DOUCHEBAG DIARIES | THE ONE WHO LIED AND CHEATED AND MADE ME THINK THAT I WAS CRAZY FOR THINKING IT (A BIG LESSON IN SELF TRUST)

One of the areas in my life that was always a “hot mess” was my relationships. That’s why, in this episode of TheFemmeCast, we continue our journey into The Douchebag Diaries. The series is devoted to sharing the stories of the top 5 douchebags I had the privilege of dating and learning a “hot mess” pile of lessons from in my “hot mess” romantic lifetime. All the names, dates and locations have been changed to protect the “not so innocent.” Each of these said douchebags helped me to make a life changing mindset shift and more importantly, each taught me a very powerful lesson about radical self.

In today's episode I am going to share all about is douchebag number 1: The One Who Lied And Cheated And Made Me Think That I Was Crazy For Thinking It (A Big Lesson In Self Trust)

And it’s all happening right here on TheFemmeCast.

Let’s do this!

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Want more daily inspiration an tips on how you can uplevel your relationships and your life through the art of radical self-love? If so, use the link below to con...

Transcript

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 0:32

Hey you guys, what is up? And welcome back to the show, so excited and grateful to have you here. And welcome to the next episode of the douchebag diaries, the series devoted to sharing the stories of the top five douchebags I've had the privilege of dating and learning a hot mess by the lessons from in my hot mess romantic lifetime. All the names, dates, locations have been changed to protect the innocent, not so innocent, and each of these said douchebags helped me to make a life-changing mindset shift. More importantly, each of them taught me a very powerful lesson about radical self-love. So we are gonna jump right into it. Today's episode I am going to share. We're here, you guys. Can I get a drumroll? Douchebag number one I don't know if that worked.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 1:20

The one who lied and cheated on me and made me think that I was crazy for thinking it. Yes, I kid you not. A big and massive lesson in self-trust. You guys, it's all happening right here on the Femcast. Let's do this by far the douchiest of douchebags, like when I say this guy had me duped. He had me duped. This guy was my knight in shining armor. He was the hero of my life and story, the one who would come in on his white horse, shiny white horse. Literally he drove a white car and rescue me from a life of loneliness. I trusted this man with my life, like I literally would put my life into this man's hands and say here you go, I trust you to take care of me and protect me in every single way possible. You've got my back, you're my boo, you're my ride or die, no doubt whatsoever. Oh man, was I wrong?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 2:27

Lesson learned the day that I realized he was cheating and finally put two and two together. It was the most painful day of my life. I felt like somebody had just torn apart my insides, chewed them up, spit them out and fed them to a dog who then vomited them on the side of the street, and then a truck ran over them. Like it was just the most painful day, and I can still remember to this day just collapsing on the floor and crying and suddenly all these memories started coming back to my head and all these weird behaviors and circumstances and incidences that I couldn't quite explain started to flood through my mind and suddenly it all made sense and I remember having this horrible feeling like how the fuck did you not see this? Like how were you not aware of what was going on right under your nose. This entire time it was, I mean, painful. I went through pain and then hate, and then anger, and then numbness and then back to anger and hate again. It was just the most painful time in my life and I'm just trying to get my phone, so I realize I've left it on.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 3:52

I don't actually know how I got through that period and the years that would follow, because I didn't actually leave right away. We stayed together for a long time trying to work it out. And here's the thing, here's where I was struggling, which we're gonna talk, I'll get more into but in a nutshell, I didn't have any proof that the cheating was happening. I only had what were, at the time, really obvious clues. Something wasn't right, like something was going down, like there was just too much happening, too many circumstances, too many coincidences, too many things that didn't make any sense, too many questions I had that he could not answer or explain and he would just kind of put his head down and pretend I didn't ask the question or say he didn't remember when it literally happened the day before. It was really bad and it became very toxic. And because I couldn't get an answer to a lot of these questions that I had and things that I couldn't like comprehend, that I was begging him like please explain this to me, because if you're not cheating on me, then why did A, b and C happen? Why did I see this, why did I hear that? And he, for the most part, couldn't explain any of it except to say what's wrong with you? How many times do we need to have this conversation? Why can't you just let it go? I'd be like, fine, I will let it go, I will gladly let it go. I will let it go and I will never bring it up again. If you can explain to me what it was. I don't know what you're talking about. It happened yesterday. I don't know. I can't remember, you don't remember what happened.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 5:50

Like we were having this dialogue of I knew factually something wasn't right and I was seeing things that made no sense and I was hearing things that made no sense and there were voices on the phone and conversations being had and words being said that you just don't say to someone else that you're not in a relationship with, and so, and every time I confronted him on the issue, I was literally gas lit and told I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you heard. You're crazy. What's wrong with you? How many times do you have to argue about this? Why can't you just let it go? Even though I saw things, even though I heard things, even though there were so many blatantly and ridiculously obvious signs sorry, motorcycles again and yet I was the crazy one.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:50

It would all boil down to me being crazy, and this went on for years. I was crazy. I was just jealous, even though I never had a jealous bone in my body. I was never one to worry about where he was going or what he was doing or who he was with. To me, he was my partner at the time and I trusted him fully and completely and there was nothing that I ever worried about or held him from because I didn't feel any threat until said situation started to present itself. But I stayed, and I stayed for a long time, and I stayed because I wanted to make sure I needed proof that the cheating was happening and because I needed the proof. And I ended up staying for so long. The gas lighting was happening for so long and the damage that was done.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 7:52

It took so long To undo all the damage that that relationship did, not to mention all the ways of him threatening to abandon me or pulling love away from me, blaming me, shaming me for the arguments that were being had, that were as a result of all of this and I mean just the denial of what I knew to be true alone was such a mind fuck for me because I think at one point I think back. You know, it just became so painful to have the argument over and over again. I really did just want to surrender because I knew, I knew it was an argument I was never going to win and I knew he was never going to confess the error of his ways to me, and so I made a decision to stay, to stay. And you know, I mean at that point I even think, I even started to believe that maybe I was just being crazy, right, and I started to fall back into this false sense of comfort and familiarity and just was basically, you know, living in denial of what happened and pretend it like it never happened.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 9:19

And then there was a phase where I, you know, was probably one of the best periods of our relationship, and but I was in denial the whole time and I kid you not when I tell you I was waking up in the middle of the night screaming and I mean raging, like blood curdling screams, because there was so much anger that I was stuffing that wasn't being addressed, that hadn't been healed from all the years of the lying and the cheating and the abuse and the gaslighting. There was so much anger and rage inside of me that wasn't being, like you know, vocalized and really moved through properly and addressed, that it was literally coming out in my sleep. And this went on for years. I would wake up with these screams and I I tried so hard to just turn a blind eye to everything that was going on on the inside and just told myself no, you know what, we're good, we've been through a lot together, you know, we've learned a few things and we're on the right track. Now it happened again. At that point I was, I was just done and by the time we ended things and you know, we kind of you know stepped away from each other, which was it was a very it was a very painful breakup. The day that we broke up, I never had a screaming night episode again, ever Just stopped. It was literally my soul screaming at me what the fuck are you doing in this relationship? Get the hell out. Because you know that something is not right.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 10:57

But I think the belief that was, you know, working against me in that situation was this belief that I needed to have proof. You know, it's like, it's like I was in a courtroom. It's like you know, if I don't have any hard evidence that he was cheating, that he was guilty, then he must be innocent, right, innocent until proven guilty, right. And I had this mentality, and I don't know where I had this white or black sort of thing way of looking at things, because I don't, nobody was really white and white or black, and I guess my dad was a bit white or black, but but I had this mentality of well, if I can't prove that he's cheating, I can't leave him.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 11:35

Of course you can If and this is one thing that I really want to make sure I get across, and I get it across properly Is that if a relationship doesn't feel right to you and doesn't feel healthy, you don't need proof as to what the dysfunction is, you can just kind of walk away. Now, that's not to say that everything you know, like you don't. I'm not saying that you should walk away. You know, if a relationship is triggering all relationships are triggering that's because all relationships are healing and they're meant to heal us and they're meant to trigger us and oftentimes they're pointing at other wounds that we need to address and look after and that, I think, is okay and it's healthy. It's very healthy.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 12:18

But when we're saying in toxic situations that we know our body is telling us something isn't right but I'm just going to ignore it until I have proof that something isn't right, no, that feeling that something isn't right and something isn't healthy, or that something's gone sour, is enough of a reason to either A Address the situation if both parties want to come to the table and deal with it in a healthy and productive way Ie going to relationship counseling and working through your issues and coming out of it, you know, maybe better and stronger, even Great. If both parties don't want to do that, then you have to make a decision to. You know, either stay in an unhealthy circumstance, which I wouldn't recommend, or make a decision to leave. It's that simple. If somebody I believe that there's no issue in a relationship that cannot be rectified. Well, I mean, maybe there's some extremes out there, but for the most part the everyday things that occur in relationships that usually end up, you know, breaking people apart. I think if both parties are willing to do the work, seek out relationship counseling, maybe even seek out individual counseling as well, to work through their own individual stuff that's coming up, I don't see why relationships can't survive even the biggest blows, you know. But both parties have to want it and that's where we were missing, I think. I think we were on the surface doing the work, but we weren't.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 13:57

You know, I was very open and candid when, you know, we sought help and, you know, kind of having the conversations with a relationship counselor and he just didn't want to admit to any of it and I was really clear in that. I couldn't move forward without Some sort of a confession that it was going on, because without that, you know, there would always be the lying in the gaslighting. And that's really what I couldn't live with the lying in the gaslighting more so Because then that just became so hurtful and abusive to me. We could overcome the cheating. I couldn't overcome the lying in the gaslighting, because then, you know, that was an attack on me, that was making me out to be the bad guy when I hadn't done anything wrong? Yeah, sure I was.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 14:45

I had brought my own dysfunction into the relationship, which is, you know, I mean it takes two to tango right, but you know, the, the, the string was that was on him. I mean, he made a choice he could have worked through our issues to. We could have worked through our issues together. You know he brought his dysfunction, I brought my dysfunction. Hey, let's have a party, here's mine, here's yours, let's see what we can do with this. Let's hi, let's get some help. You know there's things that we could have done. He made the choice to step outside of the relationship and you know that's on him. But again, that is something I think we could have worked through.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 15:23

It was the lying in the gaslighting, and and just this continuous pattern that was I was seeing that I could not get. I had to just leave, and and. So my instincts were so strong, I had so much evidence to support what was happening and what I was thinking, and there were so many things that he could not explain and he would not explain and he would just deflect the issue every single time on to me, every time I asked him about it, and he would not say no, because there was no hard evidence of the cheating. And it's sitting until proven guilty, as in any courtroom. But don't forget, there is such a thing as circumstantial evidence and in some cases can be more powerful than the hard evidence, right, many cases are one based on that alone.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 18:47

But anyway, getting outside the courtroom now, I don't know, I think I've been watching too much law and order lately, but anyway, the way that this, you know, this was an extreme case, right, but it did show up in other relationships because I was tolerating bad behavior in a lot of my relationships and being treated badly because I really didn't have any evidence of them doing anything that bad. Do you know what I mean? Like there wasn't anything concrete other than the fact that, hmm, I don't know if I like this person, I don't know if I like the way they're talking to me and treating me, but I'm going to stay in relationship with them anyway because of, I don't know, loyalty. Maybe We've been friends for this long, we've been coworkers for this long, we've been partners for this long. You know, until I have proof that they've done something wrong, I'm going to assume that they're good, you know, and I don't know, I don't know when that became a thing, when the standard became hey, they don't treat you, they don't do anything really that bad to you, so it's a healthy relationship. Oh my God, when I say it out loud now it just sounds so distorted. But you know, let's not make people not doing something bad to us a measure of a good relationship. Let's make people doing something good, treating us right and treating us well. Let's make that the measure right and not just settle for any relationship because they didn't really do anything wrong, you know.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 20:20

Again, going back to the example, I shared it I don't know if it was on this one or the previous one it's like, okay, if they don't, you know, if they're not drug dealers and gamblers, they're all right, it's an all right guy. Oh man, the bar was so low, okay. So I guess the point, you know, the point that I want to bring home and what I would invite you to believe, and what I needed to believe in this situation right. In this situation, I needed to hold out for relationships that would treat me right, you know, and not just settle for any relationship because they didn't do anything really monumentally wrong. You know, that's just silly. More importantly, I needed to. I needed a relationship to feel like.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 21:11

Knowing that a relationship doesn't feel right is enough of a reason to walk away. That in itself is enough. And I'm not talking like, again, I'm not talking about the little triggers that are, look, pointing at something that you know, maybe something needs to be healed within myself, and that's work you need to do and that you need self trust for as well. Right, because you need to be able to differentiate okay, what's mine, what's theirs. But a relationship not feeling right is enough of a reason to walk away, like. You don't need any proof beyond that. Something about the relationship didn't feel right, something about this person didn't feel right. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it just, you know, my intuition was just spiking every time and that's enough. You don't need anything beyond that.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 22:05

And the fact that we sometimes tell ourselves that we do is this distortion in belief, that we can't fully and completely trust ourselves. Right, and that's where the breakdown happens is we don't believe that we can trust ourselves beyond what our eyes can see. That intuition, you know, when it speaks to us, and it's a very powerful thing when we learn to harness the power of our intuition. When it speaks to us, it often speaks to us in the abstract, in the things that we can't see, in the things that we can't prove, in the things that we can't quantify, and we just need to trust, and trust blindly and have faith that we're being guided and, even if a painful outcome is painful, we're trusting that it was an experience that we needed to have to learn something or to gain something or to pick up something along the way. You know, and that's that kind of unwavering trust that you can build with your relationship.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 23:06

You know, when you kind of do the work and that's kind of that's where that's the ideal and that's where we really need to be, because when we do that, you know no amount of some person telling you you're crazy or you have no proof, or you're just being jealous or whatever people are saying to you to make you question your beliefs and question what you know inside to be true isn't worth a damn, because you'd be like hmm, okay, peace out, thanks for having known you. Glad you feel that way. I'm going to go on over here. You know, you can easily walk away without without even questioning, or you can jump in without questioning and say you know what my intuition is telling me. This is the right thing for me and I know that if it is not, I'll be able to know it and I'll be able to jump out at any time because I've done the work.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 24:04

And so now, suddenly, relationships that maybe felt so dangerous at that point in time, because, oh my God, what if I make the wrong choice? What if I fall in love with this guy? What if we end up together? What if we end up together for 10 years and then I find out he's cheating, or he's this or he's that, and I didn't even know it and it was all happening under my nose and pulled the wool over my blah, or or, or you know, I don't have any proof and then I can't leave and then I end up Stop Breathe when you build the ability to really and fully trust yourself and it does take work, I'm not going to lie Right, I think this is probably where most of my work was. I say that every time, but for real, this is probably where most of the work was in the last seven years was in learning to trust myself again, because the damage at this relationship did was catastrophic to like.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 24:54

I no longer trust. I couldn't trust myself to pick spaghetti, like the simplest thing, a carbohydrate like you cannot go wrong with a carbohydrate. And I could not pick. What do I want? Do I want spaghetti? Do I want the greenie? Do I want Rick and Tony? Like there's so many things you can choose from. What if I get the Rick and Tony and then I want the linguiney? What if I get the linguiney and then I hate it? I wanted this. Why didn't I get the spaghetti? You know what I mean, right?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 25:27

So you know you're afraid to get into a relationship because you're afraid that you're going to make the wrong choice. You're afraid that when you're in the relationship you're not going to be able to leave because you're not going to be able to trust yourself to know when that, when you've hit that red button that it's time to go. So relationships just become so dangerous to you, as is most of life. Job, you know. Career decisions become scary. Picking where to live becomes scary. Picking an apartment or a home becomes scary. Picking where to travel to on vacation becomes scary, because you no longer have the confidence to really trust yourself in your decision making, because you've been in a situation where you've been lied to and, in my case, gaslighted and cheated on for so long, and from someone that you completely trusted, you're like, how could I ever trust myself again?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 26:20

So, you know, again, it made it really hard for me to embody this belief and to really, you know, be able to live by it again and again and again. You know, walking away was hard for me from any relationship because I always felt so guilty. You know, I always felt like you know, but I made a commitment to this person, I made a promise. I have no proof that they've done anything wrong. How could I hurt them so terribly if I don't have proof that they've done anything wrong to me? You know, again, waiting for that smoking gun before I make any decisions right. What would he say? What would other people say? What, you know, what does that say about me as a person? Like so many things would kind of go through my mind. And I think, you know, at the end of the day, I did the work, you know.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 27:19

After, you know, I reached a point in this relationship where, you know, I just could not ignore what I was feeling anymore, like the signs were just too obvious. It was just too painful to keep living in denial. And so I kind of I kind of had to let the pieces fall where they may kind of attitude, because it was just too painful to stay. You know, staying became so painful and, like I said, the moment I left the screaming stopped and that's because there was something in me that knew what was going on. And now that I've walked away, this thing inside of me, this wisdom, this higher knowing, was able to settle down and just rest, finally and take a nap. And you know it's, I have to say, it's probably been one of the most life-changing experiences for me because, you know, having gone through this experience, you know, obviously I needed to do the work to rebuild the trust in myself again and to really trust my decision-making and trust when I was getting into a relationship.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:21

That number one, it was the right relationship for me at the time. And that number two, if I needed to walk away, I would know exactly when to do that, because I trust myself that much and that is a really freeing place to be Okay. But above that, you know, this was the. This relationship was my turning point. This relationship was the relationship that you know, when I left, I left for the reason you know. I walked away determined never to ever experience anything like that ever again, and determined to find true love.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 29:02

Now, to say that I never experienced anything like that ever again was a lie. I did, but it was the turning point, and from that point on came the lessons and the events that would lead me down the path on the road to finding love. And on that road to finding love, I learned to love myself, and that has been the biggest game changer, and eventually I learned to trust myself again. So, to be honest, like I have to thank douchebag number one with all my heart and gratitude because he literally changed the direction of my life, without this relationship, without all this pain, without all this turmoil, all this lying, all this cheating, all this gaslighting, I would still be living mindlessly, giving my power away to someone else, never really recognizing my true worth and my true value, and never really knowing what true love actually is. It was this relationship that set me along on the path, and so, thank God, I would do it all over again. I would take all the pain, I would take all the hurt, knowing full well that it leads me to this conversation that we're having here today. So for that I am so thankful to douche bag number one. You the best. Thanks, mwah mwah. Love you Not. Okay, that's it, you guys. That about wraps up the douche bag series.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 30:37

More to come we are going to be hosting a douche bag detox masterclass. I am going to be announcing that in the next couple of days, but you've heard it here first 16th to the 7th to the 18th of October, 7pm Eastern time, will be live. It'll be free. It'll be in a private Facebook group. I cannot wait to see you there. More details will follow on social media, but I cannot wait to have you in the group. All the links and everything are down below, so please come and join us.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 31:09

We're going to be answering all these questions about you know how to really what beliefs you really need to embody, and I'm going to give you some practical techniques on how to embody them and put them into practice in your life on the regular. These are the lessons that I've learned over the last seven years. I'm condensing everything so you know if you're on that journey to you know, finding love and ditching the douche bag, saying bye-bye to those douche bags that you've been having a pattern of dating and being in relationship with for so long and you're ready to find a real, true romantic relationship, then join us in the douche bag detox masterclass Again, october 16th to the 18th. I'm going to give you some practical tools and techniques so that you don't have to do it in seven years. You can do it in much less time than that. And that just about wraps up today.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 32:01

So if you've got a douche bag or have had a douche bag in your life that you've dated, I want to know all about it. Got a question that you want me to answer? Anything that you're struggling with, curious about or just dying to know, email me at mariethefemcoachcom. Who knows, you just might inspire the next episode of the Femcast. If you love this episode, please, I beg you, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're finding this. Let's help get this podcast and this message out into the people's hands. People, that is all for now. Until next time, massive love.