The Femme Cast
Welcome to The Femme Cast—the podcast for women who are truly ready to break free from toxic relationship cycles, choose themselves, and become a magnet for the love they deserve.
I’m Maria — Master Energy Healer, Radical Self-Love Leader, and Relationship Mentor.
I work with the women who are cycle breakers, grid shakers, and truth layers — the brave souls who came here to dismantle the inherited beliefs that told them they had to chase love, prove their worth, and beg to be chosen.
I help them break free from the karmic cycles and generational patterns that keep them stuck in toxic relationships and self-abandonment — so they can unapologetically choose themselves, reclaim their inherent worth, and become magnetic to soul-aligned love, expansive opportunities, and the liberated life they were born to lead.
Without ever shrinking, settling, or self-abandoning again.
I’ve been where you are, stuck in cycles of chasing love, begging to be chosen, and abandoning myself again and again in the name of love. But I turned my pain into purpose, and now I’m here to help you do the same.
Each week, I share personal stories, actionable insights, and a blend of spiritual and practical tools to help you heal from past wounds, reclaim your self-worth, and rewrite your love story. You’ll hear everything from vulnerable truths about my own journey to breaking toxic patterns to empowering lessons that will guide you toward creating the healthy, loving relationships you crave.
Join me as we say goodbye to self-abandonment, people-pleasing, and unhealthy dynamics, and hello to radical self-love, emotional freedom, and true empowerment.
It’s time to reclaim the version of you who never had to beg to be chosen.
You ready?
Let’s do this.
The Femme Cast
The Moment I Stopped Punishing Myself for His Cheating (and Took Back My Power)
What if the deepest betrayal wasn’t his cheating… but the way you abandoned yourself to keep him?
For years, I punished myself for his infidelity. I believed if I could just be prettier, sexier, happier, or more “positive,” he would change. I gaslit myself into denial, ignored my intuition, and became a version of me that wasn’t even real—just to hold on to a relationship that was already crumbling.
But here’s the truth I wish someone had told me: you are not responsible for how someone else shows up in a relationship. Their choices reflect them, not your worth.
In this raw and deeply personal episode of The Femme Cast, I share:
🎤How self-blame keeps you stuck in betrayal cycles
🎤The “toxic glow-up” that started as punishment but unexpectedly built my strength
🎤The liberating mindset shift that allowed me to finally walk away
🎤Why someone else’s betrayal has nothing to do with your value
🎤How to reclaim your power by deciding the role people get to play in your life based on how they actually show up
This is more than a story about infidelity—it’s an invitation to stop punishing yourself, to start honoring your worth, and to finally step into the love, freedom, and expansion you’re meant for.
If you’ve ever felt like you weren’t “enough” or blamed yourself for someone else’s betrayal, this episode will shift something deep inside of you.
Are you healing from cheating? Betrayal? A heartbreak that not only broke your heart but broke your life?
If so, join me for She Rises: A FREE & LIVE 90-minute healing and activation experience for the woman ready to alchemize the pain of lies, betrayal, and being cheated on into unapologetic power, radiant confidence, and the woman she was always meant to be.
Betrayal doesn’t get the final word — you do.
https://thefemmecast.kit.com/masterclass
Hey guys, what is up and welcome back to the show. I am so excited and grateful to have you guys here. Welcome. If you're new, you're probably hearing a hum in the background and I do apologize for that. I realized that you could hear it on the last episode. I have my AC on. It is quite loud, it is quite hot out, but there's and I was gonna turn it off just for the time the sake of recording, like I usually do, but I don't know why I forgot this time. But now there's a festival going on, there's a lot of noise in the background and there's some guy singing that really has no business singing right now. So I'm going to leave the AC on and you're just going to have to put up with the hum because it's drowning out all the other background noise and it's also helped me to keep me comfortable. So grin and bear, if you can, my perimenopausal internal temperature. Well, thank you for putting up with it, trust me.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Okay, so today I wanted to talk about the moment that I stopped punishing myself for his cheating and how I took my power back and my self-worth back, and you know, from all of that and just sort of the shift or the mindset shift that was beneath all of that. And this was like this was not a like one moment, sort of like switch that went off. This was a gradual unfolding. So I'm just going to kind of out, like lay out, how this all kind of unfolded. You know, take what resonates, leave the rest right is what I always like to say. So let's go back to the point where you know I had recently realized what was happening in the relationship and after a period of fighting and screaming, and you know, trying to get to the bottom of screaming and you know trying to get to the bottom of things and you know trying to get to, you know, an admission or a confession of some sort or an account, you know just just waiting for him to take accountability for something. You know it wasn't any place, it wasn't anything I was going to get, and I think I needed to accept that. And you know there was also, you know I was also starting to fear that you know, if we didn't put this to bed soon, that I would lose him and I was not ready to go there. And I think the reason why I was fighting so hard for a confession is because I needed that so that we could heal us, in order to feel like I could heal myself within the connection, so I could trust him again, so that we could work towards rebuilding our relationship again. Because, deep down, I didn't want to leave and I needed that in order to stay. I wasn't getting it and I still wasn't leaving. So, again, self-betrayal, right, I'm betraying myself and what I felt like I needed in the connection in order to be able to rebuild on a solid ground. I said, okay, I'm not getting that, I'm going to continue to try. And said, okay, I'm not getting that, I'm going to continue to try and rebuild this whatever way I can.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So, again, I betrayed myself here and, knowing that I couldn't get the confession, knowing that I couldn't get the accountability that I was looking for, I started to now live in denial. I started to now think you know wishful thinking. Well, maybe he's, he is telling me the truth, maybe I can believe him. Maybe nothing happened, maybe it was all in my head, even though there was just part of me was just screaming like are you freaking mad? Like do you need a fluorescent light before you trust yourself? Um of of what was going on in that relationship? Um, and so I ignored that. I I did my best to ignore it for a very long time and I tried to live in denial. But you know, at the same time, you know, knowing there was, like there was a deep part of me that believed what I saw and what I felt was very real and that it did actually happen.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So now I went on this bender. Of all the ways, this was my fault. I wasn't pretty enough. I let myself go. I got too fat, which I wasn't, but this was my head telling me okay, I'm not. This wasn't. What I'm saying is my own internal, this is my own internal dialogue of what I was saying to myself. Okay, um, I am not by any means judging another woman out there. This is, this is how I was judging myself so harshly. You let yourself go. You got fat, you got you're, you're just you're, you're not, you're not sexy anymore. Like, look at you, like, why, why wouldn't he cheat on you? You haven't been taking care of yourself. You know you're negative all the time. You're complaining all the time. You're like whining all the time You're, you know, crying all the time. You're miserable, like, if you say anything, if you bring it up again, he's just going to get agitated, he's just going to leave. You know, he's just going to walk away's gonna, he's, he's just gonna be another fight it's, and maybe this one, you know he's not gonna come back from right.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So I started to put all my focus and attention into how I could be more of what he needed. Um, I, you know, this was where my, my relationship, you know, yo-yo dieting really, really began. Um, and I started doing all these crazy fat diets, trying to lose weight, and you know I would. I would go through the cycle of losing a ton of weight and then putting it all back on again. Um, I, so I was going through all these crazy fad diets. I started going to the gym, I started working out, I started taking better care of myself, I started, which I mean all good things if it's coming from a healthy place and if you're doing it in healthy ways, which oftentimes I wasn't. You know, let's be honest, right, I was basically punishing myself and trying to fix myself and make myself feel like I was good enough in order to keep, you know, this relationship intact and in order to keep him from, you know, wandering anyplace else.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Right, I started to change how I would show up in the relationship. I tried to be more positive, change how I would show up in the relationship. I tried to be more positive. I tried to be happier. I tried to pretend like everything was okay. When it was not okay, it was so not okay.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:There was a part of me that was screaming and I was showing up like this, like I don't know, like this alter version of me in this alter universe, um, who was like, always positive and optimistic and, and you know, uh, trying to, to think positive about everything. And I know these are, I know these are all good things and I know that these are things that we all talk about in the personal development community, but not when it is like bypassing some serious pain and turmoil, right. That's when it becomes toxic. When you start to like gaslight yourself into believing that you feel better, that you're happier, that you're thinking positive, that you believe positive things and that you're grateful. When, really deep down, there's like thinking positive, that you believe positive things and that you're grateful, when, really deep down, there's like a burning inside of you, that is like wanting to scream.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:That is bypassing, that is not healthy and what you're basically doing is basically you're putting this faulty facade of a you know a redesign surface level redesign when the foundation is crumbling, like underneath it. You know what I mean. If we're talking in terms of like home design, right, it's like painting a new. It's like painting your house, redecorating it, putting in all the upgrades, creating that beautiful home that you've always wanted, and the foundation is literally rotting and falling apart. Literally is what you're doing, right. So that's what I was doing.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I was pretending that everything was okay. I was pretending that everything was happy. I was positive. I was trying to. I was doing everything that I could to be more successful in my career and try and move ahead there. I was doing everything that I could to be this better version of me.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But it wasn't for me, it was for him, and that was where the imbalance was right. That's where the unhealthiness was, that's where the toxicity was. I was doing it all for him and his approval, so that he wouldn't, you know, stray from the relationship and wander off with someone else. You know, I wanted to be more loving, I wanted to be prettier, I wanted to be sexier, I wanted to be who he wanted me to be in order for him to be interested in me and, yes, on the surface level, our relationship got a lot happier and we got along a lot better, but we still were disconnected, like there was. There was no intimacy left in our relationship. Um, even the friendship had dwindled. We hardly talked anymore. Um, it was all just very surface level and polite right Is the best way that I can put it Um, and all the while, I was ignoring what I, what I was really feeling and believing. So it wasn't really me who was present in that relationship. I don't know who that was, man, that was some sort of like a, you know, stepford partner of some sort.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:The good thing, the good thing in all of this even though it was coming from a very unhealthy place and I was doing it in a lot of unhealthy ways the good thing in all of this is what was happening is I was going through this external glow up, putting all this work in myself, that I started to shift internally. As a result, all the working out, all of the moving forward in my career and trying to think positive and, you know, creating more positive connections and interactions in my life, I did actually start to feel different. So I did actually start to shift internally. You know, I started to feel more confident in myself. I started to feel a little bit more empowered. I started to feel a little bit clearer, feel a little bit more empowered. I started to feel a little bit clearer. I started to feel like I don't think I realized it in the moment, I don't think I'm even realizing until now that I'm talking about it it's finally clicking.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I think in that moment I was finally starting to feel safe in a life that he wasn't a part of, because I was starting to create this life for myself. That did not, it began as revolving around him, but it was actually what it was actually doing, is, it was actually supporting my own personal growth. And now I kind of, I think, was coming into this realization that I could be out of this connection and still feel okay and still be okay. I was, I was, I was cultivating the confidence, the personal power, the strength in order to make that foundational, that, that, that, that that monumental shift of leaving this connection. And eventually, you know, I got the strength and I needed to walk away completely right and to be able to make that decision and feel good and aligned about it and empowered with it, like I didn't. But yeah, it was scary. Of course it was scary, but I knew it was the right thing to do and I was unwavering in that, and I don't think I'm not good enough and feeling like I needed to create this false version of myself to feel good enough to be in that connection, even though, aside from all of that, it did actually start to shift me and empower me internally, and it was because I started to have this internal shift. It started to reflect and project itself externally in the decisions that I was making.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So now I started making healthier choices about my body. I started being more confident and being able to ask for what I want. At work I put myself up for like an awesome fucking promotion. I you know, I started. I started really taking my health and fitness very seriously and I started to see real results. I really started to put effort into cultivating healthier relationships and friendships in my life. I started to look at some passions and interests, like dance and other things that I had put on the back burner for so long because I had made this connection the central focus. So what started as a really toxic sort of self-worth deficit sort of approach to making a healthier relationship actually ended up creating a solid foundation for me to feel strong enough to leave this connection.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Now. Eventually, you know, eventually, when I did leave this connection, I had to deconstruct a lot of that and get to the bottom of the issues. That kind of led me to believe that I was the reason for the infidelity, I was the reason for the betrayal, I was the reason for the cheating, because I wasn't enough. In some way, shape or form, I had to go back and undo all that and get to the core of that healing and then rebuild myself up again.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But there is something to be said for the power of doing things for your own betterment, I think you know I'm trying to deconstruct this and reverse engineer this so that people can apply it to their life. If you're doing it because you think that you want to make yourself a better partner, a better girlfriend, a better whatever, you know that's something that I would honestly say start there first, like why do you think it's your fault? You know? Why do you think that you're the reason that they left and where does that belief come from? I would start there first. But you know there is something to be said for how can you make a fuller life for yourself, how can you start to do things for yourself that make you feel better, but do it for you. You know, don't do it for them. Do it because it makes you feel good, because it makes you feel confident and it makes you feel empowered. And that is the biggest lesson and takeaway from that experience that I can share with you, and that is a huge part of what we're going to be talking about in that upcoming masterclass on September 15th, depending on when you're seeing this September 15th, 2025.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So, depending on when you're listening to, this, doing together is how can you take what's happened to you and use it as fuel to create a better experience for yourself. But doing it from a place of this is what I truly want and this is what I truly aspire towards. Not from a place of wanting to avoid getting cheated on or abandoned or rejected again, and not from a place of feeling like I'm not getting good enough and it's my fault that they did that, but from a real place of you know, I would really love that for me and I would really love to give that to me, and I feel like it would be an empowering thing to do for me. You know, coming from that place, I think that's the really important thing, but nonetheless, you know I did it from an unhealthy place and eventually it gave me the strength that I needed to walk away. So, c'est la vie, everything worked out for the, you know, for the greater good.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And you know, I did go back and did a lot and did a lot of the underlying healing work of why I defaulted to. It was obviously something, it was a deficit in me that obviously led to the betrayal and the infidelity and the cheating and the lying. But years later and I mean years later, after deconstructing a lot of my patterns and belief systems and doing a lot of the internal work and really coming back to this idea of, you know, choosing self above everyone and everything else, one thing I one big experience, learning experience that I had is that, you know, we are not responsible for the choices or the actions that people make on a day-to-day. We're only responsible for ourselves. Right, and I think that, you know, when I was younger even as a child probably, you know, I always believed that the way people were acting around me like if they were acting in an unloving way, it's because I did something to make them not love me If they were acting in a mean way. I did something to make them feel like, to make them treat me meanly If, if I, if they abandoned or rejected me or, you know, bullied me or made fun of me or criticized me, it was because of something I did Right.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And you know, and that is a very codependent, um, thought like thought pattern. That's a very like like that. That is a very codependent thought pattern. That is very typical of a people pleaser, where we look at the people around us and how they're treating us. If they're not treating us the way that we want to be treated, it means that we did something wrong in order to make them treat us that way, and so we immediately default to well, how do I need to be? Who do I need to be, in order to get them to treat me the way that I want to be treated? So I did a lot of work on deconstructing all of that and allowing people to just be people, allowing people to just be who they are and, you know, being able to say that they're responsible for who they are and I am responsible for who I am and who I am in a relationship does not is not what decides how they show up or what determines they show up, right. So I can now look at people and I can, you know. I can see them, I can witness them, I can love. I can love certain things about them. I can witness them, I can love, I can love certain things about them. I can not love certain things about them. But depending on who they are and who they show me, and how they show up in the relationship, I can decide what role they get to play.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I no longer subscribe to this pattern or belief that if somebody treats me the way in a way that I don't like, that I immediately default to. What can I do differently to get them to treat me the way I want them to know? If you treat me in a way that I don't like, I simply just you know. I make a call as to whether or not you're going to be playing a role in my life, whether or not we're going to be in relationship together. And if we are going to be in relationship together, what kind of relationship is that going to be Like? This is the point.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, when you start to, when you start to choose yourself. You start to choose your relationships. You no longer try to manufacture relationships that treat you the way that you want to be treated, and expending all your energy trying to figure out who you need to show up as in order to create the relationships that you want. You just basically get to be yourself, trust that that's enough, and look at the people who are around you and get to decide. You get to choose, based on what you want in your relationships, who gets to fit those roles, those categories in your life, and then make a healthy and informed decision from there and not feel like you need to adjust yourself constantly or show up as a different version of yourself in order so that they can treat you better and love you more and accept you into their circle or into a relationship or into a friendship or whatever. And that has been the biggest shift for me.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And so when I did that, I realized somewhere in all of that you know, I realized, you know, okay, so if I were to take what I've just learned, you know, going through that process of, of, you know unlearning this idea that people treat me as a reflect, how people treat me as a reflection of, of of how they perceive me, me as a reflection of how they perceive me and really making it about giving them back ownership and accountability for their own actions, knowing what I know. Now there was a moment where I went back and I said, okay, well, what does that mean for that relationship? Like, I mean, we started off great, we were happy, we seem to be anyway, and then all of that happens. So how do I apply that to all of that?
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And what I started to realize as I was reflecting back, there was a part of him, I think, that was always somewhat emotionally unavailable. I think he was really good at telling me what I wanted to hear and what I needed to hear, but he wasn't very good at sharing what he was feeling. He wasn't really good at moving through a lot of um emotion. Um, there was a lot of bottled up stuff with him that he just wasn't looking at and wasn't moving like, wasn't really paying attention to Um, and I think there was also a lot of insecurities there that he wasn't moving like, wasn't really paying attention to, and I think there was also a lot of insecurities there that he wasn't sharing, and so maybe that's where the infidelity happened. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:All I can say is I finally came to the realization. You know that the you know, the reason why it all happened had nothing to do with me and how I was showing up or or who I was, and whether or not I was good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, sexy enough, smart enough, financially like successful enough. It didn't. None of that mattered. What mattered, the only reason why he did what he did, was he. You know, there was something, there was something going on with him that he wasn't feeling comfortable with and he needed an outlet or a distraction from. Because here's the thing. And I came to this realization when, when we're in relationship with people, it doesn't matter what we do, you know, it does not matter what we do. It does not matter we will. Of course we can make mistakes. Of course we can do shitty things, we can suck. You know, sometimes we have our own issues and triggers that we need to work through. We have our own personal evolution. We have our own personal transformation, our own healing to experience.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:If it was a healthy relationship, if it was really a healthy relationship, if there was a problem, he would have come to talk to me about it. Instead he chose the path of going outside of the relationship and, you know, sleeping with other people and building and creating relationships with other people. That was his choice to do that. He did not have to do that. You know it wasn't like, yes, obviously we had our fair share of problems, like everybody does, but you know, it wasn't like there was ever. You know, there was nothing that I don't think we could have, could not have worked through.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So obviously there was something deeper going on, beneath the surface, that he could not face, that he didn't feel good talking about that. He didn't feel comfortable sharing with me or discussing with me or moving through with me or experiencing with me or even owning up to, and so he took the easy A, he took the easy out and kind of went outside of his relationship or whatever distraction he needed to move to avoid whatever was going on with him. So it had everything to do with him and absolutely nothing to do with me. And again, that's not to say I didn't fuck up somehow. I'm sure I did, I'm sure I did did, I'm sure I did. But and this was the big but and this was the big realization in a healthy relationship where both parties are committed to one another and coming from a healthy, emotionally mature and emotionally evolved place, you can come together and have that conversation and say let's work through our issues. We didn't do that, you know. He chose the path of going outside the relationship and then I, you know, chose the path of, you know, first fighting, then denial, then finally moving on and saying you know what I deserve better, which took a very long time.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But, you know, when it comes down to, you know why I went through down this whole like rabbit hole of trying to blame myself. First, it's because there was this part of me that didn't believe that she was good enough. It was because there was this part of me that felt like I was responsible for how people treated me, because if they didn't treat me well, it's because I didn't show up well enough or good enough. You know what I mean. If they didn't treat me good, it's because I didn't show up well enough or good enough. You know what I mean. If they didn't treat me good, it's because I didn't show up in a good enough way, and if I showed up in a good enough way, they would be treating me good, and so I had to undo all of that to get to a place where I could say number one I'm not responsible for how you treat me, that is your decision. Right, that's number one.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And number two, being able to stand solid within myself to say I know I will find somebody, I know I'm good enough to find somebody who will treat me well and I can say no to anybody who shows up that doesn't knowing that I will be okay on my own until I find somebody who treats me the way that I know I deserve to be treated. And I no longer need to subscribe to this belief that I need to somehow coerce, trick, manipulate or just change or alter myself in such a way that is going to inspire somebody to treat me the way that I want to be treated. And I think that was the big sort of energetic moment where the if you talk about energy healing and energetic cords I think that was the moment that the cord between us literally split and I was able to finally let that go and let that relationship go, because I finally detached from this narrative that it was somehow my fault that he cheated, that he lied, that he manipulated me and that he broke my heart, and I was able to come back to. Yeah, sure, I probably wasn't perfect, I'm sure I was very, very, very flawed.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I had a lot of unworthiness issues that were coming out in so many other ways Maybe not you know specifically. Well, maybe they were showing up and how I was showing up in that relationship. But you know, I was trying to do all the right things. I was trying to do all the good things according to what I knew to be right and good. But knowing that, you know, if it was a really healthy relationship or if we were at least two emotionally mature individuals, we could have come together, we could have talked about what was happening, we could have talked about what we needed to work on and not go down that path. But you know that choice was made. He acted accordingly and you know, I separated myself from taking responsibility for that decision that he made and that was the most empowering thing that I ever did and it was rooted in this idea that we are not responsible for how other people show up, that we are not responsible for how other people show up we are not to default to.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:If somebody is not treating us good, then obviously that's a representation of how good enough we are or aren't. You know that is a false narrative that I think many of us have, especially if you're a people pleaser, that you've kind of, you know, taken on right and it really is. It really is a whole other trauma, trauma adaptation, where you think that you know, you've kind of you kind of go through as a child, you kind of go through your life and you see where people are happy with you and where people aren't, and you kind of use that as sort of a map to guide who it is you're supposed to be, so that people will love you, right, and that's a very loose, simple definition for a very complex behavior. But that is what is at the heart of what was happening for me. So once I deconstructed all that, I was able to separate his decisions and his actions from my worthiness. And I think that's the important thing when you can separate their actions and their decisions from your worthiness, what that means about you and how good enough you are or aren't, when you can separate those two things, then you're able to make healthier decisions as to, you know, being able to see people for who they are and then deciding whether or not they get to play a part in your life story or not, and you get to make those decisions right and you don't need to alter yourself in any way, shape or form.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Sure, we all have work to do. Again, like I can't stress that enough, we all have work to do, we all have shit, we all have quirks, we all can improve ourselves. But if you have to change yourself to be in a relationship with someone, for them to treat you well, then that's not a healthy relationship. Your relationships really need to be able to see you for who you are and you know what. If they don't, you'll have a really hard time creating an intimate connection with anybody.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Because intimacy comes with being vulnerable and being fully seen, and I know that can be as comfortable as fuck as fuck for a lot of you, um, but it's true it. Real intimacy, real connection, just comes with being able to relax into being fully seen for who you really are. Um, all of you, all the messy bits, just allowing it to take up space, not having to hide it all the time, not having to, like you know, put on this mask all the time. Just really being able to be you and allowing yourself to be witnessed is really what creates real intimate connections with people. And then and you know, if that's something that you're, that you struggle with, work on that, work on feeling safe, being yourself, work on feeling enough being yourself so that someone can fully see you Right, and that that is a lot of the work that we do together when we work together, and that's a lot of the work that we're going to be doing in the masterclass.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So I hope I will see you there. I hope that this episode you know, you know really resonated for you. Let me know what you take away from it in the comments below or in an email or wherever you're seeing this, or feel free to DM me at the fem cast on Instagram I always love to hear from you guys and wherever you're seeing this on Spotify or iTunes or wherever, please leave a positive rating and review. Share this episode with somebody who needs it. Until next time, you guys, massive love.
