One Honest Conversation Could Change Your Relationship | Marcelle LeBlanc

Are you ignoring red flags in your relationship?

What if one honest conversation could save you years of resentment, loneliness, and living a life that doesn't feel aligned?

In this inspiring episode of the Worthy & Abundant Podcast, Linda Brand sits down with entrepreneur and coach Marcelle LeBlanc, founder of The Conversation Architect, to discuss why so many women silence their intuition—and how learning to communicate honestly can transform their lives.

Marcelle shares her deeply personal story of surviving infidelity and divorce, rebuilding her life, creating a multimillion-dollar business, and now helping women have the conversations they've been avoiding.

In this episode you'll discover:

✨ Why women ignore relationship red flags
✨ The difference between women who "ask" and women who "hope"
✨ How to build self-trust after betrayal
✨ Why communication is the foundation of healthy relationships
✨ The importance of knowing what YOU truly want
✨ How one courageous conversation can change everything

If you've ever questioned your relationship, struggled with self-worth, or wanted healthier communication, this episode is for you.

❤️ If you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear this message.

Connect with Marcelle LeBlanc

🌐 Website (Free Conversation Tools): https://onekeyconversation.com/growth

🌐 Main Website: https://onekeyconversation.com

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationArchitect

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/the_conversation_architect/

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/theconversationarchitect/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome back to Worthy and Abundant, the podcast. I'm so excited today. We have a guest. Her name is Marcel LeBlanc, and her brand is the conversation architect. And Marcel has discovered that one honest conversation can save a woman years of resentment, years of loneliness, and the quiet grief of not being seen. Years spent building a life with the wrong person or with the right person in the wrong way. After surviving an unhealthy marriage, infidelity, and a devastating divorce, Marcel's path took an unexpected turn. Through more than a decade of conversations with thousands of women in the business she built, she began noticing the same painful pattern over and over again. Many women know something is wrong in their relationship long before they allow themselves to say it out loud. Many convince themselves it's good enough, only to realize years later that it was a painful mistake. Today, Marcel is an entrepreneur who built a multi-million dollar retail brand and now dedicates her life to the conversation architect. Marcel is on a mission to help women make the critical decision that could change their lives, not by spending months in couples therapy, but through one honest conversation that can set them on a path toward love, happiness, and alignment. Welcome, Marcel, to the show. I'm so grateful to have you here today. Thank you for having me. Wonderful. So, Marcel, take us back to the beginning. What happened in your marriage that ultimately changed the course of your life?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Well, um on my nine-year anniversary, I uh discovered that my husband had taken his girlfriend to the British Virgin Islands. And when I caught him, he never came home. I never laid eyes on him again. And I found out that he had another relationship with another person for quite a bit of time. It's crazy. I read that on you.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah, that's awful. So, and uh looking back, what were the earliest signs that you ignored? And why do you think so many women do that?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Well, some of the signs there there were clues everywhere. Um, sometimes he would travel for work and I would pretend to be asleep. And when the garage door was closed, I'd hop out of bed. And knowing that I had a couple days with the dog, I I was I felt relief. One time people asked us at dinner if we were having kids, and he said yes, and I said no, and we said it simultaneously. And there there were clues and signs. I just think I didn't have the language or the curiosity back then to even know what to do with that information.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

So, what I read in your bio was that you basically couldn't get off the floor or you couldn't get out of bed for a few days. I mean, that's just in incredibly painful that you discovered that and then he cut you off. He ghosted you. Like that's I never saw him again. Yeah. Yep. So how tell us some steps that you took to get yourself where you are today.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Um, the big steps I took were learning eventually. You know, I got uh coaches for business and learning what my values were. First, learning what I wanted. And when I got really solid in that, and that was not an easy task. It took me, I committed to sitting down for about six weeks on a regular basis and really learning what I wanted and who I was. And when I knew that, then I started measuring everything against that and where I spent my time and who I spent my time with. And that really helped me to become more solid in who I was. And then over the years, learning the skills, you know, I'm I'm really I love Campus Scott's work, and I'm really passionate about she calls it radical candor, where you um care personally but challenge directly. And so over the years, I developed a values-based framework on how to get to figure out what you want. And if something matters enough to replay in your head over and over again, I think it it really deserves language. And so it it you figure out what's happening specifically in your life, uh, you know, what you're feeling about it, the impact, and then being able to make a clear and specific request with someone. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, I love it. I love it. It's so important. And so one of the most powerful things you wrote is that women fall into two categories: the women who ask and the women who hope. Can you explain what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I've had the opportunity with my company, Belledwood Box, to speak to thousands of women, and I found that they fell into two categories, the women who ask and the women who hope. Women who ask know exactly what matters to them and they ask for it. Women who hope are managing resentment, disappointment, disconnection, and waiting and hoping time might fix that. And the only thing that keeps um marching on is time. And what I absolutely love to see is strong educated women who are thriving in their career. They discover a life partner they love, they're aligned with, they're really fostering that common language. But what I find, and I I really hate to see this part, is that they end up blowing up their entire lives because they don't treat the most important decision they're ever going to make, which is their life partner, the way they should. And sometimes these ladies know that their relationships on on borrowed time, and they just refuse to acknowledge that they have to have a conversation that's either going to fix it and deepen the relationship or keep it from being a painful mistake. I I don't know if someone comes to mind when I say those words.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Oh, yeah. I remember just I think financially women stay in miserable situations because they don't think they can go out on their own and make money and take care of themselves. Is that something you encounter?

SPEAKER_00 7:23

I have encountered a a lot of that, and including some of my personal friends. And I I don't tell women whether to stay or to go, but my my work happens before that decision. We get clear about what's going on in her life, what she wants, and then she has the conversation with her partner and then uses her partner's response as information for what to do next.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah. So how did you get into the work that you're doing? And what was your career when all this went down with your ex-husband? What were you working? I don't recall.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Did you have a I was working, I had a job. I was working in, I had a hortial horticulture degree from Cal Poly, and I was uh working, I believe, for Costco at the time, uh well, a vendor for Costco and doing their cut flowers. And when that happened, I was making about $35,000 a year, and then I found out that I had a whole lot of debt that was incurred under my name. And so I ended up looking around for a job, put my resume out on Monster, and I had a um an adult video company that reached out to me that needed a buyer, and I knew nothing about it. And they I went on the interview and they offered me 40% more increase in pay. And you know, when you're in survival mode like that, you just take the job. And I'm like, I'm I'm gonna do the job until they figure out I don't know what I'm doing, and you know, I'll do something else. And I ended up really liking it because I started traveling. Traveling is a really something that was really important to me, and I stayed long in the in the in the business, went into sales, and ended up traveling all over the US and Europe uh seeing stores. And what I did find a lot is that a lot of those stores were not very intentional in the experience. And so when I moved to Texas in 2008, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a law here that said toys were illegal. So before that, we would put on a sticker on them that said for cake decoration only, in order to be compliant. And when that law was overturned, I um I had this vision of this type of store where we had ultra-curated products in high-end locations with really educated young ladies that work there. And I developed something called Velvet Box University, and they go through that university in order to give them every every person that comes into the store the experience. And so speaking to thousands, I've been having had that business for 17 years, and I I got to speak to thousands of women, and they were it was an honor to hear some of their stories when they found out who I was and what I did. And I did notice that a lot of those people were some people were coming in to just spice things up and be curious, but a lot of those people were trying to fix what had been um damaged by lack of communication and conversation with products. If that makes sense, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

I am sure. I know there's other like there's sex therapy, not sex, well, there's a couple that I know personally, one here in Sarasota and another one on an online platform where she helps. I forgot her brand right now, but anyway, it's a need. I mean, we do. We need to we need to communicate, we need to know how, and that's where you come in, it sounds like. And then you have built this brand of like intimate toys. Is that how you what do you describe a yeah?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, intimate toys.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, I've been in those stores before with a partner or whatever. Um, so no, I mean, I can appreciate those things. Um, I just thought it was interesting when I was reading all about you and I was reading about, you know, betrayal that happened to you, which my very closest friend is a betrayal trust coach, and she had her own experience. So I won't share, but ultimately it's it's so interesting how our worst nightmare can turn into perhaps a blessing in some way.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

I have a favorite uh saying that says good thing, bad thing, who knows? Exactly, right? You wait long enough. The betrayal at the end and the the that and the divorce, that was just the explosion. But the real damage that was done was the the 10 years that I lost from not knowing who I was and living off of inherited values from your family, what looks good from the outside.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yes, yes, yes. Let's dig into this, let's unpack this a little bit because that's what the podcast is really about, worthy and abundant is unlearning all the programming. And you thought you were doing you you got married. Like, tell us a little bit, like why did you marry this man that you had on your wedding night? You were like, I don't want to, right? What you want to marry him and you felt like your dad wanted you to or something. Yeah, well, momentum.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I think momentum just took over. And you don't have the the when you don't know what you want. And I mean, I was young, he proposed, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Um, but it saying no seemed way bigger and messier than going along with it. And for you know what, there's address and time goes by and you know, 10 years go by, and I just really let momentum be all exciting for me.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah, and society, right? Because you thought this is what you do, you get married.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

And this is the next logical thing. This is you know, we ask, and you know, we're living together. What this is what we're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Exactly. And that's what a lot of people that come on my show, they'll say, you know, well, I went to college and then I found got married, and then I had kids, and then all these things, and then they're like finding themselves midlife completely unhappy, and they're like, Well, wait, I thought I was doing all the things I'm told to do to be happy, and it's not what you because it's not what you want. So it's interesting, and I just love this conversation around what women need to start learning who they are underneath all the conditioning and the programming and what they truly want and be able to be authentic. That's when our life gets juicy, when we can be our authentic selves and do what we want, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

And you know, I focus on when you're stop analyzing the other person or people in your life and you want to begin looking honestly at yourself, you know, what we're doing, what we're tolerating, what we're avoiding. Had a coach tell me years ago, he says, Marcel, he says, you would prefer to look directly into the sun instead of the mirror. And he says, How long are you gonna go ahead and do that? He says, Because when you start looking in the mirror, we can start really making some changes that are gonna make a difference in your life. Oh, so yeah, that willingness to look inward and and build that skill to show up differently. It you show up differently in every relationship. And, you know, I I work with those smart, capable women who are they're managing all this disappointment and resentment, but they're struggling to say what's wrong. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

And so I help them just get really honest with themselves, figure out what they want, and prepare them uh for the conversation. Because I I can't say enough about how if something is bothering you, if you're having any type of one-sided conversations, um, then it deserves language. If it matters, it deserves language. But prepare for that.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Let's share about your best friend telling you you suck, and um, instead of ending the friendship, you you listened and you saw it as a gift. What did that teach you?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Well, you know, we were at a restaurant one time, and I uh I was very direct, and the waitress came over and she said, Hi, how are you? And I said, I need a diet coke. And my friend, when she left, she says, you know, you just really suck. Um, she says, You're you you don't see how people receive you in the world. You're you're not going, I I probably looked put together, you know, my finances were coming back in order and I was gamefully employed, but I I really wasn't showing up like I should have. And that moment for me was uh so pivotal. I I really value people who tell me the truth. And and I know that she did it out of love because who wakes up in the morning thinking, you know what, the goal is is to not be your best self? And I I didn't know that. And so that really set me on a path of I I went and I bought some books and I started reading and figuring out, you know, why I did what I did. You know, how did I end up in the relationship that I, you know, who who was the who was the person, who was the girl that got married to someone that she wasn't sure she wanted to be married to? You know, it and and I'm not I can't even say that the infidelity was a hundred percent his fault because how did I end up there to begin with? How did I end up with a person, you know, that didn't want to be married to me either?

SPEAKER_01 17:28

So that was the the the journey is that's the you started on a self-discovery journey, really. And that's something I've been on for a long time, and it's so powerful and so beautiful. And when we become our own best advocate and we know that we're inherently worthy, we don't have to earn God's love, and we're actually inherently worthy, and we can whatever, you know, we don't have to subscribe to all of these so you know, society's ways of living and thinking is you know the logical way, right? It's a constant journey in it. Right, right. So, what does a healthy relationship look like to you today?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

And like Well, yeah. Uh for me, I you know, I think it's saying what you want and advocating for yourself. Uh, you know, I'll give you an example. I'm I'm working with uh uh I was working and talking to a young lady, her name's Lauren, and she comes to me and says, you know, my my my relationship is a slow death. And as she's telling me things that are going on, it sounds like they're absolute strangers in the same house. And so dinner in the evening, they're scrolling on Instagram. Uh, they have their own Netflix shows that they like, so they retreat to their separate rooms to watch their own shows. And some nights she says, she admits, I go to bed early because I just want to avoid the awkward silences. And so as she's laying there having these one-sided conversations as we do, she's thinking maybe breaking up. And that feels way too catastrophic to her. So she convinces herself on all the other nights, uh, this is good enough. This is this is how marriage works. And so on a call, I asked her, I said, you know, Lauren, what do you want? And she immediately gives me examples of more connection, excitement, intimacy. But it wasn't uh that she didn't know what she wanted. It was admitting to herself that without the things that she wanted, that she would be resentful and the distance would grow between them. And so I asked her, I said, let's look forward 10 years. What does future 10-year Lauren look like? And she started crying. And she says, I I don't want to live like this. I know that um it it's not gonna, that's not gonna be healthy, and I'm scared, and it's gonna turn into a big fight. So we picked one thing that was really bothering her, one thing that was small, and we crafted a conversation around how to say that one thing. And so when that big moment came for her to have the conversation, all the the catastrophic things that were going through her head. Do you know what happened? What happened? I felt it too. And so that moment gave her the confidence to continue to be honest in their relationship all the time. And that conversation didn't fix the entire relationship, but what it did do was crack the silence and end that secret suffering. And later she came to me and said, you know, I thought I was going to be breaking us up, but instead I was restarting us. I just had to go first. The moral is admitting that there are conversations that need to be had on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Yeah, yeah. I think communication is so huge, and you know, I wasn't raised in a home that did very, you know, taught us a good way to communicate, and there wasn't like a lot of speaking, and you know, so it is a challenge, and you know, but learning to communicate changes everything. So I do love that. So how did you go from your you have this experience, intimate toys, retail that you own, right? In multiple states or multiple locations, it's all in North Texas, okay. And you're also this one key conversation. So so you're a coach for couples to help them with their intimacy or just communication, and you have I only coach women.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

I only coach women, and it's it's not therapy, but it's with uh uh short-term engagements. Okay. We figure out what the what's bothering her, what is uh the the the feelings are, what the impact is, and we I teach her how to create that conversation and that skill set so that she can have successful conversations with her partner. Now, I you know I don't tell them to stay or leave, you know, they're that work happens, and then when they have the the conversation. With their partner, then his response is information, and that's how they would choose to proceed, depending on his response. But it's more it's it's mostly self-work. It's when you want to turn that inwards.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Self-awareness. And and that's the first start to healing anything, is to being aware. And it sounds like you help women do that. So if you could speak to the younger Marcel before she got married, what would you tell her?

SPEAKER_00 23:51

If it matters, it deserves language. You you need to to learn and follow your instincts. And if something's bothering you, uh figure out how to say something about it.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Well, now we all have ChatGPT, which helps a lot of time. It does. I know it helps me a lot. I'm very grateful. Um, okay. And so you went from surviving at a devastating betrayal to building a successful business, and now you help women. What helped you trust yourself again?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I think our self-trust erodes when we don't know what we want and we let life happen to us. And so part of that is regaining that agency and even small things. Uh, you know, people think that what I do is these big summits where we make these life-changing decisions, and really we don't. The the conversation that you have where you say, Can you please put your phone away at the dinner table? is the same conversation that you're gonna have when you're talking about finances or any type of other big life decisions.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Love it. So, what do you suggest couples talk about before they get married?

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Do you have suggestions? Absolutely everything. You know, I how are you going to? It's a contract. Like, what are you gonna do you agree on things? Are you aligned? Do you want children? How are you gonna parent your children? What happens if you have a disagreement? You know, what happens if there's large financial expenditures? Uh, you know, how does that work? Exactly. Literally everything.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, everything. So if someone listening feels like something's off in their relationship, what's one conversation they could begin having this week?

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Just getting clear on what they want, just getting clear on what you want, absolutely. And yeah, first you need you first, if you don't know what you want, it's gonna be really hard to articulate that to someone. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

So my podcast is called Worthy and Abundant. What does being worthy mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Oh, that's uh it's a constant work in progress, but being worthy means being happy with yourself, giving yourself some grace and loving yourself and knowing that tomorrow's another day, and give it everything you have, and knowing that you did your best.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

I love that. Like one decision at a time, right? Like I remember being in a restaurant and literally not knowing what I wanted to order because of all of the, you know, what's he getting, or my son, or the this, or you know what I mean? What should I get? Versus what do I want? I didn't even know what I wanted. That's what a lot of women experience midlife when they're like, they've been the mother, they've been the wife, and then everything's stripped away because there's empty nests, they're divorced, whatever it is. And now they're like, Well, who am I? What do I like? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Well, I think you have to be intentional all the time about figuring out what you want, and that changes in life. And if you I I I write everything down, I I can't say enough about writing down what you want, be specific. And if you do that, then there's not been a moment in my life that those things have not come to fruition. And so if you figure out what you want, then at least you know where you're going. Right. If you do that, then you're never gonna get there. That's guaranteed.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Oh, yeah, I teach that all the time. That's number one. We have self-awareness and then we have knowing what you want. And it does get to change, it can change every day. I mean, we have the choice, but um, sometimes we think we want all these shiny things, the the nice car, the hot, you know, the partner, and all these things. But then when you get really down to it, you're like, you know what? I'd just be happy with a small place and like traveling and you know, all these different things. So um, you know, and and people like block their good because they think they want something, but they're blocking it because when they get clear on how they would feel, like, how does this feel? It's it feels like like if I think about a relationship, I know a healthy relationship, but I could also think, oh, my freedom's gonna go away, you know, like these different things that like self-sabotage and I want all this money perhaps, but then that sounds like stress or that sounds like new problems, you know. I think a lot of women have that. Like they say they want something, but then underneath they actually, when you're not journaling it out and writing it down, you're kind of like, Well, I say I want it consciously, but subconsciously, I'm blocking it because I really think that's gonna cause stress or that's gonna cause um my freedom to go away or something. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Well, I think we are notoriously bad historians of our own lives. Women accomplish amazing things all the time. And as we're moving forward, we're only looking down one step at a time, and there's always the mountain in front of us. But I talk about something called a vista break, where sometimes you need to stop and turn around and look at all of the things that you've accomplished. And um, I again write it down. I have a journal that not only do I journal gratitude daily, but there's a special journal that I have for the year that every time there's something memorable that happens, you forget. And so when you go back and look at these great things, you know, it says, why 2026 is great? And, you know, the pages start to fill up when you go to bed going, hey, this is like something that's really memorable today. Let me write this down. And um, I look back and I'm going, gosh, you know, it was way better than I had remembered it because you might be having a bad day or a bad week. And so that that gives you courage and to to keep going.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

I love that. No, I I've been practicing gratitude since 2011 and 2012 when I had a health condition that was misdiagnosed and all these things, and I had to battle it with every modality, and gratitude was part of it. And I've continued that to today. And I also published a journal for setting intentions of gratitude, and and what you're saying, the reflection at the end of the day, where you're gonna say, what went well, what am I proud of? Like these are powerful, powerful like things, especially what you said about looking back at how far we've come, because we as humans tend to always be what's the next thing, the next thing, right? We don't celebrate enough, right? Of what we've accomplished. I love that. Amazing. So let's see. What's one thing you hope every woman listening remembers after today's conversation?

SPEAKER_00 31:10

That the conversation that she's been thinking about is not bigger than her, and it can be done.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Wonderful. Where can people learn more about you and your work?

SPEAKER_00 31:23

You can go and get the free tools at onekeyconversation.com forward slash growth and start there with learning how to formulate the conversation that you've been thinking about. You don't need to hire me for it. You can get started immediately and go to the website onekeyconversation.com forward slash growth.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Beautiful. So, Marcel, do you believe your ex-husband did you a favor? Not by what he did, but because he forced you to become the woman you are today. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Absolutely. I'm I'm you we are always where exactly where we need to be. And I think I'm exactly where I need to be right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Amazing. Are you spiritual too? I am, yes. Yeah, me as well. Um, it's amazing. Are you currently in a relationship? Just curious. Not currently. No, neither am I. Yeah, I'm being selective. But yeah, anything can happen at any time. And um, I love what you're doing in the world. This is very powerful work. Is there anything else that you would like to share that perhaps I didn't ask or we didn't talk about?

SPEAKER_00 32:32

It you know, if a partner cannot respond to a conversation that's only in your head, and so to give your relationship a real shot at being happy, figure out how to say it, and include them inside the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

I love that. And we can't, men are not mind readers either, right? And yeah, and I think I've learned and grown so much over the over the years, and I realize the better we are, the better we attract, like the more we do the work on ourselves because we're kind of magnet and mirrors. And so um there was a coach I had on, a dating coach at one time, and she she couldn't find a guy, she couldn't keep a guy, and finally she stopped and realized she was the common denominator and started to look in the mirror and do the work. And within nine months, she met her husband, and now she coaches others on it, and it's a whole thing. But I think when women just think they're good, it's like we can always get better, we can always, there's another layer, right? Of like growing and healing and evolving, so yeah, and and communication is so important, and many of us weren't taught how to communicate, so and we're just afraid, you know, afraid of you know. So I I think what you're doing is wonderful, and um thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yes, it was wonderful. I'll put all your links in the show notes. Okay, thank you.