Back on Dating Apps in Midlife: One Date, One Ghoster, and a Lot to Think About
I swore I'd never get back on a dating app. And then I did.
This is week one of The Summer of George — my commitment from now through September 30 to say yes more, date again, and meet new people and get out to see what the world has in store for me. I'll drop a quick recap every Friday on how it's going. Here's what week one actually looked like.
What Happens When the Betrayed Wife Wants to Talk to the Other Woman
A few weeks ago, a woman named Sydney sent me a DM on Instagram. She'd been listening to the show. Her husband had had multiple affairs (two in 2021, one this past February), and there was a specific thing I'd said in a recent episode that she wanted to ask me about. Not to fight. Not to drag me. Just to talk.
I said yes. Then I sat in my car for about ten minutes before our pre-call wondering what I'd just signed up for.
How to Work With Me: Self-Worth Coaching After Infidelity, Divorce, and Starting Over
If you've been listening to The Scarlet Edit for a while, or you just found me, at some point you've probably wondered what it actually looks like to work with me. I get the DMs. So I'm putting every way in one place.
There's free, paid, and one program I haven't even opened yet. Quick reminder before we get into it: this show is about infidelity, divorce, and starting over. No shame, no judgment. That's the lane.
Dating Again in Midlife: The Summer I Decided to Say Yes
I matched with a guy on a dating app. We planned a date. Thirty minutes later, he unmatched me.
That's how I'm opening The Summer of George.
I named it after the Seinfeld episode where George gets let go from his job, ends up with a three-month severance, and proclaims it the summer of George. That's me right now. Not unemployed, but standing in a quiet moment after four very busy months, looking around my house in Scottsdale, and deciding to do something about it.
How to Forgive the Other Woman After Divorce (Even When She Married Your Ex)
When Danielle Stanton came on The Scarlet Edit, I knew the conversation was going to be one that you couldn’t stop listening to. I've been the other woman. Danielle was the wife. We sat down on opposite sides of the same experience and what came out of it was one of the most honest conversations I've had on this show.
She was married for 20 years. Two small kids. Stay-at-home mom. Then one day her husband came home and told her he'd met someone else.
Why Do Women Marry Men They Don't Love? What the Vrabel & Russini Story Is Really About
I've been quietly watching the Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini story unfold for the last few weeks. If you haven't been following, here's the short version. He's the head coach of the New England Patriots. She was, until recently, one of the biggest NFL insiders in the business, reporting for The Athletic. They were photographed together at an adults-only resort in Sedona this spring. Both of them are married to other people. Both of them have denied everything.
I went into this curious about the affair. I came out of it stuck on a completely different question. And it's one I think a lot of women already know the answer to, even if we don't say it out loud
What About Me? On Self-Worth, Not Being Chosen, and Being Single in Midlife
I've had my dog for fifteen and a half years. And in the voice I made up for him, one of the things I've said the most over those years is, "Hey guys, what about me?" I usually say it when I'm getting ready to leave and he's prancing after me with that look in his eye. It's cute. It's silly.
A couple of weeks ago I stopped and asked myself why I say that. Why that specific phrase. And the answer came back fast: I've been feeling some version of "what about me?" since I was a kid.
This is the reflection that came out of sitting with that.
Listener Questions: What I'd Do Differently, How I Date Now, and What I'd Tell the Other Woman
I asked my Instagram followers what they wanted me to talk about that I hadn't covered yet, and the questions that came in were so good I built a whole episode around five of them. This is what happens when you ask a community of women who've been through it what they actually want to know — they don't ask softballs.
So I'm going to walk through the five I picked and what I said in the episode, because some of these answers I had genuinely never said out loud before.
Why I Don't Regret Being the Other Woman — And Why I Won't Perform Shame for You
I was the other woman for five years and I don't regret it. I would do it again if I went back in time and I was the exact same version of me I was then. And no, I'm not going to apologize for that.
That's the sentence that breaks people. That's the line that lights up my comment section every single week with strangers who have decided they know me well enough to assign me a feeling I'm supposed to be having. Shame. Regret. Remorse. An apology tour. A grovel.
What to Do When Your Husband Keeps Cheating (And You Have Kids)
In January 2009, my guest Naomi Kreske went looking through her husband's phone. She had just spent the weekend alone with three kids — a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a nine-month-old — while he was away. He came home, said he was tired, told her he was going to put the kids to bed and crash. Something in her gut said check.