26: Real Talk: How Divorce, Miscarriage & a Toxic Relationship Changed My Life Forever

Feeling like you’re behind or broken because life didn’t go the way you planned? You’re not alone. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I’m sharing some of the most pivotal (and painful) personal moments that shaped who I am today—as a business owner, creator, mom, and human. From childhood perfectionism to divorce and finding love again, this raw episode is a reminder that nothing you’ve lived through is wasted. If you’re in a messy middle, I hope this gives you peace and perspective. The middle is where the growth happens. Let’s talk about it.

For the full show notes, CLICK HERE.

Things I cover inside the episode:
✨ How childhood perfectionism & people-pleasing showed up in my business
✨ What my past relationships taught me about self-worth
✨ How I rebuilt my life and confidence after a painful divorce
✨ The truth about resilience and why healing isn’t linear
✨ How I finally found peace, purpose, and genuine love

*DISCLAIMER: What I’m sharing in this episode reflects my personal experiences and emotions during a challenging chapter of my life. It’s not meant to place blame or point fingers, but to offer perspective, healing, and hope for anyone walking through their own hard season. 🫶🏼

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Transcript

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Every single thing you've lived through has taught you something that you can carry into your life, into your business, into your relationships, into your creativity, into your leadership. And this is your reminder to stop beating yourself up for not maybe being where you want to be. You're not behind, you're not broken, you're not doing anything wrong. You're just in the middle. And the middle, honestly, is, is where growth happens. Welcome to the Creative Bodega, a podcast about content marketing, Instagram growth, and personal branding for female service-based solopreneurs who wanna grow their business without letting it take over their lives. I'm your host, EM Connors, and each week I'll share actionable tips, expert advice, and unfiltered truths to help you create engaging content, connect authentically with your audience, and turn followers into loyal customers. All without the burnout. If you're ready to simplify your content creation, navigate the ever changing trends and build a business that works for you while staying sane in this crazy season of life, then you're in the right place. Hello everybody. Today's episode is way more personal than usual. I want to share some very pivotal stories. That played out in my life that were unexpected and that I honestly had no control over, but that really shaped who I am today. I promise this episode is for you and you might need to hear it, especially if you've ever looked at your past or even your current situation, wondered, why did it have to happen like that? Why me? Why me? Like I have said that to myself a lot of times in my 44 years on this earth. Why me? And in the end, it always kind of came to light. Why me? You know what I mean? But when you're in it and it's so raw and real and scary. You can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I want to share these moments that are messy and raw and like very not Instagram worthy, and how they really shaped my life as a business owner, creator, mom, wife, the human that I am today from my parents' divorce when I was five years old. To my own whirlwind marriage and divorce within one year, and the unexpected, but really transformative journey that I've had with my now husband. I have learned that resilience really is not about bouncing back quickly. It's really about honoring the path that you're on and really taking the time to reflect and accept and to heal, even if it's not the path that you wanted or that you planned on. It is about knowing that nothing's wasted, not the heartbreak, not the slow seasons, not the the depths of not understanding why something happened to you or the unknown of how it will shake out. Not even the stuff that you would rather forget. So if you've ever felt. Behind or broken or scared or unsure of how your story fits into your future. I hope this episode gives you some peace of mind. Let's start from the beginning. Start from the beginning. Five-year-old Emily. My parents got divorced. I remember sitting in a beautiful park on a blanket with my parents. I have an older brother who's 17 months older than me and a younger brother who's three years younger than me, so I'm in the middle. I'm the only girl, and I remember them telling us. Mommy and daddy aren't gonna be living together anymore. And I, I mean, I didn't get it. When I think of my kids now who are eight and nine, and I think of them at five years old, and I think about what that would've done to them if we sat down with them and told them that that was happening. I mean, devastation doesn't even really sum it up and yet. My parents don't really have any stories of how I reacted or what we did. Like I believe we cried, but I don't think we fully understood what was happening, and I immediately fell into the role of the perfect child. I. I wanted to just be good. I wanted to be good. I wanted everyone to praise me for being so good and good to me meant quiet. It meant not causing any waves, not making any more issues than there already were, and there were already so many. It turned me into a people pleaser because. My parents just didn't get divorced at five and like by the time I was six it was all settled. It was years of uncertainty and marriages and custody battles, and parents moving away and parents moving back. It was, it was chaos to be super, super honest. And so I really wanted to, I, I didn't wanna add to the chaos and so I tried to be perfect. And I tried to people please constantly, no matter who I was with, I would, I was like a chameleon. I would do what I needed to, to make them happy, make them proud of me, and not cause any ripples that there didn't need to be. Later in life. I've absolutely now realized how this shaped. Me as a person and my need for control, it's probably why I'm so good at batching my content ahead of time. Like I'm recording this right now. This isn't coming out until probably three weeks from now. Like, and I'm gonna batch three today and it'll get me through halfway through August, and like I need that control. I don't do well when things feel out of control. And to me, out of control is not knowing what content's coming out and not, you know, I could never record an episode like the day before it's gonna come out. I would have a heart attack. So, you know, for better or worse, I, I absolutely have a need for control perfectionism. I mean, look at my feet. I'm not saying it's perfect, but like, it has a look to it and I, I like it to be perfect. I. Don't really leave my house looking like a hot mess. I like to be put together. I like to, and it's not, I'm not saying I look perfect. I can absolutely leave my house with no makeup on, but even my like home outfits, you know, like the outfits you wouldn't want anyone to see are kind of put together are nice. He, I, I'm definitely a little perfectionist and in my home, like I want my home to look a certain way and, you know, I, I wouldn't want somebody coming into my home without it being ready, quote unquote. And so there's, there's perfectionism there for sure. Again, for better or for worse. And then the people pleasing in my membership, in my dms. I don't like to ruffle feathers. I, I don't, I don't post polarizing things. I don't talk about politics. I don't even talk about holidays because I have gotten backlash from people when I've even mentioned a holiday, I don't talk about it'cause I don't want to ruffle feathers and I don't wanna go back and forth with someone. I'm not combative, I'm not argumentative. I just want everyone to be happy. So that has definitely still shows up in my life and it shows up in my business. And you know, I had a therapist once I started gonna therapy when I was five. Literally my parents got divorced. My mom has always been a huge proponent of therapy and she got us into therapy and it's definitely, I have therapists that I can name right now that ab. Absolutely helped me beyond words at certain points in my life. And I remember as an adult recently, in the last few years, an adult, uh, therapist or when I was an adult, they were obviously an adult saying to me. What would you say to five-year-old Emily right now? If you could talk to her about what was happening in her life, and I mean, I have goosebumps right now. I have massive goosebumps because you guys, I couldn't even talk. I just started crying. I literally just started bawling because I, all I felt was just so much. Sadness for a 5-year-old Emily. And it just wasn't fair. It's one of those situations you're like, why me? Why me? Why can't my parents stay together and, you know, for, for a million reasons they couldn't stay together. But what I would say to you now and what I wanna tell so many parents who maybe are getting divorced right now, and you have small children, even though you tell us that it, you're not fighting with dad or mom because of us. We will always feel that, that we are the reason. We are the reason, we're the reason, if we didn't exist, you guys wouldn't be fighting. You know what I mean? And we feel it, and we feel responsible and we feel scared and we feel it's, it's the worst. So if, if you can dig deep and rise above that for your children. Try to be kind and try to be in control and try to not have power struggles like with your spouse. Like I, and this is just a tangent, but like do whatever you can do whatever you can to protect your kids from that, because it has absolutely shaped the way that I am. And not in a good way, I would say. And the resilience takeaway from this, like, you don't have to be quiet to be safe, and you don't have to be perfect to be worthy. And those things are on a post-it note on my desk. You don't have to be quiet to be safe so I can speak up when I am feeling unsafe, unsure, and that's something I've had to learn. And you don't have to be perfect to be worthy because I lived my life, my entire childhood trying to be absolutely perfect to feel worthy of unconditional love from. My parents. And that's, it's an exhausting way to live, to be honest. So that was my, that was my early years, uh, divorce uncertainty. I would say things kind of settled around middle school, high school, but not even really to be super honest. But we're not gonna get into that. But luckily now I do have a, you know, a great relationship with both my parents and you know, it's really interesting now to think about it from their perspective. Like they were in their mid thirties, young and mid thirties when all this happened. I'm like, my God, you guys were babies and you were probably doing the best that you could, and what you thought was right at the time, even though it really wasn't. But so fast forward. Emily grows up. Emily goes to college. I met a, a, a man. I even hesitate to even call him that. Um, but I met him my senior year of college and we ended up dating, we both moved to New York City immediately after college. We dated for nine years. Until I was 30 and he finally proposed, and this is a, a, a person who, uh, came from a great family. I loved his family, they loved me and my family loved him. Like it was all so good, right? We had a whole group of friends, a bunch of our friends started dating each other. They're now married, you know, everybody ended up getting married. They got married before us. And I was sitting there like, why are we not married? Let me go if you don't wanna marry me. Well, he finally ended up proposing, and hi, I should have recognized that as a red flag. But there were so many red flags, like I never trusted him. I never fully trusted him. He would go in the shower, I would try to grab his Blackberry and try to quickly go through it. And you guys, every time I did that, the phone, the Blackberry, whatever, I'd find something. That's the truth of it. So I would find something that didn't feel right with him, conversing with another female, typically, usually a coworker, and, but then I'd bring it up to him and I had to admit, I looked through your phone, you know, and, and so. He would like, overlook and would not even address what I found and just come at me like, you have a problem. You're insecure, da da da, da. He was so good at manipulating the situation, and, and then I'd feel like, oh my God, you're right. You know, like it was, it was so bad and so dysfunctional. But anyways, we got married. And within, hmm, six months of being married, I was like, I want to try and have babies. I, I want to go off the pill. I wanna have kids. I've always wanted to be a mom. I'm 30, I'm turning 31. Like, let's go. And. I did. I went off the pill with him fully knowing, and right away it turned out I had PCOS. And so a doctor was like, it's gonna be so hard for you to get pregnant, num number one, cause of infertility. And I was like, devastated. Devastated. Meanwhile, I'd been on the pill for like 12 years, un like never going off. So that's a whole other story, but. Uh, I started gonna acupuncture to try and get pregnant. My first experience with acupuncture, I still go to acupuncture now. Acupuncturists are just incredible. And I ended up getting pregnant and I will never forget the day I told him. Uh, he, he came home from work. I was so excited. I was so excited. I sat on the edge of our bed. He's taking off his suit. He worked in finance in New York City, and I'm like, I have something to tell you. And he's like, what? And I was like, I'm pregnant. You would've thought, I told him that his dog died. Like I remember him turning around and the only thing that he could get out of his mouth was I thought that would take longer. Like talk about a devastating moment. It is such a core memory of mine, and that's when I knew something was. Very wrong. And I ended up miscarrying. And this is one of those things where it's, you know, God, the universe, whoever, they have a plan. And they were like, you, you are not supposed to be with this person and, and you are not supposed to have a child with this person and we're going to get you out. So I ended up miscarrying and after a few weeks after miscarrying, which was very, very sad and painful. Both physically and mentally. He looked at me and he started crying out of nowhere, sitting on the couch. I'd never seen him cry in the 10 years that I knew him. And he said, there's no spark. I feel no spark with you and something's wrong. And I just was like, what? And he's like, I don't, I don't even know if I wanna have kids with you. And I, it was again, another core memory and I just was like, oh my God. So we started going to therapy and what came out in therapy? That I was actually miserable. Like I remember sitting there and just being like, he makes me feel horrible. Like he was so controlling. He didn't like me to wear, have nail polish. He didn't like me to, when my hair was up for, he wanted my hair down all the time. He didn't like when my hair was up, he would pinch areas on my body and, and that was just so horrifying. Like I'd come back from a run and he would pinch my back, like an area that anyone would have something to pinch and just to make me feel little. And like not worthy. And, and so this all comes out, but we're like trying to work through it and we, we outta the last ditch effort, we plan a 10 day trip to Italy. To try to like save our marriage or something. And he worked in finance and he wasn't supposed to be, he legally had to take two weeks off from work and he couldn't be on his Blackberry. He could not work. But he brought his blackberry with him and he was on it every day. And I said to him, I thought you weren't supposed to be on your blackberry. And again, I had caught him many times like talking with girls from work and it didn't feel appropriate. And so. He basically just made up some lie. I don't even remember you guys, I don't even remember what it was, but the trip ended, it wasn't great, and we were in line for customs coming back in the United States and we were in line and he again gets immediately on his Blackberry, won't even look at me, won't talk to me like, and you can tell he's going back and forth with someone and I'm like, who are you talking to? Like I just had had it. And he looked at me and he was like. Don't talk to me when my Blackberry don't look at me when I'm on my Blackberry. If you bring up my blackberry again, like I forget what his threat was, but I just was like, holy shit. And again, he found a way to like make me feel like I was the problem. I had a problem. I didn't trust him and I was ruining our relationship'cause I didn't trust him. I remember him telling me I wasn't allowed to look at our phone bill. He controlled our Verizon phone bill and he wouldn't let me see it. He wouldn't put my name on the account or let me put my name on the account until I trusted him. That's what he told me. It is so wrong. And now, now looking back, I can laugh'cause it's sick. It's all so bad. So anyways, we land, we're in customs. He tells me not to look at him when I was Blackberry. We get up to the front of the line, you're supposed to travel through customs with your family. And he left without me. They called us up and I just let him, I couldn't even look at him. I didn't even wanna walk up with him. And he went. I just stood there and I didn't even wanna go to the line with him. And the guy behind me was like, don't worry. He will. He will turn around and notice you're not there. And I looked at him and I was like, no he won't. Like he won't. He doesn't give a shit if I'm standing with him or not. So I went to a different line and anyways, basically that was it. We lasted 24 hours and we actually ended our trip where we got married. We ended our Italy vacation in the place where we got married. We were supposed to be there for a few days. We had a blow up fight and I was just like, get the F out of here. Just leave. I, I, and, and so that was after he looked at me in the face and said, I'm not attracted to you. He basically made feel like it was completely my fault that all of this was happening, and when I knew in my gut something was wrong and that there was probably somebody else, but he never allowed me. That truth. And to this day, I mean, he, he left, he, he packed his stuff up and he took our rental car. And I, I've never seen him again. I've actually never seen him again From that day forward. I had to find a way to get home. Uh, I was in, I was many states away from where we lived and I, uh, thank God my dad came to the rescue and got me home. It's a blur. It, I was in a daze at that point and I filed for divorce and that was it. I never seen him again. And the amount of therapy it took me to get through that, I mean, Molly, shout out to Molly, my therapist in Hoboken, New Jersey, like I don't know what I would have done without her. And I felt like a piece of trash. I actually was dis, I felt like I was discarded without a second look back, like a piece of trash. And it took me years. To build up my confidence and realize that it, it wasn't me, you know? And, and that was not how I was meant to be treated and a life with that man. Again, I even hesitate to call a man because. In the end, he was cheating on me with a coworker. They are now married. They got married within a year of us getting divorced. It is what it is, but just like knowing that it was her and I was right all along, but he never, he wouldn't give me that. He, he wouldn't just finally admit that and say, you're right. Um, I actually met someone else and I love her and I wanna marry her and you deserve more. Couldn't tell me that instead wanted to look me in the face and say, I'm not attracted to you. I feel no spark with you, and I don't wanna be married to you. Huh? Like, what kind of person does, like, why can't you just like I, he just would've given me so much more closure if he just was honest. But he couldn't. He couldn't because he's a coward. So anyways. Talk about a life pivot, like it was an insane time of my life. I walked around like I felt like I had a scarlet letter on my forehead. I have, I had no friends who were divorced. I didn't know anybody who was divorced, and I felt like a shell of a human being. And again, it just took years of therapy and years of good friendships and. The, I ended up staying in New York City for three years after that. I honestly just wanted to prove to him that I could, I worked my way up the ladder going from a production assistant up to managing the cutting room for a fashion designer up to being the product, the director of production for this woman. And I started making really good money, and I just kind of wanted to prove that I say to him, but really I wanted to prove it to myself too, that I could live in the most expensive city in the world on my own, and I did it. And then at some point I said, Hmm, I wanna have babies. And I'm now 34 and I have been dating in New York City for three years and I'm not really feeling like this is gonna work out. So I trusted my gut and I decided I'm gonna move to a new city where my stepsister had recently moved with her husband and I picked up my stuff. I had no job there, and I moved to Baltimore and I met my now husband within three months of. Moving there and he jokes that he was squatting back, squatting in a CrossFit gym, waiting for me to show up. I joined a CrossFit gym, had never done it before, was terrified. And he says he spotted me in one of my very first classes and we ended up talking at a holiday party and within. Five months of meeting, we were moving in together and he was the same age as me. He had never been married. He didn't care that I had been married. He didn't care that I had been divorced. He didn't care that I didn't want a big wedding. I just, we eloped. We literally ended up eloping. He was like, you wanna have babies? Let's have babies. Everything with my ex was like pulling teeth. When are we moving in together? When are we getting married? When are we having babies? And everything was on his terms. This man and he's a man. Rob is a man, was like, I want a life with you. Let's go like get off the pill. Let's see what happens. Well, you guys, I went off the pill. I told him I might not be able to get pregnant'cause I have PCOS and like I got pregnant within the first month and, and then we were like, oh my God. Like okay. And that was a, before we even had known each other a year and then we eloped two months later we ended up eloping and the rest is history. Like he is without a doubt the most wonderful man in the entire world. And never once have I ever felt the need to check his phone. I think I did once in the very beginning.'cause I was. So programmed to be that way, to be so on guard and scared. And like I and I checked once and it was like hilarious. And honestly I ended up telling him and he was like, em, you can check my phone anytime. Like I have nothing to hide from you. And I was like, what? Check your phone anytime or what is happening? He just had nothing to hide and he loved me and he wanted me to know it and he wanted the world to know it and he didn't wanna wait. And here we are. I have goosebumps like here we are. Our 10 year wedding anniversary is this October, and we've made it and we've made it through a lot of ups and downs, and if you wanna hear about our ups and downs, you should listen to our episode together. So Rob was my first and only guest so far, and we did a really great episode together. And you'll just learn more about us and our trajectory to get us to where we are now. It's it, it wasn't, it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns for sure. For us it was a lot of financial stress and career stress, but. We're here, we're on the other side for now until the next big life hurdles. And I think that's what I really like, want you to take away from this. Whether you're in a moment right now where there's so much uncertainty, you don't see what's on, like what's coming on the other side, or it comes for you at some point, I promise you, time will heal and there will be a reason why you're going through what you're going through. And you will be able to look back and say, man, I get it now. I get it. When I was in it, I, I, I couldn't see it. I remember my dad saying me over and over like, you're worthy of love, um, like you're worthy of love. And, and he's out there. I have goosebumps right now and in the moment I'm like, no, he is not. No, he is not. Like I'm literally doomed to be by myself and I am a piece of trash and I was thrown away and no one's gonna want me. But he just kept saying it over and over. You know, and, and, and I do wanna say that like when I was in it, if anyone would've come at me, a friend or a family member saying like, this guy is not good for you and you deserve so much more, I would've shut them outta my life. And I, I wanna remember that and I want you to hear that.'cause I have children now, and if one day they get into, I, I hope I raise them with enough confidence. I think that my shaky beginning. An unstable relationship with my dad at a young age really did shape that first person that I married. I didn't have the confidence. I didn't know how was I was supposed to be treated. And now my husband and I make sure that we really make our kids know that they are loved and, and we and, and we we're g raising them to be really confident little human beings. But if you have someone in your life or you have a child that is, you know, in something that you don't think is healthy. Just remember like, there's a chance you're gonna push them away. I would've pushed people away if they told me to get out and they didn't. They didn't do it. And now, of course, hindsight 2020, they did see the signs. They did think I deserve more, but they were there for me when it all went down. And that's what, that's what I needed them the most. I needed to go through it. No one could have told me what to do. So that's something I, I wanna kind of leave you with. As well. So geez guys, closing reflections. I know this has been kind of intense, but like all these moments got to me, got me to where I am and. If you can resonate with any of them or you wanna DM me and say like, me too, or This happened to me, or I'm in this, I'm always here for you, especially if you're in a season that feels hard or slow or like nothing's happening, like the way you pictured it, nothing's a waste. Not the years you stayed too long, not the jobs that you've hated. Not the heartbreak or the detours or the time you spent trying to be somebody else. Every single thing you've lived through. Has taught you something that you can carry into your life, into your business, into your relationships, into your creativity, into your leadership, and this is your reminder to stop beating yourself up for not maybe being where you want to be. You're not behind, you're not broken, you're not doing anything wrong. You're just in the middle. And the middle, honestly, is, is where growth happens. It's where the good stuff happens. If you dig deep and, and you, you know, do the work and honor where you are and talk to the right people. So I'd love to hear your story. I'd love to hear your story. I'd love to honor you. Shoot me a dm, let me know what's going on, and thank you for letting me share a few pieces of my journey that have all led to where I am today. It's, it's definitely been therapeutic for me as well, so I will see you guys next week. Thanks so much for hanging out with me on the Creative Bodega Podcast. If you love this episode, please be sure to share it with a fellow solopreneur. Who could use a little content creation inspiration. And hey, don't forget to check out the show notes for any resources I mentioned on the episode to help you create content that feels easy and actually gets you results. If you want even more Canva and content tips, head over to my website, the creative bodega.com, or find me on Instagram under the same name. Until next time, keep creating, keep showing up, and most importantly, try and have a little fun with your content. I'll see you on the next episode.