S2#048 – The Year We Tried To Save Our Marriage After My Affair

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:

Why the year after I told him was the hardest year of my life, and what made it soThe conversations we kept having on repeat that were re-traumatising us both, and why I couldn't stopWhat the couples therapist told us to do, why it made complete sense, and why it was almost impossible to actually doWhy I kept giving him every detail he asked for, and what I now understand about what actually helps repair and what doesn'tThe two things I genuinely regret about how I handled that periodWhat it felt like to move back in during the second lockdown, and realise almost immediately it was too soonLosing two of my closest friends in the same period, and the true isolation of thatThe moment I asked for something I needed for the first time, and what happened when I didHow I eventually knew it was overWhy, even in the terror of walking away from everything I'd built, I chose to trust there was something on the other side

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.

Click here to find out more about The Sanctuary