The Scarlet Edit: Infidelity, Divorce, Starting Over.

Taking a break from dating apps after a summer of putting myself out there. That's where I landed in the Summer of George finale. Sixteen Friday episodes, four months, three chapters I didn't see coming, and one very gross run-in with a bird in Greece.

I spent my last two weeks in Greece living the way I love to live here. My table at the waterfront cafe where the Wi-Fi connects the second I sit down. A friend's first run of her new food tour. And a bird that shit on my head halfway through it. Second...

Are affairs just about sex? It's the question people jump to the second they hear the word affair, and after last week's conversation with Dr. Marie Murphy, I wanted to go deeper with my own answer.

Yes, sex plays a role. We crave intimacy and connection, and some people go looking for it because they're not getting any of it at home. I get it. Physical intimacy is a non-negotiable for me too. But if my affair had only been about sex, it never would have lasted as long as it did. You reach a point with...

Dating in your 40s will teach you things about yourself you didn't expect, and this one taught me plenty. This is the second-to-last week of The Summer of George, and instead of another wild recap, I'm tired in the best way and doing something different. I'm in Greece, my favorite place in the world, living a little softer these last few weeks and looking back at the four people I dated this summer and what I'm actually keeping from each.

There's the guy who talked at me for twenty minutes straight while I finished my entire meal...

Are affairs really just about sex? I don't think they are, and neither does my guest this week. I sat down with Dr. Marie Murphy, a non-judgmental infidelity coach, to take apart the biggest myths about why people cheat, starting with the assumption that it's all physical. From my own years as the other woman, I can tell you the sex was never the whole story.

We get into why most people who cheat don't actually want to be cheating, and why so many of them stay stuck instead of leaving. Marie's take: a lot of people...

Why do men pull away right when things start to feel real? I spent three weeks seeing a guy in Scottsdale who did everything right, until his kid walked in on us one morning and the whole thing went cold. On this week's The Summer of George I break down what happened, the text I'd been waiting for, and the tiger reel that told me everything I needed to know.

Here's what surprised me. Instead of spiraling, I realized I'm actually ready for something real. I caught myself wondering if my friends would like him, and if...

Wanting to be chosen is something we all carry, and inside an affair it turns into its own kind of ache. In this solo episode I get into what it actually means to wait for a married man to choose you, why the fantasy that he'll eventually leave his wife feels so real when you're living it, and what the odds actually look like once you step back and do the math on any of it.

I talk about the five years I spent as the other woman, the moment I started questioning whether being chosen was...

Should you take dating advice from your friends? I used to hand mine every detail, until I realized the advice coming back was shaped by what they wanted for their own lives, not what I wanted for mine. One friend wanted marriage and babies. I didn't. So every time I vented, she answered from her lens, which wasn't the same lens I was looking through.

This is chapter three of The Summer of George, recorded from Greece, where I'm picking the dating diary back up. Dating in my 40s wasn't supposed to come with real feelings this...

Can you actually sue your husband's mistress? In North Carolina, you can. This week I sat down with Nicole Sodoma, a family law attorney who's spent 25 years in divorce court, and she walked me through alienation of affection — one of the last laws in the country that lets a wife sue the other woman for the end of her marriage.

But the part that stuck with me wasn't the lawsuit. It was her take on why marriages actually end. After thousands of consultations, Nicole is convinced infidelity is almost never the real reason. It's a symptom. The af...

Getting back on the dating apps in your 40s after you swore you were done with them? That was me in June. If you go back through my old episodes, you'll hear me say more than once that I hated dating apps and would never do them again. I meant it. Then I changed my mind, got back on one, and went in with a completely different mindset — and the whole summer opened up because of it.

This week I'm talking about two mantras that have been running my life lately: you can just do things, and yo...

Did he ever try to get me back? It's the question that lands in my DMs more than almost any other, so this week I'm answering it straight. When I finally ended my relationship with a married man, he didn't come back and he didn't chase me. And I know a lot of you are asking because you're living some version of it right now.

Leaving a relationship where you've spent years waiting to be chosen is its own kind of scary. Because if you walk away and he doesn't come after you, that's one more signal...

I hadn't dated in a while when I got back out there, and here's what nobody warns you about: dating again after a long time shines a really bright light on every insecurity you thought you'd handled. This is Week 10 of The Summer of George, and I'm six dates in with someone who feels mature in a way I'm not used to. No games, no wondering, no confusion. You know that saying, if he likes you, you'll know, and if he doesn't, you'll be confused? I haven't been confused once.

But dating again surfaced things I wasn't...

Why do people get into affairs when almost nobody actually wants to be in one? That's the question I sat with this week after a comment I made on last week's guest episode. I believe most of us are good at our core and don't want to hurt the people in our lives. So when someone ends up in an affair anyway, I think it points to something lacking within — not only in the marriage, but in the person.

I can only speak for myself. The version of me who got into a relationship with a married ma...

Why do men make plans and then vanish? This week I got flaked on by a guy who made the second date himself, went quiet for four days, and then sent me a vague "something came up" text I never heard back from. I break down what actually happened, why I called him out on trying to sext me way too soon, and why a guy pushing to sext after one early dinner is a fast turnoff and usually a sign he only wants a hookup.

I'm back on the apps and dating in midlife, and this...

Should you stay or should you leave? If you're the other woman, that question runs on a loop in your head every single day, and nobody around you seems to have an answer that helps. My guest this week is Francesca Zoia, a relationship coach out of Toronto who works with women stuck in exactly that loop, and our conversation picks up right where the last few weeks left off.

We get into what to do when you're in love with a married man and waiting for him to choose you. I share the question I ask...

Getting back into dating after a couple of years off the apps stirs up more than you expect. I'm eight weeks into The Summer of George and back in Scottsdale after LA, and this week I'm talking about what it's actually like to date again in midlife: the British guy I met on Hinge, the two dates in LA and one in Vegas, and why the stop in the UK on my way to Greece isn't happening.

I get into why communication has to be the foundation of anything you're building, how slang and sarcasm can land...

When you're the other woman and you're the one who ends it, you're not just grieving him. You're grieving the life you imagined and never got to live. And that can be so much more heartbreaking than grieving what actually was.

This is the third episode in a row that goes hand in hand — first being worthy of someone who can be with you 100% of the time, then getting fed up with yourself enough to make the change, and now the part nobody warns you about: what happens after you make it. The rebuilding. The grief that co...

I just wrapped 5 weeks in LA, and I'm calling it the best decision I've made this year. This is the last The Summer of George from that trip, and I'm getting into all of it — why I went back to a city I hadn't lived in since right after college, what it felt like to spend that much time somewhere on my own, and why getting out of my comfort zone turned out to be exactly what I needed.

I talk through the food (a viral chicken sandwich, a coconut cake I got out of bed for at...

Ending an affair with a married man usually gets framed as a decision about him. When he'll finally choose you. When he'll give you 100%. When you'll be done waiting. This episode is about the part nobody names: the day you get fed up with yourself.

The idea came from a call with a client. I could hear the love she has for him tangled up with the disappointment she has in herself, and I told her what I wish someone had told me sooner. You just need to get fed up with yourself. Fed up with being...

Getting back on dating apps in your 40s sounded like the last thing I wanted to do. I've been single a while, I'm independent, and I'd gotten very comfortable in my own company. Every time someone brought up the apps, my answer was an immediate no. This summer I changed my mind.

I decided to put myself back out there, more approachable in the world and yes, back on the apps, but this time with a different attitude. I went in to have fun instead of dreading it, because I believe the energy you bring changes what...

A couple of months ago I said something on this show that I want to say again, because it's the whole thing: you are worthy of someone who can be with you 100%, 100% of the time. When you're in an affair, that's not what you're getting. You're getting whatever he's able to give you, and it is not 100%.

Waiting is a huge part of being the other woman, and it's so much bigger than waiting for him to leave. It's waiting for him to call at all. Waiting for your phone to light up. Waiting to know when...

Dating in your 40s comes with a wrinkle I didn't see coming when I started this show: I'm Googleable. My Instagram bio says I was the other woman for five years, and anyone I match with can find that in about thirty seconds. I matched with a man on Hinge who did exactly that. He followed me before we ever met, and he still showed up. Twice.

In week five of The Summer of George I get into what it's like to date when your past is public, why the second date beat the first, and the...

This week I sit down with Amber, who reached out after I put a post on LinkedIn asking to talk to women who'd been betrayed. What came out of our conversation is one of the most honest infidelity stories I've put on the show. Amber's mom cheated on her dad when Amber was eight. Years later, she married a man whose father had also cheated repeatedly on his mother. They walked into their marriage carrying the exact same pattern from opposite directions, and for years, they lived it out.

Amber and I get into the long version...

Getting comfortable doing things alone didn't happen overnight for me. It happened because I travel by myself all the time, and somewhere along the way sitting solo at a restaurant, a movie, or a concert stopped feeling like a big deal. This week I took it further than usual.

It's week four of the Summer of George and I'm two and a half weeks into my LA stay. I spent the Fourth of July at a beach party in Hermosa, I'm heading to my first Dodgers game in over a decade, and I finally have a dating...

One year ago today, I posted the first episode of The Scarlet Edit and told the world I was the other woman for five years. I didn't know if anyone would listen. Now, 71 episodes in, this show has reached women in 97 countries, every U.S. state, and six of the seven continents.

This is the episode where I tell the origin story. How a podcast called Round Two became The Scarlet Edit. Why I shelved the Affairs Through the Ages series after a couple of months. And what The Summer of George arc is doing for me...

Getting out of your comfort zone is a lot easier when you actually leave home to do it. I'm in Los Angeles for the summer as part of my "The Summer of George" series, and this episode is about why relocating — even temporarily — strips away the easy excuses to stay in. I get into building confidence in midlife through small physical choices, why working from coffee shops changed my whole week, and why freshening up before I leave the house has become part of how I show up in public.

I also get into the dating update ever...

One year of The Scarlet Edit, and to lead into the anniversary episode I pulled the best moments from my 2026 guest conversations into one place. Seven women, seven completely different angles on infidelity, divorce, and starting over.

You'll hear Amanda, The Kink Consultant, on why kink and shame so often push people toward affairs. Emily on what it took to make decisions on her own again after ending a long relationship. Naomi on finally pulling the trigger on divorce and having her husband served at the business they owned together. Katarina on the pain of being the "...

This week I'm getting into midlife dating in a new city, why putting yourself out there matters more than the outcome, and what I'm learning about building a life when the snowbirds leave town.

Week two of the Summer of George dropped me in Los Angeles, and the energy here is already different. I'm staying with a friend, walking to a new gym, taking my first workout class in years, and waking up to LA birds instead of Scottsdale ones. I lived in this city for four and a half years right out of college. Coming back...

Can you actually be friends with your ex? I dug into the research, including the four motivations people land on when they stay in each other's lives after a breakup and the data on who's most likely to do it. Then I went a few layers deeper than the typical conversation goes. Friends with your ex in general is one question. Friends with your ex after divorce is another. Friends with your ex after infidelity is harder. And if you were the other woman, that's a different conversation entirely.

I share my own examples on all of...

Welcome to the first bonus episode of The Summer of George. After swearing I'd never get back on a dating app, I did. This is week one — a goal of three meet ups, because c'mon, they aren't dates, one that actually happened, and everything I learned in between.

I'm sharing what it's really like getting back on dating apps in midlife. The strange disconnect between who you talk to in an app and who shows up in person. The snap judgment debate — do I give every guy a real chance, or do I trust my gut the way...

Sydney reached out on Instagram. Her husband has had three affairs, two in 2021 and one this past February, and she'd been listening to the show for a while. She wanted to ask me about something I'd said in a recent episode, woman to woman, not as a fight. I said yes immediately, and I also kind of panicked. In over sixty episodes, I've never sat across from a wife who knew I'd been the other woman in someone else's marriage.

What came out of this surprised me. Sydney is sharp, honest, and self-aware in a way that's...

A quick bonus episode to put every way you can work with me in one place. Free, paid, and one offer that isn't even open yet.

I walk through the free side first — the podcast itself, Instagram, and the Self-Worth Reset, a free download where I share the five truths I had to confront after divorce and the affair that came before it. From there, I get into the 60-minute one-on-one, who it's for and who it's not, and my two coaching packages for women in the middle of infidelity, divorce, or starting over.

I al...

I matched with a guy on a dating app. We planned a date. Thirty minutes later, he unmatched me. That's the open. That's where this season starts.

Welcome to the Summer of George. The reference is from Seinfeld, where George gets let go with a three-month severance and decides to make the most of it. That's where I am this summer. Not unemployed, but standing in a quiet moment after a busy four months and realizing my social life in Scottsdale was built on other people's schedules. The snowbirds left. The visitors stopped coming. And I had...

This week I'm joined by Danielle Stanton, founder of Fuel4Ever wellness and a woman who's been through it. Married for 20 years, two small kids, stay-at-home mom, and then one day her husband came home and said he'd met someone else. No warning. No signs she could see at the time. He went on to marry that woman, who still lives in her community. They co-parent. She doesn't hate her.

Danielle and I talk about what it actually means to forgive the other woman — not for her, but for yourself. We get into the part nobody warns yo...

I've been watching the Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini story unfold for a few weeks, and the more I dug in, the more it stopped being about an affair and started being about something else entirely. A bar in New York in 2020. A boat in Tennessee in 2021 with her pregnant and just the two of them on the water. A casino in Mississippi weeks after he got fired. An adults-only resort in Sedona this spring. Six years of "coincidences." They've denied all of it.

But the part that actually got me wasn't the timeline. It was her...

I noticed I've been saying "what about me?" in the voice I made up for my dog for over fifteen years. And one day it hit me — I've been feeling that since I was a kid. So this episode is a reflective, vulnerable share about what that question actually means when it comes to relationships, friendships, and being single in midlife.

I looked back at my four major relationships and saw something I didn't love seeing: I was the common denominator. So I talk about what I was settling for, what I was overlooking, and the question th...

I opened up Instagram last week and asked what you wanted me to talk about that I hadn't covered yet. The questions you sent in were so good I built an entire episode around five of them.

In this listener Q&A, I'm answering the things you actually want to know. Is there anything I'd do differently about my five years as the other woman? When did I stop caring what people thought of my choices? How do I date now after the affair and the divorce, and what's an immediate no? What would I tell a...

I was the other woman for five years and I don't regret it. That's the sentence that breaks people. The comments roll in every week telling me I should be ashamed, that I lack morals, that I should be performing remorse on demand. I'm not doing that. I never will. And in this episode I get into why.

The expectation that we have to apologize, perform regret, and beg for forgiveness after any choice that falls outside the so-called norm has nothing to do with growth. It's theater. Real accountability is understanding the choice you made, knowing...

In January 2009, my guest Naomi Kreske went looking through her husband's phone on a hunch. What she found ended the white picket fence life she thought she had: an affair, a relationship three months in, and a husband who wanted out that same night. She told him no. She wanted to save the marriage. Over the next year, he left her two more times for two more women.

Naomi was a stay-at-home mom with three kids under five — a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a nine-month-old. She and her ex co-owned a pub. The house went into foreclosure. Sh...

I told one of my girlfriends the other day that despite being in serious relationships, I've always kind of felt single. And she said, me too. This episode is what came out of that.

I'm not talking about single in the fun, hitting-the-town way. I'm talking about feeling like I've never really had a man fully choose me across every defining relationship since college. The marriage. The boyfriends. The affair with a married man. Different relationships, different roles, same feeling underneath all of it.

I get into the elephant in the room — yes, my last re...

This week I'm talking about disappointment and how raising my expectations ended my five-year affair. It's the emotion I see most often in the messages listeners send me about infidelity, the other woman experience, divorce, and relationships that fell apart. Disappointment is the gap between the expectation you had and the reality you're sitting in. Sometimes the other person didn't even know what your expectation was. Sometimes they did and chose not to meet it anyway.

I share a recent experience where someone I respected made comments to me I never saw coming. I fumbled through the...