Back in 2018 one of my clients, a head chef in a swanky restaurant in London, knew that her marriage of 8 years was a little bit rocky.

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Her and her husband were working all hours to pay for the home, the kids and all the things they dreamed of doing back when they were first together.

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It was as though they were two ships passing in the night.

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As she was walking home one night, she realised that they'd barely had a conversation in the last few weeks...

Even worse than that, she was shocked to discover she couldn't think of when they both spoke without it feeling awkward...

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This was her husband, the same man she stood in front of 8 years ago, butterflies racing around her tummy, overwhelmed with love and desperate to spend every waking minute beside him.

Now she found herself unable to muster up the strength to even sit down for 15 minutes to have a coffee and a catch up...

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As she continued to ponder on what on Earth had happened to them both she stepped through the front door of the family home.

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Then BAM right in front of her face was her best mate and her husband at it, on the stairs... For the entire world to see...

She felt sick.

Humiliated.

Worthless.

Like a laughing stock.

 

In a blink of an eye her entire life changed in a away she never expected and in that moment all she could think about was her two beautiful children and how she'd let them down.

It wasn't even her cheating yet she was the one overwhelmed with guilt...

 

Okay... it might take a little longer than a minute to get you up to speed... 

 

I hope you don't mind, but I think it's high time I fill you in from the beginning...

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Long before she'd met her husband, back when she was a teenager, she ended up trapped in a relationship that was not just toxic, it was abusive.

For 4 years she experienced emotional abuse, physical abuse and lack of communication at the hands of the first person she decided to trust with her heart.

Although she eventually managed to break free physically, she never really  dealt with the emotional trauma of it all.

She was still carrying the shame, anger and resentment towards him for what he put her through.

Never really trusting anyone who tried to get close to her.

It didn't matter who they were, or how much they cared, she never really let them in.

Never trusted.

It was the only way to keep herself safe...

Or so she thought.

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Her marriage wasn't always broken, for many years it really was perfect.

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They first met when she was 17, working as a waitress in a local bar, he was a bar tender.

He came along at the perfect time, she was happy, healthy and open to create the life she'd always dreamed of.

You know the one, the one that has a nice house, a white picket fence, great holidays, two kids and where everyone is smiling.

Looking back, she'd even had it for many years...

On the outside...

Okay, not the white picket fence, but that was a style choice rather than anything to do with rolling back on her dreams.

Even back when her dream was real, it was never completely right.

She loved her husband, her two kids and her home.

She worked hard in her job and as a mum, somehow she'd stopped being a wife without even realising.

Its much easier to do than you think.

Especially, when you have two young children.

When your a new mum, you can't run in the house after work, get changed and head out for a night down the pub.

You can't decide to mix things up a little, jump in the car and head away for a naughty weekend on a whim.

You can't even sit in the bath with a book and get through a single page without being disturbed.

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Your children become your life.

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Back in her late teens she’d already experienced a toxic abusive relationship and like most people she pushed it aside rather than overcame it. This then left her never really trusting anyone who got close to her.

Slowly things started to happen which affected her work and her decisions within work. Despite all this she desperately wanted to feel close to her husband.

Internally she was crumbling, and she was not ready to function. She didn’t know what was going on. She thought it was all her fault. She was working a lot including doing overtime so the family could go on holiday once a year. She just felt incredibly broken.

She just didn’t know how to fix it and then one day she came home to find her partner with his mistress on the stairs that she didn’t even know it existed…

She wanted desperately to hide away but she couldn’t as she needed to be there for her children. She still needed to carry on as if nothing had happened. She was struggling.  

She froze and walked out. She was absolutely crushed.

 

She went to a friend who knew she could talk to who had gone through an affair to. Talking to this person who she knew actually rebuilt their relationship.

She knew they had come back from that and now her friend has a really powerful relationship.

 

While they were talking, she knew that actually she did want to try and rebuild the relationship, she just needed to follow the same steps as her friend did.

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Step number 1 was that She knew that she needed to have time away from him. She kicked him out for a while as she needed to work through the thoughts of every time, she saw him, she’d have visions of them together.

 

Step number 2 was that she knew that her working all the hours and him being at home was one of the causes that he then went elsewhere for intimacy. She planned to drop a few hours to be at home with the kids.

 

Her step 3 was they then tried marriage counselling.

 

The problem was that what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for the other person on the inside. So, what she hadn’t realised that from talking to her friend, her friends relationship was not a toxic relationship. Her friend’s relationship was a healthy relationship which had broken down. Hers was a toxic relationship.

 

As she started to fight for the relationship, she realised that actual this is not a relationship that was healthy. She didn’t want this relationship. This is something that is toxic to her. Its causing her harm. Neither of them wanted to invest in their relationship anymore and actually the worse thing they could do was try and build that.

 

During the marriage counselling they found that actually they didn’t really like each other anymore and that’s ok because you can fall out of love. It was in the back of her mind that her husband was up to something while she was at work. She never trusted him so how could she trust all the other men in her life. For months she tried everything. She couldn’t stop checking his phone, she couldn’t trust that he wasn’t doing things when he said he wasn’t there.

 

The children saw her crying a lot but never recognised why. She had had a toxic relationship from her past and never really dealt with that one before moving onto another relationship. She entered this relationship from a place of need and mistrusting and all of those things resurfaced. The relationship was damaging their children and that caused her even more pain. They were so unhappy.

 

After realising the best thing for their relationship and for their children was not actually being a couple. They did a trial separation, and this is what worked. They both were able to breathe again. They found a way to co parent and found a way to build a friendship and she found a way to forgive him recognising that actually neither of them wanted to be in that relationship which works for them now.

 

They are friends and the children are happier with them being separated rather than hearing their parents argue all the time. The whole family have a happier life now.

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She never realised how toxic the relationship was. How unhappy she was until he left. How her relationship with her children is so powerful that she needed to change something.

 

She fought and fought and fought for her feelings to go and it was only when she let it go of that relationship did she actually start to experience the happiness in herself which reflected out into the relationship of what they have now.

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Did you know it is estimated that 1 in 5 British people admit to having an affair... while a third have thought about it!!!

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Does my clients story resonate with you in some way? I'm sure it does.

 

So I know you are looking for Relationship coaching in the form of a deeeeep dive into your processes, mindset, and relationship to plan living a better healthier life in all areas.

If you're craving someone else to jump into helping you to reach that next level in your relationship or releasing the doubt into your relationship, and take a fine tooth comb through your life right now...

 

Lets dive deep into where it all went wrong and this is how we are going to fix it.