Most women in the aftermath of an affair are carrying a crushing story about themselves: I ruined everything. There must be something wrong with me. I’m broken. But what if the affair wasn’t a moral failure or a character flaw, but a mirror? In this episode, I speak to the deeper truth that so many women never get the space to explore: that long before the affair, many of us were already surviving in love rather than living in it. We were coping, managing, holding it together, staying strong, staying quiet, staying in control, often wearing masks we learned very early in life to stay safe, liked, chosen, or needed. I talk about the masks women wear in relationships. The “I’m fine” mask. The “I don’t need much” mask. The “I can handle it” mask.The hyper-independent, capable, emotionally contained woman who learned - through childhood, culture, and even the women’s empowerment movement - that softness was risky, having needs was weakness, and being low-maintenance was safer than being honest. We explore how these survival strategies may have protected you once, but slowly cost you intimacy, connection, and aliveness. And how an affair can become the moment those strategies finally collapse because something in you could no longer keep pretending. This episode is not about excusing betrayal. It’s about understanding the terrain beneath it. Inside the episode, I explore: How many women learned to survive in love by becoming strong, capable, and emotionally self-sufficient Why wearing masks in relationships keeps you safe, but eventually keeps you lonely The quiet cost of hyper-independence and emotional self-containment How the women’s empowerment narrative sometimes taught us to compete instead of soften, cope instead of receive Why the affair wasn’t about desire for another person, but a loss of connection to yourself How survival in love eventually creates a fracture that demands to be seen And why this moment, painful as it is, may be an invitation into a deeper, truer way of relating, first with yourself, and then with others If you’re listening to this and recognising yourself - if you can feel how long you’ve been holding everything together, how much you’ve been managing instead of being met - I want you to know this: you are not broken. You are responding to a way of living and loving that no longer fits who you are becoming. And if this episode has stirred something in you, The Sanctuary is open. It’s a place to land in the aftermath of your affair. A steady, non-judgemental space where you don’t have to explain yourself, perform healing, or know what comes next. Just somewhere to be held long enough to soften, breathe, and begin again, in community, and in your own time. Enter The Sanctuary @iamalexcroxford
