Episode 105: This week, I am opening up a conversation that I know is heavy, nuanced, and for many of you, deeply triggering. I’m reopening the topic of affairs, but from a vantage point I haven’t fully explored on this podcast before.

To help me navigate this, I’ve brought on a very special guest: my partner, Joe.

For a long time, I’ve spoken about affairs through the lens of what Joe describes in this episode as the “Deserted Island”—the experience of a partner so starved for connection and visibility that they reach for water wherever they can find it, even if it’s from a source they never thought they’d touch. But I’ve realized that by focusing there, I left a group of you behind. I left out the ones who were fully invested, who were over-functioning to keep the marriage alive, and who were still blindsided by a partner’s betrayal.

In this episode, Joe and I dig into the heart of that wreckage. Joe shares his own raw history of being on both sides of this coin: the one who sought more outside a marriage, and later, the one who had his world leveled by a partner’s infidelity.

We discuss the “head game” of blame—that exhausting, frantic ping-pong match our brains play between It’s all their fault and I wasn’t enough. We talk about why we internalize someone else’s choice as a reflection of our own worth, and how that trauma untethers us from our very sense of self.

Whether you are currently wading through the mess of a partner’s choice or looking back at the eras of your life that no longer make sense, I want you to hear this: an affair is data, but it is not a definition of your value.

You don’t have to carry the responsibility for a promise you didn’t break. You get to stop the spin. You get to come home to yourself.🤍

Show Notes:

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Episode 21 - Affairs Part 2: Five Mistakes Husbands Make When They Find Out & What Women Really Want in Relationship (hint, you’ll find it in the ACOTAR series)

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