February 27, 2025 • 30 mins
Have you ever silenced your own intuition for the sake of love? Have you put more trust in someone else’s words than in the quiet knowing within you—only to watch it all fall apart?
In this episode of The Femme Cast, I open up about the heartbreaking moment I realized I had given away my power, trusting him over myself, and the deep unraveling that followed. I share the painful lessons I learned about self-worth, betrayal, and the dangers of outsourcing our truth.
For years, I navigated the maze of insecurity, jealousy, and self-doubt—struggling to feel “enough” in a relationship that slowly eroded my trust in myself. Gaslighting, infidelity, and emotional manipulation kept me trapped in a cycle of self-abandonment. But my healing journey taught me one life-changing truth: The foundation of a healthy relationship isn’t just trust in someone else—it’s trust in yourself.
If you've ever ignored red flags, questioned your worth, or lost yourself in love, this episode is for you.
In this episode, we'll cover:
- The biggest mistake I made—and how you can avoid it
- How gaslighting erodes self-trust and keeps you stuck
- The emotional toll of self-betrayal and how to break free
- The mindset shifts that helped me rebuild my self-worth
- How to trust yourself again and attract emotionally available love
Your intuition is speaking—are you finally ready to listen?
🎧 Tune in now.
PS: Stop begging to be chosen. Choose yourself instead.
You’re not here to beg, chase, or perform for the bare minimum.
You’re here to reclaim your power and become magnetic to real, soul-aligned love, success, and abundance.
Reclaim the version of you that never had to beg to be chosen.
Book your 90-minute Sacred Reclamation Intensive.
But fair warning—authentic connections, aligned opportunities, and breakthroughs in love, money, and purpose are inevitable.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST (00:00):
Hey you guys, what is up and welcome
back to the show.
I am so excited and grateful tohave you here.
We are going to continuethrough my evolution from
breaking toxic patterns andbecoming a magnet for healthy
love.
We are continuing with myheartbreak era today, where it
(00:21):
all began, where all the magicbegan, even though it didn't
feel like magic at the time, um,and we're going to talk about
the biggest mistake that I madein that relationship.
I mean, there were manymistakes, but I think the
biggest one for me was themistake of trusting him more
(00:44):
than I trusted myself, or justnot trusting myself full stop,
right.
Um, I think that was the mostdevastating thing I had done in
that relationship and probablywhat led to most of the pain and
the heartbreak that Iexperienced, not to mention the
(01:06):
mental impacts of what happened,but also, I think it was you
know, it was very it was animportant part of my evolution,
because I think it's what keptme there longer, so that it
would do enough mental andemotional, like there was enough
(01:26):
mind fuckery there for me tohave to undo and be able to
share what I share today, youknow.
So I mean again, in retrospect,it was probably a good thing
that I went through all that,but, man, if I had to, if I
could just save myself, I mean,I know again, I say this and I
always say this and I said thisin the last episode.
(01:48):
You know, when you see thebenefits of having gone through
an experience, you know you canappreciate having gone through
it and be willing to go throughit again in order to get the
benefits on the other side.
Well, it was still quitepainful.
I don't know if I'd want to dothat again, but I do appreciate
the lessons learned.
(02:08):
So, um, so we're going to goback to um.
You know, I do want to hold anintention and I apologize, I
totally missed this part thelast time but wherever you are,
if you can just take a moment um, you know, don't do this if
you're driving or you knowworking right now or whatever
but you just take a moment tohold an intention, if you can
(02:32):
close your eyes and take a deepbreath and just hold the
intention that everyonelistening to this episode get
exactly what they need to hearfrom it, that they get an
insight, an inspiration, amotivation to do things
differently, to love themselvesa little bit more, to break
toxic patterns and to become amagnet for healthy, loving
(02:56):
relationships that we alldeserve, every single one of us,
to see our worth, to see justhow lovable we are, to see just
how deserving we are, and torecognize that lovable, that
lovability if that's a word, andthat worth in ourselves,
without ever needing anybodyelse to validate that for us If
(03:18):
you could just hold that for onesecond and to trust ourselves,
to know that we know our truth,to know that we know what is
best for us and to not outsourcethat to other people to do on
our behalf.
So be it.
(03:39):
Okay.
Now let's talk about this,because in this experience and I
said you know, as you know, aswe move through this almost
slightly chronological accountof my evolution, through this
journey, looking back on this,you know, betrayal era, this
(04:02):
heartbreak era that Iexperienced, that kind of, was
the initiation into all of thisevolution.
There were many mistakes that Imade, many, many, many mistakes
, but I think the biggestmistake that I made was
entrusting him more than Itrusted myself in myself.
(04:30):
I knew what was happening.
I knew the writing.
The writing was on the wall.
Everything I needed to validatewhat I knew was there.
The signs were everywhere.
The pain and the fear and thepanic that I was feeling was
very, very, very real and thiswas very out of character for me
(04:54):
, like wildly out of characterfor me, and I always make this
distinction you know if your manis cheating, you know, you just
know.
Now, you know I say that with agrain of salt because I know
(05:14):
that there are so many of youout there who just struggle with
insecurity and struggle withself worth and do get
uncomfortable around other womenand there's, you know, other
women or society will make youfeel badly for that, and you
know that also comes from deepinsecurities and wounds and of
(05:36):
rejection and abandonment, maybenot of a partner, but, you know
, maybe somebody else in yourlife that was important to you.
You know, these are all.
We don't, we don't wake up ajealous bitch, I'm sorry, and
this is not.
This is not to, this is not toencourage that behavior, because
I do believe that in order tohave a healthy, loving
(05:58):
relationship, there needs to betrust and there is no getting
around that.
So, whatever you need to do inorder to be able to be in a
relationship with somebody thatyou trust, whether that means
finding the right person andalso probably doing some work on
yourself so you can trust, thendo it.
(06:20):
Okay, because you do need tohave trust in order to have a
healthy, functioningrelationship, non-negotiable.
So I'm not making excuses forthe behavior, but I do
understand where it comes fromand I think we need to.
I think we need to startlooking at people's behaviors a
(06:41):
little bit differently and startasking ourselves where does
that behavior come from?
You know?
So you know.
Having said all that, this wasvery out of character for me.
So for my intuition to bescreaming at me dude, this guy
(07:02):
is cheating on you, wake thefuck up.
And for me to continue tooutsource my need for validation
to need the smoking gun, toneed the confession going out of
my way to try and catch him inthe act.
(07:25):
One night we had had thishorrible fight, I came home from
work and I said because youknow, like I said in the
beginning, you know, there wasthis period where we were where
I was constantly interrogatinghim about it.
He would constantly lie to me,pretend he didn't know what I
was talking about.
Or my favorite was I don'tremember that was my favorite
(07:53):
Whenever he couldn't come upwith an excuse of what it is I
was asking him about, likewhether it was a phone call that
we got that morning or whateverthe thing was.
You know, his response wasalways I don't remember, even
though it might have been, likeyou know, 24 hours ago, you know
, and so in that quest for thevalidation, in that quest for
(08:16):
the confession, in that questfor the smoking gun, I can
remember, you know, one daysaying I'm sorry, I know I said
I wasn't going to like berateyou with this anymore, but I
cannot get it out of my headwhat happened and the fact that
you continuously say to me thatyou can't remember what happened
.
Less than 24 hours before, whenI asked you, like like I'm
(08:41):
having a really hard time tryingto like digest this, like
what's happening and trying tomake sense of it and I was
crying.
I remember I was crying that dayon the phone and he was still
at work.
I had just gotten home fromwork I don't even think like I
remember kind of sitting on oursofa and I just kind of came
into the house.
(09:01):
I still had my shoes on, I putmy bag down like onto the floor
next to me.
I still had my jacket on, likeI just kind of walked in the
house and just sat, ploppedmyself on the couch.
You know, I couldn't even putmy purse or my jacket away or
take off my shoes before I camein.
I just flopped on the sofa.
And I can remember just callinghim in tears, saying this makes
(09:23):
no sense to me.
I'm trying to understand.
Please help me understand,because I can understand why you
don't remember and why youcan't explain what happened.
And you know all this nonsense.
And to his response was I'm sotired of hearing about this, I'm
so tired of fighting about this, I'm not coming home tonight.
And that moment, um, I rememberI closed the phone and I just
(09:48):
fell on the floor and juststarted crying.
Um, there was a lot of thefalling on the floor, crying
moments.
This was one of them, um, and Icalled my sister that day and I
said listen this, and that wejust had this argument.
Um, I know he was working, youknow, late last night.
He always did.
(10:09):
Right, that was very convenient.
He's a restaurant manager, soit was quite often that he would
use working late as an excuse,even though the restaurant
closed by like nine o'clock.
You know what I mean there wasalways some sort of crisis that
kept him there until three inthe morning.
(10:30):
Um, and it's funny because I canremember back to when we were
dating, um, when we were stillin university together.
Um, you know, we would oftencome home at three o'clock in
the morning.
That was like our, our, our.
That was like his, his MO.
He would keep me out untilthree o'clock in the morning
even though we had class thenext day.
Um, we would show up to, youknow, sociology or whatever
(10:53):
class we had class the next day.
We would show up to sociologyor whatever class we had in the
morning.
I don't know what class did wehave together.
I think it was sociology or wasit anthropology.
Anyway, I can't remember.
But we would show up to class8.30 in the morning, half asleep
, because we were out until 3o'clock in the morning the night
before and that was totally hisMO.
And so he was coming home atthree o'clock in the morning
every night when he was workingnight shifts, um, even though
(11:16):
his shift was done at like nineo'clock.
So, you know, um, he said hewas working late that night and
you know he would not be home.
So, you know, my sister and Idid a stakeout went to his
restaurant.
We kind of went to the parkinglot across the street, saw his
car.
We kind of sat there and waitedand waited, and waited and
(11:36):
waited and he didn't move hiscar.
It was there, um, but there wasno other cars.
I remember in the lot, um,actually I'm trying to remember
now if there was an.
I know there was like the oddcar here or there and there was
(11:57):
a couple of other likebusinesses kind of in the plaza,
but nothing that I think wasopen until that time.
So you know whether he wasalone, I don't know.
You know whether he was alone?
I don't know.
Probably not.
I'm guessing that would be aguess, you know, I just don't
(12:20):
know.
What I do know is that you knowhe didn't go anywhere after.
He kind of stayed there theentire night and then at one
point, I guess you know, I thinkat about three or four in the
morning, me and my sister justgot tired and we just kind of
went home.
And I don't remember when wecame home after that, but I do
remember feeling like I failedbecause I wanted that smoking
(12:41):
gun so badly.
I needed that smoking gun sobadly is because me just knowing
(13:03):
what was true wasn't enough, mejust knowing that I know myself
and I know my partner and Iknow what's up and I know what
my intuition is telling me.
And instead of trusting myintuition, I totally negated it
and needed that validationoutside of myself before I could
(13:26):
walk away free and clear.
And until I had that validationI couldn't walk away.
So herein really lies themistake, because I would spend
another seven years in thisrelationship because I didn't
have a smoking gun, because Ididn't have a confession,
(13:48):
because I didn't have theexternal validation that I
needed in order to walk awayfree and clear.
Now, because of the nature ofthis relationship, the damage
that it did, staying in it forseven years, was monumental.
(14:09):
It just had such an impact onme mentally, physically,
emotionally.
It was insane.
And but again, it was theundoing I needed in order to
start to heal the beliefs withinmyself that were attracting
(14:30):
toxic relationships right.
So it's probably a good thingthat I stayed in it for seven
years from the perspective ofwell, if I hadn't, then I
wouldn't be able to do what I'mdoing today.
But you know, being in thatrelationship for seven years and
going through the motions of,you know, first being, you know,
(14:51):
in shock, then being in, and Idon't know what the 12 stages of
grief are, and if this is it,and if somebody knows, tell me,
cause I haven't actually Googledthis in a while.
Um, but you know, first I wasin shock, then I was in grief,
then I was in fucking anger andthen I just went into denial,
(15:13):
you know, and then I would kindof tiptoe back into grief and
then I would tiptoe back intoanger and then I would just come
back to denial and denialbecame my home base, right,
denial became my camp and, yeah,I would kind of tiptoe back
into and toe test back into someof the other phases, but
ultimately I would always justcome back to denial until there
was just acceptance of my truth,which came years later.
(15:35):
Years later, I would come tothe point where you know what,
whatever happened happened, Iknow something like this does
not feel right and I'm not beingtreated right, and I know that
whether I can't prove what'swrong or not doesn't matter,
(15:59):
because I know what I've seen, Iknow what I've experienced, I
know what I felt and I know howI've been treated and I am done,
you know.
And then I would walk away.
But that took seven years.
And so I mean, in that time,you know, the effects of not
(16:27):
trusting myself, of, you know,of me trusting him more than I
trusted me was probably the mostdamaging, because what ended up
happening was I completelydisconnected from my intuition
(16:48):
in that experience.
So I really, I mean, if Icouldn't trust myself before, I
certainly could not trust myselfnow.
I couldn't even hear myself, atleast not until I made the
decision, I think, to leave.
And that's when my intuitionreally woke up, right before I
left, and spoke to me and youknow, we'll share more about
(17:08):
that in a future episode.
But the damage that I had doneto the relationship with myself
and how I trusted myself wasinsane, and not to mention this
needing somebody else tovalidate, the dangers of needing
(17:29):
somebody else to validate myexperience, my truth, what I
know to be true.
Nothing could have made it moreevident.
Because, you know, in thatwhole seven-year period, you
know, like I said, I went from,you know, the grief, the anger,
(17:51):
and then the denial, and in thedenial I was literally trying to
convince myself that all ofthis was untrue.
Not only was he trying toconvince me that I didn't see
things or hear things, that Isaw I was doing that to myself.
So the gaslighting was comingnot just from him but from me.
And if you, you know, if you,if you, if any of you, have ever
(18:14):
experienced gaslighting, that'sa lot of damage to undo to your
thought process, right and yourself-trust.
And that's really whatgaslighting does it erodes the
trust you have in yourself andyour reality and your experience
of it.
So, you know, I had a lot ofwork to do on the other end,
just on that alone, not tomention the impacts that it had
(18:40):
on my self-worth right, whichreally didn't present themselves
until the next era, um, whichwe'll talk about more, which was
like the hot mess era, whichwas like the hot mess era.
But, um, you know, the biggestmistake was in trusting him more
than I trusted myself, becauseI kept giving my power away to
(19:03):
him to validate what I alreadyknew to be true, to validate my
experience, my intuition, myexperience, my intuition, what I
knew was happening behind thescenes.
I needed the evidence, I neededthe confession, I needed the
smoking gun, otherwise Icouldn't just lean into what I
(19:27):
knew, I believed, and it kept methere and it kept me there.
Um, I mean, we had beentogether for years before we
even moved in together and Iprobably um, kind of ballparking
it here I probably found outabout what was happening just
several months into, like rightafter, we had moved in together,
(19:50):
and I'm pretty sure it hadstarted happening just before we
moved in together.
So, you know, let's say youknow, we lived together for
seven years.
So let's just say I spent sevenand a half years living with
somebody who's lying andcheating on me Because I
couldn't just trust myself inthe process to know what was
(20:13):
true.
And again, like you know, Idon't want to make every woman
out there who thinks her partneris cheating on her believe oh
my God, it must be true, becausethat's what I'm believing, you
know.
Again, I want you to look atyour who you are in relationship
.
Do you have a pattern ofthinking that your spouse or
your partner or your boyfriendor whoever, is cheating?
(20:34):
Is this a thing for you?
And if it is, you know, maybeyou are in a pattern of
attracting people who you knowlie and cheat and that is a very
real experience and many womenhave that.
Or are you dealing with yourown self-worth and insecurities,
issues that are manifesting aslack of trust in your
relationship, in which case case, do your work, you know, get
(20:56):
out there, get some support, getsome help, start to really
rewire the beliefs that you haveabout yourself and what you
deserve right, and maybe yourrelationships will have.
You know, you'll, you'll,you'll be able to save yourself
a lot of pain, a lot ofheartbreak, and maybe you might
even be able to turn some ofyour relationships around,
because trust is mandatory.
Okay, so I, you know, I reallywant to underscore that If
(21:20):
you're a woman who's never beenjealous before in your life,
who's always trusted her partnerexplicitly, especially the
person you might be with now,who you would give your, put
your life in their hands, andsuddenly you're getting some
serious signs that this personis cheating, listen to it.
You know this is not who youare and you know it.
(21:44):
And there's a reason why you'refeeling this way.
Now, there's different kinds ofinfidelity, of course there's
emotional, there's physical.
There's different kinds ofinfidelity.
Of course there's emotional,there's physical, there's mental
.
I mean, cheating can look manydifferent ways, but it's all
painful and it's all a betrayal.
And when we put thatresponsibility in the other
(22:07):
person to validate thatexperience for us.
We set ourselves up forcatastrophe Because you could be
waiting a lifetime for thatvalidation, for that confession,
for that external confirmationof what you already know to be
true.
(22:27):
It may never come, and I'll tellyou, mine came after I left.
It was so ironic that I stayedfor seven years because I didn't
have validation and I didn'thave confirmation.
And then, right after I left,boom, I literally stumbled on
the confirmation I had beenwaiting for all those years and
(22:49):
I was like dang like.
And I was like dang like.
If only I'd left sooner.
Maybe this confirmation wouldhave come sooner.
But I think I needed to gothrough the experience of
learning to trust myself.
And when I finally learned totrust myself and just make
decisions according to what myintuition was telling me, then
the external validation that Iwas waiting for for so long
(23:10):
finally fucking showed.
So where are you giving yourpower away?
Was telling me.
Then the external validationthat I was waiting for for so
long finally fucking showed.
So where are you giving yourpower away?
Where are you outsourcing yourneed for validation or
confirmation that what youalready know to be true?
Where are you putting your trustin someone else more than
you're trusting yourself,because that is a dangerous
(23:32):
pattern to bring into ourrelationships, because unless we
have trust in ourselves, wewill never have trust in our
partners, and if we can't havetrust in ourselves and trust in
our partners, we will never beable to have a healthy
relationship.
It all starts with you.
Learn to trust yourself, learnto navigate your life, to make
your decisions, to listen toyour intuition and take action
(23:52):
accordingly.
To listen to your intuition andtake action accordingly, and
then you're going to seeyourself making much better,
much more aligned decisions whenit comes to your relationships
and start to break away fromsome of these toxic patterns.
So I leave you with that.
Of course, email me atmariaatthefemcoachcom.
You can hit me up at theFemcast on Instagram and send me
(24:12):
a DM.
Let me know where you're nottrusting yourself in your
relationships.
Let me know where you'retrusting them more than you're
trusting yourself, because thatis a very, very, very dangerous
slope.
Take it from my experience.
If you will, don't make myexperience be something that I
(24:33):
went through in vain, like.
Make it mean something.
Do take a different action thanwhat I did.
Okay, and trust that you don'tneed something to validate what
you already know to be true deepdown inside.
Okay, so I'm going to leave youwith that.
(24:54):
If you love this episode, itwould mean the world to me If
you would leave a positiverating and a review on Apple
podcast or Spotify or whereveryou're seeing this.
Until next time, you guys,massive, massive love.
Hey you guys, what is up and welcome
back to the show.
I am so excited and grateful tohave you here.
We are going to continuethrough my evolution from
breaking toxic patterns andbecoming a magnet for healthy
love.
We are continuing with myheartbreak era today, where it
(00:21):
all began, where all the magicbegan, even though it didn't
feel like magic at the time, um,and we're going to talk about
the biggest mistake that I madein that relationship.
I mean, there were manymistakes, but I think the
biggest one for me was themistake of trusting him more
(00:44):
than I trusted myself, or justnot trusting myself full stop,
right.
Um, I think that was the mostdevastating thing I had done in
that relationship and probablywhat led to most of the pain and
the heartbreak that Iexperienced, not to mention the
(01:06):
mental impacts of what happened,but also, I think it was you
know, it was very it was animportant part of my evolution,
because I think it's what keptme there longer, so that it
would do enough mental andemotional, like there was enough
(01:26):
mind fuckery there for me tohave to undo and be able to
share what I share today, youknow.
So I mean again, in retrospect,it was probably a good thing
that I went through all that,but, man, if I had to, if I
could just save myself, I mean,I know again, I say this and I
always say this and I said thisin the last episode.
(01:48):
You know, when you see thebenefits of having gone through
an experience, you know you canappreciate having gone through
it and be willing to go throughit again in order to get the
benefits on the other side.
Well, it was still quitepainful.
I don't know if I'd want to dothat again, but I do appreciate
the lessons learned.
(02:08):
So, um, so we're going to goback to um.
You know, I do want to hold anintention and I apologize, I
totally missed this part thelast time but wherever you are,
if you can just take a moment um, you know, don't do this if
you're driving or you knowworking right now or whatever
but you just take a moment tohold an intention, if you can
(02:32):
close your eyes and take a deepbreath and just hold the
intention that everyonelistening to this episode get
exactly what they need to hearfrom it, that they get an
insight, an inspiration, amotivation to do things
differently, to love themselvesa little bit more, to break
toxic patterns and to become amagnet for healthy, loving
(02:56):
relationships that we alldeserve, every single one of us,
to see our worth, to see justhow lovable we are, to see just
how deserving we are, and torecognize that lovable, that
lovability if that's a word, andthat worth in ourselves,
without ever needing anybodyelse to validate that for us If
(03:18):
you could just hold that for onesecond and to trust ourselves,
to know that we know our truth,to know that we know what is
best for us and to not outsourcethat to other people to do on
our behalf.
So be it.
(03:39):
Okay.
Now let's talk about this,because in this experience and I
said you know, as you know, aswe move through this almost
slightly chronological accountof my evolution, through this
journey, looking back on this,you know, betrayal era, this
(04:02):
heartbreak era that Iexperienced, that kind of, was
the initiation into all of thisevolution.
There were many mistakes that Imade, many, many, many mistakes
, but I think the biggestmistake that I made was
entrusting him more than Itrusted myself in myself.
(04:30):
I knew what was happening.
I knew the writing.
The writing was on the wall.
Everything I needed to validatewhat I knew was there.
The signs were everywhere.
The pain and the fear and thepanic that I was feeling was
very, very, very real and thiswas very out of character for me
(04:54):
, like wildly out of characterfor me, and I always make this
distinction you know if your manis cheating, you know, you just
know.
Now, you know I say that with agrain of salt because I know
(05:14):
that there are so many of youout there who just struggle with
insecurity and struggle withself worth and do get
uncomfortable around other womenand there's, you know, other
women or society will make youfeel badly for that, and you
know that also comes from deepinsecurities and wounds and of
(05:36):
rejection and abandonment, maybenot of a partner, but, you know
, maybe somebody else in yourlife that was important to you.
You know, these are all.
We don't, we don't wake up ajealous bitch, I'm sorry, and
this is not.
This is not to, this is not toencourage that behavior, because
I do believe that in order tohave a healthy, loving
(05:58):
relationship, there needs to betrust and there is no getting
around that.
So, whatever you need to do inorder to be able to be in a
relationship with somebody thatyou trust, whether that means
finding the right person andalso probably doing some work on
yourself so you can trust, thendo it.
(06:20):
Okay, because you do need tohave trust in order to have a
healthy, functioningrelationship, non-negotiable.
So I'm not making excuses forthe behavior, but I do
understand where it comes fromand I think we need to.
I think we need to startlooking at people's behaviors a
(06:41):
little bit differently and startasking ourselves where does
that behavior come from?
You know?
So you know.
Having said all that, this wasvery out of character for me.
So for my intuition to bescreaming at me dude, this guy
(07:02):
is cheating on you, wake thefuck up.
And for me to continue tooutsource my need for validation
to need the smoking gun, toneed the confession going out of
my way to try and catch him inthe act.
(07:25):
One night we had had thishorrible fight, I came home from
work and I said because youknow, like I said in the
beginning, you know, there wasthis period where we were where
I was constantly interrogatinghim about it.
He would constantly lie to me,pretend he didn't know what I
was talking about.
Or my favorite was I don'tremember that was my favorite
(07:53):
Whenever he couldn't come upwith an excuse of what it is I
was asking him about, likewhether it was a phone call that
we got that morning or whateverthe thing was.
You know, his response wasalways I don't remember, even
though it might have been, likeyou know, 24 hours ago, you know
, and so in that quest for thevalidation, in that quest for
(08:16):
the confession, in that questfor the smoking gun, I can
remember, you know, one daysaying I'm sorry, I know I said
I wasn't going to like berateyou with this anymore, but I
cannot get it out of my headwhat happened and the fact that
you continuously say to me thatyou can't remember what happened
.
Less than 24 hours before, whenI asked you, like like I'm
(08:41):
having a really hard time tryingto like digest this, like
what's happening and trying tomake sense of it and I was
crying.
I remember I was crying that dayon the phone and he was still
at work.
I had just gotten home fromwork I don't even think like I
remember kind of sitting on oursofa and I just kind of came
into the house.
(09:01):
I still had my shoes on, I putmy bag down like onto the floor
next to me.
I still had my jacket on, likeI just kind of walked in the
house and just sat, ploppedmyself on the couch.
You know, I couldn't even putmy purse or my jacket away or
take off my shoes before I camein.
I just flopped on the sofa.
And I can remember just callinghim in tears, saying this makes
(09:23):
no sense to me.
I'm trying to understand.
Please help me understand,because I can understand why you
don't remember and why youcan't explain what happened.
And you know all this nonsense.
And to his response was I'm sotired of hearing about this, I'm
so tired of fighting about this, I'm not coming home tonight.
And that moment, um, I rememberI closed the phone and I just
(09:48):
fell on the floor and juststarted crying.
Um, there was a lot of thefalling on the floor, crying
moments.
This was one of them, um, and Icalled my sister that day and I
said listen this, and that wejust had this argument.
Um, I know he was working, youknow, late last night.
He always did.
(10:09):
Right, that was very convenient.
He's a restaurant manager, soit was quite often that he would
use working late as an excuse,even though the restaurant
closed by like nine o'clock.
You know what I mean there wasalways some sort of crisis that
kept him there until three inthe morning.
(10:30):
Um, and it's funny because I canremember back to when we were
dating, um, when we were stillin university together.
Um, you know, we would oftencome home at three o'clock in
the morning.
That was like our, our, our.
That was like his, his MO.
He would keep me out untilthree o'clock in the morning
even though we had class thenext day.
Um, we would show up to, youknow, sociology or whatever
(10:53):
class we had class the next day.
We would show up to sociologyor whatever class we had in the
morning.
I don't know what class did wehave together.
I think it was sociology or wasit anthropology.
Anyway, I can't remember.
But we would show up to class8.30 in the morning, half asleep
, because we were out until 3o'clock in the morning the night
before and that was totally hisMO.
And so he was coming home atthree o'clock in the morning
every night when he was workingnight shifts, um, even though
(11:16):
his shift was done at like nineo'clock.
So, you know, um, he said hewas working late that night and
you know he would not be home.
So, you know, my sister and Idid a stakeout went to his
restaurant.
We kind of went to the parkinglot across the street, saw his
car.
We kind of sat there and waitedand waited, and waited and
(11:36):
waited and he didn't move hiscar.
It was there, um, but there wasno other cars.
I remember in the lot, um,actually I'm trying to remember
now if there was an.
I know there was like the oddcar here or there and there was
(11:57):
a couple of other likebusinesses kind of in the plaza,
but nothing that I think wasopen until that time.
So you know whether he wasalone, I don't know.
You know whether he was alone?
I don't know.
Probably not.
I'm guessing that would be aguess, you know, I just don't
(12:20):
know.
What I do know is that you knowhe didn't go anywhere after.
He kind of stayed there theentire night and then at one
point, I guess you know, I thinkat about three or four in the
morning, me and my sister justgot tired and we just kind of
went home.
And I don't remember when wecame home after that, but I do
remember feeling like I failedbecause I wanted that smoking
(12:41):
gun so badly.
I needed that smoking gun sobadly is because me just knowing
(13:03):
what was true wasn't enough, mejust knowing that I know myself
and I know my partner and Iknow what's up and I know what
my intuition is telling me.
And instead of trusting myintuition, I totally negated it
and needed that validationoutside of myself before I could
(13:26):
walk away free and clear.
And until I had that validationI couldn't walk away.
So herein really lies themistake, because I would spend
another seven years in thisrelationship because I didn't
have a smoking gun, because Ididn't have a confession,
(13:48):
because I didn't have theexternal validation that I
needed in order to walk awayfree and clear.
Now, because of the nature ofthis relationship, the damage
that it did, staying in it forseven years, was monumental.
(14:09):
It just had such an impact onme mentally, physically,
emotionally.
It was insane.
And but again, it was theundoing I needed in order to
start to heal the beliefs withinmyself that were attracting
(14:30):
toxic relationships right.
So it's probably a good thingthat I stayed in it for seven
years from the perspective ofwell, if I hadn't, then I
wouldn't be able to do what I'mdoing today.
But you know, being in thatrelationship for seven years and
going through the motions of,you know, first being, you know,
(14:51):
in shock, then being in, and Idon't know what the 12 stages of
grief are, and if this is it,and if somebody knows, tell me,
cause I haven't actually Googledthis in a while.
Um, but you know, first I wasin shock, then I was in grief,
then I was in fucking anger andthen I just went into denial,
(15:13):
you know, and then I would kindof tiptoe back into grief and
then I would tiptoe back intoanger and then I would just come
back to denial and denialbecame my home base, right,
denial became my camp and, yeah,I would kind of tiptoe back
into and toe test back into someof the other phases, but
ultimately I would always justcome back to denial until there
was just acceptance of my truth,which came years later.
(15:35):
Years later, I would come tothe point where you know what,
whatever happened happened, Iknow something like this does
not feel right and I'm not beingtreated right, and I know that
whether I can't prove what'swrong or not doesn't matter,
(15:59):
because I know what I've seen, Iknow what I've experienced, I
know what I felt and I know howI've been treated and I am done,
you know.
And then I would walk away.
But that took seven years.
And so I mean, in that time,you know, the effects of not
(16:27):
trusting myself, of, you know,of me trusting him more than I
trusted me was probably the mostdamaging, because what ended up
happening was I completelydisconnected from my intuition
(16:48):
in that experience.
So I really, I mean, if Icouldn't trust myself before, I
certainly could not trust myselfnow.
I couldn't even hear myself, atleast not until I made the
decision, I think, to leave.
And that's when my intuitionreally woke up, right before I
left, and spoke to me and youknow, we'll share more about
(17:08):
that in a future episode.
But the damage that I had doneto the relationship with myself
and how I trusted myself wasinsane, and not to mention this
needing somebody else tovalidate, the dangers of needing
(17:29):
somebody else to validate myexperience, my truth, what I
know to be true.
Nothing could have made it moreevident.
Because, you know, in thatwhole seven-year period, you
know, like I said, I went from,you know, the grief, the anger,
(17:51):
and then the denial, and in thedenial I was literally trying to
convince myself that all ofthis was untrue.
Not only was he trying toconvince me that I didn't see
things or hear things, that Isaw I was doing that to myself.
So the gaslighting was comingnot just from him but from me.
And if you, you know, if you,if you, if any of you, have ever
(18:14):
experienced gaslighting, that'sa lot of damage to undo to your
thought process, right and yourself-trust.
And that's really whatgaslighting does it erodes the
trust you have in yourself andyour reality and your experience
of it.
So, you know, I had a lot ofwork to do on the other end,
just on that alone, not tomention the impacts that it had
(18:40):
on my self-worth right, whichreally didn't present themselves
until the next era, um, whichwe'll talk about more, which was
like the hot mess era, whichwas like the hot mess era.
But, um, you know, the biggestmistake was in trusting him more
than I trusted myself, becauseI kept giving my power away to
(19:03):
him to validate what I alreadyknew to be true, to validate my
experience, my intuition, myexperience, my intuition, what I
knew was happening behind thescenes.
I needed the evidence, I neededthe confession, I needed the
smoking gun, otherwise Icouldn't just lean into what I
(19:27):
knew, I believed, and it kept methere and it kept me there.
Um, I mean, we had beentogether for years before we
even moved in together and Iprobably um, kind of ballparking
it here I probably found outabout what was happening just
several months into, like rightafter, we had moved in together,
(19:50):
and I'm pretty sure it hadstarted happening just before we
moved in together.
So, you know, let's say youknow, we lived together for
seven years.
So let's just say I spent sevenand a half years living with
somebody who's lying andcheating on me Because I
couldn't just trust myself inthe process to know what was
(20:13):
true.
And again, like you know, Idon't want to make every woman
out there who thinks her partneris cheating on her believe oh
my God, it must be true, becausethat's what I'm believing, you
know.
Again, I want you to look atyour who you are in relationship
.
Do you have a pattern ofthinking that your spouse or
your partner or your boyfriendor whoever, is cheating?
(20:34):
Is this a thing for you?
And if it is, you know, maybeyou are in a pattern of
attracting people who you knowlie and cheat and that is a very
real experience and many womenhave that.
Or are you dealing with yourown self-worth and insecurities,
issues that are manifesting aslack of trust in your
relationship, in which case case, do your work, you know, get
(20:56):
out there, get some support, getsome help, start to really
rewire the beliefs that you haveabout yourself and what you
deserve right, and maybe yourrelationships will have.
You know, you'll, you'll,you'll be able to save yourself
a lot of pain, a lot ofheartbreak, and maybe you might
even be able to turn some ofyour relationships around,
because trust is mandatory.
Okay, so I, you know, I reallywant to underscore that If
(21:20):
you're a woman who's never beenjealous before in your life,
who's always trusted her partnerexplicitly, especially the
person you might be with now,who you would give your, put
your life in their hands, andsuddenly you're getting some
serious signs that this personis cheating, listen to it.
You know this is not who youare and you know it.
(21:44):
And there's a reason why you'refeeling this way.
Now, there's different kinds ofinfidelity, of course there's
emotional, there's physical.
There's different kinds ofinfidelity.
Of course there's emotional,there's physical, there's mental
.
I mean, cheating can look manydifferent ways, but it's all
painful and it's all a betrayal.
And when we put thatresponsibility in the other
(22:07):
person to validate thatexperience for us.
We set ourselves up forcatastrophe Because you could be
waiting a lifetime for thatvalidation, for that confession,
for that external confirmationof what you already know to be
true.
(22:27):
It may never come, and I'll tellyou, mine came after I left.
It was so ironic that I stayedfor seven years because I didn't
have validation and I didn'thave confirmation.
And then, right after I left,boom, I literally stumbled on
the confirmation I had beenwaiting for all those years and
(22:49):
I was like dang like.
And I was like dang like.
If only I'd left sooner.
Maybe this confirmation wouldhave come sooner.
But I think I needed to gothrough the experience of
learning to trust myself.
And when I finally learned totrust myself and just make
decisions according to what myintuition was telling me, then
the external validation that Iwas waiting for for so long
(23:10):
finally fucking showed.
So where are you giving yourpower away?
Was telling me.
Then the external validationthat I was waiting for for so
long finally fucking showed.
So where are you giving yourpower away?
Where are you outsourcing yourneed for validation or
confirmation that what youalready know to be true?
Where are you putting your trustin someone else more than
you're trusting yourself,because that is a dangerous
(23:32):
pattern to bring into ourrelationships, because unless we
have trust in ourselves, wewill never have trust in our
partners, and if we can't havetrust in ourselves and trust in
our partners, we will never beable to have a healthy
relationship.
It all starts with you.
Learn to trust yourself, learnto navigate your life, to make
your decisions, to listen toyour intuition and take action
(23:52):
accordingly.
To listen to your intuition andtake action accordingly, and
then you're going to seeyourself making much better,
much more aligned decisions whenit comes to your relationships
and start to break away fromsome of these toxic patterns.
So I leave you with that.
Of course, email me atmariaatthefemcoachcom.
You can hit me up at theFemcast on Instagram and send me
(24:12):
a DM.
Let me know where you're nottrusting yourself in your
relationships.
Let me know where you'retrusting them more than you're
trusting yourself, because thatis a very, very, very dangerous
slope.
Take it from my experience.
If you will, don't make myexperience be something that I
(24:33):
went through in vain, like.
Make it mean something.
Do take a different action thanwhat I did.
Okay, and trust that you don'tneed something to validate what
you already know to be true deepdown inside.
Okay, so I'm going to leave youwith that.
(24:54):
If you love this episode, itwould mean the world to me If
you would leave a positiverating and a review on Apple
podcast or Spotify or whereveryou're seeing this.
Until next time, you guys,massive, massive love.
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