Getting back on the dating apps in your 40s after you swore you were done with them? That was me in June. If you go back through my old episodes, you'll hear me say more than once that I hated dating apps and would never do them again. I meant it. Then I changed my mind, got back on one, and went in with a completely different mindset — and the whole summer opened up because of it.

This week I'm talking about two mantras that have been running my life lately: you can just do things, and you can change your mind. I get into why the words you say to yourself matter more than you think, why I stopped letting negative self-talk leave my mouth, and how going into dating in midlife expecting nothing except maybe meeting some cool people changed everything about how it went.

I'm also being honest about the reality of it. Dating on an app, if you actually want to date, is a full contact sport. I filtered through hundreds of profiles, matched with dozens, gave my number to men who never once reached out, and went on a handful of dates to get here. It's a lot of time and a lot of putting yourself out there, and I'd do it all again.

Plus an update on the guy I've been seeing, why he knows about the podcast and hasn't listened to a single episode, and the fact that I'm getting on a plane to Greece tomorrow with a suitcase that's still in the closet.

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Did he ever try to get me back? It's the question that lands in my DMs more than almost any other, so this week I'm answering it straight. When I finally ended my relationship with a married man, he didn't come back and he didn't chase me. And I know a lot of you are asking because you're living some version of it right now.

Leaving a relationship where you've spent years waiting to be chosen is its own kind of scary. Because if you walk away and he doesn't come after you, that's one more signal you weren't chosen. I talk through what actually happened after I left: the silence, the text I sent from the bathtub four months later, and the slow fade into years of nothing.

I also get into why we stay stuck waiting to be chosen, why loving a married man means living inside a permanent question mark, and why I still believe he loved me even though love wasn't enough. This is the part nobody warns you about when you're deciding whether to leave a married man you still love.

Ending it to make him chase you isn't a plan. You leave because you finally believe your self-worth is yours and yours alone to claim, and because you deserve a man who can choose you one hundred percent of the time.

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I hadn't dated in a while when I got back out there, and here's what nobody warns you about: dating again after a long time shines a really bright light on every insecurity you thought you'd handled. This is Week 10 of The Summer of George, and I'm six dates in with someone who feels mature in a way I'm not used to. No games, no wondering, no confusion. You know that saying, if he likes you, you'll know, and if he doesn't, you'll be confused? I haven't been confused once.

But dating again surfaced things I wasn't expecting. Insecurities I thought were behind me. So I get honest about where they actually come from, whether they're about me or about how someone's treating me, and how to trace them back to where they started instead of letting them run the show.

I also get into the story that made my entire week. A guy I'm seeing found this podcast by typing "smoke show named Nikki who has a podcast about affairs" into Gemini. My show came up. Then my friends started plugging it into ChatGPT from all over, one of them in Brazil, and I kept coming up. Every bit of SEO and AEO work I pour into The Scarlet Edit is working, and now I've got the receipts.

Plus why I've stopped taking pictures on dates, why being present matters more than documenting the moment, and why I'm counting all of this as a win.

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Why do people get into affairs when almost nobody actually wants to be in one? That's the question I sat with this week after a comment I made on last week's guest episode. I believe most of us are good at our core and don't want to hurt the people in our lives. So when someone ends up in an affair anyway, I think it points to something lacking within — not only in the marriage, but in the person.

I can only speak for myself. The version of me who got into a relationship with a married man didn't have the confidence in relationships that I have now. I was desperate to be loved and to be seen in a way I hadn't felt before. And here's what took me years to understand: nobody can fill that void for you. Nobody could hand me self-worth. I had to build it.

I also get into the word that kept coming up when I finally told my coworkers I was ending my marriage — courage — and why so many people stay stuck because they don't believe they'll be okay on the other side. I talk about the moment on vacation when I said "I value myself" out loud and startled myself, the idea that you're the common denominator in your own relationships, and why the internal work is every bit as hard as the external.

If you're in an affair right now and none of this feels good to hear, that's fine. When we know better, it becomes our responsibility to do better — and there's no timer on that.

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Why do men make plans and then vanish? This week I got flaked on by a guy who made the second date himself, went quiet for four days, and then sent me a vague "something came up" text I never heard back from. I break down what actually happened, why I called him out on trying to sext me way too soon, and why a guy pushing to sext after one early dinner is a fast turnoff and usually a sign he only wants a hookup.

I'm back on the apps and dating in midlife, and this is the real, unfiltered version of it. I talk about the thing that still baffles me — how someone can be mid-conversation, actively planning a date, and then disappear like you never existed. I also get into why I refuse to do that to anyone, including the younger match I turned down last week by just telling him the truth instead of ghosting him.

Then there's the good stuff. I went on a date with a guy I connected with over food, broke my one rule by skipping the pre-date phone call, and it turned into two more nights out — including a second date at a cigar lounge that spiraled into total chaos around us. I talk about dating multiple people at once, what I'm actually looking for, and how the whole thing throws my healthy habits right out the window.

This is The Summer of George, week nine, live from Scottsdale. One date at a time, actions over words, and enjoying every strange, funny minute of it.

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Should you stay or should you leave? If you're the other woman, that question runs on a loop in your head every single day, and nobody around you seems to have an answer that helps. My guest this week is Francesca Zoia, a relationship coach out of Toronto who works with women stuck in exactly that loop, and our conversation picks up right where the last few weeks left off.

We get into what to do when you're in love with a married man and waiting for him to choose you. I share the question I ask my own clients when they can't decide whether to stay or go, the one that cuts straight through the fantasy. We talk about why "will he leave his wife for me" is the wrong place to start, why "just leave him" is the least helpful thing anyone can say to a woman in an affair, and how to look at the relationship you actually have instead of the one you've built in your head.

Francesca opens up about her own 14-year relationship, nine of those years long distance, and the hours she spent waiting for a text back before she learned to set a boundary and stop making herself endlessly available. I talk about how I finally knew I'd outgrown my relationship, the phone call that made me think he was finally going to pick me, and the solo month I spent traveling that showed me what choosing myself actually looked like.

This one closes the loop on staying or leaving by refusing to answer it for you, because the real question was never about him. It's about what you want, and getting honest enough to say it out loud.

Francesca's Website: https://lovewithfrancesca.com/

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Getting back into dating after a couple of years off the apps stirs up more than you expect. I'm eight weeks into The Summer of George and back in Scottsdale after LA, and this week I'm talking about what it's actually like to date again in midlife: the British guy I met on Hinge, the two dates in LA and one in Vegas, and why the stop in the UK on my way to Greece isn't happening.

I get into why communication has to be the foundation of anything you're building, how slang and sarcasm can land wrong even when nobody means harm, and what I learned about myself getting back in the game after being out of it for a while. The boundaries and expectations I have now are different than they used to be, and voicing them to someone new was a whole different skill.

I also talk about dating without attaching to the outcome, meeting people to actually meet them instead of auditioning them for a role, and why the apps can feel like a numbers game even when you're dealing with real people with real feelings. Then there's the man who recognized my voice from a dating profile, traced it back to the 92 days I spent posting last fall, and asked me to dinner anyway.

And I get into the story your brain writes about a match before you ever meet them, the version you build out of a few photos and a bio, and why they were never going to live up to something they didn't agree to.

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When you're the other woman and you're the one who ends it, you're not just grieving him. You're grieving the life you imagined and never got to live. And that can be so much more heartbreaking than grieving what actually was.

This is the third episode in a row that goes hand in hand — first being worthy of someone who can be with you 100% of the time, then getting fed up with yourself enough to make the change, and now the part nobody warns you about: what happens after you make it. The rebuilding. The grief that comes in ten directions at once. You lose a best friend, a lover, a confidant, someone you spent years of your life with. And on top of all of it, you lose the fantasy. The moving in together. The being introduced to his friends and family. The being his plus one out loud. All the moments you built in your head and were quietly waiting for. You end up sad about something that never even happened.

I get into why he was never going to be the one to end it. Why would he? He was getting everything he needed from you and it cost him nothing. So you had to be the one. You had to break your own heart to take your life back. I talk about no contact and why it isn't optional, about limerence and how fast these relationships pull you under, and about the fact that I still call mine a real relationship — he had an all-access pass to my whole life, my family, my friends — and I know exactly what it was and exactly what it wasn't.

Underneath the waiting for him to choose you is the belief that when love is enough, you'll finally be enough. You already were. You were always enough. A tiny fraction of these ever work out, and the way out is choosing yourself over him, breaking your own heart, and trusting that the life on the other side is better than the one you were waiting for. Mine is. I'm obsessed with it.

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I just wrapped 5 weeks in LA, and I'm calling it the best decision I've made this year. This is the last The Summer of George from that trip, and I'm getting into all of it — why I went back to a city I hadn't lived in since right after college, what it felt like to spend that much time somewhere on my own, and why getting out of my comfort zone turned out to be exactly what I needed.

I talk through the food (a viral chicken sandwich, a coconut cake I got out of bed for at 2 a.m., and a caesar wrap I ate on the beach), the Dodgers (whoops I said Giants in the episode) game, the comedy shows, the hikes, and the people I finally met in person after only knowing them online. But the part I didn't see coming was a friend.

A while back I recorded an episode about friendship being a reason, a season, or a lifetime, and about losing two friends I thought I'd keep. While I was in LA, a friend I've had since I was 19, someone I truly thought was gone, reached out. We had lunch. And what actually happened between us was nothing like what I'd told myself.

I also get into the dating update everyone keeps asking about, the drive home at 3:33 in the morning to beat the desert heat, and why July ended up being the best month this podcast has ever had.

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Ending an affair with a married man usually gets framed as a decision about him. When he'll finally choose you. When he'll give you 100%. When you'll be done waiting. This episode is about the part nobody names: the day you get fed up with yourself.

The idea came from a call with a client. I could hear the love she has for him tangled up with the disappointment she has in herself, and I told her what I wish someone had told me sooner. You just need to get fed up with yourself. Fed up with being anxious. Fed up with waiting by the phone. Fed up with skipping out on your own life for a man who won't fully show up in his.

I walk through the day I ended my own relationship, which I hadn't planned and didn't see coming. I talk about the bar he raised so high he couldn't meet it, the slow burn you don't realize is a burn until you're already in love, and the exact moment being the other woman stopped being worth it to me. Not because of him. Because of who I was becoming while I waited.

If you're in it right now, this is what fed up with yourself actually sounds like, and why it's the signal that makes walking away possible.

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