
• How self-abandonment shows up both before the affair and in the attempted repair afterward
• Why “once a cheat, always a cheat” misses the real point and what actually breaks the cycle

A few key takeaways

• Secrecy is corrosive. The body pays a price for what we hide.
• Accountability isn’t self-erasure. You can own what you did without accepting ongoing punishment.
• Details aren’t always healing. Some information becomes a weapon, not a bridge.
• Affairs are often a symptom. The deeper pattern is usually years of self-betrayal and disconnection.
• There is hope. Not in bypassing the harm but in facing the truth and choosing a new way forward.

About Hope Manzano

Hope Manzano is a Mum and entrepreneur who shares honest reflections on past relationships, self-growth, accountability, and personal evolution. Through her social media platform, she speaks openly about the complexity of human connection and the healing that can begin when we bring what’s hidden into the light.

Connect with Hope

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happily.affair.after

Work with Alex

If you’re in the aftermath of an affair and everything feels like it’s on fire: The Sanctuary is where you start.

The Sanctuary is for the woman whose world just blew apart and needs somewhere safe to land. It’s not therapy or a course. It’s the space that helps you stop the spiral, soften the shame, and find your footing again: so you can actually take the next right step.

If your affair is over and you’re still in the wreckage (even if it’s only been days), you don’t have to carry this alone. This is where you start: https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary

And if you feel ready for deeper, private support to heal the root of the pattern and come home to yourself, you can also explore Alex’s 1:1 coaching here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/1-to-1-coaching

There’s a very specific type of woman who cheats.

And it’s not who people think.

It’s often the good girl. The high achiever. The strong one. The reliable one. The woman everyone trusts, everyone leans on, the one who has spent her whole life trying to get it right.

So when an affair happens, it doesn’t just break the relationship.

It breaks her identity.

Because now she isn’t only dealing with guilt, shame, regret, or grief. She’s staring at herself thinking: How could I do this? This doesn’t match who I am.

In this episode, Alex explores why that confusion is so devastating, how the “good girl” identity is actually a protective mask (a character structure formed early in life), and why the affair is often the moment that mask cracks.

This isn’t about removing accountability. You are still responsible for what you did.

But if you stay stuck in self-punishment, you’ll miss the root pattern that created the conditions for betrayal in the first place, and you’ll be at risk of repeating it, even in a new relationship.

This is an episode about how the pain of the affair can be the moment you stop living from performance and start living from truth.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why the “good girl” is one of the most common identities Alex sees in women who cheat
• How an affair can shatter not just a marriage, but your sense of who you are
• What “character structure” is (and how the mask gets formed in childhood)
• Why children choose attachment over authenticity - and how that becomes self-betrayal later
• How perfectionism, hyper-independence, and being low-maintenance can be protective strategies
• Why being the strong one often blocks vulnerability, emotional intimacy, and real connection
• How emotional flatness and disconnection build over time (even when life looks “perfect” on the outside)
• Why the affair often isn’t random, it’s the moment the mask cracks
• Why insight doesn’t stop the 3am shame spiral (because this isn’t a thinking problem)
• What it actually takes to heal: meeting what’s underneath the protector and rebuilding the capacity to feel, speak, and choose from truth

If This Resonated:

The Healed Heart is Alex’s 6-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath.

Inside, the work is not about endlessly analysing every decision or trying to get everything right. It is about rebuilding self-trust, healing shame, and learning how to hold yourself through the uncertainty.

The next round begins 28th April.

Learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart

After an affair, so much of the focus goes onto the relationship, the guilt, the affair partner or trying to understand exactly what went wrong.

But in this episode, Alex goes somewhere deeper. She explores the pattern that was often running long before the affair ever happened: self-betrayal.

This is the quiet, cumulative way so many women abandon their truth over years.

Staying silent when something hurts. Pushing down needs. Performing strength. Being easy to love. Being the good girl. And over time, that disconnection from the self creates the conditions for betrayal.

In this episode, Alex unpacks why affairs do not come out of nowhere, why understanding the pattern is not the same as healing it and why the real work is not just in the mind but in the body.

This is an episode about the mask so many women wear, the younger part underneath it who learned it was not safe to be fully real, and what it takes to finally come home to yourself.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• What self-betrayal really is and how it begins in childhood

• How the mask of being good, strong, easy, or high-achieving gets formed

• The small everyday ways women abandon themselves in relationships

• Why affairs do not happen in truly healthy, connected relationships

• How emotional disconnection and performance create the conditions for betrayal

• Why insight alone does not heal shame

• The difference between understanding a pattern and releasing it from the body

• How somatic work helps heal the root of self-betrayal

• What changes when you start choosing yourself instead of abandoning yourself

• Why the affair can become an alarm bell that wakes you up to your truth

If This Resonated:

The Healed Heart is Alex’s 6-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath.

Inside, the work is not about endlessly analysing every decision or trying to get everything right. It is about rebuilding self-trust, healing shame, and learning how to hold yourself through the uncertainty.

The next round begins 28th April.

Learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart

In this powerful guest episode of the Deeper Love Podcast, Alex is joined by relationship coach Monica Tanner to explore one of the hardest truths in love: you can love someone and still hurt them.

Together, they unpack the deeper dynamics beneath betrayal, infidelity, resentment, emotional disconnection, and what it really takes to repair a relationship after trust has been broken. This is an honest, compassionate conversation about accountability, agency, repair, and the courage it takes to face the truth.

Monica shares why healthy relationships are a skillset, how couples drift into roommate syndrome, and why conflict is not the disaster we think it is, but often the doorway to deeper intimacy.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why betrayal often has roots far deeper than the moment it happens
• The importance of taking full responsibility after infidelity
• Why you cannot heal a relationship while hiding the truth
• How couples move through harmony, disharmony, and repair
• What keeps marriages alive beyond the honeymoon phase
• Why modern relationships require new relational skills
• The reality of roommate syndrome and how couples lose the spark
• Why divorce is always an option and why that truth matters
• How to know whether to rebuild the relationship or let it go
• What it means to create a more honest, intimate relationship after betrayal

A few key takeaways

• Love alone is not enough. Healthy relationships require intention, attention, and learned skills.
• Repair is where resilience, trust, and intimacy are built.
• Hiding betrayal removes your partner's agency and blocks true connection.
• Affairs often reveal unmet needs, disconnection, and the longing to feel alive, seen, and desired.
• It is possible to create passion and intimacy again in a long-term relationship, but both people must be willing to face the truth.

About Monica Tanner

Monica Tanner is a Relational Life Therapy Certified Relationship Coach and host of the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. She helps couples ditch resentment and roommate syndrome so they can get back to having fun, loving each other, and building healthier, more connected relationships.

Her mission is to lower the divorce rate and improve marital satisfaction through communication, connection, conflict resolution, and commitment strategies.

Connect with Monica

Website: https://monicatanner.com

Free resource: https://monicatanner.com/getlucky

Work with Alex

If this conversation stirred something in you, particularly around shame, nervous system contraction, or the split between who you were and who you are becoming, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart.

The Healed Heart is my 6-month guided programme for women ready to heal shame at the root, rebuild self-trust, and finally come home to themselves.

You can learn more here:

https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart

After an affair, so many women become terrified of making the wrong decision.

Not just the big decisions, like whether to stay or leave, whether to tell the truth, or whether to try again.

But the everyday ones too. What to say. Whether to reach out or pull back. Whether to trust what they feel or second guess it.

In this episode, Alex explores why that paralysis happens and what is really sitting underneath it.

Because the issue is not that you are incapable of making good decisions. It is that somewhere along the way, you stopped trusting yourself.

Through a powerful client story about deciding whether to get a puppy, Alex shows how self-trust is rebuilt. Not by finding certainty or making perfect choices, but by knowing you can hold yourself whatever happens next.

This is an episode about the deeper reason so many women stay stuck after an affair and what begins to change when self-abandonment gives way to self-trust.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why decision-making can feel so heavy after an affair
• How overthinking, looping, and paralysis are often rooted in a lack of self-trust
• Why the fear is not really making the wrong decision, but not trusting yourself to handle the outcome
• The deeper link between affair trauma and a lifetime of self-abandonment
• How one woman moved out of indecision through a simple but powerful choice
• Why self-trust is not about certainty, perfection, or never making mistakes
• What freedom looks like when you know you can hold yourself through whatever comes next

If This Resonated:

The Healed Heart is Alex's 6-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath.

Inside, the work is not about endlessly analysing every decision or trying to get everything right. It is about rebuilding self-trust, healing shame, and learning how to hold yourself through the uncertainty.

The next round begins 28th April.

Learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart