Explore every episode of the podcast The Deeper Love Podcast: For the Woman Healing After Betraying Someone She Loved
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| S2#050 – How To Forgive Yourself For Cheating (And Why That's Not Actually What You Need) | 21 juil. 2026 | 00:23:01 | |
I was Googling at three o'clock in the morning how to forgive myself for cheating. And if only it had been as simple as Google giving me a list and then everything being right with the world. But it wasn't, and the truth is, self-forgiveness wasn't actually the thing that set me free. That might be uncomfortable to hear, because right now, forgiveness is probably the thing you want most. You want to forgive yourself, you want your partner to forgive you, and then you want to be able to move on and get on with the rest of your life. I get it. I wanted exactly the same thing. But here's what I know now: skipping from the pain of betrayal straight to forgiveness means missing the rich, brutal, beautiful journey of self-discovery that this pain is actually calling you towards. And in this episode I want to tell you what that journey actually looked like for me (including the moment I met a three-and-a-half-year-old version of me, standing in my nan's lounge, and realised I had been living my entire life from a story I made up in that moment) This is the episode I wish someone had played me when I was in the pits of it. In this episode, we explore:
Resources mentioned:
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| S2#049 – "Once A Cheat, Always A Cheat" Actually True? | 14 juil. 2026 | 00:20:48 | |
Once a cheat, always a cheat. If you've been unfaithful, that sentence is probably going around and around in your head. Maybe you're asking it about yourself. Maybe someone else has said it to you. And I think rather than brushing it aside, we actually need to look at it. Because the truth is, and I'll be honest with you, in some cases, yes. If the pattern underneath the affair isn't addressed, it can happen again. And that's exactly what I want to talk about in this episode. Because I had cheated on every single partner I had before my marriage. And when I first had to face that in a coaching session, I was mortified. I considered myself a good girl. I had morals. I judged people who cheated. And yet there it was staring at me in black and white. So this episode is about why. Not the surface-level why - not "I was lonely" or "we'd grown apart." The real why. The pattern underneath. The part of us that is performing a version of herself she thinks is lovable, suppressing everything she actually needs, feeling dead inside, and then finding in an affair the first moment in years that she finally feels alive. And more importantly, what it actually takes to break that pattern for good. Because understanding it isn't enough, and this is where so many women get stuck. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If you recognised yourself in the performing. In the deadness. In the part of you that finally felt alive in the affair and couldn't understand why. If you've been in therapy for years, you understand your patterns, and you're still scared you'll do it again. The Sanctuary is my private community for women in the aftermath of an affair, where understanding the pattern starts to become breaking it. With me, and with a room full of women who are carrying exactly what you're carrying. You don't have to figure this out alone. | |||
| S2#048 – The Year We Tried To Save Our Marriage After My Affair | 07 juil. 2026 | 00:29:30 | |
The year after I told my then-husband I'd been unfaithful to him was the hardest year of my life. I pray to God I never experience a year harder than that. I don't think anyone talks about that year enough, because the moment the truth comes out feels like an explosion, but what comes after is total devastation. And it is so hard to navigate. In this episode I'm going deep into that year - The couples therapy on Zoom, the conversations we kept having that we didn’t realise were just re-traumatising us both. Moving out into my mum's little cottage in the middle of COVID, curled up on the sofa, crying every single day, barely able to think straight. I share the two things I genuinely regret about how I handled that period and what I now understand about what actually helps repair and what doesn't. The moment I actually asked for something I needed, and was absolutely petrified he'd say no. How I eventually knew it was over, and why, even in the terror of walking away from everything I'd built, I chose to trust there was something on the other side. If you're in the repair phase right now, this one is for you. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If you're in it right now. If you're having the same conversations on repeat. If you feel like you have to sit through everything because you're the one who caused this. If you're so lost you can't see the end of your own nose. The Sanctuary is the space I wish had existed when I was going through what you're going through right now. A private community for women in the aftermath of an affair, where you don't have to do this alone, don't have to perform fine, and don't have to have it figured out before you walk in. The door is open. | |||
| S2#047 – How My Spiritual Awakening Helped Me Heal The Shame Of My Affair | 30 juin 2026 | 00:28:10 | |
Seven years ago, I would have rolled my eyes at everything in this episode. I thought crystals were bollocks. I thought energy healing was bollocks. I thought past lives were definitely bollocks. I was a rational, logical, practical TV executive, and nobody could have convinced me otherwise. And then my life imploded, and I got desperate. And desperate women do things they never thought they'd do (like spend over £800 on a two-day retreat in a converted chapel in East London, covered in sage smoke and quartz crystals, surrounded by complete strangers). And within about forty minutes, I was sobbing on a yoga mat, having never cried in front of a stranger in my life. That was the beginning of something and I had no idea what. Something that would take years to understand, and that I still don't fully understand now. A spiritual awakening that wasn't rainbows and unicorns… it was bloody terrifying. A complete dissolution of everything I thought I was. In this episode, I share all of it. The card that was pulled at that retreat - the goddess Kali, the beginning of the end. The synchronicities I couldn't explain. The ayahuasca ceremonies in the Amazon that broke me open and showed me things I still can't quite believe. The moment the plant told me that the fear I'd been carrying in my body wasn't even mine (it was my mother's). And the conversation with my mum, weeks later, that confirmed every word of it. This isn't an episode that will tell you what to believe. It's an episode about what happens when the life you've controlled falls apart, and something else (something you didn't expect) starts to appear. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If something in this episode cracked something open. If you've been white-knuckling your way through the aftermath, trying to think your way out, trying to control your way back to safety. Sometimes we need to sit with other women who can see possibilities we can't yet see for ourselves. Women who have been in the middle of it and come out the other side. That's why The Sanctuary exists. It's my private community for women in the aftermath of an affair. Not a programme. A room. A place where you don't have to tidy yourself up before you walk in. The door is open. | |||
| S2#046 – The Affair Wasn't the First Sign Something Was Wrong | 23 juin 2026 | 00:30:15 | |
I want to take you back to 2019. Sat in Homerton Hospital, in the fertility department with my then husband next to me. Signing the consent forms for IVF. And the whole time, I was carrying the secret that I had been unfaithful to him. That moment, I can see now, contained the whole story. Because I was sitting there trying to create life whilst being completely disconnected from my own. The irregular periods, the fertility struggles, the rage at my own body for not doing what I needed it to do - I thought that was the problem. I thought my body was failing me. But what I understand now is that my body wasn't failing me at all. It was trying to get my attention. It had been trying to get my attention for years. The affair wasn't the first sign something was wrong - It was just the loudest one. In this episode, I share what was really going on underneath the high-achieving, always-pushing, never-needing version of me that walked into that hospital. The woman who went to IVF appointments alone because asking for support felt weak. Who was so disconnected from her own emotions that she didn't even know she was carrying grief. Whose body was screaming, and who had no idea how to listen. And I share what happened when I finally did. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If you recognised yourself in the pushing. In the never slowing down. In the part of you that had built an entire identity out of being the one who didn't need anything - until something cracked open and demanded to be heard. The Sanctuary is my private, ongoing community for women in the aftermath of an affair. Not a programme. A room of women, carrying what you're carrying, where you get to be completely honest, to say what's actually happening and to begin to listen to yourself again, surrounded by women who just get it. Because after my affair, as I started this, there was nowhere for me to take any of this. I built The Sanctuary because that place needs to exist. | |||
| S2#045 – What Nobody Told Me About The Year After The Affair | 16 juin 2026 | 00:21:08 | |
Everyone talks about the moment the affair comes out. Nobody talks about what happens next. In this episode, I'm going inside the year that broke me far more than the affair itself - the year I spent trying to repair, trying to make it right, and completely disappearing in the process. Because here's what I know now that I didn't know then: telling the truth was not the lowest point. The lowest point was the twelve months that followed, when I gave him everything - every answer, every conversation, every piece of my nervous system - because I had decided, in the moment I saw his devastation, that I owed him all of me. I thought absorbing his pain was the same as taking accountability. It wasn't, it was self-abandonment but it just looked different. And it was more painful than anything that had come before it. In this episode, I share what I wish someone had told me: there is a difference between listening to how you've hurt someone, and using their pain to punish yourself. And if you don't know that line exists, you will cross it again and again without ever knowing you're doing it. If you're in the repair phase right now - trying to hold it all together, trying to make it right, shrinking yourself around his moods - this episode is for you. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If you recognised yourself in the shrinking. In answering every question at whatever cost to yourself. In the part of you that believes you have to earn your way back to being allowed to need something. I see you, and I know how hard this is to navigate alone. The reason I built The Sanctuary is because when I was in the midst of the aftermath, I longed for a safe place to go where I wouldn’t be judged, and I could heal with other women who understood the pain I was in. The Sanctuary is my private, ongoing community for women in the aftermath of an affair. Join today and have immediate access to the sisterhood. You don't have to keep doing this alone. | |||
| S2#044 – After My Affair, I Thought The World Was Better Without Me. This Is How I Found My Way Back. | 09 juin 2026 | 00:22:58 | |
Six years ago, I genuinely didn't know if I wanted to keep living. The shame of what I had done felt unbearable. I couldn't think straight, I couldn't be present, and I couldn't imagine a future where I felt okay again. And yet today, I'm sitting behind a microphone telling that story publicly. So what happened? How did I get from there to here? Because I can tell you, it wasn't time. It wasn't understanding what went wrong in my relationship. And it definitely wasn't listening to podcasts. In this episode, I share the part of my story I've never told in this much detail: the year after my affair, when I was convinced that forgetting was my only option. We were about to start IVF. We were mid-way through a huge house extension. My then husband was deep in his accountancy exams. Telling him felt like it would collapse everything, so I said nothing, looked functional on the outside, and quietly fell apart on the inside. I talk about the pressure in my chest I didn't recognise as anxiety, the obsessive overthinking, the secret crying, and the loneliness of carrying something 99% of my friends knew nothing about. And I share the realisation that changed everything: the affair wasn't actually the thing I needed to heal. The affair was the thing that exposed everything that had been running underneath my life without me even realising. The mask of perfectionism. The self-abandonment that started long before the betrayal. The needs I didn't know I was allowed to have. In this episode, I explore:
If you're carrying this right now If you're desperately trying to forget. If you're trying to figure out why you did it. If you feel like you're drowning with no way of getting to shore. I want you to know that everything I was trying to avoid became the path back to myself. And the best first step you can take is one I wish I'd taken sooner: letting yourself be supported. The Sanctuary is my community for women in the aftermath of their own betrayal. We meet twice a month on Zoom, and it might be the first space where you get to share your truth out loud and have it met with nothing but compassion, and no judgement. That is the first step to becoming truly free from the shame and guilt you're carrying. Click here to discover more. | |||
| S2#043 – The Secret That's Eating You Alive | 02 juin 2026 | 00:19:44 | |
For two years after the affair, I told no one. Not my husband. Not the friends I’d call sisters, the ones who’d held me through my own heartbreak years earlier. I sat at New Year’s parties and weddings and birthdays, keeping it light, breezy, fine. And inside, I was dying. Dying of shame. Dying of guilt. Dying of the fear that if anyone really saw me, they’d stop loving me. In this episode, I talk about the secret almost no one names: not the affair itself, but the secrecy that comes after it. The mask of “I’m fine.” The exhaustion that sleep can’t touch. The way secrecy and shame feed each other in a loop that feels like it will never end. I share how this particular mask wasn’t new. It was one I’d been wearing since childhood, a survival strategy that told me I had to have it all together to stay safe and stay loved. And I share what finally began to loosen its grip: not more hiding, but being witnessed by other women who had walked the same path and simply understood. This is an honest look at why we keep the secret, what it costs us, and why being truly seen, even in the smallest, most terrifying moment, is where the healing starts. In this episode, I explore:
Key takeaways
If this resonated If you recognised yourself in the mask, in the exhaustion, in sitting among people you love while feeling completely alone, that matters. The Sanctuary is an ongoing, gentle space for women in the aftermath of their own betrayal who are tired of carrying it in secret. It exists for the woman who is doing all the right things on the outside but still feels tight, disconnected, and alone inside: the woman who needs somewhere she can finally take the mask off. Inside, you’re not asked to explain yourself, justify what happened, or rehash the past. You’re witnessed by other women who simply get it, while you learn to stay connected to yourself and regulate your nervous system. It’s completely confidential, with two calls a month and a sisterhood circle on Telegram for the in-between moments, so you’re always held. You don’t have to do this part alone anymore. Click here to explore The Sanctuary. | |||
| S2#042 – How the pain of my affair led me to deeply connected love | 26 mai 2026 | 00:22:45 | |
Why is a podcast about healing after betrayal is called The Deeper Love Podcast. In this episode, I'm answering that. At my core, I believe the detonation that an affair brings to your life can absolutely become the portal to the deepest love of your life. You don’t have to leave your husband, but you do have to be willing to face and heal the story that has been running your life, way before the affair happened. How do I know? Because I lived it. In the ep, I share the story of being three years old at my nan's house, and a traumatic moment in which my nervous system decided I don't matter. My feelings don't matter. I have to be okay. I have to be strong. That belief ran my entire life. It made me the strong one, the together one, the woman who looked fine on the outside and was completely numb underneath. It chose the marriage I co-created. And eventually, it was the wound underneath the affair. It was only because I was in so much pain after my affair that I did the work to heal in this story from the root, by meeting the frozen pain in my nervous system, that I began to start to be the woman who knows she matters. Who no longer puts everyone else’s feelings and needs before hers. Not because she’s selfish, but because she knows her value, and her worth. And it’s from this place that I attracted the deepest love of my life, because he was a mirror to how I treated myself. This is the episode I'd want every woman in the aftermath to hear. Because the affair doesn't have to be the end of love. It can be the beginning of the deepest, most connected love you've ever known, including with yourself. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If you recognised yourself in the numbness, in the strong one who never let anyone see, in the part of you that's been screaming to be met. If you've spent years understanding your patterns and you're still stuck inside them. The Sanctuary is my private, ongoing community for women in the aftermath of an affair. If you’re feeling like a monster, and alone in your pain, The Sanctuary is the place where you can put some of that down. You don't have to do this alone anymore. | |||
| S2#041 – Why You Felt More Alive in the Affair Than You Have in Years (with Lauren Tobey) | 19 mai 2026 | 01:01:21 | |
You probably know what it feels like to live two lives at once. The one that everyone can see - where you're capable, together, achieving, holding it all together. And the one underneath, where you feel lonely, disconnected, asking yourself, is this it? Where you stopped being desired. Stopped being seen as anything other than the wife, the mother, the high-flying executive, the one that doesn’t need anything. And then the affair happened. And even though this feels terrifying to say out loud, you felt more alive than you had in years. In this episode of The Deeper Love Podcast, I'm joined by trauma-informed coach Lauren Tobey for a conversation about who you actually are underneath the mask of the high achieving good girl you've worn your whole life. After ten years of marriage, an executive career, and a life that looked enviable from the outside, she found herself numb, divorced, and disconnected. Through her own inward journey she realised there was someone much more real and true that had been hiding underneath all the achievement. And from there she could experience love and connection in a whole new way. Together, we explore:
This is a conversation about the woman underneath the mask, and the long, non-linear work of meeting her. If this resonated If something in this episode landed, if you recognised the mask, the numbness, the sense of having quietly disappeared from your own life, this is the work I hold space for inside The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is my ongoing, gentle space for women in the aftermath of their own betrayal who are tired of holding everything together on their own. It exists for the woman who is doing 'all the right things' but still feels tight, disconnected, and alone inside. For the woman who needs somewhere her body can finally exhale. Inside The Sanctuary, you're not asked to explain yourself, justify what happened, or earn your place by being forgiven. You are held where you are, while learning how to stay connected to yourself, regulate your nervous system, and live with responsibility without self-abandonment. You don't have to do this part alone anymore. About Lauren Tobey Lauren Tobey is a double-certified trauma specialist, NLP master practitioner, and the creator of the spiral framework, a body of work that helps women understand healing as a non-linear process of returning to themselves again and again. Her own journey began in 2020 when, after a decade-long marriage, an adoption, and an executive role at a non-profit, she found herself in a complete identity rupture: divorced, dissociated, and unable to locate the woman beneath the high-achiever mask she had worn her whole life. A subsequent layoff a few years later confirmed what she'd begun to suspect: her sense of self had been quietly outsourced for as long as she could remember. Lauren is the host of The Spiral Podcast and the author of Spiraling Into Control, a book that reframes 'spiralling' from a sign of breakdown into a natural rhythm of human evolution. You can find Lauren at: LaurenTobey.com The Spiral Podcast (wherever you listen to podcasts) - https://open.spotify.com/show/6rkXUS2gvWdzDU5DyabECh?si=8f8c0b8e595e4c2d | |||
| S2#040 – Why Punishing Yourself for the Affair Isn’t the Same as Taking Accountability | 12 mai 2026 | 00:19:06 | |
A lot of women think accountability means suffering. That if you punish yourself long enough… if you accept enough rage… if you hand over every detail… if you shrink yourself into the smallest, most “perfect” version of you… then maybe you’ll finally have paid for what you did. But punishment isn’t the same as accountability. In this episode, Alex responds to a question she hears often: “Are you letting women off the hook?”, especially from betrayed partners who fear that compassion equals excuse-making. Alex speaks directly to the husbands who are listening, validates the devastation of betrayal trauma and then names something most people miss: A woman drowning in shame cannot love well from that place. This isn’t about justifying an affair. It’s about understanding the deeper pattern beneath it, the part of you that learned to bury your truth just to be loved, so you can stop performing remorse and start doing the real work of change. Because real accountability isn’t passive. It’s not “take the punishment and hope it fixes you.” It’s the harder path: meeting what was underneath, taking responsibility for your unmet needs, and learning to meet them in a way that doesn’t destroy what you love. In This Episode, We Explore:
If This Resonated: If you’re in the aftermath and you can feel something shifting as you listen, if you’re tired of performing remorse, tired of spiralling alone, tired of carrying this in secret, The Sanctuary is where you start. The Sanctuary is a completely confidential space for women whose affair is over, but everything is still raw and unresolved. Nothing is recorded. Nothing leaves the room. We meet twice a month on Zoom, with a private Telegram community for the moments you need to say the thing you’ve never been able to say out loud. £97/month (3-month minimum). https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary And if you feel ready for deeper private support, you’ll also find ways to work with Alex 1:1 in the show notes. | |||
| S2#039 – Why Women Cheat: One Woman's Story of Affair, Accountability and Starting Over with Hope Manzano | 05 mai 2026 | 00:52:42 | |
In this raw, deeply human conversation, Alex is joined by Hope Manzano: Mum, entrepreneur and content creator who shares publicly about her affair online. It is rare to find another woman who is willing to stand up and say I made a mistake too, and in this episode, Hope shares the real story behind her affair - there was no abuse, or unbearable arguments, but instead a perfect looking marriage on the outside and years of emotional disconnection on the inside. Together, Alex and Hope explore what it’s like to live in secrecy and shame, what happens when the truth finally comes out, and why taking accountability is not the same as accepting punishment. This episode is for anyone who has cheated and wants to feel less alone. It’s a conversation about what happens when the truth comes out and the possibility of building a new life from the rubble. In this episode, we explore:
A few key takeaways
About Hope Manzano Hope Manzano is a Mum and entrepreneur who shares honest reflections on past relationships, self-growth, accountability, and personal evolution. Through her social media platform, she speaks openly about the complexity of human connection and the healing that can begin when we bring what’s hidden into the light. Connect with Hope Work with Alex If you’re in the aftermath of an affair and everything feels like it’s on fire: The Sanctuary is where you start. The Sanctuary is for the woman whose world just blew apart and needs somewhere safe to land. It’s not therapy or a course. It’s the space that helps you stop the spiral, soften the shame, and find your footing again: so you can actually take the next right step. If your affair is over and you’re still in the wreckage (even if it’s only been days), you don’t have to carry this alone. This is where you start: https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary And if you feel ready for deeper, private support to heal the root of the pattern and come home to yourself, you can also explore Alex’s 1:1 coaching here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/1-to-1-coaching | |||
| S2#38 - You Were the Good Girl… So Why Did You Cheat? | 20 avr. 2026 | 00:22:28 | |
There’s a very specific type of woman who cheats. And it’s not who people think. It’s often the good girl. The high achiever. The strong one. The reliable one. The woman everyone trusts, everyone leans on, the one who has spent her whole life trying to get it right. So when an affair happens, it doesn’t just break the relationship. It breaks her identity. Because now she isn’t only dealing with guilt, shame, regret, or grief. She’s staring at herself thinking: How could I do this? This doesn’t match who I am. In this episode, Alex explores why that confusion is so devastating, how the “good girl” identity is actually a protective mask (a character structure formed early in life), and why the affair is often the moment that mask cracks. This isn’t about removing accountability. You are still responsible for what you did. But if you stay stuck in self-punishment, you’ll miss the root pattern that created the conditions for betrayal in the first place, and you’ll be at risk of repeating it, even in a new relationship. This is an episode about how the pain of the affair can be the moment you stop living from performance and start living from truth. In This Episode, We Explore:
If This Resonated: The Healed Heart is Alex’s 6-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath. Inside, the work is not about endlessly analysing every decision or trying to get everything right. It is about rebuilding self-trust, healing shame, and learning how to hold yourself through the uncertainty. The next round begins 28th April. Learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart | |||
| S2#037 - The Real Reason You Cheated (And It Has Nothing To Do With Them) | 13 avr. 2026 | 00:42:17 | |
After an affair, so much of the focus goes onto the relationship, the guilt, the affair partner or trying to understand exactly what went wrong. But in this episode, Alex goes somewhere deeper. She explores the pattern that was often running long before the affair ever happened: self-betrayal. This is the quiet, cumulative way so many women abandon their truth over years. Staying silent when something hurts. Pushing down needs. Performing strength. Being easy to love. Being the good girl. And over time, that disconnection from the self creates the conditions for betrayal. In this episode, Alex unpacks why affairs do not come out of nowhere, why understanding the pattern is not the same as healing it and why the real work is not just in the mind but in the body. This is an episode about the mask so many women wear, the younger part underneath it who learned it was not safe to be fully real, and what it takes to finally come home to yourself. In This Episode, We Explore:
If This Resonated: The Healed Heart is Alex’s 6-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath. Inside, the work is not about endlessly analysing every decision or trying to get everything right. It is about rebuilding self-trust, healing shame, and learning how to hold yourself through the uncertainty. The next round begins 28th April. Learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart | |||
| S2#036 – You Can Love Someone and Still Hurt Them | with Monica Tanner | 07 avr. 2026 | 01:06:55 | |
In this powerful guest episode of the Deeper Love Podcast, Alex is joined by relationship coach Monica Tanner to explore one of the hardest truths in love: you can love someone and still hurt them. Together, they unpack the deeper dynamics beneath betrayal, infidelity, resentment, emotional disconnection, and what it really takes to repair a relationship after trust has been broken. This is an honest, compassionate conversation about accountability, agency, repair, and the courage it takes to face the truth. Monica shares why healthy relationships are a skillset, how couples drift into roommate syndrome, and why conflict is not the disaster we think it is, but often the doorway to deeper intimacy. In this episode, we explore:
A few key takeaways
About Monica Tanner Monica Tanner is a Relational Life Therapy Certified Relationship Coach and host of the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. She helps couples ditch resentment and roommate syndrome so they can get back to having fun, loving each other, and building healthier, more connected relationships. Her mission is to lower the divorce rate and improve marital satisfaction through communication, connection, conflict resolution, and commitment strategies. Connect with Monica Website: https://monicatanner.com Free resource: https://monicatanner.com/getlucky Work with Alex If this conversation stirred something in you, particularly around shame, nervous system contraction, or the split between who you were and who you are becoming, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart. The Healed Heart is my 6-month guided programme for women ready to heal shame at the root, rebuild self-trust, and finally come home to themselves. You can learn more here: | |||
| S2#35 - You Don't Trust Yourself. And That's Why You're Stuck | 30 mars 2026 | 00:20:31 | |
After an affair, so many women become terrified of making the wrong decision. Not just the big decisions, like whether to stay or leave, whether to tell the truth, or whether to try again. But the everyday ones too. What to say. Whether to reach out or pull back. Whether to trust what they feel or second guess it. In this episode, Alex explores why that paralysis happens and what is really sitting underneath it. Because the issue is not that you are incapable of making good decisions. It is that somewhere along the way, you stopped trusting yourself. Through a powerful client story about deciding whether to get a puppy, Alex shows how self-trust is rebuilt. Not by finding certainty or making perfect choices, but by knowing you can hold yourself whatever happens next. This is an episode about the deeper reason so many women stay stuck after an affair and what begins to change when self-abandonment gives way to self-trust. In This Episode, We Explore:
If This Resonated: The Healed Heart is Alex's 6-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath. Inside, the work is not about endlessly analysing every decision or trying to get everything right. It is about rebuilding self-trust, healing shame, and learning how to hold yourself through the uncertainty. The next round begins 28th April. Learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart | |||
| S2#34 - Why Understanding How You Got Here Hasn’t Helped You Heal | 23 mars 2026 | 00:19:14 | |
So many women come into this work already understanding a lot. They know their patterns. They can see what was missing in the marriage. They may even understand how childhood shaped the way they learned to relate, love and abandon themselves. And yet they still wake up feeling heavy. Ashamed. Tight in the chest. Unable to relax. Unable to trust themselves. In this episode, Alex explores why insight alone often doesn’t dissolve shame after an affair. Because shame doesn’t just live in the mind. It lives in the body. In the nervous system. In the contraction, the looping thoughts, the numbness, the self-punishment, and the inability to receive love. This is a powerful episode about the difference between understanding your pain and actually healing it. In This Episode, We Explore
If This Resonated The Healed Heart is Alex’s 6-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath. Inside, the focus isn’t on endlessly analysing the affair. It’s on healing the shame underneath it. The next round begins 28th April. Learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart | |||
| S2#033 - Why You Still Feel Broken After the Affair | 16 mars 2026 | 00:21:36 | |
Many women tell me the same thing after the affair ends: “I just want to feel like myself again.” And if you’re in the aftermath right now, it can genuinely feel as though the affair is the thing that did this to you. As though the shame began the moment it ended, or the moment the truth came out. But in this episode, I explore something I see again and again with the women I work with (and experienced myself). Very often, the affair does not create the shame - It exposes it. Because long before the affair ever happened, many women were already living with a sense of shame about who they are, what they need, and what they want from life. In this episode we explore how shame is not just a thought or a moral judgement. It’s a full nervous-system state that can leave you feeling tight in your chest, trapped in your mind, and disconnected from the version of yourself that once felt alive. We also talk about the deeper grief that often sits underneath the end of an affair, because very often what women miss most is not just the person. It’s the version of themselves they met in that relationship. In This Episode
If This Episode Resonated If you recognise the tight chest, the mind loops, the feeling that you’ve ruined everything and can no longer trust yourself, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart. The Healed Heart is my six-month guided programme for women who have had an affair and are now living with the emotional aftermath. Inside we work on:
The next round begins 28th April. Learn more: | |||
| S2#32: You’re Not Missing Them. You’re Missing Yourself. | 09 mars 2026 | 00:22:06 | |
There’s a real split I see with so many women post affair. You miss him, and you hate that you miss him. You know he cannot give you the life you ultimately want. You’re trying to repair your primary relationship, trying to be responsible, trying to move forward. And yet, there is still a pull - sometimes overwhelmingly - toward the person who made you feel something you hadn’t felt in a very long time. In this episode, I offer a different perspective. What if you are not grieving him at all? What if what you are actually missing is the version of yourself you accessed in that space? That woman felt seen. Wanted. Desired. She felt less responsible, less like she was holding everything together for everyone else. She felt sensual, playful, alive in her own skin rather than just going through the motions. Affairs don’t create a new woman. They reveal the one who has been buried underneath the capable, responsible version of you who keeps everything together. And that woman longs to feel something more. When you’ve been living disconnected from this version of you, any space that allows you to drop the mask can feel intoxicating. And when it ends, it can feel like you have lost not just a person, but access to yourself. In this conversation, we explore:
If you are stuck in the tension between wanting to move forward and still feeling pulled backward, this episode will help you understand what is actually happening underneath the longing. You are not missing him. You are missing yourself. And that is something you can reclaim through coming home to yourself. This is the work we do in the Healed Heart. We begin in April 2026. Click here for more information | |||
| S2#31: Betrayal, Shame & The Nervous System (with Peter McLaughlin) | 02 mars 2026 | 00:58:56 | |
What if betrayal isn’t just a relationship issue, but a nervous system event? In this episode of The Deeper Love Podcast, I’m joined by hypnotherapist and life coach Peter McLaughlin for a powerful conversation about the subconscious patterns, shame, and trauma responses that sit underneath infidelity. Peter’s own healing journey began after a life-altering leukemia diagnosis in 2003, an experience that led him to explore the profound connection between mind, body, and spirit. What followed was a deep dive into subconscious healing, nervous system regulation, and root-cause trauma work. Together, we explore:
If This Resonated This is a conversation about responsibility, integration, and becoming whole. If you’ve ever wondered why betrayal feels so devastating, or why shame lingers long after insight, this episode will help you understand what’s really happening beneath the surface. If this conversation stirred something in you, particularly around shame, nervous system contraction, or the split between who you were and who you are becoming, this is the work we do inside The Healed Heart. The Healed Heart is my 6-month guided programme for women ready to heal shame at the root, rebuild self-trust, and reconnect with steady, grounded aliveness. You can learn more here: https://www.alexcroxford.com/healed-heart About Peter Peter McLaughlin is a certified hypnotherapist and life coach whose healing journey began after a leukemia diagnosis in 2003 - a turning point that led him to explore the powerful connection between mind, body, and spirit. He helps clients identify and resolve root-cause trauma using Havening, present and past life regression, and spiritually-oriented healing methods. Peter is also the creator of the popular YouTube channel BlueSky Hypnosis, with over 130,000 subscribers and 17 million views, where he shares tools for emotional healing and personal breakthrough. A former volunteer firefighter and EMT, Peter brings compassion, grounded presence, and lived experience to his work. He is also a part-time actor, returning to the stage as Shakespeare’s King Lear after 22 years away. You can find Peter at: | |||
| Ep#30: The Affair Didn’t Make You Feel Alive - This Did | 23 févr. 2026 | 00:29:15 | |
Almost every woman I work with says the same thing: “In the affair, I felt alive.” What’s striking is that she rarely talks about the person. She talks about herself, how she felt. Confident. Desired. Chosen. Awake. And then comes the shame, not just for what she did, but for liking it. In this episode, I explore the possibility that the affair didn’t create aliveness at all. It exposed what was already there. Because when you believe your vitality lives in another person, you stay trapped. You start to think that leaving your marriage, changing your partner, or chasing intensity is the only way to feel that electric sense of being alive again. But intensity isn’t the same as aliveness. Secrecy, fantasy, and validation create a nervous system high. It feels powerful and freeing, but it’s fragile. True aliveness comes from somewhere else entirely. It comes from accepting all of you. From feeling your emotions instead of suppressing them. From speaking your truth instead of swallowing it. From having boundaries. From reconnecting with pleasure in ordinary moments. It also comes from healing the younger parts of you who learned to survive by being perfect, easy, strong, or low-maintenance. If calm love feels boring and chaos feels electric, that isn’t because you’re broken. It’s because your nervous system has learned to associate intensity with vitality, and that can change. In this episode, we explore:
If this resonated… If you’ve only ever felt fully alive inside secrecy or intensity, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means parts of you have not yet felt safe to exist in your real life. Inside The Healed Heart, we don’t shame those parts. We meet them. We build the capacity to feel alive without chaos. And we help you create aliveness that is grounded, regulated, and sustainable. You don’t need chaos to feel alive. You need healing. You’ll find details about the next round of The Healed Heart here. | |||
| Ep#29: Living With What I Did | 16 févr. 2026 | 00:27:35 | |
After an affair, there is the rupture itself, and then there is what comes after. The part no one really talks about, the months or years of living inside what you’ve done.The self-surveillance. The guilt. The fear. The loss of who you thought you were. In this episode, I speak honestly about the internal experience of living with the aftermath of my betrayal. The tension in my body, the pain in my chest I didn’t realise was anxiety, the constant bracing, self-punishment, and pretending I was fine while everything inside me was falling apart. I share the confusing truth that was hardest to hold: that I loved my husband, and I still caused him harm. And that the affair wasn’t about him not being good enough, or wanting to leave, but about a deep hunger to feel alive, chosen, and connected again. This episode is about the loss of identity that can follow betrayal. About looking in the mirror and not knowing who you are anymore. And about why punishment, hatred, and relentless self-judgment don’t create accountability…they only deepen the disconnection. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If you recognised yourself in the bracing and the exhaustion.If you’re feeling like you don’t deserve rest, softness, or support until you’ve suffered enough. That matters. The Sanctuary is an ongoing, gentle space for women in the aftermath of their own betrayal who are tired of holding everything together on their own. It exists for the woman who is doing “all the right things” but still feels tight, disconnected, and alone inside. For the woman who needs somewhere her body can finally exhale. Inside The Sanctuary, you’re not asked to explain yourself, justify what happened, or earn your place by being forgiven. You are held where you are, while learning how to stay connected to yourself, regulate your nervous system, and live with responsibility without self-abandonment. You don’t have to do this part alone anymore. Click here to discover more | |||
| Ep#28: You Did the Therapy, But You're Still Haunted. Why? | 09 févr. 2026 | 00:19:31 | |
If you've ever found yourself thinking “I've done the therapy, I’ve read the books, I know why it happened… so why do I still feel so stuck?”, this episode is going to meet you right there. In this conversation, I’m unpacking the difference between understanding something and actually feeling different. Because when it comes to betrayal, the healing isn’t just in the mind, it lives in the body. And if your nervous system doesn’t feel safe yet, no amount of insight is going to shift what’s frozen there. We’ll talk about why the shame you’re feeling didn’t start with the affair, how emotional pain from childhood often gets reactivated in the aftermath, and why somatic healing (not more thinking) is often the key that actually unlocks peace. If you’ve ever felt like you should be further along by now, or wondered why your body still feels heavy, numb, or disconnected, this one’s for you. In this episode, we explore:
🌿 The Sanctuary is open The Sanctuary is my monthly space for women navigating the aftermath of betrayal, a place where you can stop performing, start softening, and come home to yourself. We don’t rehash the affair or analyse the past.We return to the body, and to the part of you that’s been waiting to feel safe again. It’s £277/month, open now, with a 3-month minimum commitment. If this episode speaks to you, I’d love to welcome you in. → Click here to explore The Sanctuary Instagram: @iamalexcroxford | |||
| Ep#27 - Why Hating Yourself Won’t Heal You | 02 févr. 2026 | 00:19:20 | |
In the aftermath of an affair, shame can become relentless. It tells you that if you punish yourself enough, make yourself disappear, hate yourself more, you’ll finally make things right. That’s how you’ll become trustworthy again and undo the damage, right? But shame doesn’t heal. In fact, it does the opposite. It pulls us deeper into the mud. In this episode, I speak directly to the woman who is stuck in that brutal inner loop - the one who can’t get out of bed, who is replaying every detail, who feels fundamentally bad, broken, or unlovable because of what she’s done. I share why self-hatred doesn’t create repair, why shame feels so unbearable in the body, and what actually begins to ease the pain, without bypassing responsibility or impact. This is not about excusing your actions, it’s about understanding what led you here, without abandoning yourself in the process. In this episode, we explore:
If this episode landed If something in your body softened as you listened, even just 1%, that matters. The Softening Sessions are a once a month trauma-informed space for women in the aftermath of an affair who are exhausted from self-hatred, overthinking, and holding everything alone. They are an opportunity to:
You don’t need to do this healing alone. Click here for more information on The Softening Sessions:https://www.alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions Instagram: @iamalexcroxford | |||
| S2#026 - When Everything Feels Like It’s Falling Apart | 26 janv. 2026 | 00:24:07 | |
There are seasons in life where everything feels heavy, grey and lifeless. Where it feels like nothing is going well, nothing is blooming, and nothing makes sense anymore. If you’re in the aftermath of an affair, this is exactly how it can feel. Relationships start to shift. Certainty of the future disappears. And the emotions feel big, hard and bleak. And all you want is for this part to be over. In this episode, I talk about what it means to be in a winter season of life, and why this phase isn’t a failure, a punishment, or a sign that you’ve ruined everything. It’s a season of shedding, stillness and deep inner repair. Just like nature in winter, everything on the surface may look quiet, bare, or even dead.But underneath, something essential is happening. Roots are deepening.Old structures are dissolving.Life is reorganising itself from the inside out. This episode is an invitation to stop rushing this season…and to begin trusting what it’s doing within you. In this episode, I explore:
If everything feels slow. If you’re tired of feeling this way.If you just want to hurry up and feel “better”. I see you. Remember, nothing blooms all year round and this season isn’t forever. Your only work right now is to learn how to stay with yourself and keep healing at a mind, body and soul level. Spring will come.But first, the roots have to deepen. If you’re ready for gentle, embodied support, you’re warmly invited to join me for the next Softening Session, held every second Thursday of the month at 8pm GMT. The Softening Sessions: https://www.alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions | |||
| S2#025 - Why You Keep Choosing People Who Can’t Choose You | 19 janv. 2026 | 00:19:51 | |
You can see your patterns. You know your wound. You’ve read the books. You’ve talked, journaled, cried, processed. So why do you still find yourself magnetised toward affairs or people who can’t fully choose you? In this episode, I’m taking you deep into the subconscious patterns that keep us chasing love in all the wrong places, even when we know better.Because insight alone isn’t enough.And if you’ve ever felt broken, confused, or ashamed for going back to the same kind of person again… this one’s for you. What we explore:
This episode is a gentle, unflinching look at the patterns underneath your pain.And a reminder: You’re not broken. You’re patterned. And patterns can shift. Ready to go deeper? If this resonated, and you’re ready to be supported in the real healing, the kind that shifts you at a soul + nervous system level, you’re so welcome inside The Sanctuary. It’s where we soften the survival strategies, and make space for a new kind of love to land. 🔗 https://www.alexcroxford.com/the-sanctuary Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#024 - What if your affair was a soul’s cry for more? | 12 janv. 2026 | 00:23:23 | |
When we talk about affairs, the conversation almost always fixates on the affair itself - the morality of it, the damage it causes, and the question of who is to blame. But what if that narrow focus is actually preventing us from seeing something far deeper? In this episode, I explore a truth that many women quietly recognise but rarely feel allowed to say out loud: that an affair is often not about desire, recklessness, or a lack of morals, but about long-term self-abandonment. I share why so many women who cheat are not living “bad” lives, but numb ones. Lives that look good on the outside - functional, successful, even impressive - yet internally feel flat, lonely, and disconnected. We talk about how self-abandonment is learned early in life, through being the good girl, the achiever, the easy one, the one who doesn’t ask for too much, and how these patterns live not just in our minds, but in our nervous systems and bodies. This episode is an invitation to look beyond shame and self-hatred, and instead ask a different question: what was this moment trying to wake me up to?
If you are willing to take responsibility without annihilating yourself, this moment can become the beginning of a very different way of living, one where love feels safer, deeper, and more intimate. If you’re in the aftermath right now If you’re carrying this alone, if the guilt feels unbearable, if you don’t know what comes next. I created The Sanctuary for you. It’s my private, ongoing space for women in the aftermath of an affair - a place to soften shame, reconnect with yourself, and begin healing without judgement. You don’t have to do this on your own. Click here to learn more: The Sanctuary | |||
| S2#023 – What an Affair Reveals About How You’ve Been Surviving in Love | 06 janv. 2026 | 00:28:53 | |
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:
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. | |||
| S2#022 – This Isn’t Rock Bottom. It’s a Turning Point. | 30 déc. 2025 | 00:26:24 | |
There’s often a moment after an affair when the noise dies down and the adrenaline fades, and instead of relief you’re left with something far more unsettling - a sense that you’re standing in the middle of your life, but you don’t recognise it anymore. In this episode, I go back to New Year’s Eve - one before and one after my affair was revealed, when I did what I’d always done in social spaces and tried to be the fun one, the party girl, the woman who could laugh and drink and dance her way through anything. On the outside, nothing looked especially wrong. On the inside, the distance between me and my then-husband felt cavernous, and the emptiness I was carrying was impossible to ignore once I stopped distracting myself. What I didn’t understand at the time was that this flat, hollow, disorienting place wasn’t a sign that everything had ended. It was the moment something fundamental had shifted. The old ways of coping weren’t working anymore, the pretending felt unbearable, and even though I had no idea what was coming next, I could feel that I couldn’t go back to who I’d been before. This isn’t an episode about fixing anything or finding clarity. It’s about that in-between space where identity falls apart before it gets rebuilt, where you feel drained, disconnected, ashamed, and strangely awake all at once. The place where nothing feels certain, but something inside you knows the truth has already landed. If you’re in the aftermath of an affair and finding that you feel empty, distant, unsure how you ended up here and unable to imagine going back, this conversation will help you understand why that doesn’t mean you’re broken or failing. It means you’ve crossed a line you can’t uncross. Not the end, a turning point. In this episode I talk about:
If you’re listening to this and recognising that familiar feeling of standing still while everything inside you rearranges, The Sanctuary exists for this exact moment. It isn’t a place to rush answers or push you toward decisions. It’s somewhere to pause, to be held in the middle of the not-knowing, and to stay connected to yourself long enough for the next step to emerge naturally, rather than out of fear or pressure. We begin on 1st January, but you can join whenever you feel called. Click here for The Sanctuary Find me on instagram: @iamalexcroxford | |||
| S2#021 – Surviving Christmas After an Affair | 23 déc. 2025 | 00:28:28 | |
Christmas after an affair can feel unbearable. While the world expects joy, gratitude, and togetherness, you may be secretly surviving something that feels anything but festive. The aftermath of an affair has a way of becoming louder at this time of year. There are fewer distractions, more time together, more family gatherings, and an unspoken pressure to be “okay” when you are very much not. In this episode, I speak directly to the woman who is getting through Christmas minute by minute. The woman who feels like she’s watching her life from the outside.The woman carrying grief, shame, regret, numbness, and longing all at once. The woman missing her affair partner and judging herself for it. The woman who feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere she used to. I share from my own experience of Christmas in the immediate aftermath of my affair, and I name the realities most women feel but rarely say out loud. This is not an episode about fixing anything, making decisions, or “moving on.” It’s permission to just get through this season. It’s a reminder that you are not failing, broken, or behind, and that this isn’t the end of your life, even if it feels like it. If Christmas feels like something you just need to get through this year, this episode is for you. In this episode we talk about:
If Christmas feels like something you just have to survive, The Sanctuary exists for what comes after. It’s the go to healing space for the women in the aftermath of an affair who are done carrying this alone. It’s a soft place to land, to put some of the weight down and to take a gentle step toward the woman you are becoming. There is no requirement to share, no need to have clarity on where you’re going. You don’t need to be “ready”, you just have to not want to be feeling this way anymore. You are welcome exactly as you are. 🔗 Learn more and join here: The Sanctuary | |||
| S2#020 – Why You Can’t Heal Your Affair Alone: The Power of Women Who Truly Get It | 16 déc. 2025 | 00:59:17 | |
Most women in the aftermath of an affair try to heal alone. Not because they want to, but because shame tells them it’s too embarrassing to be seen. In today’s conversation, I’m joined by my close friend and fellow coach, Lucy Maeve. We talk about why healing on your own can only take you so far, and why women who have been betrayed someone they love need a community who support them as they navigate the rough waters they are in. We explore why:
This episode is for the woman who’s been carrying the weight of what happened, all on her own - the one who feels misunderstood, alone, or too ashamed to ask for help. You don’t heal shame alone. And I am so excited to tell you, my monthly community for women healing post their affair - The Sanctuary - is now open. It’s a place where you’re held, understood, and met without judgment. Inside you’ll find: • women who get your story without needing the details • practices to regulate your nervous system • monthly circles for grounding and connection • a private space where shame and guilt softens Founding rate: £222/month until 1st January, with special bonuses for December members. If you’ve been longing for a place to land…a place where you’re not alone in what you’re carrying…a place for you to take a step towards the woman you’re becoming. The Sanctuary is where you belong. Join as a founding member here | |||
| S2#019 – Why Your Affair Felt So Intense but You Felt Numb Outside of It | 09 déc. 2025 | 00:25:27 | |
Most women in the aftermath of an affair are drowning in questions they are struggling to find answers for: “Why did it feel so intense?” “Why did it make me feel so alive?” “Why did everything else in my life feel flat?” “Does this mean I’m broken or a bad person?” “Does this mean I should leave my partner?” In this episode, I speak directly to the secret most women who’ve cheated will never uncover: You didn’t cheat because you wanted someone else. You cheated because were so disconnected from your own emotions, needs, and truth… that you couldn’t feel anything inside your relationship anymore. When you’ve spent years swallowing your feelings, being the strong one, keeping the peace, avoiding conflict, trying to be “easy,” and holding the entire relationship together… your nervous system eventually shuts down. You stop feeling your emotions, you stay quiet and avoid conflict and you spend life just going through the motions. Eventually you become numb. And when you’re numb it’s like a part of you goes offline and anything that you can actually feel, feels like aliveness. That’s why the affair felt intense.Not because it was love or destiny,but because sensation was the first thing that could cut through the numbness you’d been living in for years. In this episode, I walk you through:
If any part of this speaks to you… this Wednesday 10th December is the final Softening Session of the year — and the last one ever in this format. It’s called Rising From the Ashes of 2025 — a 90-minute space to slow down, breathe, and let go of some of the weight you’re carrying before the year closes. If you’re holding the heaviness of this year on your chest… you’re welcome to join us. 👉 Click here to join: Rise From The Ashes of 2025 | |||
| S2#018 – When You Think You’ve Ruined Love Forever | 02 déc. 2025 | 00:22:16 | |
Most women believe their affair means they’ve destroyed their chance at love. But what if the moment everything fell apart was actually the moment your life cracked open? What if it was the doorway into the deepest love you’ve ever known? In today’s episode, I share the truth I wish someone had told me years ago - that deep love isn’t effortless or pretty. It asks more of you. It requires honesty, vulnerability, and letting someone see the parts you’ve hidden your whole life. And for so many of us, that depth didn’t feel safe until everything collapsed. I talk about my own marriage, the years I stayed silent, the IVF journey I carried alone, and the affair that forced me to finally look at the parts of myself I’d buried. And I share what it’s taken to experience the kind of love I’m in now — the kind that meets me, holds me, and asks me to stay present instead of disappearing. If you’re scared you’ll never be loved again… or terrified you’ll ruin it all a second time… this episode will help you see what’s actually possible for you. You’re not broken. You’re not behind. You’re on the edge of your becoming.
If this episode has touched something in you… Wednesday 10th December is the final Softening Session of the year. And, actually, the last one ever in this format. It’s called Rising From the Ashes of 2025 - a 90-minute space to breathe out the weight of this year and come home to yourself before it closes. You don’t need to share. You don’t need your camera on. Just come exactly as you are. If you want to end this year held instead of alone, you’re so welcome to join us. | |||
| S2#017 – The Aftermath: What Helped, What Didn’t, and How I Survived the First Months | 25 nov. 2025 | 00:38:22 | |
You told the truth, or maybe the truth came out. Either way, you’re in the fallout now. The shame is heavy. The guilt feels constant. And there’s a part of you wondering if you’re ever going to feel okay again. I made this episode for you. For the woman sitting in the rubble of her relationship, still trying to breathe while the world she built is burning. In this solo episode, I share the messy, honest, never-before-told details of what happened after I revealed my affair, and exactly how I survived it. We go deep into:
This isn’t a “just love yourself” pep talk. This is real, grounded guidance for when you feel like you’re losing everything, including yourself. You’re not broken. You’re becoming. And this too shall pass. 💌 If this episode speaks to you, you’ll want to be the first to hear about The Sanctuary, my new space for women healing after betrayal - opening January 2026. Sign up to the mailing list here to be the first to know when doors open. | |||
| S2#016 – Two Women. Two Affairs. And The Beginning of Their Becoming | 18 nov. 2025 | 01:12:08 | |
In this episode, I sat down with women’s coach Diera Story, who, like me, had an affair that changed everything. We talk about what really sits beneath infidelity when you’re the woman who was supposed to have it all together. How shame begins long before the betrayal.And how losing everything becomes the moment you finally start to become yourself. Diera shares how early motherhood cracked her open, how her perfect life began to unravel, and how the affair became the wake-up call she didn’t know she needed. We talk about the loneliness that hides behind the mask of the “good woman,” the way shame keeps us disconnected from desire, and the painful beauty of rebuilding your life from truth. We also open up about what happened when both of our reels about infidelity went viral - the trolling, the exposure, and the deep peace that comes when you no longer hide from your story. This conversation is a mirror for the woman standing in the wreckage of what she’s done, wondering if she can ever come back from it. You can. This is where becoming begins. Takeaways In this episode, we talk about:
Connect with Diera Instagram → @itsdierastory Connect with me Instagram → @iamalexcroxford Find all the ways to work with me here → www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#015 – How I Opened My Heart After an Affair and a Divorce | 11 nov. 2025 | 00:30:30 | |
I remember sitting in front of my therapist, six months after my marriage ended, tears running down my face - “What if no one ever loves me again?” At that point, I’d been through a divorce, I’d cheated on my husband, and I’d made a mess of dating after it all. I felt broken, like damaged goods. And underneath that was the deeper fear: that maybe I was unlovable. In this episode, I share the real story of how I moved from that place into the deepest, most honest love of my life. It’s the story of choosing celibacy after the affair, learning to tell the truth when it scared me, and letting a man see me fully, even when I wanted to hide. You’ll hear what I discovered about:
This is a story about what becomes possible when you finally stop lying to yourself. If you’ve ever wondered whether love can exist after betrayal, I hope this reminds you that it can. Real love meets you when you meet yourself. If you’re ready to start letting love in again after everything you’ve been through, join me in The Softening Sessions - gentle spaces to practise truth, tenderness, and belonging after the rupture of an affair. You don’t have to share your story, just come, breathe, and be held. Sign up here → The Softening Sessions 🔗 Connect Instagram | @iamalexcroxford Website | www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#014 – I Used to Be Terrified Anyone Would Find Out. Now My Story’s in the Daily Mail | 04 nov. 2025 | 00:25:02 | |
Six and a half years ago, I was carrying a secret that felt absolutely terrifying to say out loud. I was so scared that anyone would find out about my affair - I felt ashamed, sick with guilt, hiding behind the version of me that looked “fine.” Today, that same story has been printed across a double-page spread in The Daily Mail. And it proves to me, once and for all, that shame no longer runs my life. In this episode, I share what it took to move from silence to self-acceptance - the texts, the trembling honesty, the waves of liberation that come each time we tell the truth. I talk about the fear of exposure, the moment I told my ex-husband, and why vulnerability became my doorway to freedom. If you’ve ever felt trapped in guilt or terrified of being seen in your truth after an affair, this conversation is for you. You’ll hear what healing actually looks like on the other side of secrecy - messy, human, and deeply freeing. In this episode
🤍 Join me inside The Softening Sessions If you’re ready to release the weight in your chest and be witnessed in safety, join my bi-weekly circle for women healing after infidelity. You don’t have to share your story, just come, breathe, and be held. Sign up here → The Softening Sessions 🔗 Connect Instagram | @iamalexcroxford Website | www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#013 – Losing Friendships After the Affair, and Finding Belonging Again | 28 oct. 2025 | 00:27:10 | |
When I cheated on my husband, I didn’t just lose him, I lost my friends too. For years, those friendships had felt like family. We spent birthdays, weddings, holidays together - I thought they’d be there for life. But when my marriage ended, it all changed. Some drifted. Others ended overnight. And the loneliness that followed was unlike anything I’d ever felt. In this episode, I talk about what really happens when the friendships you thought were forever can’t survive your awakening. How shame shapes connection. Why longevity doesn’t equal intimacy. And how, through the ashes of everything I lost, I found women who could meet me in my truth, and love me there. If you’re standing in the wreckage of your old life, wondering who’s left, this one’s for you. You’re not alone, and this isn’t the end of your story. 💔 What’s in this episode:
🕯 Come to the next Softening Session — live community ritual and practice to reconnect to your heart. 👉 https://www.alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions 🤍 Connect on Instagram: @iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#012 – Seven Years in Hiding: A Woman’s Journey from Shame to Truth | 21 oct. 2025 | 00:53:53 | |
This week I had the pleasure of meeting Kristina Joy - a devoted Christian wife and mother, until the secret she carried for seven years forced her to face everything she believed about love, faith, and herself. In this conversation, Kristina shares the story she once swore she’d never say out loud, the affair that became both her deepest shame and her greatest awakening. We speak about the loneliness that hides inside “goodness,” the pressure to be the perfect woman, and how religious conditioning can separate us from our own desires. We explore what happens when your body remembers what your beliefs taught you to forget, and how honesty, rather than punishment, becomes the way home. If you’ve ever whispered “I can’t believe I did this,” this episode will remind you that you are not alone, and that your past is not your downfall, it’s your portal home. In this episode we explore:
Resources & Links: Kristina Joy is a Christian coach and host of the Intimacy After Infidelity podcast. Once trapped in cycles of shame and self-sabotage, she experienced deep healing and freedom and now empowers other women to do the same. Her work helps women cut the cord to the past, move forward in confidence, and find joy beyond what they thought was possible.
✨ If this episode speaks to you and you want to explore these patterns in a safe, guided space, join me for the next Softening Session – a 90-minute healing circle for women navigating the shame and confusion after infidelity: www.alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions 📲 Instagram: @iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#011 – The Phoenix Rising: When the Affair Becomes Your Awakening | 14 oct. 2025 | 00:31:28 | |
Ep 11 — The Phoenix Rising: When the Affair Becomes Your Awakening We think the affair is the end. The end of love.The end of trust.The end of who we thought we were. But what if it’s not the end at all? What if it’s the moment you finally wake up? Before my affair, I was sleepwalking through life. On the treadmill of doing everything “right” - the job, the marriage, the house, the plan. Smiling. Performing. Holding it all together. But underneath, I was empty. Numb. Disconnected from what I truly wanted. The affair shattered that illusion. It forced me to face everything I’d been avoiding my exhaustion, my silence, my needs, my truth. It burned down the version of me who survived by pretending. In this episode, I talk about:
If you’re in that place now, where everything feels like it’s burning, please know you’re not losing your life. You’re losing the illusion. And underneath it is your return. 💌 Join the next Softening Session - a live space where we hold what’s collapsing, let go of who you’ve been, and begin the return home to yourself. Join here: Softening Sessions | |||
| S2#010 – You Can’t Heal What You’re Still Hiding From Yourself | 07 oct. 2025 | 00:11:05 | |
Ep 10 - You Can’t Heal What You’re Still Hiding From Yourself There’s the version of you everyone sees. Smiling. Functioning. Saying you’re fine. And then there’s the version of you no one sees. Carrying the secret. Numb. Anxious. Afraid of what would happen if the truth ever got out. I know that version well — because I lived her. After my affair, I didn’t collapse on the outside. I became “better.” More successful. More accommodating. More perfect. But the whole time, I was hiding. Not just from my husband. From myself. In this episode, I talk about:
This is the episode I needed years ago, when I was still carrying the secret that almost ate me alive. ✨ Listen in if you’ve been holding something inside — whether it’s the affair, or another truth you’ve never let yourself fully feel. You cannot heal what you’re still hiding. But you can come home to yourself. 💌 Join the next Softening Session — a live space where we stop performing, stop pretending, and meet the part of you still scared to be seen. Click here to read more about the Softening Sessions. | |||
| S2#009 – The Year of The Clusterf*ck and How I Finally Chose Myself | 30 sept. 2025 | 00:37:41 | |
Content note: This episode contains references to sexual assault, harassment, and STI. Please listen with care and take the space you need. I thought the hardest part was over when my marriage ended. I’d told my husband I cheated. We’d tried therapy. We’d separated with kindness. I moved into my own place and thought: I’ve survived the worst of it. But what came next was what I now call the year of the clusterfuck. A year of red flags I ignored. Boundaries crossed and crossed again. Love bombing disguised as intimacy. Freeze responses I didn’t understand. And the deep shame of asking myself, over and over: Why am I still doing this? I should know better. In this episode I share what really happens when you keep finding yourself in relationships that hurt, even after you’ve “done the work.” Why smart women repeat painful patterns. Why your gut isn’t always your truth. And how choosing celibacy at 39 broke the cycle for me, and opened the door to meeting Adam. We’ll explore:
If you’re in the aftermath of an affair, a divorce, or a breakup, and you keep getting pulled back into chaos, this one’s for you. Because you’re not broken. Your body just doesn’t know safety yet. And that can change. The Healed Heart - my 6-month group programme - is where we break the pattern at the root so you can choose love differently. We begin Thursday 9 October. Ten spots only. | |||
| S2#008 – Relationship Anxiety, The Cool Girl, and The Affair with Georgie Collinson | 23 sept. 2025 | 00:48:25 | |
You can love someone and still betray them. You can be strong, independent, the cool girl… and still find yourself in an affair. In this conversation with Australia’s leading anxiety therapist, Georgie Collinson, we go deep into the ways anxiety and self-betrayal shape our relationships:
If you’ve ever thought, “I’m fine, I don’t need anything,” but secretly felt starving for connection — this episode will crack something open. Resources & Links:
💔 The Healed Heart — 6 months of real healing after betrayal If you cheated and you’re drowning in guilt, shame, or self-doubt, this is for you. This isn’t about talking it out one more time — it’s about coming back to your body, feeling what you’ve been running from, and learning to love without abandoning yourself. We start October 9. Nine spots only. Book your free call here → The Healed Heart 🔗 Follow me on Instagram: @iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#007 – Why Cheating Is a Pattern, Not a Moral Failure | 16 sept. 2025 | 00:29:43 | |
Episode 7: Why Cheating Is a Pattern, Not a Moral Failure This one’s for the woman asking herself:
In this episode, I explore why cheating isn’t just a one-off mistake, it’s often part of a deeper survival pattern shaped by emotional disconnection, shutdown, and unmet needs. We look at:
This isn’t about excusing what happened — it’s about understanding it, so you don’t keep living in fear of repeating it. 🎙 Free Masterclass: Breaking the Cycle of Shame Thursday 18th Sept @ 8PM BST If you were the one who cheated, and you’re still carrying guilt, confusion, or regret, this is for you. 100 spots only. No replay. — Instagram: @iamalexcroxford Website: www.alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#006 – The Part of You Who Cheated Was Trying to Survive | 09 sept. 2025 | 00:15:08 | |
You didn’t cheat because you’re a bad person. You cheated because something in you was trying to survive. Your chest tightens. Your stomach drops. The shame rushes in. And you think: “Why did I do that?” Most people miss this part: Cheating isn’t always a conscious choice. It can be a nervous system response. In this week’s episode of The Deeper Love Podcast, I break down: ✨ Why cheating can be a survival response, not a choice ✨ How you were already disconnected long before the affair ✨ What fawning, freezing, or running look like in love ✨ Why logic can’t heal you — but safety can ✨ How to stop the cycle in your body, not your head This isn’t about excuses. It’s about truth. It’s about rebuilding without shame. And if this lands in your body… 🕊️ Join me live for my FREE masterclass: Breaking the Cycle of Shame 📅 Thursday 18th Sept, 8pm BST ⚡ Only 100 spots, no replay Comment HEAL or go to this link to sign up 📲 Instagram: iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#005 – Cheating Doesn’t Happen in a Vacuum | 26 août 2025 | 00:19:23 | |
We’re taught to see cheating as a simple equation: one person betrays, the other is betrayed. End of story. But the truth is never that clean. In this episode, I share why an affair is never just about the moment it happened or the person it happened with. It’s about everything that came before - the silences, the unspoken needs, the glass walls that build up between two people - long before a boundary is crossed. You’ll hear:
If you’ve ever felt like you were screaming silently inside your relationship - or carrying the unbearable weight of guilt after betraying someone you loved - this conversation will help you see what was really happening underneath. This isn’t about excusing or blaming. It’s about understanding.Because when you can finally see the truth of what was there, you can stop carrying it alone. ✨ Join the Softening Sessions Every other week we gather on Zoom for 90 minutes of release, reflection, and return. This is where shame softens, guilt loosens, and your heart remembers what it feels like to be held. Click here to join. | |||
| S2#004 - Why You Cheated Isn’t the Real Why | 20 août 2025 | 00:22:49 | |
Most women think they know why they cheated. “I wasn’t seen. I felt lonely. I felt unwanted. I was bored. He didn’t love me.” And while those stories are true on the surface, they are not the root. In this episode, I take you deeper. We’ll look at the why beneath the why - the patterns of silencing, perfection, and strength-at-all-costs that began long before the affair. The truth is, the affair wasn’t the problem. It was the symptom. You’ll hear:
If you’ve been drowning in shame or searching for answers, this episode will help you see your story in a new way, and begin to free yourself from carrying the wrong “why.” You are not broken. You are at the threshold of truth. ✨ If this episode speaks to you and you want to explore these patterns in a safe, guided space, join me for the next Softening Session – a 90-minute healing circle for women navigating the shame and confusion after infidelity: alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions 📲 Instagram: @iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: alexcroxford.com | |||
| S2#003 - When You’ve Been Cheated On: Jessica’s Story of Love, Betrayal, and Healing | 20 août 2025 | 01:34:31 | |
What does it really take to rebuild after betrayal?In this episode, I’m joined by fellow love & relationship coach Jessica Hayes, who shares her raw and powerful story of discovering her partner’s infidelity and the journey they took to heal together. We talk about:
If you’ve been cheated on and you’re wondering if healing is possible - or you’re navigating the complicated emotions of staying - Jessica’s story will give you both hope and clarity. 🔗 Join my next Softening Session – a 90-minute healing circle for women navigating the shame and confusion after infidelity: alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions 📲 Instagram: @iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: alexcroxford.com Jessica Hayes — Instagram: @jessicahayescoaching | Website: https://www.jessicahayes.com/ | |||
| S2#002 - The Coldplay Scandal, Betrayal, and What We’re Missing in the Conversation | 19 août 2025 | 01:31:10 | |
When a betrayal hits the headlines, like the recent Coldplay cheating scandal, the internet rushes to judge.The memes, the moral high ground, the smug commentary. But what’s really going on beneath the noise? In this episode, I sit down with fellow love & relationship coach Jessica Hayes and Therapeutic Coach Lucy Maeve to talk about what’s missing from the public conversation around infidelity. We explore:
If you’ve ever cheated, been cheated on, or found yourself caught in the grey space between, this conversation will help you see beyond the headlines and into the deeper truth about betrayal, love, and repair. 🔗 Join my next Softening Session – a 90-minute healing circle for women navigating the shame and confusion after infidelity: alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions 📲 Instagram: @iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: alexcroxford.com Jessica Hayes — Instagram: @jessicahayescoaching | Website: https://www.jessicahayes.com/ Lucy Maeve — Instagram: @lucy__maeve | Website: https://lucymaeve133.lpages.co/offerings/ | |||
| S2#001 – My Story: Why I Cheated on Someone I Loved | 19 août 2025 | 00:29:15 | |
I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who cheated on her husband, and I’m guessing neither did you. In this episode, I share my story through the lens of a woman who’s had an affair and broken her own heart in the process. Not the surface version, but the truth beneath it: the silence, disconnection, perfectionism, and old wounds that led me there - long before the infidelity happened. If you’ve ever thought “I’ve had an affair and now I feel broken” or “I don’t know if I’ll ever trust myself again”, you’ll discover why this moment can be a wake-up call, not the end of your story, and how it can be the starting point for deep, lasting healing after infidelity. 🔗 Join my next Softening Session – a 90-minute healing circle for women navigating the shame and confusion after infidelity: alexcroxford.com/softening-sessions 📲 Instagram: @iamalexcroxford 🌐 Website: alexcroxford.com | |||