ep 36: You Can Love Someone and Still Hurt Them | with Monica Tanner
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:
Why betrayal often has roots far deeper than the moment it happens
The importance of taking full responsibility after infidelity
Why you cannot heal a relationship while hiding the truth
How couples move through harmony, disharmony, and repair
What keeps marriages alive beyond the honeymoon phase
Why modern relationships require new relational skills
The reality of roommate syndrome and how couples lose the spark
Why divorce is always an option and why that truth matters
How to know whether to rebuild the relationship or let it go
What it means to create a more honest, intimate relationship after betrayal
A few key takeaways
Love alone is not enough. Healthy relationships require intention, attention, and learned skills.
Repair is where resilience, trust, and intimacy are built.
Hiding betrayal removes your partner's agency and blocks true connection.
Affairs often reveal unmet needs, disconnection, and the longing to feel alive, seen, and desired.
It is possible to create passion and intimacy again in a long-term relationship, but both people must be willing to face the truth.
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.
