The Best of The Scarlet Edit: One Year, Seven Women, and the Stories That Stuck With Me

Next week marks one year of The Scarlet Edit, and I wanted to do something a little different to lead into the anniversary episode. So I went back through my guest conversations from 2026 so far and pulled clips from seven women whose stories stuck with me. They're stitched together into one episode, and the whole thing plays like a sampler of what this show has been for the last twelve months.

If you've been listening since the beginning, you'll recognize these voices. If you're new, consider this your invitation to go back through the catalog. Every episode these clips came from is linked in the show notes.

Seven women. Seven completely different angles on the same big themes that this podcast was built around.

Why Kink, Shame, and Affairs Are More Connected Than Most People Realize

The episode opens with Amanda, The Kink Consultant. What she said about kink and shame is intriguing, because she connects it directly to why some people end up in affairs.

Amanda explained that when something falls into the fetish category, it stops being a "would be fun to try" and starts being an actual need. And when that need isn't being met, or worse, when a partner has already shut it down with disgust or dismissal, it can feel like suffocation. So people start looking outside the marriage. Sometimes because it's easier to be vulnerable with a near-stranger than with the person who's cleaning the toilet bowl on the weekends. Sometimes because they tried at home and got shot down.

Why People-Pleasing Doesn't Stay in One Relationship

Emily Kuch came on to talk about what life looks like after ending not only a decade long relationship, but an engagement, and she ended it literally on her wedding day.

She said the thing she's most proud of is being able to live without calling somebody for every decision. After her engagement ended, she caught herself doing the same thing with her mom, her dad, her brother, her sister, looking for validation from anyone who would give it. The realization she had to come to is that there's no real answer out there. You have to choose. Not choosing is choosing. And it puts you further behind than just making the call.

What I loved about Emily's clip is that she traces this pattern all the way through her life. The people-pleasing in her relationship was the same people-pleasing showing up at work. Staying in jobs that underpaid her. Building programs she wasn't asked to build. Telling herself it was good experience. A toxic relationship is toxic regardless of whether it's romantic, and the patterns you carry from one will absolutely show up in the others.

Filing for Divorce When Your Husband Won't Let Go

Then Naomi Kreske, who finally filed for divorce after her husband had left her three separate times. He had to be served at the business they owned together, because he'd been dodging the process server everywhere else.

What got me about her story was that even after all that, even after being the one to leave three times, he still asked her: why are you doing this?

Naomi's read on it was that he was so used to being taken care of that he genuinely couldn't compute her saying no. His mom catered to him. She catered to him. The idea that she'd actually walk away didn't fit the script he'd been raised on. That's a pattern a lot of women in long-term marriages recognize, even if they've never put it in those words.

The Pain of Being the Other Person

Katarina Polonska's clip is for anyone who has ever been on the other side of the affair. The waiting side. She talks about how the person who's having the affair often imagines that they could just walk away and start a new life with the affair partner, and that everything would be fine. But she points out that the other person has been sitting in their own kind of pain the whole time. Waiting patiently. Wondering why they weren't chosen sooner.

I told her about a woman who'd written to me about sitting alone on a weekend because the married man she was involved with was off with his wife and grandchildren. That kind of powerlessness is its own wound, and it's one I understand from the inside.

Katarina's bigger point: that pattern of feeling powerless, unworthy, or not chosen is the thing that actually needs to be looked at.

The Worst, Best Time of Her Life

Hope had an affair that lasted three months.

She said it was the worst, best time of her life. She felt alive, wanted, desired, all the things she wasn't getting from her husband. But underneath all of it was guilt, shame, and the constant fear of being found out. She said there is no peace when you're living in that kind of deception, and when there is no peace, you can't actually be happy. No matter how high the highs are, the heaviness is still there.

She ended it not because she got caught, but because she didn't want to be the person she was becoming. And because, when she actually looked at the man she was with, he wasn't even better than her husband. Just newer.

What It's Like to Be a Single Mom in a Married-Mom World

Danielle Stanton talked about something most divorced moms can identify with immediately, even if they've never said it out loud. The moment you go from married mom to single mom, you get treated differently. By other moms.

She said she felt like the other moms looked at her like she had a disease. Like she was a threat. She wanted to walk up to them and say, I'm not going to take your husband. She was the one who got cheated on, and somehow she became the suspicious one.

The whole thing comes from insecurity on their end, but that doesn't make it easier to walk into the classroom or the library and feel the temperature change. Danielle eventually found her people in the other single moms, but the road there was brutal.

How She Found Out About the Two Women in Ohio

Sydney closes the episode with one of the most jaw-dropping discovery stories I've heard on this show. Her husband left his Android watch at home while he was in Ohio, and the watch started lighting up at odd hours. She read the messages. She logged into their Verizon account. She used the background-check software they had through their business. Within an evening she had identified the woman, called her at work, called her boss, called her daughter, called her ex-husband, and texted her mother.

By the time she actually got on the phone with her husband, the other woman was already drunk-dialing him at the hotel. There was a second affair partner, too. And then there were the screaming voicemails calling Sydney every name in the book.

When I joked that she sounded like the FBI, she laughed. But there's something every woman who has been in this situation knows: when your gut tells you, you don't stop until you have the proof.

What I've Learned in Year One

One year of this show. Seven guests in this episode alone. And the more conversations I have, the more I see that the women drawn to this podcast aren't looking for advice. They're looking for permission to stop pretending. To say out loud the things they've been carrying. To hear another woman name what they've been feeling.

Thank you for being part of year one. The next one is going to be even better.

FAQ

What is The Scarlet Edit podcast about?

The Scarlet Edit is a podcast hosted by Nikki Corbett about infidelity, divorce, and starting over. It features solo episodes and guest conversations with women navigating affairs, divorces, and the rebuild after.

How many episodes of The Scarlet Edit are there?

As of today, The Scarlet Edit has released 70 episodes in total, 22 with a guest! New episodes drop every Thursday on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and anywhere else you can get podcasts.

Who are the guests in the Best of 2026 episode?

This episode features clips from Amanda, The Kink Consultant; Emily Kuch; Naomi Kreske; Katarina Polonska; Hope; Danielle Stanton; and Sydney. Each guest brings a different angle on infidelity, divorce, or starting over.

Why do people have affairs?

Across the guests in this episode, the reasons range from unmet needs that get dismissed at home, to long-standing patterns of feeling unseen, to seeking validation outside the marriage. Most affairs aren't really about the affair partner. They're about something missing or unaddressed in the person having the affair.

What is the single mom stigma after divorce?

The single mom stigma is the experience of being treated as a threat or outsider by other moms after a divorce, even when you were the one cheated on. Danielle Stanton talks about feeling like other moms saw her as someone who might "take" their husbands, which made school events, mom groups, and community spaces uncomfortable for years.

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