38. The Truth About Loving Someone and Actually Liking Them with Eve Simmons

What if the tension you feel between your ambition and your desire for deep partnership isn’t about choosing one over the other — but about staying true to who you really are?

In this episode of Elevate Daily, I’m joined by Eve Simmons — journalist, author, and Health Editor of the Daily Mail UK — for a deeply honest conversation about identity, ambition, and what happens when the life you thought you were building suddenly asks to be rewritten.

After years in partnership and just months into marriage, Eve experienced an unexpected ending that didn’t just dissolve a relationship — it destabilized the identity she’d quietly been living from. Through her own healing journey and extensive research into the stories of others, Eve began to uncover the subtle ways ambitious women dim their power, edit their truth, and suppress their desires in order to make partnership feel safe.

This conversation is not about blame or breakdowns. It’s about self-trust, emotional maturity, and the courage it takes to orient your life — and your relationships — around who you actually are.

In this episode, we explore:

1. The difference between loving someone and actually liking them — and why this distinction changes everything
2. How ambitious women unconsciously make themselves smaller in relationships (and the hidden cost of doing so)
3. The grief of mourning a future that was never truly yours
4. Why the most destabilizing collapses often become our greatest liberations
5. The gendered patterns Eve uncovered around emotional expression and the “hydraulic model” of suppressed feelings
6. What it really takes to reclaim yourself after destabilization — and how Eve moved from collapse, to experimentation, to wholeness
7. Why liking yourself is foundational to being truly met in partnership

Whether you’re in partnership, navigating the aftermath of an ending, or standing at a threshold where an old version of yourself is being asked to fall away, this episode is an invitation to remember that choosing yourself is what allows both your ambitious spirit and your desire for deep, nourishing love to coexist.

Meet Eve Simmons

Eve Simmons is a journalist and author based in London, currently serving as Health Editor of the Daily Mail UK. She has written two books — one about eating disorder recovery, and her most recent, What She Did Next, a collection of stories exploring divorce, identity, and rebuilding after sudden separation. Through her writing and research, Eve brings honesty, intelligence, and humanity to conversations at the intersection of ambition, partnership, and self-trust.

Eve’s Gene Keys Illuminated in This Episode

1. Gene Key 5 — Dislocation → Orientation → Unity
2. Gene Key 4 — Intolerance → Understanding → Forgiveness

Connect with Eve

1. Purchase Eve's New Book →What She Did Next
2. Instagram → @eviesimm
3. TikTok → @evesimmonsjourno
4. Substack → Why Am I Bleeding?

Connect with Alexia

1. Visit Alexia’s website → alexiausgaard.com
2. Explore ILLUMINATE — 90-Minute Gene Keys Experience
3. Instagram → @alexia_usgaard

Loved this episode?

If this conversation resonated, share it with someone navigating the beautiful tension between ambition and love — or someone who needs permission to choose themselves more fully.

Tag me on Instagram or send a DM. I’d love to hear what stayed with you.

With love & devotion,

Alexia