ep 22 – This Isn’t Rock Bottom. It’s a Turning Point.
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:
What it’s actually like when the crisis ends but the reality sets in
The cost of pretending you’re okay when something inside has already shifted
Why the sense of emptiness after an affair can feel more frightening than the chaos itself
How identity loss shows up long before you have words for it
Why not knowing what comes next doesn’t mean you’re doing this wrong
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
