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

Alex Croxford
  • 5.0 (3)
  • 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. 1d ago

    S2#066 - The Woman You Were Before, During and After Your Affair

    I’ve spoken to hundreds of women navigating the aftermath of infidelity, and I’ve noticed a pattern. There are often three distinct versions of a woman's identity around an affair. There's the woman before the affair. The high achiever. The good girl. The people-pleaser. The woman who appears to have it all together, puts everyone else's needs first, and spends her life chasing success, validation, achievement, and approval. Yet underneath it all, something feels missing. Something feels flat, numb, or quietly out of alignment. Then comes the affair itself. Not because she was looking for it, but because something within her suddenly comes alive. She feels seen. Met. Desired. Free. Connected. For many women, it feels like oxygen after years of emotional survival. And while this doesn't justify the betrayal, it does reveal something important: the affair often awakens parts of ourselves we've spent a lifetime suppressing. And then comes the third woman, the one trying desperately to put her life back together. The woman carrying guilt, shame, grief, and responsibility while attempting to return to who she was before. But here's the truth: once you've seen beyond the walls of the well, you can never unknow what you've discovered. . In this episode, we explore: The three stages of identity many women experience before, during, and after an affair Why so many "good women" find themselves feeling numb, disconnected, and unfulfilled before infidelity What affairs often awaken: aliveness, freedom, desire, emotional connection, and self-expression Why returning to the woman you were before the affair keeps you stuck in the same patterns How to reclaim the parts of yourself that came alive during the affair without repeating the cycle of betrayal and self-abandonment If you need an invitation to stop trying to become the woman you were before the affair and start becoming the woman who no longer needs external validation to feel alive, this episode is exactly what you need to hear. . 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

  2. Nov 3

    S2#065 - I Know I Need to Let My Affair Partner Go. So Why Can't I?

    Do you know the relationship needs to end, want to move forward, and yet still feel an overwhelming pull towards your affair partner? This is a common feeling among women who have an affair, but often you feel too ashamed to talk about it. So if you've ever found yourself checking your phone, replaying conversations, wondering whether he's thinking about you, or feeling frustrated that you can't simply "move on," this episode is for you, as I unpack why understanding that an affair is over doesn't automatically switch off the attachment, longing, grief, or desire that remains. I explore what the affair may have represented beyond the person themselves, and rather than judging these feelings or trying to force them away, I invite you to get curious about them. Because often, what we're really grieving isn't just the person. It's the version of ourselves we reconnected with through the relationship. . In this episode, we explore: Why ending an affair doesn't immediately end the attachment, longing, or grief The deeper needs affairs often awaken: feeling desired, alive, seen, valued, and connected to yourself How people-pleasing, self-abandonment, and external validation can fuel attachment to an affair partner Learning to separate your feelings from your actions and rebuild trust in yourself through healthy boundaries Reclaiming the parts of yourself that emerged during the affair without needing the relationship to continue This is your invitation to stop fighting your emotions and start understanding them; to recognise that you can miss someone and still choose to let them go; to trust that the qualities you experienced through the affair were never theirs to give you in the first place. They were always yours. And learning how to reclaim them may be one of the most important parts of your healing journey. . 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

  3. Oct 27

    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 ❤️

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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?

  7. 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?

  8. 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
See All (71)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 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.

Information

You Might Also Like