The Power of Vulnerability: Healing a Broken Marriage | Caryn Meininger Podcast ft. Sophie Orozco

And I made a pact to myself that I was going to handle this relationship with my sister going forward, no matter how much time that she had, in a way that I would feel peace at the end of it. And I invested a lot of time and energy into healing that relationship. And I would fly over to see her and spend time with her, even though I really couldn't afford it. I took out credit card and I went over there as much as I could, and I showed up for her as much as I could. And it got progressively more painful as she got sicker and sicker.

Welcome to the Rise, Shine, and Redefine podcast, where we explore personal growth, relationships, and transformative mindsets. I'm Karen Meininger, your guide and ally on this journey. Imagine a space where your true beauty shines, where every challenge is a step toward your best self, and where family and personal development intertwine. As your BFF for mindset mastery, I'm here to share insight and laughter and to guide you through the highs and lows and to celebrate your journey towards authenticity and fulfillment. Join us as we redefine what it means to live beautifully, love our journey, and embrace our true selves. Let's Rise, Shine, and Redefine together. Hi. Welcome to the Rise, Shine, and Redefine podcast. I'm here with Sophie Orozco, and we're going to do a deep dive on overcoming adversity, death, relationships, children, all the things. And I'm so excited to dive in. Sophie is a relationship and empowerment coach, and we are just starting. We're trying this transitioning and transformational work to really impact the world and really show up. And we're here to hopefully give you some magical nuggets on how to create a better life for yourself. So, Sophia, if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.

Absolutely, Karen. I'm so excited to be here. So, my name is Sophie Orozco. I am a relationship and empowerment coach for women.

Yeah.

I'm a mom of four young kids and live in South Carolina with my husband. And my passion in the world is to transform the lives of women who have gone through adversity or who are struggling in their lives and to let them into the experiences that I had of stepping into your power and being able to access that immense power that we all have within us that most of us are not even aware of. And it can come up in these, like, really, really tough points in our lives that are actually amazing growth opportunities for us to access.

Yeah, it's so Powerful. And I'm so excited to really go through more of your story. And this woman is superwoman. I mean, some of the things that she's overcome is unbelievable. And so I would like you to kind of walk us through your journey from feeling lost. In your 20s. You said that you had struggled with a drinking problem, and you had also lost her father. What direction or purpose on your spiritual journey have you found yourself in now? And how have you overcome going from drinking in your 20s and I'm sure partying, to losing your dad, to really becoming this empowering woman that you are today?

Yeah, so it's definitely been like, a bumpy road. In my early 20s, I was pretty lost. But I had always had this connection with meditation and yoga from a very young age. So I first started doing yoga when I was about 12 years old. I have a much older sister, and she was really into yoga, and she, to me, was like the coolest person in the world. And I wanted to do whatever she did. So I started doing yoga when I was very, very young. And I stumbled upon that yoga meditation and the peace that it bought me at a young age. I was able to discover that when I was. Even when I was in college. So alongside me, partying and drinking and, and doing all that, like, I would still be, like, getting up and going to a yoga class when no one else was really doing yoga, like in my friendship group. But that was what grounded me. And what I noticed was that whenever I was like, actively practicing yoga meditation, that my life in all areas would get better, so my grades would be better in college, I would feel more connected to my life's purpose. I would make better decisions. But then because I don't think, like, I had a great sense of self or like, self confidence, I would get swayed by people's opinion, like my parents opinions of what I should do next, or society's opinions of wanting to prove that I was good enough or doing the right thing. So my connection with my higher self or my purpose, it kind of came and went. It was like glimpses in my twenties when I was in college. And then when I was 24, very, very suddenly my dad passed away. And my dad was like my. The sort of anchor in our family. He was a very wise, calm presence. And he was the person who I always felt like would like, save me if anything went wrong, you know, like, in my life, throughout my very early years, if I ever had a problem, I would go to my dad. And so something really interesting happened when I. Right. Right before my dad passed away because I had just left college and I'd moved to London, was I started to have this, like, yearning to be back in some sort of spiritual community. And I started asking this guy that I worked with that was a practice, like a really into Christianity. And I don't come from particularly religious background, but I started asking him, like, if I could borrow a Bible from him. This is kind of strange, but. And I started reading, like, little bits from the Bible. And then my dad died. And it happened in such a way that basically what happened is I've got four sisters, or I had four sisters. And we all happened to be in London together. On this one night, one of my sisters was about to go to Spain the next day, one of my sisters was going to go to Thailand the next day and they had layovers in London. All four of us were in London on the night that my father passed away. And he actually died in hospital. He had a blood clot that he had a very routine knee surgery and he had a blood clot afterwards that went from his leg up to his brain and killed him. But, I mean, it was keyhole knee surgery. It was never. It was such a fluke thing. And just randomly, all four of us siblings were in London on that night that it happened. So my mom called us at like 2 o' clock in the morning. We were all staying in different places and we were able to make it to the airport together to get on a plane and fly to the US and we got like, just all of the different synchronicities that allowed us to get on this plane together to then fly to the next airport, which I think was Boston. And then they held the next plane for us on the tarmac so we could get on the plane. And it was like strange strings were being pulled to get all four of us to my dad's bedside. And then I think it was about 30 minutes before he died. But my mom said to all of us, let's go around the room and say what you're most grateful for for your dad. And when the last person said it, that's when the machine like, went dead and he died. And for me, as someone who'd connected to that feeling of spirituality from a young child, like, this was like a heightened experience where I could see that these synchronicities were all lining up for us to say goodbye to my dad before he died. And it was super traumatic and very, very difficult. And I then went home and started drinking a lot and all of that stuff. But I feel like that experience allowed me to see that, like, there is so much more at play in this world than we really usually connect to. Yeah.

Yeah. I lost my dad also, and very traumatic. And it's like finding the power of, like, life and death and just, like.

Yeah.

The synchronicities that show up and, like, how when you're becoming more spiritual, how, like, everything's kind of working for you and, like, where you can learn these lessons and gratitude and. I don't know, I went down this whole rabbit hole when my dad died about reading mediumship books, and it was all the woo, all the craziness, but that's what gave me peace from within. Because when you're handling all this trauma, it's like you don't know. You don't even know what to do with yourself. And fortunately for you, like, I'm so happy you had your sisters there and, you know, had your yoga practice to hopefully be able to come back to yourself a little bit more. And I'm really sorry for your loss. I know that must have been really challenging and really hard, but the amazing things that you're doing and the way you're showing up in the world is so beautiful. And I'm so proud of you, and I just. Thank you. I just feel so connected to you and I just love everything about you. And, yeah, I'm here for you if you ever want more support in that. Because as somebody who lost their dad also, it can be really hard and scary sometimes and very lonely. Even though you have people around you, you can feel really alone. So I applaud you for being able to push through and really show up for yourself. So you've also mentioned that your sister had a terminal cancer and. And you had to go and grieve your dad's death, and now you find out your sister has a terminal cancer. So how did you handle that?

Yeah, so when I was pregnant with my second child, my sister was pregnant with her second child. We had our first two babies very, very close together within a couple of months. And she found a lump on her breast and. And she was diagnosed with cancer in the second pregnancy that she had. And we all just thought, well, of course, like, it will be fine. You know, like, there's no way she was in her 30s. There's no way that anything terrible could, you know, happen. We just thought that it. She'll treat it and it will go away. But that really wasn't the case. Like, she did, you know, she did have chemotherapy, and then she had her. But she actually had Chemo while she was pregnant, which I didn't know that they could do. And then she had surgery and everything. And it was probably about a year after she had her second child that her cancer came back. It came back in her lymph nodes, and it came back in her liver, I think. And that was very shocking, like, for everybody, because then it became a terminal diagnosis. It went from being something that we all just assumed that she could treat and that would go away to being clearly something that was going to turn terminal. And having had that experience with my dad and dealing with the grief of my dad, it really took me, I would say, about 10 years to get over losing my dad. You know, I shoved all the feelings down. I drank a lot. I partied a lot. I made a lot of bad decisions. I was in a place where I wasn't really able to grieve that loss properly. I was so afraid of really feeling the feelings because I thought that if I allowed the feelings to come up to the surface, that I wouldn't be able to overcome them, that I would be carried away with them. And because I'd had this experience with the grief of my dad, and I now had two young children, and I realized that I couldn't fall apart. Like, I couldn't allow my sister's death to ruin me because I had the responsibilities of having a family that I really proactively put in the work when my sister was diagnosed. And we actually had had a pretty challenging relationship our whole lives. My dad, rather, had two daughters from his first marriage. They were my half sisters. And then it was me and my sister who were 11 and 13 years younger than my half sisters. And the two of us were close in age, but we had this very competitive relationship where we were almost, like, quite jealous of each other. And it created a lot of resentment and a lot of heartache between the two of us because we wanted to be friends, but we were also deeply envious of each other in a way. And when I started to realize that she was going to die, that this grief was going to be something that I had to process, and I wanted to do it in a healthy way, I started to examine that relationship. And I actually hired this amazing grief coach, and I worked with her, and we did all these. I did lots of meditation practices where I spoke with her, like, more on, like, the spiritual plane. And I made a packed to myself that I was going to handle this relationship with my sister going forward, no matter how much time that she had, in a way that I would feel Peace at the end of it. And I invested a lot of time and energy into healing that relationship. And I would fly over to see her and spend time with her, even though I really couldn't afford it. I took out the credit card, and I went over there as much as I could, and I showed up for her as much as I could. And it got progressively more painful as she got sicker and sicker, because I was also moving on with my life. I had another, a third child. When I had him, my sister was very jealous and very angry because she was dying and I was living. And I got reported back through various family members and friends. Oh, you know, I heard, like, her name was Beth. I heard that someone said to me, or your sister said that it should have been you that got cancer because you were the one that was drinking and partying all the time, and she was doing all the right things or whatever. And so it was very painful to continue with my life. I had a lot of guilt and a lot of. Yeah, I just had. I think it was a lot of guilt. Like, I had a lot of guilt that I was living my life, but I knew that I had to keep living my life, that if I put my life on hold, that I would miss that chunk of time in my life. And I had this desire to build a family for myself. I knew that my dad had died. I now knew my sister was going to die. And I wanted to create a family that could have each other, especially for my kids. I wanted them to have siblings so that they could have those connections and relationships with each other. But it did come at this huge cost because I wanted to be respectful and loving of my sister, but I also wanted to have children. And because she couldn't have any more children, and she had wanted to have children, it was very, very painful for her. When I had my third baby, and then when I had my fourth child, she actually sent me a letter, an email letter, it wasn't that long ago, saying that it was actually too painful for her that I was living my life and that she didn't want to speak to me anymore, and that, you know, she had to focus on the rest of her life with her family. And so that was devastating for me because I had spent probably two to three years sort of giving of myself as much as I could in that relationship. Yeah. So when I had my fourth baby, she didn't want to speak to me anymore. So it was probably for a year. And I really just had to keep saying to myself, like, how do I want to show up. Like, I cannot control her feelings and emotions. And she's angry, and she was very angry at life, and she was angry at that she was dying. And I was the scapegoat. I was, like, the person that she could sort of compare. And that's how we lived our lives, like, comparing each other and being very competitive. But for about a year, and I didn't know whether she was gonna. How it was gonna go, whether she would die with not speaking to me or whatever it was. But I knew I had no control over that. And then eventually, after I had the baby, she sent me another email saying, I'm so sorry, like, will you speak to me? I don't want to die and have this reputation of someone who, like, cuts people off. And of course, like, there was nothing, you know, I didn't want to say, no, I'm not going to speak to you. So, of course I said, yes, I understand that you were in a difficult place. And so we were able to rekindle our relationship. And actually, I sat down. My mom called me to say that she was probably going to die within that week and I should fly over to England. So I sat down and I wrote a letter to her of, like, all. To my sister, of all the things that, you know, that I wanted to say to her before she died and the things that I wanted her to know before she died. And I was going to either send her the letter or give the letter, but we had this amazing time in London, and we had this moment where it was just the two of us in her home, and we were able to sit down, and I was able to tell her all the things that I wished had been different in our childhood and that I wished that we'd had more of a connection. But actually, you know, it was so painful for me growing up, like, wanting her to be a friend but feeling so jealous of her. And she said exactly the same thing back. She said, I wanted that relationship with you. You know, I always wanted to be a friend of you, but I just thought you had this life that was so amazing and perfect. And I was like, no, it's not like I thought that about you. And we both sort of said what a missed opportunity we had in our lives, you know, 30 years where we desperately wanted the same relationship with each other. But the barrier was that we couldn't see past, you know, our projection of the other person. But it was a beautiful experience to kind of go through that journey of knowing. Knowing that she was going to die. And Having those. It was almost five years from the terminal diagnosis to the time that she died, that I got to go through this journey of, like, true acceptance of my part in the relationship and the things that I wished I'd done differently. And we were kids, right? So it's like, how was I to know that me saying that she had zits on her face or borrowing her shirt, all the little things that, like, add up when you're teenagers, you know, like to build resentment. Like, I would never have known that back then that I would only be having a relationship with her for, like, 30 years, you know, so sort of being able to go through that journey of repairing the relationship, forgiving myself for the things that I did in the relationship, then forgiving her for her part, her things that she'd done, and also being able to fully release any attachment I had to the outcome, because she did say to me, I don't want to talk to you for the. You know, for I don't know how long. And I had to just say, okay, like, I love you, and I want you to enjoy however much of life that you have. And if it's not with me in your life, then I understand that. So that journey of that grief was completely different, because then when I did go to her funeral and when I did bury her, I felt this intense peace. Intense peace that I knew that I had done everything in my power to close the loop on that relationship. And it was a completely different feeling than I had with my dad. You know, my dad was sort of ripped out, away from me, and I couldn't make any sense of this. And what it did was it allowed me to see, like, how powerful our power of intention is, because that was the intention that I had for the relationship with my sister when I found out that she was going to die. So that's really the story of my sister's relationship. Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. I mean, how hard is it to unpack that somebody's telling you it should have been you and not me, and you get to live, and I get to die, or I'm gonna die. The amount of compassion and forgiveness that you had to endure during that time, I don't really think people understand how much compassion and forgiveness we need to have for ourselves, because, like you said, we're always projecting, and the people in front of us are mirrors. Your sister was having the same projections you were about her and the same jealousy. And you guys were just really mirrors for each other and for you to be able to start healing and repair the Relationship to the best that you could. That's really hard. And forgiving your own self for any judgments that may have come up as well. When you can start having this self forgiveness and self compassion. I mean, I think it's so beautiful that you were able to be at peace when your sister pass and really have that compassionate lens for yourself. Oh, I need to take a breath.

Wow.

And just to layer this on a little bit more. So you're dad passes away now your sister passes away. How are your kids and your marriage handling all of this grieving?

Yeah. So this is probably like, this was the hardest point, I think, in my life or one of the hardest points in my life, because actually during that time period when I had my last child, my fourth baby, it was also Covid, and we were living away from any family. And my relationship, my marriage was completely falling apart. And yeah, it was like a very hostile place to be. And my husband was pretty much spending like every minute of every day at work, coming home very late. I felt very isolated. I had 4 kids under the age of 5 years old for 5 was my oldest one. It was really, really challenging time. And then right after my sister died, we're away at the beach when my sister died. I was away on vacation when I heard that she died. And then we came back. And then it was like the day that we came back. So it was probably about four days after my sister died or five days after my sister died, my husband said that he wanted a divorce. So it really felt like my whole world was falling apart and I completely did not know what to do. Yeah. And then I went to my sister's funeral and I came back and at this point, my husband was barely even, like, looking at me in the face. Like our relationship had drifted so far apart that. Yeah, I mean, we couldn't even really be in the same room as each other. And yeah, right after I came back from my sister's funeral, he said that he thought he wanted to move out, and he pretty much moved out half of the week and he was living somewhere else. And I was alone with four kids without any support, any family help. So that was a really challenging time for sure.

So what did you do? So your husband moves out, you have four kids. Are you working? Are you doing the art and yoga? Or are you just at home?

I was teaching online. Yeah, so I was working at home. And I think we just come out of COVID So it's like. Yeah, the summer of 2021. Yeah. So one of my children was at School. The oldest one started first grade, but the other three were at home. And I was working full time at home. Yeah. And I was surviving. I was pretty much surviving. But the thing that got me through was this feeling that I think that I have been able to access my whole life. And now I've cultivated it in a way that I can access it much quicker and on a much more regular basis. But it was this. It was meditation and prayer and asking for guidance and asking for help. And I would sit. There was one place I would sit was outside on the wall of. We lived in this old farmhouse at the time, and we had 10 acres. And I would sit there on the wall, and I would say, what should I do? What should I do? And I would just, like, wait for the answer. And at this point, the answer was. It just came to me over and over. Be still, be still. And so whenever I would feel this, like, urge, okay, like, I gotta move. I gotta hire a divorce lawyer. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. I would just come back to that place of, like, actually truly asking my intuition, what should I do? And what came through to me was that actually, this situation that I was in with my husband was not there to have me make a huge change in my life. Right. It was there to teach me something really powerful. And I realized, once I got honest with myself, that I had been showing up in my marriage in a way that I wasn't proud of, and that this relationship. I think we'd been together for 10 years at that point. This relationship had a lot of qualities to it, especially at the end of my previous relationships that I'd been in. And that actually, this was, like, a lesson that I needed to learn. And that I wasn't fully loving my husband. Right. Like, it could have been anyone, but I wasn't actually showing up in a way that was loving towards him. And I had put a lot of energy for the last five years into solving my relationship with my sister. I'd put a lot of energy into my kids, but mostly I'd been surviving. And my relationship with him was on survival mode, too. There was no part of me that was giving him love, affection. You know, it was like, what can you do for me? And let me put you on the back burner, because I'm so focused on everything else that's going on in my life. And even though I was, like, incredibly, like, I was devastated, like, there was times where I was, like, it physically hurt, like, in my chest. I was absolutely broken because I thought, how can Someone leave me whilst I'm going through this intense grief. But it also saw it as like, this is a huge lesson here. And if I can have this sort of turnaround in my relationship with my sister, if I can have that intentionality, then I can do the same thing here. And so I set upon the mission really of like, learning what the blocks were for me and allowing love to be present in my life and in my marriage and in my relationship. And so I went on this year long quest of learning everything about relationships and learning everything about marriage and learning everything about love. I mean, my friends joked that I could have a PhD in marriage and relationships, but really I went so deep in not just my intellectual knowledge of it, but also practicing love and forgiveness and showing up differently, changing my actions to be in line with what I wanted to create within my marriage and getting really honest with, like, what was I doing in the past that wasn't working for me? And I like really got intentional. Like, what do I want to create in my marriage? Like, what kind of a relationship do I want to have and how do I want it to feel and what kind of impact do I want that relationship to have? And if I want to have this sort of relationship, like, what do I have to do today to get to that place? And I mean literally. It's kind of amazing to see that we went from barely being able to look at each other to a place where like now my marriage is unbelievable. Like, it is the biggest source of strength and inspiration and both of us say that we could never have gotten to where we are now, like, without having gone through that breakdown and my husband was completely ready to divorce, move away, you know, and yeah, I mean, like, that is an absolute miracle that that transformation has occurred. And I know it's from all the hard work that I put in, but I also feel like there was huge forces in play that were like, bigger than me in that. Because anytime I made a decision, like, I want help with this or I want to get to this next level, like, things would appear, like resources would appear or coaches would appear or guides would appear and like the sort of the universe aligned to make this intention that I had, like a possibility and it's saved. Like changing my relationship and saving my marriage is not just for me about having a better marriage, even though that's amazing, right? It's about, like understanding all the blocks that I built up over my life that held me back from having that relationship that I wanted or being able to allow love in. And it's Given me so much confidence in all areas of my life.

Yeah. Okay. I want to unpack this more. Okay. So for all of you listening, including myself, you're in a marriage you want to create. You might be on the brink of breakup, divorce. It could be a partner. It doesn't have to be a marriage. And this person wants to leave you, you're in complete panic mode. And, okay, you reframe your life. You're like, okay, I want to know how I want to feel. Okay. I'm gonna identify some blocks on why I'm not allowing love in. But what was the very outside of being still, in meditations or in grounding? What was like, the first step that you took? And I know it all comes from within and healing yourself, but. Okay, I want to save my marriage. What is the number one? Like, what do you do first? What did you do first?

That's a great question. Yeah. So what did I do first? So I think first I really got honest with myself and I started to really listen to what my husband was saying. So for a long time, he'd been saying things like, maybe we should just be co parents. You know, he'd been saying, I'm not happy, but in different ways. And I was like, what do you mean you're not happy? Or like, he said to me, I don't think you love me anymore. This is like a year before he told me he wanted a divorce. And I said, what do you mean I don't love you? I do your laundry every day. Like, I'm cooking for you, you know? And I just wasn't listening to what he was saying. I was so busy and distracted. And so the first thing that I did because I had this. He told me he wanted a divorce. And then I went to my sister's funeral. So I had a week in London, and I had kind of. I was with. I took one of my kids with me, but I was, you know, outside of my home. I had a change of scenery, and I was able to be like, okay, this is where we're at, right? To, like, get honest, to take stock, to, like, be in acceptance of this is where we are and we've gotten here. And to think back, like, there was parts of me that was also thinking, okay, I'm going to be in this marriage, and maybe I'm not going to get what I want, but it's better than being alone. Or, this is maybe not my soulmate, but, you know, we've got kids. Let's just stick it out. So I was also Able to like get, get honest with, like, actually I haven't been happy either and have a period of time where it was just a week, but I was able to be like, okay, and what do I really want? Like, do I really want to move on and be with somebody else or is this a pattern for me? And it was. I'd been in long term relationships before that had ended in a similar way and I knew that I wanted to have a relationship with this man. Like, it started off great, right? It was just that throughout having kids and having grief and other things that came along, like I'd put the relationship on the back burner. And so I would say the first thing is to get honest with where you're at and to be in fully full acceptance of where you are and to listen to what they're saying, to listen to what your husband's saying and to really acknowledge them, to, to like fully hear what they're saying and then surrender to the next step. So for me, it was my husband saying, I want to move out. And I had resist, I don't want him to go. And that was just my fear, like if he was to go, that my desire wouldn't be granted. Right. That I wouldn't have the kind of relationship that I wanted. But actually by me allowing him, letting him off the hook in a way and saying like, I cannot control you. That was like the first step, I think, to laying the groundwork for like our new relationship. Because I no longer wanted to control him or our relationship out of fear. I wanted it to be built on love and trust and respect and honesty. And so when I came back from London and he said to me again, I want to move out, I was like, I don't want you to leave. I think I said something pretty much exactly like this. I said, I don't want you to leave. I want our marriage to work out, but I know I can't control you. And so if you want to go, I'm not going to stop you, but I still want to be married. And then I said something jokey because I was like, put a joke. And I was like, I'm not going to come down and like furnish your apartment, but I know I can't stop you from leaving.

And he did move out.

Yeah, part of the time. Yeah. It was like a 50, 50 thing.

Yeah.

So like in full disclosure, he also had somebody else that he was in love with, but that I didn't find out for quite a few months, luckily, because I don't think that If I'd found that out at that point, that I would have been able to handle it. But I didn't know that at that point. I thought he was just going to stay with a friend.

Okay, so let's unpack this. Your sister passes away. Your husband's asking for a divorce, moves out and is in love with another woman.

Yeah.

So let's just sit with that for a second. And Sophie here is wanting the marriage to work, getting honest with herself, getting in stillness and uncovering her blocks and figuring out what it is that you're figuring out what you need. And I think for most of the people listening here, they don't know what they need. They don't know what they want, you know, what you don't want. But it's really hard to figure out what you do want and to really sit and be like, okay, wait, what do I want this marriage to look like? There's so much bravery and courage in that because you're really getting honest with yourself. So how was that for you? You got really honest with yourself. You're like, okay, I know I want this marriage to work. I'm going to let him move out. I'm going to surrender to not controlling him. And I know us women, we like to control shit, excuse my language. And you're in complete surrender. And so he's gone 50% of the time. And so walk me through, like, what happens next? When is this, like, turning point of going on the uphill for you guys?

Yeah. So it was pretty much six months of, like, staying the same, like, feeling like I read a lot of books, I'd done a lot of courses. I knew what not to do at that point. I was like, I knew what I had been doing that had caused the demise of my marriage at that point, like, I was like, oh, my God, I can see it so clear. How did I not see this? And so I stopped doing all the things that were causing the damage in the relationship, but I hadn't yet learned what to do, right? So it was like six months of stopping complaining, stopping nagging, like, stopping all of those things, like blaming him for my feelings and emotions and starting to take responsibility for how I felt, right? Because it had been the journey of my sister dying and then having lots of children back to back, Right. I had gotten very tired, very restricted, resentful. Felt like I had no purpose in life putting everybody else's needs ahead of mine. And I sort of lost myself and my identity, and I had put that on my husband to fix. And I Had been showing up every time he came home from a long day's work. I was, like. Had a scowl on my face. Like, I was tired. I wasn't happy to see him. I didn't have any energy for him. You know, he was, like, the last thing on my mind when he came home. And so everything that I had done to create the reality that I was now living in, like, was very, very clear to me for the first six months. And I was almost afraid to, like, make too many moves because I didn't want to rock the boat, right? So I just became, like you said, like, very still, just trying to take care of myself and the kids. And we stopped fighting, like, completely. All the fights are gone because I wasn't complaining, I wasn't criticizing. I was just kind of taking one day at a time. And then after about six months, I started to learn some things that built the momentum in the positive direction. And so just little conversations that we had. Like, we started to laugh and joke and, like, watch shows together. And then over the next couple of months, we started to, like, go out for dinner together, and we sort of started to get to know each other again, like, on a different level and build back that connection that we'd been, like, that had essentially died over the course of us having kids. And we went to what felt like a good friendship for a while, and he was still not fully living at home, but we had become better friends. And then slowly, things turned. And actually, the moment that it really turned was when I found out that he had had this other woman, because I was so devastated and in so much pain. But I had learned enough to know that if I was to yell and throw him out and kick him out and, like, all of that stuff, then I would be completely going against, like, what I had been trying to build. So instead of me, like, yelling and insulting him, and I just was so vulnerable about how hurt I was and how devastated I was. And I really, like, took down the God that I had built up for myself over all of those years. And I remember it was like a snowstorm when I found out this thing that I had called him, because we'd essentially been in bed and we'd been talking, and we were about to be physical, and he said, oh, I just don't know if I can do this with you right now. And I just didn't. The pieces weren't adding up because I was like, come on, we've been getting along so much better. Why don't you want to, like? And so I Went to the store, and I called him, and I said to him, like, I just don't get it. Like, we're getting along so much better. Everything is so much better. Like, why? Why won't you, like, let me back in? Are you seeing somebody else? Have you been seeing somebody else? And he eventually said, like, yes, I'm sick of lying about it. Yes, I have been. And I was so devastated, I couldn't go home. I ended up going to the bar, actually, down the end of our road, drinking, like, three martinis, getting really, really drunk, having one of my friends pick me up and drive me home and drop me off. And I just cried and cried and cried to him. And I said, you know, I can't believe that this has happened. I'm so upset. And I take some responsibility for why this has happened, because I know that I never showed up fully myself with you. I know I never fully let you in, and I know I had all these guards up over our whole relationship, and it was because I was so afraid that to be left or to be abandoned or to be hurt in this way. And by doing that, like, I never allowed love in, and I never really showed love. And so through that experience of, like, him telling me this thing that he'd been keeping a secret for, you know, six months or whatever, and for me then saying to him, like, I understand, and I'm like, I'm so hurt, and I'm in so much pain. But I didn't blame him. I didn't yell at him. I didn't call him a. You know, swear at him. I sat there with him and I heard him, and that changed. It really changed everything. And it was. Our relationship turned around very quickly after that. Yeah.

And in that moment of vulnerability, did he get really honest with you about what he was doing and who this woman was? And, yeah, like, so there's another woman, and you got really real and raw with him, and that was the turning point for you guys, to kind of have this momentum, to move even deeper into deeper connection.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I think, like, because he'd been hiding behind this, you know, without wanting to really speak for him, I think he'd been hiding behind the secret, you know, and things had gotten so much better with us, but he still had, like, the secret. Right. And so when the walls came down, it was like. And I think he thought, like, she won't ever want to be with me once I tell her this. And the fact that I was like, yeah, I do. I still want the Relationship. You know, I've put in all of this time and energy and effort, and I want the relationship and to be able to sit there with him and fully see him and understand how it got into that place and not blame him for it. I think that was the turning point. Yeah.

Wow. I think especially for women, it would be so hard to do that. Like, your spouse is with another girl. Like, it's so hard to take accountability. And for you to be able to take accountability and know, like, your reality is your responsibility, it's so powerful. And I would like to know, and probably more women would know, is how do you take this personal responsibility, have the acceptance of everything that's happening, without also feeling like, oh, I'm a doormat? Because if I accept this, that means I couldn't condone it. Right. So I feel like there's this fine line of accepting without the judgment.

Yeah. So I think it's a different thing. I mean, I think, like, if you're in a relationship and you're like, everything's happy, or, you know, and then you find out, like, oh, so and so is cheating on me, like, that's unacceptable. Right. And, like, I've been in relationships, like, definitely in college where I had a boyfriend who was just the worst and would cheat on me and stuff. And, like, definitely didn't want to condone that. But I think, like, when you're like, for me, I was in this marriage. We were together for 10 years. We are both quite, quite unhappy. Right. But neither of us really knew how to communicate that to each other. And I definitely was, like, depth in the depths of grief with my sister in the trenches with my kids. Right. Having kids back to back, and we just couldn't communicate what we needed from each other. And what we both needed was, like, to be seen and to be loved and to have that connection. And when I knew that I was missing that, too, and I just happened to be stuck at home in the middle of nowhere with four kids. Right. But if I was really honest with myself, if I had been in a situation where somebody else had come along and given me what I was so badly needing in that time, I cannot truthfully say that I wouldn't have maybe chosen that, too. When you're so starved for love or connection or intimacy and you're in a relationship, that's when the walls come down. Right. And that's when affairs happen, and that's when you're more susceptible to going outside of the relationship. And so, yes, like, I don't condone infidelity in a relationship. I would never want to be in a marriage or in a situation where somebody is actively seeing somebody else and be like, oh, yeah, cool, okay, must have been me. But I was in a point where I was willing to take responsibility for how that relationship had turned out, because I knew that I definitely played at least 50% of a part in the demise of our relationship. And I had a choice the whole time through, especially when he said, I want a divorce. I had a choice at that point. I could have gotten a divorce. I could have walked away. But I made the choice to be committed to. To the relationship, but more than being committed to the relationship, to be committed to myself, because I wanted to know that any relationship that I would get into from that point forward, I would do it differently. Because I had a pattern that I was repeating from relationship to relationship of where I was not fully showing up as myself. I was not allowing people in. And I know that I did it because I so badly did not want to be abandoned or left or rejected. And because of me keeping my walls up like that, no one was able to get close to me. No one was able to feel loved by me, you know? And so it was, for me, the reason that I stayed and I worked through that was not to let him off the hook. It was so that I could access the part of me that I so wanted to access in any relationship going forward. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And what I heard you say before, too, is like, the very thing that you were trying to avoid, the abandonment, was the very thing you were creating, right?

Oh, my gosh, I totally created. I would say to my husband, like, even way before that, I would make jokes about him having another woman. And it was always a big fear of mine. And funnily enough, my mom and my dad got together, and both of them were married at the same time when they got together and they had an affair, and that's how they got together. So that was always talked about in my childhood. And I think I always had this fear that I would be in a relationship and I would get cheated on or I would get. Be abandoned. And, yeah, it happened right in front of me to work through.

I mean, I'm so proud to hear that you were able to work through this, take all of this personal responsibility, and now you're helping other. Is it women mostly? Or anybody?

Yeah, mostly women. Mostly women, yeah.

Okay. Moving women through empowerment and relationships, and coming from the yoga and art background and transitioning into relationship coaching, is there anything you'd like, to add to how you can empower more women in relationships.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like relationships for me have been, like, my biggest teachers, my biggest spiritual teachers. And I feel like by being able to, like, use your relationships as like, an. Almost like an educational tool, right? Like, as a way of being able to reflect back to you, like, all the things within you that you need to heal and that you need to work on and grow with. And that's what I want to. I really want to empower women to be able to see that, like, your relationship can be your greatest teacher, and it can be your greatest joy and your greatest asset if you learn how to work it. So for me, like, my marriage was. It was average at best, right? And it was a drag, and then it was incredibly painful. But now it's like this place of, like, intense comfort and joy and peace and strength. And my marriage now is like. It's given me so much, just empowered my life so much. And I want to be able to help women have that same experience because I feel like if I can do it, like, anyone can do it. If you're coming from a relationship where you're like, things are fine, but, you know, it's not great. It's not making me particularly happy. Like, that can be fixed so easily and so quickly. And if you're in a relationship where it's, like, it's really bad, and it's like, should I stay? Should I go? Then those can also have a complete turnaround. And it's really not that hard to do once you know how.

I love how much hope you're giving all these partners and women in this space to really show up for themselves and be able to heal from within so they can heal their relationships. If you could give, like, one actionable step that somebody could take today to improve a connection and relationship with their partner, what would that be?

It would be to write down just today all the things that your partner does for you that bring something good to your life, that help you in your life in any way, even if it's really, really small. Even if it's. They take the trash out, you know, on a Monday, or they go to work every day to provide for me, or they bought the groceries or whatever it is. Like, small things that are so easy to overlook because you think, wow, this person should be doing that, right? That it's not hard to take the trash out on a Monday, you know? But actually it's just all those little things when you can turn your brain towards the things that are positive and the things that are good. And then to vocalize it to share with your partner, like, wow, thank you for taking the trash out. Like, that really helps my morning. That makes it easier for me to get out the door and be on time to work. And just bringing that gratitude to small, everyday things can really change the way that you focus on your relationship.

Yeah, I love that because it's like your raz, right, Your reticulated activated system. Like the things you focus on, it's gonna. There's gonna be more that shows up. So, yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna start doing that with my husband because I am guilty of taking for granted all of the little things that he does and get stuck in this should and shouldn't. And instead of really just letting it be what is and really appreciating him for all the things he does do to make my life easier. Because sometimes I do recognize that I don't always give him the acknowledgment and validation that he deserves. And I think that is such a great, empowering way to start focusing on your relationships and find the good. Find all the good. Write it all down and then focus on those things. I love that. That is such a great tip. So, Sophie, where can people find you? And is there Instagram? Is there a Facebook? Is there a website? Please let us know so my listeners can get all the goods from you.

Yeah, so at the moment I'm on Instagram at Sofia Roscoe coaching on Instagram and. And there's a link there to my Facebook page that is more focusing on my on the relationship program and that's how you can work with me. My coaching. Yeah. Sophia Roscoe coaching on Instagram.

Beautiful. I will put that in the show notes for everybody. And I really appreciate your time and sharing your story. This was so beautiful and so impactful and it just really gives so many, especially women, hope to overcome so much adversity and so many challenges and really come back to their center and who they are and show up for themselves. I really appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you. So fun.

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