185. When You Leave… But Still Love Them - Pt 2 of 4

You made the decision to leave… but the love didn’t go anywhere. And now you’re left holding something that doesn’t make sense.

Because part of you misses them, thinks about them, feels the pull to go back… while another part of you knows exactly why you walked away. And living in that contradiction can feel exhausting, confusing, and deeply isolating.

In this episode, I explore what it really means to leave a relationship after betrayal while still loving the person, and how to navigate the space between love, loss, and choosing yourself.

Key Takeaways

• Love and safety are not the same thing. You can still love someone deeply and no longer feel emotionally safe with them.

• Conflicting emotions don’t mean you made the wrong choice. Missing them, thinking about them, or feeling pulled back is part of grief, not proof you should return.

• Familiar doesn’t equal safe. Your nervous system may crave what it knows, even if it’s no longer right for you.

• Leaving can be an act of self-alignment, not punishment. It’s not about what they did; it’s about what no longer feels right for you.

• Healing requires space, not immediate answers. You don’t need to act on every feeling. Sometimes the work is simply allowing them to move through you.

💬 Reflection Question:

If you’re in this space right now…Are you interpreting your feelings as a sign to go back, or as part of the natural process of letting go?

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 and welcome back to the After The Affair podcast. I'm your host Luke Shillings and today you're listening to episode number 185.

You can love someone and you can still know that you can't be with them and that might be one of the most confusing experiences you'll ever go through because it challenges something that many of us grow up believing. That love should be enough. That if you care about someone deeply enough you will find a way to make it work.

But after betrayal that belief it gets tested because now you're faced with a reality where love is still there but something else is missing. In the last episode we talked about that quiet shift. The moment where you start to realise that things aren't working out the way you thought they would and for some of you that realisation leads here.

Not just seeing that it's not working but making the incredibly difficult decision to step away even though the feelings haven't gone anywhere. This is where people often feel most stuck because leaving would feel so much easier if the love had disappeared. If you felt nothing.

If you were certain. If there was no part of you that still wanted them. But that's not what this looks like.

Instead it can feel like you wake up thinking about them. You wonder what they're doing. You miss the small things.

The routines. The conversations. The familiarity.

And then almost immediately you remember why you left. Those two experiences sit side-by-side. Love and knowing.

Connection and distance. Your mind keeps trying to resolve it. Trying to make sense of it.

Your brain doesn't like this kind of contradiction. It wants a clean narrative. Something like, they were wrong so I left.

Or I don't love them anymore so it's over. But this situation doesn't fit neatly into that because the truth is unsurprisingly more complicated. You can still love someone and recognise that the relationship isn't right for you or them anymore.

And holding on to both of these at the same time takes a level of emotional capacity that most people simply aren't prepared for. One of the biggest shifts that happens after betrayal is the separation between love and safety. Before betrayal those two often felt like the same thing.

You love them and you feel secure with them. But after betrayal that link it breaks. You can still love them but no longer feel emotionally safe.

And that creates a very different kind of decision. Because now it's not, do I love them? It's, can I build a life with someone I don't feel safe with? And those are not the same questions. Because part of you is still responding to love.

To the history. To the connection. To who they were to you.

And another part of you is responding to what happened. To the breach of trust. To the emotional impact.

To what no longer feels the same. And those parts don't always agree. So you end up in this internal tug-of-war.

One side pulling you back, the other side holding you where you are. This is where self-doubt often creeps in. You might find yourself thinking, did I give up too soon? Could I have done more? What if this could have worked if I just held on a little bit longer? And again this is a very human place to go because your brain's trying to avoid loss, it's natural.

It's trying to find a way back to something familiar, something safe. But it's worth asking, are these thoughts coming from clarity or from discomfort? You see, just because something feels difficult doesn't mean it's the wrong decision. There's a very specific kind of grief here.

Because you're not just losing someone, you're choosing to let go of someone you still care about. And that can feel like you're the one causing the ending. You're the one walking away.

You're the one creating the distance. Even though the situation itself wasn't created by you. And that can bring up guilt.

Even when logically you know why you made the decision. And this is important. Leaving doesn't have to be about punishment.

It's not I'm leaving because you did something wrong. It can be I'm leaving because this no longer feels right for me. It's a very different energy.

One is reactive and the other is grounded in self-awareness. And just to briefly acknowledge that other component, the other side, there are times where the unfaithful partner genuinely wants to repair things. They feel regret.

They want to change. They want to rebuild. And still their partner chooses to leave.

That doesn't always mean they failed in their effort. Sometimes it means the impact of what happened shifted something too deeply. And part of growth is accepting that not everything can be repaired in the way we hope.

After leaving the pullback can be really strong. You might feel it when they reach out. You see something that reminds you of them.

You feel lonely. You start remembering the good moments. Your brain might begin to interpret that as this means I should go back.

But often it doesn't mean that. It means you're human. It means you had a connection.

It means you're adjusting to loss. And those feelings don't automatically mean the relationship is right. There's something important to recognise here.

Familiar can feel very similar to safe. Because your nervous system knows it. It recognises it.

It's used to it. But that doesn't mean it's actually safe for you. And part of this process is learning to differentiate between the two.

This is where the real work can begin. Not making the decision, but staying with it. Allowing yourself to feel the love, the sadness, the doubt, the longing, without immediately acting on it.

Without trying to resolve it too quickly. Because not every feeling needs a response. Sometimes it just needs space.

It's amazing how complicated this can seem to somebody who has not been through an experience like this. But in principle it's incredibly simple. When we create space for the feelings that we experience as human beings to exist within our own bodies, without judgement, or criticism, or force, or intent to try and remove them, they can just move through us.

We can pass through them. We can acknowledge them. We can see them.

We can feel them. And then we can heal from them. All without making decisions from that place.

It's really sitting in the space that creates the space. And there's a quiet strength in this. Not the kind that looks confident or certain, but the kind that says, I feel this.

I'm still choosing not to go back. Not because you don't care, but because you care about yourself too. One of the most painful experiences about betrayal, particularly when we get to the point where we've decided that this relationship is no longer for us, is this sense of loneliness.

This sense of isolation. And it's in moments like this where connecting with other people who have experienced something similar can be incredibly powerful, surprisingly so. If you're in this space where you've stepped away from someone you still love, there's nothing wrong with you for feeling conflicted.

There's nothing wrong with you for still missing them. There's nothing wrong with you for questioning your decision at times. This is what it looks like when love and reality sometimes don't align.

And one of the hardest parts of this stage is how isolating it can feel. Because from the outside people might assume, well you've left so you should be moving on. But internally that's not what's happening at all.

You're still processing, still feeling, still trying to make sense of everything. And it can feel like there's nowhere to take that. Friends and family might not fully understand.

You might not want to keep repeating the story over and over again. And part of you might feel like you should be further along by now. But healing doesn't work like that.

And this is where having the right kind of space becomes really important. Not just somewhere to talk, but somewhere you can be understood without having to explain everything. Some way you can say I still love them and I still left.

And not feel judged for that because you're not the only one in that position. There are others navigating these same contradictions, the same loneliness, the same quiet moments of doubt and reflection. And being around people who get that can make a huge difference.

Not because they fix it for you, but because they remind you that you're not alone in it. And sometimes that's exactly what you need to keep moving forward. If that's something that you feel like you're missing right now, you can find out more information about working together and the After The Affair Collective at lifecoachluke.com. And in the next episode we're going to explore another experience that often follows this.

What it feels like they move on and you're still processing it. Until next time, take care of yourself. I'll talk to you soon.