168. Life After Betrayal: What Nobody Told You Is Possible

When betrayal hits, everything can feel like it’s falling apart: your trust, your sleep, your sense of self. In the thick of it, just getting through the day without breaking down feels like a win. If you're replaying memories on loop, second-guessing every decision, and wondering if you'll ever feel normal again, this episode is for you.

In this episode, I lift the curtain on what’s truly possible after infidelity, not just in your relationship, but within yourself. This isn’t about toxic positivity or sweeping pain under the rug. It’s about how life after betrayal really looks, from clients who once felt exactly as lost as you might feel now. If you’re craving clarity, calm, and confidence again, tune in.

Key Takeaways:

• The invisible shifts that happen inside before external change even begins

• What healing can look like, whether you stay, leave, or are still deciding

• How to move from surviving your story to writing a new one

• The difference between pain and suffering, and how to stop adding extra suffering

• Why your emotional stability doesn’t depend on your partner’s actions

💬 Reflection Question:

Have you seen glimpses of who you might become beyond the betrayal?

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. Hey welcome back to the After The Affair podcast. I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 168.

If you are in the very early days of discovery right now, if you're struggling to sleep, maybe even eating is a challenge, we're playing scenes in your mind on loop. An episode called What's Possible After Betrayal might feel a little bit insulting because from where you are possible might look like getting through the day without crying in the toilets at work, managing one night of sleep without waking up in a panic at 3 a.m., getting through a conversation with your partner without shouting or shutting down or both. And if that's where you are I want you to hear this.

I'm not here to paint some fluffy everything happens for a reason version of recovery. You've had enough people minimising your pain and I do not want to add to that. What I do want to do though is to gently open a window because I spend my week talking to people who started where you are right now and are now living in a completely different internal world.

Same job, same kids, often the same partner but a very different relationship with themselves. Today I want to share what that looks like. Not to rush you, not to tell you what you should or shouldn't be feeling but to give you and your brain something else to believe in other than this is my life forever.

Okay so when people first come to me the stories are remarkably consistent no matter where they live, what they do, how successful they are, how together they seem to have it in from the outside. It always sounds like I'm stuck in a cycle of negativity and frustration. I can't function, I can't focus at work, I can't parent properly.

I feel like I'm going mad with rumination and bouncing between anger, fear, grief, disbelief and sometimes all of them in as short as a few minutes or an hour. I don't know whether to stay or leave and I'm terrified of getting that decision wrong. My confidence has fallen off a cliff, I just don't trust my own judgement anymore.

The nervous system is fried, sleep is broken, cortisol levels are through the roof. Physically there's a tightness in the chest, panic in the stomach, trembling, nausea, exhaustion that doesn't respond to rest. Emotionally there's rage that you don't recognise in yourself, shame that you don't deserve, sadness that feels bottomless, a constant sense of being on edge.

And then mentally we're playing conversations, we're playing images, trying to piece timelines together, catastrophising the future, endless what-ifs and why didn't I? A lot of people describe this as I'm no longer living my life, I'm just surviving what my brain is offering me and on top of that there's usually a decision pressure. Do I stay? Do I leave? Do I wait? Do I give them another chance? Many have tried therapy and felt stabilised but not moved, some have tried to handle it alone and hit a wall. I know that you know this place, for some of you this is your current reality, so when I talk about what's possible on the other side I'm not talking about a fantasy life, I'm talking about people who started exactly there.

Let's start with the internal world because that's where the biggest shifts actually happen. Here's how people describe things months or a year or so down the line. I'm more at peace, I'm sleeping through the night again, I'm not trapped in my own thoughts, they still come but they don't own me.

I feel like I found myself again, I'm excited about the future even though it doesn't look like I once imagined. I've got clarity, I can make decisions and I trust myself with them. The ruminations don't magically vanish but they go from being a 24-7 radio station in your head to a channel you can switch off.

The emotional waves they still come but instead of drowning people start saying I can ride them, I know what's happening, I know what to do with myself when they hit. They stop being scared of their own emotions. There's more though, they understand the difference between pain and suffering and they no longer add as much extra suffering on top.

They can spot the stories that they're telling themselves and choose whether to keep them or not. They know how to do a thought download, how to separate fact from story and how to challenge the beliefs that keep them small. One client recently summed it up beautifully.

Luke made me find me, not just the person in the mirror, the person inside. That is what's possible. Some people listening to this will stay in their relationship, not because they're weak, not because they're in denial, but because after doing their work and seeing their partner do theirs, they genuinely want to rebuild.

What does after look like for them? Well it sounds like my marriage is in a much better place than it's been for years. We communicate more honestly than we ever did before. I'm not walking on eggshells anymore.

I have boundaries and I use them. I chose to stay. I didn't just default into it.

They still remember the affair. We're not pretending it never happened but it stops being the only story in the room. They're not policing their partners every move.

They're not checking phones every day as a compulsion. They're not constantly braced for impact and instead there's a sense of adult-to-adult relationship. There's more emotional honesty on both sides.

They understand their triggers and how to communicate them. They distinguish between genuine red flags and trauma echoes. Often they report our relationship is deeper, more intentional than it ever was before.

Not because of the affair but because of what we both chose to do afterwards. It's not the only possible ending but it is a real one. For others the story goes in a different direction.

They work hard on themselves. They look honestly at their partner's behaviour and capacity. They give the process affair shot and then they decide I don't want this relationship anymore.

I can love this person and still choose not to continue like this. Leaving is rarely easy. It is messy.

It's emotional. It's frightening but the people who leave on purpose describe something incredibly important. I have peace with my decision.

I might feel sad but I don't feel stuck anymore. I didn't run. I chose.

I walked away with my integrity intact. I can co-parent well. I know I didn't abandon myself this time.

Some even look back and say it sounds bizarre to say this but the affair ended up being the catalyst for me becoming who I was always meant to be. Not because the betrayal was good, it wasn't obviously, but because when everything fell apart they finally stopped living on autopilot. They stopped abandoning themselves.

They learned how to think clearly, feel deeply and decide intentionally. What's possible if you leave isn't a life scrubbed free of sadness. It's a life where sadness isn't the driver anymore.

Where you can feel grief and still move forward with dignity and direction. There's another group I would also like to speak to. The ones who are still very much in the middle.

They're not at the beginning and they're not at the after but in that horrible in-between. You've maybe had therapy, listened to podcasts, you've read every article there is, spoken to friends and you still don't know whether to stay or leave. Here's what's possible even before you decide.

You can go from feeling like you're going mad to understanding exactly what your brain is doing and why. You can reduce panic and anxiety even if no external circumstances have changed. You can start sleeping again.

Honestly the number of people who say I'm just so grateful for a full night's sleep is staggering. You can rebuild enough self-trust that when you do decide you back yourself. One person described it like this.

At the beginning Luke was rowing the boat. By the end I realised I'd picked up the oars and I can steer now. You don't have to wait to have decided in order to feel better.

You're allowed to feel more grounded while you're still figuring it all out. That is possible. You might have noticed something in everything that I've just described.

Whether people stay or leave or are still mid-journey, spot what they didn't say. They didn't say my partner finally did what I wanted. They didn't say everything went back to how it used to be.

They also didn't say I got all the answers. The common shifts however are I understand myself better. I can regulate my emotions.

I know how to separate facts from stories. I have tools to work with my thoughts instead of being bullied by them. I feel more confident in my ability to handle whatever comes my way.

This is really at the heart of it. What's possible after betrayal isn't just a different relationship. It's a different you.

A you who doesn't crumble every time a trigger appears. Doesn't need constant reassurance from your partner to feel steady. Doesn't measure your worth through somebody else's choices.

Doesn't live in fear of your own emotions. A you who can honestly be with yourself. A you who can set boundaries without guilt.

Can sit with discomfort without turning it into suffering. Can make decisions based on values not panic. That's not reserved for a special few.

It's a pattern. I see it day in day out. One thing I really want to underline here is the people whose journeys I'm drawing out from today are fundamentally not any stronger, smarter or more resilient than you.

Many of them once said things like I don't think I'll get over this ever. I can't see a future. I don't know how I'll live with this.

I'm not the kind of person who bounces back. Other people are built different. But they weren't different.

They were just willing to do three things. Tell themselves the truth about where they were. Let somebody in to help them see what they couldn't see yet.

And practise using the tools. Even when they didn't feel like it. Even when it was messy.

That's it. Not perfection. Not superhuman resilience.

Just small repeated steps in the direction of their future rather than their past. And that's what's available to you too. So, if you're listening to this in the dark, on a walk, in your car, hiding in the bathroom for five minutes of breathing space, here's what I'd like to leave with you.

You do not have to stay where you are. This current version of your life is not the final one. You may choose to stay.

You may choose to leave. You may not even know yet. But in all of those paths, something better is possible than what you currently can see.

More calm than chaos. More clarity than confusion. More self-trust than self-doubt.

More choice than you believe you have today. You don't have to believe that fully just yet. You just have to be open to the idea that it might be true.

Because I see it every week. If today's episode has stirred something in you, a tiny flicker of hope or even just a curiosity about what could be possible for you, this is exactly the work that I do with my clients. Through one-to-one coaching and the After the Affair Collective, I help people move from I'm just surviving this to I know who I am and I know how I want to move forward.

Whether that's in the relationship or beyond it. If you'd like support with that, you can find out more by contacting me luke at lifecoachluke.com or drop me a message on Instagram at my life coach Luke. Wherever you are right now, you are not stuck with this version of your story forever.

There is a future you who feels calmer, clearer and more grounded than you do today. And even if you can't see them yet, I promise you they exist. Until next time, take care of yourself and I'll talk to you all very soon.