ep 44: After My Affair, I Thought The World Was Better Without Me. This Is How I Found My Way Back.
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:
Why "just forgetting it" felt like my only option, and why it quietly destroyed me instead
What it's really like to look functional on the outside while falling apart on the inside
How shame lives in the body: the chest pressure, the bracing, the obsessive overthinking
The moment my first mentor said "let's put the affair to one side and focus on you," and why that changed everything
How I'd abandoned myself long before I betrayed my husband
Why I couldn't ask for my needs to be met, and the IVF clinic moment that blew my mind
The mask of perfectionism: the achieving, the control, the confidence that wasn't real
Why books, insight, and even therapy alone weren't enough, and why the work had to go into the body
What the willingness to be seen as my most messy, raw, vulnerable self actually gave me
Why the shame might not be the punishment. It might be the doorway.
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.
