S.J. Howe writes under a pen name, and that’s a deliberate choice, not a mystery. Most people who land on this site are in the middle of something they haven’t told most people in their life yet. Writing anonymously means being able to say the harder, more specific things without either of us performing a version of the story for an audience.
S.J. Howe’s authority here comes from lived experience, not a clinical credential. She went through betrayal and a high-conflict separation, and spent the years afterward doing what most people in that position do: reading everything, trying frameworks that didn’t work, noticing which ones actually did, and slowly building a working system out of what survived contact with real life. The diagnostics, checklists, and courses on this site are the practical, moment-by-moment tools that came out of that process the companion to the After the Affair book series, which tells the fuller story.
This isn’t therapy, and it isn’t a replacement for one. It’s a toolkit built from having actually needed one.
Sophia is a dedicated co-author of the After the Affair book series, working closely with S.J. Howe to thoughtfully shape the structure and editing of each instalment.
With more than twenty years of experience as a compassionate counsellor, she passionately supports individuals and couples as they navigate the complexities of relationship challenges, such as infidelity, separation, and high-conflict co-parenting.
Sophia’s approach is rooted in empathy, aiming to help her clients restore emotional balance, rebuild self-trust, and make healthy choices as they journey through difficult transitions.
A note on how we write: nothing on this site is clinical advice, and nothing here claims to replace a therapist, mediator, or lawyer. What it offers instead is specific: frameworks built from having lived the problem, not from a textbook description of it.