The Scarlet Edit: Infidelity, Divorce, Starting Over.

Why don't I feel guilty about my affair? And why does everyone expect me to? Last week a man commented on my Substack article to tell me I'm a whore. He read one piece of my life and decided who I am. I blocked him, deleted it, and then started thinking about shame.

Shame and guilt are two different feelings. Guilt says I feel bad that I did that. Shame says I am bad. A lot of shame comes from what we think other people will think of us, and sometimes it has nothing to do with anything we did. I talk about the difference, and about why society expects anyone involved in an affair, whether you cheated, or you were the other woman or the other man, to repent and ask the world for forgiveness.

I don't feel shame. I don't feel guilt. I don't regret the relationship I was in, and I won't ask strangers to forgive me. Many of my listeners and clients have told me they feel the same way. I explain why that isn't me condoning affairs, why I love who I am on this side of it, and why I don't believe you can force yourself to feel a way you don't.

I also mention my episode with Dr. Zoe Shaw on shame and complex shame, and I'm asking men who've had an affair, and women who've been involved in one in any role, how they felt once it was over.

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Should you tell a new partner you were the other woman? When I first started dating again post-breakup, I decided I would. I led with it. If I had to tell a man eventually, why not tell him from the jump?

Back then, it backfired. The men who showed up looked great on paper and were married, had a girlfriend, or were "separated" and living on a friend's couch. Some of them assumed my honesty meant I'd do it again. Absolutely not. I shed some tears, put dating on pause, and put the next two years into myself.

I also get into midlife dating and men lying about their age on the apps (one Hinge match said 48 and posted a golf swing that said 65), why talking about sex still makes me crawl into my shell like a turtle, and my Q4 plans: Kiss and Tell on Substack and a brand new TikTok.

This go around with dating looked nothing like the last, and The Summer of George Bonus Series wrapped up last week where I documented it all.

Because The Scarlet Edit is public, when I matched with men on Hinge this summer, I sent the podcast first. The single, confident ones didn't ask a bunch of questions. The right people won't look at your past like you did something horrible and should be punished for it.

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Taking a break from dating apps after a summer of putting myself out there. That's where I landed in the Summer of George finale. Sixteen Friday episodes, four months, three chapters I didn't see coming, and one very gross run-in with a bird in Greece.

I spent my last two weeks in Greece living the way I love to live here. My table at the waterfront cafe where the Wi-Fi connects the second I sit down. A friend's first run of her new food tour. And a bird that shit on my head halfway through it. Second time in my life. The first was Cambodia in 2013, and that time at least I had a pool to dive into.

I also get into why I called it the Summer of George in the first place. Seinfeld, a clip I found on Instagram, and my own summer of yes: making myself uncomfortable, trying the things I kept saying I'd try, and putting myself back out there to date on purpose.

Then what's next. My Hinge is paused, freshly updated, and going back on once I'm in Scottsdale after my 30-year high school reunion and a mastermind I'm speaking at. And Kiss & Tell, my new Substack, with a free weekly essay that goes deeper on the show and a paid tier that alternates between my diary and your anonymous confessions. If this summer taught me anything, put yourself out there. You'll be surprised at what happens.

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Are affairs just about sex? It's the question people jump to the second they hear the word affair, and after last week's conversation with Dr. Marie Murphy, I wanted to go deeper with my own answer.

Yes, sex plays a role. We crave intimacy and connection, and some people go looking for it because they're not getting any of it at home. I get it. Physical intimacy is a non-negotiable for me too. But if my affair had only been about sex, it never would have lasted as long as it did. You reach a point with someone where you either like who they are or you don't, and the sex can't carry that.

I get into why so many people are so curious about affairs in the first place, how attraction works when it's instant versus when it grows, and why so many women never discover what their body is actually capable of until they're with someone who wants to enjoy it with them. This is one of the more personal ones, and at 48 it still feels strange to feel awkward talking about the most primal thing two people can do.

Affairs tap into a level of intimacy, physical and emotional, that people are craving and not getting anywhere else. That's the part nobody discusses while they're busy with the scandal of it all.

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Dating in your 40s will teach you things about yourself you didn't expect, and this one taught me plenty. This is the second-to-last week of The Summer of George, and instead of another wild recap, I'm tired in the best way and doing something different. I'm in Greece, my favorite place in the world, living a little softer these last few weeks and looking back at the four people I dated this summer and what I'm actually keeping from each.

There's the guy who talked at me for twenty minutes straight while I finished my entire meal. The London fling that reminded me confident, fun men are out there and interested. The Hinge match who resurfaced with a text doing the absolute least, no apology for dropping the ball, and got exactly the response he earned: none. Because I am not forgettable, and neither are you.

And then the Scottsdale guy, who I did like, and who I wanted to text after a little Greek wine with my girlfriends. I didn't. Not because I stopped caring, but because I respect myself too much. I also get into the story my brain has run since junior high, how I used AI to spot the pattern, and how I finally changed an ending that was never serving me.

Underneath all of it is the thing solo travel has given me over the last ten years: a memory bank of joy that's entirely mine, untainted, and worth protecting. That's why I chose to live these last weeks intentionally instead of chasing one more story to tell.

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Are affairs really just about sex? I don't think they are, and neither does my guest this week. I sat down with Dr. Marie Murphy, a non-judgmental infidelity coach, to take apart the biggest myths about why people cheat, starting with the assumption that it's all physical. From my own years as the other woman, I can tell you the sex was never the whole story.

We get into why most people who cheat don't actually want to be cheating, and why so many of them stay stuck instead of leaving. Marie's take: a lot of people cheat and keep cheating because they're terrified of hurting someone, not because they want to. We talk about why "just get divorced" is easier said than done, and why the person who was betrayed sometimes holds onto that hurt like an identity they can't put down.

Then we get to the question I know a lot of you are sitting with: how long do you wait for him to leave his wife? Marie's answer reframes the whole thing. There's no sign from the universe telling you when to walk. The real question is how much longer you'd be gladly willing to stick around and see what happens, which is a very different thing from waiting.

Marie also said something I haven't stopped thinking about: the people most certain they'd never forgive a cheater are usually the ones who've never been cheated on. She has, in dramatic and not-so-dramatic ways, and she still refuses to treat it as the worst thing that can happen to a person.

Marie's Website: https://www.mariemurphyphd.com/

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Why do men pull away right when things start to feel real? I spent three weeks seeing a guy in Scottsdale who did everything right, until his kid walked in on us one morning and the whole thing went cold. On this week's The Summer of George I break down what happened, the text I'd been waiting for, and the tiger reel that told me everything I needed to know.

Here's what surprised me. Instead of spiraling, I realized I'm actually ready for something real. I caught myself wondering if my friends would like him, and if I could build something with him. That's new. And when he couldn't meet me on the one thing I don't budge on, communication, I didn't shrink myself to keep him around. I like me more than that.

Then I did what any woman back on the apps in her 40s does. I gave Hinge a whirl in Greece and matched with a guy who lied about his height and could barely speak English in person. I left in about thirty seconds. Because lying about your height is a red flag, and I don't owe a stranger a third glass of wine.

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Wanting to be chosen is something we all carry, and inside an affair it turns into its own kind of ache. In this solo episode I get into what it actually means to wait for a married man to choose you, why the fantasy that he'll eventually leave his wife feels so real when you're living it, and what the odds actually look like once you step back and do the math on any of it.

I talk about the five years I spent as the other woman, the moment I started questioning whether being chosen was even the right thing to want, and the question I now put to my coaching clients: if he walked up to you at a bar tonight, knowing everything you know now, would he be the guy you'd pick? Some say yes. Plenty say no. That answer changes everything.

This is also where I get honest about choosing yourself, and why I think that phrase gets thrown around online without anyone explaining how it actually works. I go back to the first time I did it, standing on a sidewalk at 38, deciding there was no next time. That decision is the whole episode.

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Should you take dating advice from your friends? I used to hand mine every detail, until I realized the advice coming back was shaped by what they wanted for their own lives, not what I wanted for mine. One friend wanted marriage and babies. I didn't. So every time I vented, she answered from her lens, which wasn't the same lens I was looking through.

This is chapter three of The Summer of George, recorded from Greece, where I'm picking the dating diary back up. Dating in my 40s wasn't supposed to come with real feelings this fast, but I've been seeing someone for three weeks and the feelings I swore I wasn't looking for showed up anyway. There was a pause in our communication right before I flew out, and it dropped me back into the thing I keep relearning: the only person I can control is me, right here, right now. Not his reactions, not his feelings, not the 7,000 miles now between us.

I get into why communication is the whole foundation for me, why I can't stand blanket statements like "all men are the worst," and why I think you attract what you say out loud. There's also the Greek TikTok that once got me obliterated in the comments for saying my life here felt simple.

Three summers in, the woman at the gym remembered me. So did the guy I buy eggs from. That's the part of this life I didn't see coming either.

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Can you actually sue your husband's mistress? In North Carolina, you can. This week I sat down with Nicole Sodoma, a family law attorney who's spent 25 years in divorce court, and she walked me through alienation of affection — one of the last laws in the country that lets a wife sue the other woman for the end of her marriage.

But the part that stuck with me wasn't the lawsuit. It was her take on why marriages actually end. After thousands of consultations, Nicole is convinced infidelity is almost never the real reason. It's a symptom. The affair is the thing everyone points to, but underneath it there's usually a slow breakdown in communication that started long before anyone crossed a line.

We get into why women file for divorce more than men, and why that number might not mean what people think it means. We talk about what she asks every single client about the moment their marriage started falling apart, and how shame shows up in divorce even when no one has the words for it yet.

Nicole's been through her own separation, and it changed how she practices. Her closing advice about the space between what happens to you and how you respond is the kind of thing I wrote down the second we stopped recording.

Nicole's Website: https://sodomalaw.com/

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