The “Yes” That Cost Me 25 Years

In the very first episode of The Carin CONFIDENTial, I’m starting with the truth.

I got married when I knew I shouldn’t have. I ignored my gut, spent 25 years riding an emotional rollercoaster and slowly lost myself trying to keep everything (and everyone) together. Like a lot of us, I became someone I didn’t recognize (or like).

This episode is about what it took to finally choose myself, take accountability for my part and begin rebuilding the most important relationship in my life — the one with me.

If you’ve ever looked around at your life and thought, “I have all the things… so why do I feel so disconnected?” — this is for you.

This podcast is real talk about real life and better communication — starting with the way you talk to yourself.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Ignoring your intuition has long-term consequences.
• People-pleasing can quietly shape major life decisions.
• Emotional rollercoasters can feel normal when you live in them long enough.
• Shame thrives in silence — healing doesn’t.
• Disconnection from yourself shows up in every relationship.
• Conscious communication starts with self-awareness, not perfection.
• You are allowed to choose yourself — even midlife.

If this episode hit home, share it with someone who might need it. We’re just getting started.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

One, two, three. Kind of feel like I'm about to do a newscast. But like, I don't want this to be scripted. I don't want to like read off of a teleprompter. No, fuck that. Just about to get real. Let's do a podcast. Let's go. Welcome to the Karen Confidential, real talk about real life and better communication. I am your host, Karen Campbell Smith, and holy shit! It's happening. My first podcast episode. I don't think you understand how long I've been wanting to do a podcast. I have a degree in this shit, you guys. I went to UF, I was a TV news anchor, and I've just been having this degree sitting on a shelf. So this is a really exciting day. And I thought about like giving you this, you know, professional introduction into me. And then I said, fuck it, because that's not what this podcast is about. It's about me not being polished anymore, not shrinking anymore, just being honest and being authentically me. And so let's dig right into some piping hot tea. And that is, I wanted to be married. I wanted the fairy tale story that, like, all little girls are sold, the white dress, the wedding, the house, the kids, all that stuff. But I did not want to get married when I was proposed to. And I didn't want to marry the person that asked me, but I said yes anyway. I thought that for a very long time, but I don't know that I've ever said that out loud. Definitely not publicly. I realize it's probably hurtful to the person who asked me and that I was married to for many years. But again, this podcast is not about keeping other people comfortable. It's about me being honest. And that's about as fucking honest as I can get. Also, I do cuss a lot, so buggala. I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to be a news anchor. I wanted to follow my career. I wanted to live on my own. I wanted to do all those things. I wanted to get married later, but I did not listen to my gut. And that decision, saying yes, when I wanted to say no, first of all, that was on brand for me for most of my life. It followed me loudly for 25 years until it got so loud that I couldn't ignore it anymore. So in this episode, I'm going to talk about some things about my relationship that I haven't ever really talked about publicly. People that were close to us knew that there was some dysfunction, but I don't think they had any idea how fucked up it actually was. So I am going to get into all that. But before I do, I think it's important to explain why I would say yes to marrying somebody that I didn't really want to marry. So a little bit of background on me. I've always been an overachiever. That's just who I am. I always got really good grades, not like straight A's. I wasn't top of my class. It was like 5%, 10% in my class. I got into UF for the fall, which even a thousand years ago when I went there was a big fucking deal. I got into the TV news program. I've always been extremely extroverted and social and outgoing. Um, every personality test I've ever taken, I'm like the most extroverted extrovert you've ever met in your life. So, like those things have always been a core of who I am as a person. That's never changed. That's always been who I am. Um, I was in the College of Journalism and Communications at UF to be a TV news anchor, and that is where I met him. He was in the back production side. So we met in the production room one afternoon. And we ended up, because it really, when you get into your college, it's a pretty small group of people. So we ended up being in the same group of friends. We became friends, we had the same kind of personality. I liked him, like we got along really well. I thought he was kind of cute. But even then, I noticed how moody he was, and I was not a fan of moodiness. So I saw it for what it was, and I was like, cool, he's my friend. He he also never wanted to go out. He was not social, and I could not relate to that. I didn't like it. If we hung out at their house, he was in and it was fine. But if we all went out as a group, like he did not want to go, and I did not like that. He was also like into one of our other friends that was a girl, and that was a huge turnoff. So by the time we graduated, my parents had met him. They came up for a keg party that we had. My parents are pretty cool. And they liked him. Um, and so we graduated, I moved home, he moved home. I was like waiting tables, sending out resume tapes to get an on-air job. And I think he was doing like a barely paid internship where he was from. And I did finally get an interview at a station seven hours away from my hometown, and he decided that he was gonna go with me. So at that time, we had been dating for like six weeks. And the whole reason that I started dating him is because like I was waiting tables and I was kind of casually dating. I was complaining about the guy that I was dating, and my dad was like, I don't understand why you don't just date him. And that from my dad was probably the biggest reason that I ignored that intuition that was like, this is not the one. Like, don't do this. This is not what you want. Because my dad was like the pinnacle of man in my life. Like, he was everything. And the fact that he approved of this person was so big to me. On top of, I was so terrified of not being chosen again. Like I was convinced that if I chose myself and my career and I didn't take this opportunity of being chosen, that maybe it would never present itself again. So I ended up not saying anything that I didn't really want him to go with me to my job interview. I didn't. I didn't say anything. I let him go. I got offered a job. I remember that day, I was like, so my boyfriend's here and he needs a job. And they were like, okay, sure, we'll hire him at whatever, $8 an hour to run a camera, whatever. So we both got offered jobs. We moved there. He proposed the day we moved into our apartment together, which, like doing the math, I think we had been dating by then for six weeks. Yes, we'd been friends, but it was like we were very young and very stupid. So we're living in this tiny one-bedroom apartment. I am an overachiever. So I have a brand new job. I have always felt this need to like prove myself in a situation like that. So I am completely all in at work trying to prove myself. Things were very clunky when we moved in together. It was not at all the fairy tale love story that I had pictured in my head when I was younger of like, oh my gosh, I'm moving in with my fiance that's gonna be my husband. Like it was, it was pretty fucking terrible, actually. Just he's an only child. I had lived with girls in college, he had lived with other people, but it was like he liked things the way that he liked things. He was very controlling of his space and his food and his things. Like trying to maneuver that was difficult. And I just remember like one night we we fought a lot and worked seven hours away from our family. So it was like there was no lifelines. We were just trapped in this one bedroom apartment the size of this table, like trying to work it out with very little emotional intelligence at 22 years old. And he punched a hole through our pantry one night, like we're renting this place, like, great, gotta pay for that. We ended up having to pay for that. But and in that time, like we're planning a wedding. And never once did I ever consider that I could renege on accepting the proposal and not get married. It just was not. It never was an option. Like, I remember thinking, like, this isn't great, but oh my gosh, what would people think if I called this off? Like, what would people think of me? How many people would I let down? Like, everyone is expecting this and it's what I have to do. And again, like, what if I say no to this and walk away from this? And then nobody ever chooses me again. So a year later, we got married, which was super fun. It was basically like a college reunion of all of our friends, like a huge party. Everybody was back together. It was a super fun night. We went on our honeymoon, spent so much money. Like this was also a theme throughout our relationship, like just reckless, impulsive spending of money. So bad. Like our, I think I was making $18,000 a year as a TV reporter at the time. I got promoted to Weekend Anchor within like a year, but he was making like $16,000 a year. We couldn't even afford groceries. Like we literally were putting everything on credit cards to the point where we ended up having to file bankruptcy. But we stayed at the Waldorf Astoria and spent every penny that we got for our wedding because we just asked for cash. We were broke, spent every penny on the Waldorf Astoria, went back to our one-bedroom apartment, not only not having any money from the wedding, we were in more debt because we had put stuff on our credit cards. That is the epitome of how our money situation was our entire marriage. Fucking chaotic and impulsive. It was insane. I consider myself a pretty even killed person. Of course, I mean, I'm an Aries, I have a temper, but I will explode, tell you what I'm thinking, talk it out, get over it. That's always been the way that I operate. He was not that way. He would find reasons to be miserable. There was mental health issues involved. So there was a constant state of I'm unhappy because of this. I will be happy when this happens. Okay, we go through that cycle, this would happen. Oh, but now I'm unhappy because of this, and I'll be happy when this happens. That happened, that cycle perpetuated for 25 fucking years. It never happened. Like it, the happiness, that that final destination of I'm finally okay, never happened. And most of the time, if we were in a situation where he was miserable, I would go, what can I give up? What can I do? How can I fix this? Because I'm a fixer. And this was my husband now. So it was like, I have to help him be happy. That's on me to carry. Like that's my responsibility. I have to help this person. So the first big thing that I did is he hated where we lived. He hated his job. He talked me into, don't you hate it, don't you hate your job? And I mean, it wasn't perfect, but like I was doing what I'd always dreamed of doing. I literally wanted to be a TV news anchor since I was in third grade. And I was living my dream. So I wasn't, I wasn't miserable for my own reasons. I was miserable because he was miserable. So at that point, I decided to break my contract and move back to my hometown because that's where he said he wanted to be. And I thought that I could make the jump from a very small TV news market to a top 40 market because where I live, my TV news market is top 40. I interviewed at all three stations in that market. I did not get a job and I never worked in TV again. So there's still resentment over that. But looking back, I made that decision. Nobody made that, made me make that decision. I gave that up. I made that decision hoping that it would make him happy. That was the expectation. Okay, I'll give this up. We'll do what you want, you'll be happy. Well, we get back to my hometown. We're living with my parents because we're so broke from living on credit cards that we had to file bankruptcy. We could not afford to get an apartment. We're newly married, broke as shit. I'm waiting tables again because I can't get a job. He did get a job in TV and was miserable. He's getting to do what I want to do, and I'm fucking waiting tables at Red Lobster, Red Lobster, and he's like, my job sucks. I'm like, are you fucking serious? Like, I vivid memories, because it was this house that we lived in, vivid memories of thinking, I don't want to do this. This is bullshit. But again, it was like, well, we're married. Like, I can't get divorced. Like, I made this commitment. We just got to work it out. So we finally moved out of my parents. We got an apartment. He got a job teaching. I ended up changing careers. I got into like I taught for a little bit, and then I ended up getting into PR and all that stuff, which is a totally different episode. And I mean, if it's interesting enough, I'll talk about it. But basically, our pattern for 25 years was life lifed. We changed jobs. We bought the house. We almost had to foreclose on the house, ended up short-selling it because of our horrible spending habits. I'm telling you, it chased us our entire marriage. We had a second baby, we changed jobs again, we'd take the trips, we'd do all these things. And it was literally while the emotional roller coaster kept going. There were really high highs that were really great. And there were such low lows. I'm talking so fucking bad. But when when you're operating in a system of like things are so, so, so good, then you gaslight yourself into thinking, oh, maybe the bad wasn't really that bad because look how good it is right now. So that's what I did to myself for all those years. And it was like we'd get to that point. I never was quiet about how it made me feel. I would always say, I don't like this emotional roller coaster. I don't want to live this way. I want stable, I want steady, I don't want high highs and low lows. I just want you to be okay. I want me to be okay. I just want to be steady. And when that would happen, he would put in some effort, he would be steady for a while, things would be good, and then inevitably we would sink back into a terrible place and he'd be miserable again, or he'd be unhappy, or he'd be unsteady, or whatever. Repeat cycle. Again, I don't like this. I so it was like I kept getting talked into staying. I kept getting manipulated into staying and tricked into thinking that things could change by seeing just enough effort for me to believe that things could change. And then really slowly we would decide all we would end up nope, getting worse, getting worse, getting worse. And then all of a sudden, this low was even worse than the last low. So 20 years into that, I was resentful and exhausted and fucking lost. I did not see it as emotional abuse at the time. That's not a realization that I came to until recently. But it was. This house, our house, our relationship was managed and controlled by his moods. And that turned me into a really fucking terrible version of myself. Because I felt I felt like I was articulating that I wasn't happy. And I know that I'm an independent person. I know that I have my autonomy. He was never social. So I would go out with my friends when he didn't want to. I would pay the price for that. The really bad times looked like I need to escape this situation because he's been in a bad mood for several weeks. So I'm gonna go out with my friends because I got invited out. I'm gonna drink way too much because I'm finally out and free. I'm gonna have my phone blown up all night by my husband, who's saying, Oh my God, I'm so stressed out. I'm having an anxiety attack. I'm so worried about you being out. Like, I can't go to sleep until you get home. Are you almost home? Are you coming home? Until I finally was like, fuck it, I'm going home. Then I would get home and he'd full theatric emotional breakdown, shaking, anxiety attack, rocking back and forth over me going out with my friends. And then the next day, he would be shitty to me because I was so selfish to need to be social and to do that to him. And then I would fight back and say, this is who I am. This is always who I've been. I'm not gonna sit in this house and not do anything because that's what you want me to do. So either come with me or be okay with me doing things on my own. Then he would feel shameful. He would mope around, be crazy clingy. Then he'd start putting in some effort to show that he was better and that our relationship was okay and make me think that things could be okay. And then it would, you know, backslide into bullshit again. Always. Bad times would also look like when I was eight months pregnant and we had had a fight, and I left and I came back unexpectedly, and I heard him on the phone with somebody and realized it was a friend of mine that he had become chummy with, and they were talking about me and the fight that we had just had. And when I he came around the corner and I'm standing there, and he gets off the phone. Of course, I confront him. I'm like, what the fuck? I got gaslit. How could you think that it no? We're just friends. I I love you so much. Like, you're the only, I all I do is talk about you. Like, I no. So, how can I possibly ever think that it was inappropriate for him to have a relationship with another woman? She was not the only person he had that that kind of relationship with. And that was not the only time that I got gaslit into thinking that I was wrong for questioning it. So years of that turned me into a person who wanted to escape because I would articulate it and I felt like I couldn't leave. It got to the point where he threatened to hurt himself if I left. I can't live without you. I won't live without you. So I took every escape I could have. And that version of me, like looking back, I don't even recognize who I was. I had so many escapes and none of them were healthy. I would work out like a fucking maniac. Toward the end, I was doing CrossFit. I would do CrossFit at five in the morning. My body hurt so bad, but like I had to go. It was something I had control over. It was time to myself. It was mine. So I had to do it. Like I had to work out. I had to get that in. I had to have that for myself. And if I couldn't, if I didn't, I felt so horrible about myself. I would beat myself up so bad. I had such an awful relationship with working out for so long. That's something I've had to work really hard to fix. I would go out with my friends as often as I could just to get out of the house. And that in turn meant I was also escaping my kids, which made me a pretty shitty mom in those times. I wasn't a shitty mom all the time. I definitely was there for them in other times. But on the nights that I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go out with my girlfriends because I want to get the fuck away from you and this situation. I also was leaving my kids. And then the next day I'd be hungover and it wasn't a great mom then. The other thing that was not great is that I really started to like getting attention from men. It felt extremely validating. It felt good to feel something because at that point I was completely numb. And to be very honest, I never thought ever in my life that I would ever be a person capable of being unfaithful, ever. But I did. I never thought that I could be a person who would have two relationships going at one time, and I did, and I don't deny that. And I know that that's become the narrative of why we're not married, and that's not true. There was about a seven-year span, off and on. The narrative now is that I did it or whole marriage, which is not true. But I am able to take accountability. I did not show up well, that was an awful thing to do as a married person. I don't try to defend that, but I can understand it. That's how lost and trapped and horrible I felt. I should have left. I should have had the courage to stand up for myself and not be manipulated into staying. I should have done that before it ended up being that. I have never said that publicly either. But I own that. I'm not afraid to own that. I think a lot of people are. I'm not gonna let that define me, but I'm also not going to deny it or shy away from it. I finally said, I'm done. February 15th, 2024, I said it and I meant it. I had been saying that for probably 10 years. And I kept getting talked into staying. And then the roller coaster just kept getting worse. And I kept getting more resentful, more lost, more angry. I felt like I was disappearing inside of my own life. I literally didn't know who I was. I was his wife. I was their mom. I was a communications director at my job, but like I had no idea what I liked. I had no idea what I wanted. I did not know myself. I did not like myself. I certainly did not love myself. And so I think what finally gave me the courage to stand my ground and not be talked out of it is that the fear of feeling that way for the rest of my life was more scary to me than the fear of, oh my God, how does this work if I leave? What'll people think if I leave? How many people are gonna hate me if I end this relationship and I'm the bad guy for tearing up this family and setting off a bomb? That's how bad I felt. I could not imagine spending the rest of my life feeling the way that I felt. And so I put my foot down and I said, I'm done, and I meant it. And there were about two weeks of the most insane emotional chaos that anybody could possibly go through. It was, and he knows that I was unfaithful, and that's what everything became about. And I don't think that's fair to make that what this is about, but that's his choice. It would be, I can't believe you would do that to me. You're such a piece of shit. How could you do that to our kids? I can't believe you. You're disgusting. To I forgive you. Please don't leave me. Please stay. I can't live without you. I'll kill myself. Don't please stay. Sobbing, crying. For two weeks that happened. Think about going through that for two weeks. Then he moved out, and we shared an apartment for a little bit where he would stay for a week and I'd be at the house with the kids, and then we'd flop. But within a month of that, he had a girlfriend. It was one of the women he had had a relationship with for about seven years. So at that point, I got real pissed and I said, We're absolutely not sharing an apartment. I'm in the house with the kids. You're living in the apartment. And that's how it's been ever since. So all of that to say, February 15th, 2024 was my independence day. And the two years since then has been one of the most enlightening and some of the most challenging times that I've faced in my life. Because I have taken all of my time and energy that I would pour into that relationship and I've tried to put it into myself because I didn't know who I was. And I've never had a relationship with myself. I've always just poured into other people and based all of my worth and all of my decisions on being chosen and being liked by other people. So at 48, I'm finally starting to figure out that the most important relationship that you have is the one with yourself. And all of my relationships were suffering because I was disconnected with myself. So I couldn't connect with anyone else. So probably seven or eight months ago, I started posting on social just little things that I was learning through this process, things I was still struggling with. And people were resonating with it. Which I know that if I could have seen some of the things that I'm saying online three, four years ago, it would have helped me so much. I went through all this alone. Like people weren't talking about it, or at least I didn't see it on social. So that is what this is about. I actually now teach this in the leadership space, the concept that how you relate to yourself is how you relate to everyone else. And I really feel like all of this that I've been through up until this point, everything that I've learned in the process of coming back to myself is worthy of sharing with other people because I think there are so many people that struggle with the same thing. Not necessarily the same story as mine, but finding yourself midlife looking around and going, I've got all the things. Like I have the marriage and I have the kids and I have the career and I have the house and I have everything, but I don't feel fulfilled. Like I feel lost, I feel resentful, I feel disconnected. Like, why is that? What the fuck is that? I was sold a bunch of bullshit. Like I have all the things that are supposed to make me a happy adult and I'm not happy. I think that's what people are relating to the most. So if I can share what I've learned through my journey back to myself to help somebody else get to the same place, then I think that's my purpose for being here. So I teach this in rooms of 10, in rooms of hundreds, because I think it's especially important in leadership. You can't lead people if you're not connected with yourself because you can't build trust. If you don't like yourself, if you don't know what is driving your reactions and your conversations and your movements, you can't connect with anyone, let alone lead somebody. So that concept is called conscious communication. That's my platform. I also talk about that on social, and that's kind of what this podcast is about, too. It is something that I've become incredibly passionate about. I am such a better mom. I am so much better at work. I'm so much better in my friendships. I'm so much better to myself. And so I think it's important for other people to consider that. And I get really vulnerable when I talk about this stuff. I don't get, I don't get as real and in-depth on social as I have here. But I think it's important for me to be vulnerable in order to get other people to consider those things about themselves. It isn't easy to do work on yourself. It's not. It's a lot easier to look around and try to blame somebody else and not take accountability for how you haven't shown up well or where you might have failed. Because that involves shame. And shame is one of the hardest emotions to metabolize. And so we as humans just don't. But it's important because we are incredibly disconnected. If we could all take some time and sit with those emotions and get to know ourselves better, I think the world would be a whole lot better. That sounded like a Miss America speech. I spent too long shrinking, existing to make other people comfortable, not being authentic so that I could be palatable, and I'm not doing that anymore. It did not serve me. So this podcast, my presence on social media, my platform of conscious communication is about me being honest, me being authentically me, and me living in my purpose, which is to share my experiences and help put a handout to the people that are maybe a couple steps behind me to help them understand that you don't have to feel lost and you don't have to feel disconnected, that in your midlife you shouldn't feel like this is it. We should be dreaming, we should be chasing our dream. Like you shouldn't ever give up on that. You should never give up on yourself. That's what this podcast is all about. So if you've felt that that disconnect, if you've maybe felt like you're disappearing inside of your own life, I'm really glad you're here. And I hope that you'll keep tuning in because the shit's gonna keep getting realer. And with that, we are all done with the very first episode of the Karen Confidential. Thank you so much for being here. We did it! Well, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for new episodes. You can also follow me on social or visit my website. And if you want to connect, send me an email. Okay, bye. Let's go.