160. The Problem with Using Ai to Heal Your Heart After Betrayal

When your heart has been broken by betrayal, you’re desperate for clarity, comfort, and some kind of direction. In the silence of 2 a.m., AI feels like a safe space, non-judgmental, always available, and ready to reflect your pain back to you with empathy-like words. But is that kind of safety real? Or is it just another way of managing emotions instead of healing them?

In this episode, I explore the promise and pitfalls of turning to AI for support after infidelity. From emotional reflection to the limitations of simulated empathy, he shares when AI can be helpful and when it might be keeping you stuck.

If you’ve been leaning on tech to process your heartbreak, this episode will help you return to the kind of healing that only real human connection can offer.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand why AI can feel safe, but why it still can’t offer true empathy or emotional presence.

• Discover the difference between emotional processing and emotional bypassing through AI.

• Learn how AI supports intellectual clarity but not somatic healing or nervous system regulation.

• Explore how AI reflects, but doesn’t witness, and why that distinction matters in betrayal recovery.

• Find out how to use AI as a tool, not a crutch, and why real connection is still essential for healing.

💬 Reflection Questions:

How are you using AI in your healing? Have you turned to AI to journal, vent, or make sense of your story?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hello and welcome back to the After The Affair podcast. I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 160.

Most of us are already using AI every single day. It's in our search results, emails, the way our phones finish our sentences for us. Some of us even ask it what to cook for dinner or how to word a difficult text message to our partner.

So it's no surprise that when life falls apart, when betrayal hits, some people naturally start turning to AI too. Not for recipes or reminders this time but for something a little bit deeper. Comfort, clarity, understanding.

And that's what I'd like to explore today. The benefits and the drawbacks of using AI to heal from betrayal. We live in a world where you can ask AI anything.

It can help you process thoughts, map out feelings, even reframe painful moments with comforting words that sound almost human. And for someone in the aftermath of betrayal that can be incredibly appealing. This wasn't available to me when I was going through my own betrayal story and although I did obviously have access to Google that usually led to certain online forums which I've spoken about before.

Not always the most healthier places. With AI you don't have to explain all the backstory. You don't have to brace for judgement.

You don't have to watch somebody's expression shift when you tell them what really happened. AI feels safe. It's always there.

It listens, it responds and it seems to understand. And I get it. When you're heartbroken, confused or just trying to hold it together, having something that feels neutral, intelligent and available 24-7 can be an absolute lifeline.

But, and this is where I want to take today's conversation, AI can also mimic empathy. It can simulate understanding. But it can't feel you.

It can't sense your pauses. It can't feel the tremor in your voice when you talk about what happened. It can't offer that quiet presence that says, I get how hard this is.

And that's important because the work of healing isn't just about being heard. It's about being felt. So let's start perhaps by being honest about why so many people are drawn to using AI as part of their healing.

When you've been betrayed, the world suddenly feels unsafe. You question everything. Your judgement, your memories, your worth, your future.

So when something like AI enters the picture, it feels, well, reliable, predictable. It doesn't get defensive. It doesn't tell you to just move on.

It doesn't shut down when you bring up the affair again. You can pour your thoughts into it at 2 a.m. and it won't roll its eyes or tell you you're overthinking. It's private.

It's immediate. And it gives you back something that looks and sounds like understanding. And in a way, that is healing, at least the first layer of it.

Because when your nervous system is still in chaos, just having a space to get your thoughts out without interruption or judgement is pretty powerful. AI can help you slow down. It helps you see the words in your brain that just keep looping over and over.

It mirrors your own thoughts back to you, sometimes in a way that finally makes sense. And that can be the beauty of it. It reflects you to yourself.

But reflection isn't the same as connection. And that's where we start to hit the edge of what AI can actually do. Something else to add is that AI is like a tool.

And a tool is dependent on the input that the user provides. For example, I have been working with wood on and off throughout my life, usually just as a hobby and in some of my previous jobs professionally as well. So we could take a chisel, you know, a traditional wood chisel.

I could take one and I could give my eight-year-old son the same chisel or one identical to it. And we could both have the same dimensioned piece of wood in front of us. And then we give each other a set period of time to create something.

I, ego aside, I'm fairly confident that what I would create in that time would be objectively, okay, subjectively better than what my son could create in the same given time, simply because I am more skilled at using a chisel with wood. And he is not. So therefore what we create is different.

AI can be very similar to this. It's an incredible tool and it can be used very effectively. But it is still somewhat dependent on the user's inputs.

Not only that, it's also a little bit like a puppy. And puppies love to please. AI loves to please.

And that can be a problem because it can sometimes provide you with what it wants you to hear so that you feel better. Not necessarily what is best for you in that moment. Here's where it gets tricky.

Because AI doesn't just reflect your words. It reflects them beautifully. It gives structure to chaos.

It validates your pain. It even uses the same kind of language I use with clients. Grounded, thoughtful, empathetic.

But the truth is AI doesn't feel your pain. It doesn't carry emotion in its nervous system. It doesn't co-regulate with you.

It doesn't hold you in silence while your body shakes from grief. It can describe empathy. It can't be empathy.

And that distinction matters. Because emotional healing isn't just a mental process. It's somatic.

It happens in the body. Through breath, through connection, through the subtle signals that say you're safe now. AI can give you insight but not necessarily integration.

It can help your body learn that the danger has passed. So what sometimes happens, and I see this more and more, is that people use AI to intellectualise their pain. They end up processing it only in the mind.

They stay in what I call emotional management mode. Analysing, explaining, labelling, without ever feeling the emotion through. And look, that's not wrong.

It's a form of self-protection. It makes perfect sense. Especially when the pain feels too big to handle on your own.

But over time it can keep you stuck in the head. Replaying, revisiting, rewriting, without ever reaching the body. The mind can find language for healing but the body is where healing actually happens.

And the body learns safety through experience, through tone, presence, connection. You can't simulate that. You can't outsource it to code.

Now I'm not here to tell you to stop using AI. And for those of you who have not yet used it, I'm not saying don't use it. That would be missing the point entirely.

Because the truth is AI can be incredibly helpful and you can use it intentionally. And when you use it as a tool, not as a therapist, it can be brilliant for helping you process your journals or thought downloads. Getting the noise out of your head so you can see it more clearly.

Maybe help you find words for what it is that you're feeling. Naming your emotions for ones that you've never had language for before. It can also help you understand patterns.

If you ask it to summarise your thoughts you might notice recurring themes you didn't even realise were there. Maybe it can also be helpful with learning frameworks like attachment, nervous system regulation, boundaries, forgiveness. These are all really good uses.

They help you process, learn and reflect. But the key is what you do afterwards. Once AI reflects your thoughts back to you, pause.

Take a breath. Ask yourself, what feels true in my body right now? What do I actually feel when I read these words? That question brings you back to yourself. It closes the loop between intellect and embodiment.

Because the danger isn't using AI. The danger is letting it become your only safe space. Healing isn't about expansion.

About learning to tolerate more emotion, more honesty, more connection. AI can be a stepping stone to that for sure, but it can't replace the real thing. So use it to structure your thoughts.

Then bring them into a space where you can be witnessed by somebody human. A coach like myself, a therapist, a trusted friend or somebody who knows how to listen without fixing. AI can be the mirror but you still need to be the witness.

So if you've been leaning on AI lately to write, to vent, to make sense of your story, there's no shame in that. In fact it tells me something important. You're trying to understand yourself.

You're pretty good thing. But remember healing isn't just about understanding. It's about experiencing.

You can't think your way out of heartbreak. You have to feel your way through it. AI can hold the words but it can't hold you.

It can tell you that you're enough but it can't look into your eyes and help your nervous system believe it. That part still belongs to real connection. To the professional that you're working with.

To your community. To the quiet moments of reflection. So use AI for what it's good for.

To untangle your thoughts. To structure your reflections. To learn new tools and frameworks.

But don't let it become a wall between you and the world that still wants to meet you. Because healing doesn't happen in isolation. Even the kind that feels safest.

It happens in relationship. To yourself. To others.

And to something bigger than both. So keep writing. Keep exploring.

Just make sure that at some point you step out from behind the screen and back into the real world. Because that ultimately is where your life is. It's also where healing can really begin.

AI is a fascinating and incredible tool and it's not going anywhere soon. However it's important that you remember that you are human. You are real.

You are not a computer. You are not binary code. You have feelings and emotions.

They fluctuate. They vary. And there are so many components at play.

That requires human to human connection. So don't forget it. Use the AI.

Use the tools by all means. But don't forget that ultimately connection exists between you and another human being. If there's anything that you found really helpful or resonated with you today then let me know.

I'd love to hear about your situation. You can email me directly at Luke at LifeCoachLuke.com or you can come over and join me on Instagram at MyLifeCoachLuke. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Enjoy your week and I'll talk to you soon.