Heart Work After Betrayal | Infidelity, Marriage, Forgiveness, Loneliness, Trust

Do you find yourself replaying conversations with your husband trying to figure out what you could have said differently to finally get the response your heart was longing for?
Does his bad day become your bad day, his silence your panic, his healing your project and no matter how hard you try to stop this pattern it just keeps showing up?
Have you tried every strategy and every technique to get back to peace after a hard moment and found that nothing seems to produce the lasting transformation you are actually longing for?
This episode is for the woman who is exhausted from the emotional roller coaster and ready for something more than just another strategy to manage it.
In this episode I am naming a very human and very predictable pattern that shows up in every marriage touched by betrayal. When your sense of okayness becomes dependent on another person's choices, behavior, healing, or response, your inner world feels out of control and you find yourself scrambling to gain back control. 
The good news is there is a way out. The answer is not to try harder or apply better strategies. The greatest trap in the healing journey is trying to fix yourself or your spouse leaning on self help instead of asking for God's grace to be activated in you. Drawing on Colossians 3:15 "the peace of God as the umpire of your inner world”, this episode offers one simple question followed by a prayer that is the real and lasting way out of this pattern.
This episode is practical encouragement to stop seeking more information but instead find true transformation which starts in your own heart first. 
RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
📖 Colossians 3:15 "Let the peace of God rule in your hearts"
🎙️ Episode 48 Monday Heart Check
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly Heart Work Love Letter from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist — A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical tools straight to your inbox → Subscribe to my weekly Heart Work Love Letter
Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question
Step 3: Want more personal support? → HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get your name on the waitlist, you will be the first to know when the doors open. → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist
 
DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Are you replaying conversations with your husband, wondering what you should have said differently?
Do you feel disappointed when his response leaves you feeling unseen, unheard, or misunderstood?
Are you exhausted from trying to find the "right" words, hoping they'll finally change his response?
After betrayal, one of the hardest moments isn't always the conversation itself but it mostly is what happens afterward when your husband's response isn't what you hoped for.
In this Monday Heart Check, we will practice how to help you
stop replaying the conversation
release the urge to control someone else's response
bring your attention back to the one heart God has entrusted it to your care
If you've been carrying disappointment, longing to be understood, or feeling stuck in the cycle of striving, this short episode will help you pause, reconnect with God, and begin guarding your heart with wisdom and peace.
Connect with Julia
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
 

Are you struggling with rebuilding trust after betrayal in your marriage?
Do you wish you felt confident again in your own voice?
Do you wonder how to reconnect with others again even if you feel like retreating or isolating because of the pain?
In this episode I am building on last Thursday's story of the four false beliefs and turning it toward you. Because the renewal of the mind is not the destination. It is the beginning. And what grows from a renewed mind is what I call Leading from the Heart.
I am sharing what Leading from the Heart actually is: a heart anchored in God, honest with itself, and clear about its values and needs and five practical everyday ways to begin building it after betrayal:
- getting curious instead of judgmental with yourself
- saying no to small things
- tuning into your body
- bringing it all to God
- letting yourself be known by safe people
This is Part 2 of our rebuilding trust series and it connects directly to Episode 45. If you have not listened to that one yet go back and start there first.
RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
📖 Romans 12:2 "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind" the foundation of Leading from the Heart
📖 Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard 
📖 Marshall Rosenberg Basic List of Feelings and Needs
🎙️ Episode 44 Monday Heart Check 
🎙️ Episode 45 Ready to FInallly Stop Feeling Stuck in Healing From Marriage Betrayal?   -listen to this first!
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia her
 
CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question
Step 3: Want more personal support? → 
HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal. Come find us → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle
 

Have you been second guessing yourself constantly after the betrayal doubting what you feel, doubting what you sense, wondering whether your perception of reality can even be trusted anymore?
Do you find yourself dismissing your own instincts telling yourself you are being paranoid or oversensitive or dramatic even when something deep inside you knows what it knows?
Have you been waiting for one big dramatic moment of clarity that tells you it is okay to trust yourself again and wondering why it has not come?
In this Monday Heart Check we are continuing our July series on rebuilding trust and today I want to give you the most important truth about self trust that I wish someone had told me sooner.
It does not come back all at once. It comes back in small moments. One small honest step at a time.
In this episode I am sharing a simple three step practice called One Small Act of Self Trust so you can begin making deposits into your own self trust account this week. Because rebuilding trust in yourself after betrayal is really just the accumulation of evidence that your heart can be trusted. And you start building that evidence one small moment at a time.
RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
🎙️ Episode 45 | Ready to Finally Stop Feeling Stuck in Healing From Marriage Betrayal? 4 Shifts I Made That Can Get You There
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
: CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question or topic idea? → Ask me a question
Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***Join the Waitlist for our private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal.  → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle
 

Have you been exhausted from trying to fix your marriage doing everything you can to hold it together and quietly wondering why nothing seems to be working no matter how hard you try?
Are you battling the shame of being another Christian couple with infidelity in the story telling yourself this was not supposed to be your testimony and desperately trying to fix it before anyone finds out how broken it actually is?
Have you been so focused on him getting fixed, his healing, his recovery, his progress, that you have completely lost sight of what God might be trying to do inside you?
This month I am celebrating 25 years of marriage and 5000 podcast downloads and as I reflect on this Sabbath season of rest and gratitude I want to share the moment that changed everything for me. Not when the marriage got fixed. But when I finally stopped trying to fix it and let God renew my mind instead.
In this episode I am sharing 4 false beliefs that were keeping me completely stuck after my husband's betrayal and what the renewal of my mind actually looked like for each one. Drawing on Romans 12:2, Dallas Willard's concept of the renovation of the heart, and my own turning point in a support group where I finally saw the pattern I had been living in, this episode is for the woman who is exhausted from fixing outward and ready to let God do something real on the inside.
RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
📖 Romans 12:2 "Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” 
📖 Psalm 51:6 "You desire truth in the inward parts"
📖 Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard : the renovation and reordering of the heart🎙️ Episode 43 — 
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
📞 Apply for a 1:1 HEART Reset Coaching Call with Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support and be the first to know what's coming! → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question for me or a topic you'd love for me to cover on the podcast? → Ask me a question
HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON””"A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Come find us, the link is above.

Have you become so focused on your husband after the betrayal that you've stopped paying attention to your own heart?
Do you spend more time monitoring everyone else's emotions than noticing your own?
What if one small daily practice could help you reconnect with yourself and with God?
After betrayal and/or infidelity, it's easy to believe your job is to keep being on the alert. Watching for warning signs. Watching your husband's behavior. Holding the marriage together. Managing everyone's emotions while quietly losing yourself in the process.
In this Monday Heart Check, I’m inviting you into a simple two-minute Sabbath practice called The Shift, a gentle way to turn your attention away from managing everyone else and back toward your own heart.
Drawing from Dallas Willard's picture of the heart as the command center of our lives, you'll learn why healing begins when you stop asking, "How is he doing?" and start asking, "How am I doing?"
This practical exercise will help you:
Notice what you're actually feeling instead of staying stuck in survival mode after betrayal.
Identify what you need without guilt or shame.
Create space to hear God's voice above fear and anxiety.
Begin rebuilding trust in yourself one honest check-in at a time.
If you've been longing to experience true rest and want to start rebuilding trust and experience true healing instead of constantly carrying everyone else's emotional load, and worrying about the future, this episode is for you.
 RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
📖 Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist : A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal. Be the first to know when doors open!
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support and be the first to know what's coming! → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question for me or a topic you'd love for me to cover on the podcast? → Ask me a question
Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get your name on the waitlist, you will be the first to know when the doors open. → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist
 

Do you wonder if healing from infidelity and betrayal is even possible, or if your marriage is just going to survive instead of thrive?
Are you still wrestling with whether staying or leaving was the right decision, even years after the betrayal happened?
Do you find yourself waiting to celebrate any progress in your marriage until trust feels completely rebuilt?
In this episode, I'm celebrating two milestones: 25 years of marriage and 7 months of this podcast by getting honest about what healing from infidelity and betrayal, and rebuilding trust, actually taught me. If you've ever wrestled with lack of trust, felt alone in your healing, or wondered how forgiveness after betrayal really works, this episode walks through the real, unfiltered shifts that took place in me over these 25 years. This is not a formula for how to trust again, but a testimony of what emotional healing and safety can look like when you stop striving for perfection and start rebuilding trust to yourself, to God, and eventually, to your husband.
RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
Proverbs 4:23
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist : A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal. Be the first to know when doors open!
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support and be the first to know what's coming! → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question for me or a topic you'd love for me to cover on the podcast? → Ask me a question
Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE ***COMING SOON***: A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get your name on the waitlist, you will be the first to know when the doors open. → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist

Have you been trying to forgive your husband after betrayal and wondering why it never seems to stick, maybe you say the words and mean them in the moment but the anger and the hurt keep coming back?
Do you feel confused about what forgiveness actually means? Whether it means reconciling, whether it means pretending it did not happen, whether it means you have to trust him again before you are ready?
Are you longing for the kind of freedom that people talk about on the other side of forgiveness but you have no idea how to actually get there?
In this episode I am continuing my conversation from last week with a licensed marriage and family therapist and this time we are going straight to the heart of one of the most misunderstood concepts in the entire healing journey after betrayal: Forgiveness.
We will discuss the following questions: 
What if you would view forgiveness as a shift of focus and responsibility?
What if forgiveness is the moment you stop asking back for something that can never be restored and take ownership of the loss yourself?
What does real forgiveness actually cost?
Why is forgiveness only possible after honest grief?
Why is connecting with yourself the essential first step?
What does moving forward truly look like?
What is the hope here you can cling to? 
This is Part 2 of a two part conversation. If you have not listened to Episode 40 yet go back and start there first.
 RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
🎙️Episode 40 - 7 Truths About Grieving After Betrayal —> That is the first part of this conversation, go back and listen to that one first!
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist  A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal. Be the first to know when doors open!
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
 CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.com
Podcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support and be the first to know what's coming! → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question for me or a topic you'd love for me to cover on the podcast? → Ask me a question
Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE **COMING SOON** A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get your name on the waitlist, you will be the first to know when the doors open. → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist
 
 
DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.

Does your head tell you that you should forgive because you know that is what God wants while your heart is still carrying anger, fear, and hurt that just will not go away no matter how hard you try?
Do you feel guilty for the gap between what you know theologically and where you actually are emotionally like a bad Christian because your feelings have not caught up with your faith yet?
Have you been performing okayness before God, maybe you are bringing Him the version of yourself that has it together instead of the real, divided, struggling version that actually needs Him most?
In this Monday Heart Check we are standing at a threshold moving from the grief series into the forgiveness conversation. And before Thursday's powerful episode with Rafael I want to give you something that I believe is the missing piece for so many women in this journey:
The gap between what you know and what you feel is not failure. It is not a sign that something is wrong with you spiritually. It might actually be the most honest and holy place you have been in a long time.
In this episode I am walking you through a guided reflection rooted in Scripture from David's cry for truth in the inward parts in Psalm 51, to Paul's commitment to a clear conscience in Acts 24, to Peter's call to keep a clear conscience even in suffering to help you understand what it actually means to be honest before God right where you are. And how that honesty instead of performance, pretending, or forcing your feelings to match your theology is the very thing that opens the door to real grief and real forgiveness.
This is a short, quiet, contemplative episode. Find a still moment. Bring your honest heart. That is all you need.
 RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
📖 Psalm 51:6  "You desire truth in the inward parts" 
📖 Acts 24:16  Paul: "I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man"
📖 1 Peter 3:16 Peter "keeping a clear conscience" even in the middle of suffering and injustice
📖 1 John 3:20 "if our hearts condemn us God is greater than our hearts and knows everything"
🎙️ Episode 40 
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist — A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal. Be the first to know when doors open!
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.comPodcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support and be the first to know what's coming! → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question for me or a topic you'd love for me to cover on the podcast? → Ask me a question
Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE **COMING SOON**A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get your name on the waitlist, you will be the first to know when the doors open. → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist
 
 
 
 

Have you been wondering if you are grieving the wrong way or not grieving enough, or too much, or in the wrong order and quietly judging yourself for how messy and unpredictable your healing has felt?
Do you find yourself reaching for busyness, distraction, or anything that keeps the grief at a safe distance and then wondering why you still feel so stuck months or even years later?
Have you ever asked yourself how long is this going to take and felt frustrated, ashamed, or hopeless when you could not find a satisfying answer?
In this episode I am sitting down with a licensed marriage and family therapist who has been on this show before and together we are having one of the most honest, reframing, and practically helpful conversations about grief after betrayal that I think you will ever hear.
We are covering 7 truths about grief after betrayal and what gets in the way of it including
why we avoid grief without even realizing it
what unprocessed grief actually does to us
why the word healthy might be making things harder not easier
what functional effective grief actually looks like in real life
He also shares a perspective on grief that completely reframes the whole process not as something you endure but as something you actively participate in by identifying what your needs are first and then taking ownership over how to meet those needs.
This is Part 1 of a two part conversation. Part 2 drops next Thursday where we continue the conversation and cover the connection between grief and forgiveness.
 
RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED
Grief Series: Episodes 33-39 
💌 Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from Julia
🔜 Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal. Be the first to know when doors open!
❓ Have a question or topic idea? Ask Julia here
 
CONNECT WITH JULIA AND NEXT STEPS
Contact → hello@juliacarlton.com
Podcast → Heart Work After Betrayal on Apple Podcasts
Next Steps:
Step 1: Sign up to receive weekly encouragement and practical support and be the first to know what's coming! → Subscribe to receive a weekly love note from me
Step 2: Have a question for me or a topic you'd love for me to cover on the podcast? → Ask me a question
Step 3: HEART WORK HEALING CIRCLE **COMING SOON** A private healing community for women doing the hard holy work of rebuilding after betrayal in their marriage. Get your name on the waitlist, you will be the first to know when the doors open. → Join the Heart Work Healing Circle Waitlist
 
DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational and encouragement purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. If you are in crisis please reach out to a licensed mental health professional.