172. Are You Healing… or Just Protecting Yourself?

After betrayal, it's natural to build emotional walls. You’ve learned how to survive the heartbreak, and maybe even found a sense of calm again. But here’s the quiet question that creeps in: are you healing, or just protecting yourself?

In this episode, I explore the subtle difference between genuine healing and hidden defences, like emotional detachment, self-abandonment, and the quiet disconnection that can disguise itself as progress.

You’ll learn to recognise the masks we wear after infidelity, not to shame them, but to understand them. Because true transformation doesn't mean tearing it all down; it means gently loosening what no longer serves you.

If you’ve ever wondered why your healing still feels heavy, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways:

• How emotional detachment can masquerade as personal growth after infidelity

• Why self-awareness sometimes becomes a new form of self-judgement

• The real cost of avoiding emotional exposure, even when calm, feels safe

• When independence becomes isolation, and what to do about it

• How to distinguish authentic healing from unconscious self-protection

💬 Reflection Questions:

Are you noticing moments where you feel emotionally “safe”… but maybe also disconnected? Are you healing, or just coping?

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, welcome back. You're listening to the After The Affair podcast.

I'm your host Luke Shillings and today is episode number 172. Welcome back everybody. It's 2026.

Years keep ticking by. To think that I started this podcast in 2022 feels like such a long time ago and it's been an incredible journey so far. I'm so pleased to have you here whether this is the first time you are listening to this or the 172nd time that you are listening to this.

I appreciate every last moment that you spend with me so thank you. Today I want to talk about the cost of progress. This might seem strange.

Progress is really what we're trying to achieve after we've been through a difficult experience. We don't want to be held stuck and static in a place for any longer than we need to be, particularly if it's got lots of very uncomfortable negative and painful emotions attached to it. There's various masks that can appear even when we're making what seems like objective progress through our healing journeys.

I want to address some of those masks today. It's not big and dramatic. They're not necessarily philosophical.

They're usually pretty simple and it starts with a question I remember asking myself many years ago, or noticing perhaps would be the better way to put it, was I just felt different now and I couldn't quite tell whether that was growth or whether it was just some form of protection. I remember feeling calmer but I also felt more distant. I was definitely much clearer in the way I saw things but that also kind of came with less openness and I didn't get anywhere near as overwhelmed as I had done previously.

But as a consequence I often felt less connected or more disconnected. So I suppose the question underneath all of that was, was I being more authentic or was I just better at defending myself? Had I just learned these new coping strategies? Had I put on these new masks to help me cover up some of the discomfort that I wasn't willing to face during my healing journey? So before we go any further with this I want to make one thing clear. These masks, these defences, they're not lies.

They're not failures. They're not something to be ashamed of. Defences are solutions.

Every way you learn to protect yourself after betrayal solved some real problem. It kept you safe. It stopped you from being overwhelmed.

It helped you regain control. It gave you stability when things felt chaotic. So this episode is not really about tearing those defences down or ripping those masks back off.

It's just about understanding them and seeing them for what they are to help us make more intentional decisions about what we want to carry with us and what we want to perhaps let go. And I think when we think about moving into a new year, technically it's just another day, you've heard me talk about this before, but it is also a time where we can start to release things from a period from before and we can isolate them in some sense and create space around them. It's about gently noticing whether some of them are still needed or whether they've quietly become just your default way of being.

So the pattern that I tend to see again and again, people who struggle with this, they're not inauthentic people. I was not an inauthentic person. I don't think I've ever been an inauthentic person, at least not completely.

Don't get me wrong, I've had my dose of people-pleasing over the years and I've sought perfection and a whole combination of things. But I've always cared deeply about integrity and congruence and living in alignment with the kind of person that I want to be. And of course this is something that I see so commonly amongst other people I work with.

And even if somebody comes to me and these values, these basic core elements aren't as structured or aligned or as clear as they would like them to be, that's something that we really focus on. We really help to align those things that maybe we've just not addressed throughout our lives. It's the first time they've even been asked the question, what are your core values? Even though there's something deeper inside them that knows, there's like a knowing that they want to be a particular way, they just haven't found the tools or gained the understanding of how to do that.

And that's of course what we do really effectively together. Underneath all that though, there is still a fear. And this fear isn't rejection, it's more about losing themselves again.

It's a self-protection mechanism. So they become very careful. They can become careful with their emotions, careful with closeness and proximity, careful with dependence.

And slowly protection can start to look like personality. So I want to break that down into a few very recognisable patterns. So pattern one is, I feel calm now and I don't want to lose that.

After betrayal many people work really hard to regulate themselves. They learn to pause instead of react, to think before speaking, to manage the emotional spikes that come along with triggers and experiences that they have during their day. Ultimately they learn to stay grounded.

This of course is healthy, but where it can sometimes turn into a defence or a coping strategy is when people stop sharing emotions until they're fully processed. So they only speak once the anger has settled. They only speak once the grief makes sense or once the longing feels reasonable.

Now it's not because they're not feeling, but it's because they're afraid that if they let the emotions out raw, everything might spiral again. So calm becomes safety. The question isn't, should I be less regulated? It's, am I allowing myself to be seen whilst I'm still human? Or only when I'm composed? Pattern two, I see all sides so I don't rush to decisions anymore.

Another common shift after betrayal is perspective. You start seeing nuance, you see the details in a way that you didn't before. You understand context and its importance.

You resist the simple good bad stories or the binary thinking. Again this is all really healthy, but sometimes balance becomes a way to avoid clarity. You might notice that you endlessly analyse instead of decide.

You understand why something happened but never really name how it affected you. You delay saying this isn't okay for me because you're trying to be fair. Here's the key thing to notice here, you don't need something to be morally wrong for it to be wrong for you.

Authenticity sometimes just looks like saying, I don't need more information. I already know how this feels in my body. Pattern three is, I'm self-aware now so why am I still struggling? People can often become very self-aware after betrayal.

There's a, it's like a magnifying glass, a really big magnifying glass has been reflected back at them and they're looking at themselves in intricate detail. They're questioning themselves. They're judging themselves and this intense internal observation, introspection is not very healthy to begin with because it's usually quite critical.

But as time goes by we start to shift that. We start to look at the more positive things. So they learn tools and skills.

They learn the language of trauma and attachment. They start to recognise their own patterns. They actually take responsibility for their side even if it wasn't them that had necessarily, let's say, caused the whole situation.

They actively work on themselves. This of course is growth. But there's a trap.

You can start relating to yourself like a project. You might start thinking I shouldn't still feel like this or I've already worked through that or this doesn't align with who I am now. When that happens emotion becomes something to correct instead of experience.

Authenticity isn't about regressing. It's about allowing yourself to be messy without immediately turning it into some kind of lesson. Pattern four I can stand on my own two feet now and I prefer it that way.

This one, this one's probably the deepest. After betrayal many people reclaim their independence, of course, as they should. They always were.

They just hadn't seen it for a long time. It felt lost. So they stop over-relying.

They stop chasing reassurance. They trust themselves again. Powerful stuff.

But sometimes independence becomes emotional distance. So instead you might notice that you let people close but not too close. You share but avoid sharing need.

You become way more comfortable being okay being misunderstood because needing someone feels risky. The defence here is pretty simple. If I don't need I can't be hurt.

Authenticity doesn't mean becoming dependent again. It means allowing someone to witness you without needing control or guarantees. The through line here.

Your defences aren't hiding who you are. They're protecting who you had become to survive betrayal. And that makes sense.

The next layer of healing isn't about removing those defences. It's about loosening them slightly. Letting yourself feel before you resolve.

Speak before you're certain. Be seen before you're ready. Not all the time.

Not with everyone. Just enough to stay connected. If you're wondering whether you're being authentic or just better defended, that question alone tells me something important.

You're paying attention. And that's not a problem to solve. It's a sign that you're learning the difference between safety and aliveness.

The work now isn't becoming somebody new. It's giving yourself permission to be you. To be human again.

Without the armour on all the time. Start to put some of that stuff down. It'll serve you well.

If I had to distil this episode into one sentence it would be this. You live authentically in thought and principle. And you're learning to live just as authentically in exposure.

The work now isn't self-improvement. It's self-permission. To be seen before you're ready.

To feel without resolving. To want without justifying. Not all the time.

Just a little bit more than before. That's not a mask coming off. It's the armour being gently set down.

If this episode stirred something. Recognition. Relief.

Or even resistance. You don't need to do anything with it right now. But let it land.

And if you'd like support exploring this in your own life, coaching offers a space where you don't have to perform clarity just to show up honestly. You can learn more at LifeCoachLuke.com or reach out directly on Instagram at MyLifeCoachLuke. Until next time please take care of yourself and I'll speak to you all very soon.