I’m a relationship expert… 24 hours after getting engaged I discovered my fiance had cheated but I still believe in love

SHE was supposed to end this year newly married and hopefully expecting a baby.

But TV life coach Michelle Elman is facing a very different 2025 after learning that her fiancé cheated on her just 24 hours after they got engaged.

So instead, she will be spending this Christmas alone.

Despite the pain of her public break-up, Michelle insists she does not regret a thing.

“I still believe in love,” says the 31-year-old, who regularly appears on This Morning to give advice to viewers and has four bestselling self-help books to her name.

“It might not have been with the person I thought it was going to be, but it still exists.

“And I look forward to the ­person it’s going to be with.

Michelle and her ex were already trying for a baby when he ­proposed during a paddleboarding trip in April.

She says: “We met on a dating app after lockdown and had lived together for two years.

“He was the love of my life and I knew he was going to propose because we’d picked out a ring together in November 2023.

“We intended to get married in the summer.

“We’d gone to joint life coaching and had all the important conversations about our future together because I believe prevention is better than cure.

“I did all the steps right — and it still wasn’t enough.”

‘Suffered the worst’

Having kept her boyfriend out of the spotlight, it was Michelle’s ­decision to share a rare engagement picture — with her hand displaying a diamond ring — with her half-a-million social media followers that turned her world upside down.

She captioned it: “I told you I would never post my boyfriend . . . MEET MY FIANCE”.

One of her Instagram fans recognised the face as a man she’d slept with the previous November and contacted Michelle, asking her to confirm her fiancé’s name.

When Michelle confronted him, he denied it but the woman shared messages and even a screenshot of a dating profile.

The most damning evidence was a hotel booking confirmation in his emails that matched her story — and he finally had to admit what he’d done.

Later that day, he confessed to two other infidelities, having flings on business trips after meeting women via apps.

Michelle then knew that while she still loved and forgave him, they could no longer be together.

She recalls: “I didn’t eat for about three days. I joke that for a very private relationship, I had a very public break-up.”

Michelle made the announcement to her social media followers and This Morning viewers.

She explains: “I didn’t want to lie and pretend to be engaged when my heart was breaking — there were already enough lies.”

There were aspects of his infidelity that made her feel physically sick — the fact that they had been trying for a baby and that he was taking risks with her sexual health.

Michelle says: “I chose to continue to protect his privacy. I was used to people calling me fat and ugly and sharing their opinions of me, but he wasn’t and I don’t believe in cancel culture.

“I knew he already felt bad and my greatest hope is that he’s going to learn from it.

Even in a relationship, at times I missed being single.

Michelle Elman

“Ultimately, he’s suffered the worst consequence of all because I’m no longer in his life.

“I also left better off. I came back to a life I love — I kept my flat, I have a wonderful career, I have great friends and family.”

To prepare for her abrupt return to single life, Michelle re-read her dating book The Selfish Romantic, written while she was with her ex.

She says: “The goal of my book was teaching people to date and enjoy it, rather than have the end goal to get off the apps and have a relationship.

“I met my ex about two weeks before I got my book deal so I wrote it for my future self and didn’t realise it at the time.

“Some of the sentences took on new meaning. I said that this was my greatest love story, even if it doesn’t last.”

Three weeks after the split, she took a solo trip to Dubai and went on two dates there, meeting the men online.

She says: “I was single for eight years before my last relationship and I genuinely loved it.

“Even in a relationship, at times I missed being single. Now I’d got it back, so why deny myself one of the most fun aspects?”

But her decision to start dating so soon after the split attracted some negative judgment.

She reveals: “I was told I was dating too soon by some social media followers but it was ­genuinely making me happy — and I deserved it.

“I was completely honest with the men I met, and once it wasn’t helping me, I stopped.”

Rather than immediately grieving following the break-up last April, Michelle says that it took her six months to get to that point.

She says: “My sadness phase only really hit about two months ago and the anger came last week.

I love the joy of no-strings fun with a stranger.

Michelle Elman

“I wished they could have come earlier, but because the break-up happened so quickly, I went into shock. It was like having whiplash.

“I was also in the middle of writing my next book. My life simply couldn’t fall apart at that stage, so it happened later.”

Michelle has shared her dating highs and lows with her online ­followers to show that even an “expert” doesn’t have it easy.

She’s experienced all the classic lows of being stood up, depressingly dull app chat and last-minute cancellations by hungover men.

‘I love no-strings fun’

Surprisingly, one of her best dates was with a tourist who had terminal cancer.

She says: “He told me he was visiting from Canada for one night.

“I knew it wouldn’t come to ­anything but I’m an extrovert and ­psychology nerd — I love the joy of no-strings fun with a stranger.

“On the date, his story came out and I was blown away by the whole thing. He was a great guy but it was like he felt undeserving of a date because he couldn’t commit long-term.

"I was glad to give him that experience. We laughed so hard and our jokes were very morbid.

";I had 15 operations before turning 20, including one for a brain tumour, so have a dark sense of humour.”

For all the talk of toxic online dating, Michelle has found the experience refreshingly grown-up compared with doing it in her twenties.

She says: “There’s fear-mongering about dating in your thirties — that everyone has baggage, that you have to settle.

“There are bad men who will gaslight and cheat, but there are many good ones too. Likewise, there are bad women.

“A lot of the problems in society come down to poor communication and not engaging in the hard conversations.

“Most of the men I’ve encountered are smart and good at communicating.

“This so-called baggage is simply life experience that they have learned from.

“Now we’re mature enough to say, I had a great night but I don’t think we’re a match.

"And they will reply, I respect your decision, it’s a shame. But if someone does behave badly, that’s a reflection on them, not you.”

Michelle also wants single women — and their well-meaning mates — to stop using the term “red flag”.

She says: “People cut and run the moment they spot a so-called red flag.

“If you do that, you’ll never end up in a long-term relationship because no one is perfect. You’re not perfect either.

There have been times this year when I was so incredibly lonely and sad.

Michelle Elman

“This system of red and green flags is not how humans are. It won’t save you from the situation I went through either.

“My ex was the kind of man who helped people with their suitcases on the Tube. He walked between me and traffic. He was the classic good guy.

“But people change and you have to judge them on the new information.”

Michelle has only spoken once to her former fiancé since their break-up.

“It was six months in and it was very healing,” she says. “I’d got to the point where I knew I couldn’t feel any worse and there were conversations we needed to have. I got a few answers out of it.”

The life coach says her friends have been a godsend during her break-up recovery — and feels grateful she never sidelined them for love.

Michelle says: “They all rallied round, filling my fridge and staying over so I wasn’t alone. You don’t heal in isolation.”

But Michelle — a self-confessed “Grinch” — intends to spend Christmas Day completely on her own.

“And I’m okay with that,” she says. “I don’t want to have to pretend I’m happy when I’m not and I’m prepared for it to be hard.

“There have been times this year when I was so incredibly lonely and sad.

“But a voice in my head told me that just because you miss him doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision.

“Also, I was probably missing the ­feeling he gave me, not the person. Now I’m excited about next year.

“I had a lot of dread up until a week ago but now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”