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

Alex Croxford
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Relationships
  • Weekly

Join Alex Croxford on The Deeper Love Podcast as she guides women healing after betraying someone they loved. Through raw, compassionate conversations, The Deeper Love Podcast dives beneath the affair to the silence, the self-betrayal, and the parts of yourself you’ve forgotten. This is your space to release shame, face the truth, and begin again. With honest stories, intimate interviews, and deep guidance, The Deeper Love Podcast will help you rise from the ashes into love that feels safe, soft, and true.

  1. 5d ago

    S2#064 - After an Affair, Who Are You Now? Rebuilding Yourself When Life Falls Apart with Xenia Brandstetter

    What happens when the life you spent years building suddenly falls apart? In this deeply honest and inspiring conversation, I sit down with Xenia Brandstetter, whose relationship ended, business collapsed, career disappeared, and future plans unravelled within the space of a few months. Follow Xenia on Instagram @xeniaisfree: https://www.instagram.com/xeniaisfree/  Faced with the loss of everything she thought defined her, she found herself asking a question so many women encounter after a marriage, separation, affair, or major life transition: who am I when everything I built my identity around is gone? Together, we explore the grief, uncertainty, and freedom that come with starting over. We talk about the pressure many women feel to achieve, perform, and hold everything together, and how that pursuit can slowly disconnect us from ourselves. Xenia shares how losing the life she thought she wanted became an invitation to rediscover joy, creativity, play, and self-trust. From learning to follow tiny sparks of inspiration to rebuilding a relationship with herself from the ground up, her story is a powerful reminder that rock bottom is often the threshold of something far more aligned. . In this episode, we explore: Why major life collapses often become opportunities for profound self-discovery The hidden ways women abandon themselves through achievement, perfectionism, and people-pleasing Rediscovering joy, play, creativity, and personal desires after loss and heartbreak How to rebuild self-trust by following small instincts, nudges, and moments of curiosity Viewing the end of a relationship, career, or identity as a threshold into a more authentic life If you're questioning your marriage, navigating the aftermath of a major rupture, or wondering how to trust yourself again when everything feels uncertain, this episode will remind you that starting over isn't a punishment. It may just be the greatest invitation of your life. . You don't have to navigate the aftermath of your affair alone ❤️ One of the things I know from my own experience, and from supporting so many women who've had affairs, is just how lonely it can feel when you're carrying so much guilt, shame and confusion, but don't have anyone you feel able to talk to about it. And that's why I created The Sanctuary, a private, ongoing community for women navigating the aftermath of their own affair. It's somewhere you can talk honestly about what you're going through, ask the questions you might not feel comfortable asking anywhere else and be around women who genuinely understand because they're going through their own version of this too. Inside, we meet twice a month for guided Softening Sessions and group coaching, and you'll also have access to our private Sisterhood community, guided practices, resources and private podcast episodes to support you between calls. You don't need to have everything figured out before joining, and there's no pressure to share anything until you feel comfortable. Sometimes it can simply help to know there are other women who understand what you're carrying. ❤️ Find out more about The Sanctuary:  https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary  You can join at any time and access the community and resources straight away. Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com You don't have to navigate the aftermath of your affair alone ❤️

  2. Oct 20

    S2#063 - How Do I Trust Myself Again After Cheating?

    An affair doesn’t just rupture our relationship, but it ruptures us internally, and destroys our self-trust. And one of the hardest things to deal with after cheating, whether it’s six months later or twenty years later, is how you trust yourself again. I had always believed I was the kind of woman who would never cheat, who would never cause that kind of pain, who knew exactly who she was. And when I crossed that line, the image I had of myself shattered. I didn’t just break my husband’s trust. I broke my own. In this episode, I explore why rigid rules, restriction, avoidance, and “being even more good” don’t rebuild self‑trust - they just simulate the numbness and self‑abandonment that contributed to the affair in the first place. So I’m going to share how I slowly rebuilt trust in myself through honesty, boundaries, emotional truth‑telling, and learning to tolerate disappointing someone rather than abandoning myself. I talk about the mistakes I made after my marriage ended, the painful lessons that taught me how to uphold my own boundaries, and how those small moments of truth became the foundation for the relationship I’m in today. We talk about: How my affair shattered my self‑trust, and why that mattered The difference between boundaries, control, fear, and protection Why willpower and “being good” can’t rebuild trust How honesty, boundaries, and emotional truth restored my self‑trust Rebuilding trust through small, everyday choices rather than future promises If you fear you’ll repeat the past, if you feel stuck between control and freedom, or if you still don’t yet trust the woman you’re becoming, this episode is exactly what you need. . Ready to go deeper with your healing? If you can understand so much about why you cheated but still find yourself wondering how the hell do I actually move forward from here?, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart™. The Healed Heart™ is my six-month intimate group programme for women healing after their own affair. Six months gives us the time to work with what actually comes up in your life while we’re together. The guilt and shame that can still hit you out of nowhere. The old patterns you understand but still find yourself falling into. Your relationships, your boundaries, your needs, the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way, and what it looks like to begin trusting yourself again. Because I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking backwards at the woman who cheated. The goal isn’t to get you back to the woman you were before the affair. It’s to help you become a woman who doesn’t abandon herself in the same ways anymore. That’s how self-trust gets rebuilt. The next round of The Healed Heart™ begins today, Tuesday 13th October 2026. ❤️‍🩹 Find out more about The Healed Heart™:https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-healed-heart If you read through the page and think this might be what I need, you can book a Discovery Call with me from there and we’ll talk about where you are, what you need support with and whether The Healed Heart™ feels like the right next step for you. Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com

  3. Oct 13

    S2#062 - I Feel Numb With My Husband. Does That Mean My Marriage Is Over? with Lucy Maeve

    This week, I chat with therapeutic mentor and relational‑anxiety expert Lucy Maeve for a conversation that will land deeply for anyone who has ever felt confused, numb, avoidant, or full of doubt inside their relationship… especially in the aftermath of an affair. Together, we explore the often‑misunderstood world of relational anxiety and relational doubt: why it shows up, how it disguises itself, and why it becomes so painfully loud in safe, stable relationships. Lucy shares her own story of believing she was anxiously attached, only to discover that beneath the chase, the cortisol, and the addiction to unavailability lived a profound fear of being seen. She and Alex unpack how avoidance, numbness, disgust, “the ick,” and obsessive doubt often have very little to do with a partner’s shoes, job, laugh, or personality, and everything to do with old wounds low self‑worth, and the fear of true intimacy. This episode is a compassionate, eye‑opening guide for anyone who has felt alive in an affair but flat in their marriage, who has questioned whether numbness means the relationship is over, or who has struggled to understand why stability feels suffocating while fantasy feels electric. Alex and Lucy illuminate the deeper truth: wherever you go, there you are — and the work is learning to meet yourself, not just change partners. . We talk about: What relational anxiety really is, and why it’s so misunderstood The link between avoidance, numbness, “the ick,” and fear of being seen Why fantasy feels safe and primary relationships feel terrifying The role of self‑worth, achievement, and external validation in relational doubt How to begin working with relational anxiety through the body, not the mind If you’ve ever wondered whether your doubt is intuition or fear, or whether your numbness is truth or protection, then this episode will help you see yourself more clearly. . Connect with Lucy: Website - https://www.lucymaeve.com/  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lucy__maeve/  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-maeve/  . Ready to go deeper with your healing? If you can understand so much about why you cheated but still find yourself wondering how the hell do I actually move forward from here?, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart™. The Healed Heart™ is my six-month intimate group programme for women healing after their own affair. Six months gives us the time to work with what actually comes up in your life while we’re together. The guilt and shame that can still hit you out of nowhere. The old patterns you understand but still find yourself falling into. Your relationships, your boundaries, your needs, the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way, and what it looks like to begin trusting yourself again. Because I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking backwards at the woman who cheated. The goal isn’t to get you back to the woman you were before the affair. It’s to help you become a woman who doesn’t abandon herself in the same ways anymore. That’s how self-trust gets rebuilt. The next round of The Healed Heart™ begins Tuesday 13th October. ❤️‍🩹 Find out more about The Healed Heart™:https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-healed-heart If you read through the page and think this might be what I need, you can book a Discovery Call with me from there and we’ll talk about where you are, what you need support with and whether The Healed Heart™ feels like the right next step for you. Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com

    S2#062 - I Feel Numb With My Husband. Does That Mean My Marriage Is Over? with Lucy Maeve

  4. Oct 6

    S2#061 - You Understand Why You Cheated. So Why Do You Still Feel So Much Shame?

    When I was married to my ex-husband, I never knew how little I felt. I mean real emotions - the kind that make you burst into tears or throw something in anger, or laugh uncontrollably. When did you last do that? Because learning how to feel all the things can be such an important part of moving beyond shame, and really processing the why, the how, and the what next of your affair. So today I share the real story behind how I went from hiding my affair to speaking about it publicly - on social media, in newspapers, on radio, and in rooms full of women. Spoiler alert: I learnt how to feel. In this episode I talk about why understanding your patterns and having all the insight in the world doesn’t necessarily mean the shame disappears. Healing requires you to learn to sit with the guilt, shame, fear, grief, anger, and sadness without numbing, avoiding, over-analysing, or running. . We talk about: Why insight alone can’t heal shame, and why learning to feel matters too The role of numbing, avoidance, and emotional disconnection after an affair Learning to feel guilt, fear, sadness, and shame without immediately trying to make them go away Accepting the parts of yourself you might not particularly like How learning to feel helped me find the courage to tell the truth publicly Consider this episode your invitation to stop just talking about your feelings and actually start experiencing them. To stop rejecting the parts of yourself you don’t like, and start getting curious about them. To stop punishing yourself for what happened and begin accepting that all of these parts belong to you too. This is about looking back in order to move forward, and if you need permission to do this, then this episode is for you. . Ready to go deeper with your healing? If you can understand so much about why you cheated but still find yourself wondering how the hell do I actually move forward from here?, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart™. The Healed Heart™ is my six-month intimate group programme for women healing after their own affair. Six months gives us the time to work with what actually comes up in your life while we’re together. The guilt and shame that can still hit you out of nowhere. The old patterns you understand but still find yourself falling into. Your relationships, your boundaries, your needs, the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way, and what it looks like to begin trusting yourself again. Because I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking backwards at the woman who cheated. The goal isn’t to get you back to the woman you were before the affair. It’s to help you become a woman who doesn’t abandon herself in the same ways anymore. That’s how self-trust gets rebuilt. The next round of The Healed Heart™ begins Tuesday 13th October. ❤️‍🩹 Find out more about The Healed Heart™:https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-healed-heart If you read through the page and think this might be what I need, you can book a Discovery Call with me from there and we’ll talk about where you are, what you need support with and whether The Healed Heart™ feels like the right next step for you. Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com

    S2#061 - You Understand Why You Cheated. So Why Do You Still Feel So Much Shame?

  5. Sep 29

    S2#060 - What Does Healing After Your Affair Actually Look Like?

    What does healing really look like after an affair? Not the fantasy of “being fully healed”, not the obsession with timelines, and not the pressure to return to who you were before everything blew apart, but the reality we don’t talk about enough. In this episode, I’m looking at some of the ideas we have about what healing is supposed to look like after you’ve been the one who cheated. Maybe you think being healed means you’ll eventually stop feeling guilty about what you did, forget your affair partner, know exactly what you want from your marriage, trust yourself completely, or somehow get back to the woman you were before all of this happened. I don’t think healing works like that. For me, healing is much more about who you’re becoming and what happens when real life happens. Because suffering isn’t proof that you’re taking responsibility. Shame can’t transform you. And you can have an incredibly intellectual understanding of your patterns and still find yourself repeating them when you’re triggered, scared, lonely or disconnected from yourself. Healing happens in those moments. It’s noticing yourself starting to disappear in a relationship and doing something differently. It’s feeling guilt without immediately deciding that its presence means you’re a terrible person. It’s recognising when an old pattern is showing up before you’re six months down the road wondering how the hell you got there again. It’s slowly beginning to trust yourself because you’re actually learning how to stay connected to yourself. I also talk about something I think is REALLY important after an affair: what happens to the parts of you that came alive within it. Maybe you felt more sexual. More playful. More desired. More free. More alive. Those parts of you didn’t belong to your affair partner. They belong to YOU. Part of this work can be learning how to bring those parts of yourself home, without needing the affair, the secrecy or another person to access them. So if you’re wondering how you’ll know when you’re actually healing, this episode is for you. . We talk about: Why “being fully healed” is a myth and what healing can actually look like The difference between guilt, shame and taking responsibility Why understanding your patterns doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to change them What happens to the parts of you that came alive during the affair Rebuilding self-trust through the small choices you make in everyday life If you’ve spent years being responsible, capable, accommodating, easygoing or the woman who keeps everything together, while slowly losing touch with your own needs and wants along the way, I think there’ll be a lot in this episode for you. Ready to go deeper with your healing? If you can understand so much about why you cheated but still find yourself wondering how the hell do I actually move forward from here?, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart™. The Healed Heart is my six-month intimate group programme for women healing after their own affair. Six months gives us the time to work with what actually comes up in your life while we’re together. The guilt and shame that can still hit you out of nowhere. The old patterns you understand but still find yourself falling into. Your relationships, your boundaries, your needs, the parts of yourself you may have lost along the way, and what it looks like to begin trusting yourself again. Because I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking backwards at the woman who cheated. The goal isn’t to get you back to the woman you were before the affair. It’s to help you become a woman who doesn’t abandon herself in the same ways anymore. That’s how self-trust gets rebuilt. The next round of The Healed Heart™ begins Tuesday 13th October. ❤️‍🩹 Find out more about The Healed Heart™: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart If you read through the page and think this might be what I need, you can book a Discovery Call with me from there and we’ll talk about where you are, what you need support with and whether The Healed Heart feels like the right next step for you. Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com

    S2#060 - What Does Healing After Your Affair Actually Look Like?

  6. Sep 22

    S2#059 - I Know Why I Cheated. So Why Don’t I Know What I Want

    This episode speaks directly to the woman who can explain her affair with absolute clarity - the patterns, the wounds, the childhood conditioning, the emotional disconnection - yet still feels paralysed when asked the simplest, most confronting question: What do you actually want now? I unpack the profound difference between understanding the past and being able to choose your future, and why so many women like you are stuck in painful indecision, even after months of therapy, analysis, and self‑reflection. A lifetime of people‑pleasing, conflict avoidance, responsibility, perfectionism, and hyper‑attunement to everyone else’s needs can leave you fluent in self‑analysis but unable to hear their own voice. When your entire identity has been built around keeping the peace, being the good wife, the sensible one, the achiever, the caretaker - desire becomes foreign territory. And when guilt enters the room, it becomes almost impossible to believe you deserve to choose at all. This episode is a grounded, compassionate guide for navigating the chaos of grief, shame, longing, fantasy, fear, attachment, and pressure — without forcing a premature decision. Alex shows how clarity emerges not from intellectual analysis, but from rebuilding self‑trust in the smallest moments: noticing resentment, telling the truth, saying no, honouring your energy, and listening to the parts of you that have been silent for decades. We talk about: Why understanding your patterns doesn’t automatically reveal what you want The paralysis of indecision after an affair — and why it’s so common Guilt, shame, fantasy, attachment, and the pressure to “choose correctly” Rebuilding self‑trust through small, everyday acts of honesty How to begin hearing your own voice after a lifetime of pleasing others So if you’ve ever felt stuck between staying, leaving, repairing, or letting go, this episode will help you stop searching for the “perfect answer” and start reconnecting with the woman who has to make it. . Want to understand what’s underneath all of this? If listening to this makes you realise there are still things beneath your affair that you don’t fully understand, that’s exactly what we’re going to begin exploring inside Why You Cheated. A 3-day online experience to help you make more sense of how you got here, ease some of the shame and guilt, and begin trusting yourself again. 21st, 22nd & 23rd September 5pm BST · 90 minutes each day £37 + VAT Instagram: @iamalexcroxfordWebsite: www.alexcroxford.com

    S2#059 - I Know Why I Cheated. So Why Don’t I Know What I Want

  7. Sep 15

    S2#058 - How Did I Become the Woman Who Cheated?

    This episode is a deep, unflinching exploration of the question almost every woman asks herself after an affair: how the hell did I become this woman? I break open the identity rupture that happens when the “good girl,” the responsible one, the achiever, the caretaker, the one who holds everything together… becomes the woman who crossed a line she never imagined she would. This is about so much more than cheating; I’m talking about the psychological, emotional, and relational blind spots that shape who we become long before your affair ever happens. So let’s cancel the myth that infidelity appears out of nowhere, and instead explore the hidden patterns - perfectionism, overgiving, hyper‑independence, conflict avoidance, disappearing, rebellion - that evolve from self-protection to self-imprisonment, and eventually manifest as cheating. This episode is your invitation to stop asking “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking the real questions: what had I stopped feeling? What had I buried? What had I been performing? What part of me finally found oxygen? Because your affair wasn’t the beginning - it was the moment something long‑buried finally came to the surface. We talk about: The identity rupture of becoming “the woman who cheated” Blind‑spot behaviours: perfectionism, overgiving, hyper‑independence, conflict avoidance How childhood conditioning shapes adult relational patterns Why the affair felt like aliveness - and what that actually reveals The real accountability: understanding the patterns that existed long before the affair So if you’ve ever felt confused, ashamed, or shattered by your own choices, this episode will help you understand the woman you were, meet the woman underneath her, and begin becoming the woman you’re meant to be. . Want to understand what’s underneath all of this? If listening to this makes you realise there are still things beneath your affair that you don’t fully understand, that’s exactly what we’re going to begin exploring inside Why You Cheated. A 3-day online experience to help you make more sense of how you got here, ease some of the shame and guilt, and begin trusting yourself again. 21st, 22nd & 23rd September 5pm BST 90 minutes each day £37 + VAT Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com

    S2#058 - How Did I Become the Woman Who Cheated?

  8. Sep 8

    S2#057 - What a Betrayed Wife Taught Me About Shame, Accountability & Healing After an Affair, with Amity Rose

    Betrayal, alcoholism, shame, self-destruction, and the breakdown of a marriage. My guest this week is Amity Rose, and she’s been through all of the above, and via a lot of personal reflection, taught herself how to face her husband’s infidelity with clarity, compassion, and power. In our brutally honest conversation we dismantle the cultural narrative that treats cheating as an unforgivable crime, and instead reveal the deeper truth that none of us like to admit - cheating is a reflection on everyone. Yeah, even you. Amity shares the moment that shattered her, the years of healing that followed, and how her husband’s betrayal became his own catalyst for transformation. This is a masterclass in finding the courage required to rebuild your life. We talk about: Infidelity as a symptom of deeper wounds, not the root problem Amity’s story of addiction, shame, awakening, and long‑term sobriety How childhood conditioning shapes adult relationships and coping patterns Rebuilding a marriage through individual transformation, not quick fixes The “divine invitation” inside devastation: choosing awakening over victimhood So if you’ve ever faced betrayal, felt broken by your own choices, or wondered how to rebuild trust in yourself or another, this episode is for you. . Want to understand what’s underneath all of this? If listening to this makes you realise there are still things beneath your affair that you don’t fully understand, that’s exactly what we’re going to begin exploring inside Why You Cheated. A 3-day online experience to help you make more sense of how you got here, ease some of the shame and guilt, and begin trusting yourself again. 21st, 22nd & 23rd September 5pm BST · 90 minutes each day £37 + VAT Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com

    S2#057 - What a Betrayed Wife Taught Me About Shame, Accountability & Healing After an Affair, with Amity Rose
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Join Alex Croxford on The Deeper Love Podcast as she guides women healing after betraying someone they loved. Through raw, compassionate conversations, The Deeper Love Podcast dives beneath the affair to the silence, the self-betrayal, and the parts of yourself you’ve forgotten. This is your space to release shame, face the truth, and begin again. With honest stories, intimate interviews, and deep guidance, The Deeper Love Podcast will help you rise from the ashes into love that feels safe, soft, and true.

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