It seems to be that there is a stigma about opening up about an unhappy marriage. You might feel judged that you did not get the happy ever after promised in fairy tales. I strongly feel we need to get over this stigma and speak out as best we can. I also think society including friends and family need to be ready to listen to our truths and to help us where they can. So I am very appreciative of this brave post from my friend Leanne which at the very least I hope will make people think about unhappy marriage and how they can change the status quo.

“I very rarely talk about my past. If I am honest it is part of me I want to forget, but I am sharing for those who may be going through something similar.

Unhappy Marriage

Young romance

When I was 20 I was a happy and confident young woman, I had a full time job working in a Building Society that I loved. I had a good social life both with friends and work colleagues. I started working in our local pub in the evenings and loved it.This is where I met and becme friends with one of the other bar staff. He was funny and we soon started becoming closer.

My 21st birthday fell on a Saturday, and I had a party where he came along, and we started dating. I had previous boyfriends but this felt special right from the start. In time we got engaged and started saving for our own place to live whilst preparing for our wedding. I loved married life, and as he worked shifts, when he was on nights I would meet up with friends.

Mental abuse

Over the years I began to change, and never realised he was the one changing me. Looking back now I can see how he was mentally abusing me and that I was trapped in an unhappy marriage. He used every trick in the book. Slowly I turned from a confident woman into a shell of myself as he knocked every bit of confidence from me. I was no longer me. He used to tell me I would never leave him as no one would ever want me. He would say “Just look at you!” and all the other lines he came out with. I believed him.

A man started phoning our house. He told me it was someone from work and he was helping him decorate at his home. Looking back I should have seen through it as he never lifted a finger to do anything at home. I did everything, including the decorating. Then he had a breakdown, and ended up sectioning himself or he would have been sectioned. Now I am not callous or hard faced but he was a good actor. I swear if I said I had stomach ache in my little toe he would have it in all his toes. He had got into lots of debt. So while he lost his job and hid away I had to pay the mortgage, bills, clear his debts and hold down a full time job and any overtime I could get. He would come home on a Friday and go back on a Sunday expecting me to give him £50 each week to go to the pub. I had been living on toast most of the week unable to afford to eat. He would get so angry and play the woe is me card as he had been stuck in hospital all week.

Breakdown

This all took its toll on me and one morning I collapsed. I ended up seeing the Dr and I poured my heart out. He wanted to put me on anti-depressants. I did not want to go on them but he promised me they were not addictive but to help me. I finally agreed and they did help for the time I was on them.

My husband left hospital and sat around at home seeing me work all the hours I could, pay the bills, do the shopping, washing and housework. Finally something snapped and I lost it and he did eventually get a job. This man started ringing again. Eventually I found out he was sleeping with this man even in our bed while I was at work, not even changing the sheets. It also became clear he was cross-dressing and spending hundreds of pounds on clothing.

Moving on

This was when I started going on chat rooms while he was out chatting to people from all over the world, having a laugh and escaping my life. One Sunday morning at a time I was never online, in a chat room I had never been on before, I started chatting to a man. I was totallly honest in that I was married, and I was not even looking to meet anyone. The man said he had just come through a divorce so was not looking either. We eventually met up and 20 years later we are still together happily married. He is my rock and has slowly made me realise who I am leading me to gain my self-confidence again. It has been a rough ride as we have been through so much heartache. We have lost 8 babies. We are now lucky to have our daughter.

Being in a mentally abusive relationship and/or unhappy marriage is never anything to feel ashamed about. I never realised how bad my relationship was until I was out of it. You can move on and can meet someone who does see you for who you are, who makes you their world and will help you become you again.”

Organisations that can help you

There are many organisations that can help you by listening, by helping you recognise signs of abuse and by helping you to move on when you are ready to do so.

https://www.refuge.org.uk/

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/

My Random Musings
Musings Of A Tired Mummy

Using an influencer to boost awareness of a product or service has been part of marketing for centuries. In 1760, Robert Wedgewood of Wedgewood China began using endorsements from members of the Royal Family to boost his pottery sales. In today’s digital age, influencer marketing has evolved tremendously, but its core remains the same. We’ve listed six reasons influencer marketing is critical for your business today:

Influencer

1. Your competitors are already using them

Staying ahead of the game in a hyper-competitive market is vital to your company’s success. Your competitors are most likely already using influencers in their marketing strategy. According to a 2018 Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey, 75% of marketers are using influencers as a marketing tool and 43% plan to increase spending on it in the next 12 months. ANA’s CEO, Bob Liodice, provided some insights to Chief Marketer:

“It’s clear that the popularity of influencer marketing has increased among marketers in recent years, largely due to the growth and evolution of social media,” ANA CEO Bob Liodice said. “We’ve found that a growing number of marketers are turning to influencers to help them combat ad blocking, leverage creative content in an authentic way, drive engagement, and reach millennial and gen Z audiences who avidly follow and genuinely trust social media celebrities.”

2. They build your brand’s credibility

The trust and loyalty that social media influencers establish with their audiences are among their most valuable assets. According to a 2017 Choozle survey, only 7% of participants viewed online ads positively. And in a 2017 TINT article, only 4% of consumers declared trust in marketing in advertising in general. Using an influencer is a surefire way to speak to your audience through someone they deem trustworthy through their authentic content. The proof is in the pudding: MuseFind, an influencer marketing platform, reported that 92% of customers trust recommendations from strangers (i.e., influencers) over brand advertisements.

3. They create fresh content

It’s well known that companies hire marketing teams to generate content. A lot of marketing plans revolve around content publicity. With social media’s marketing power increasing exponentially, brands want to create content that will go viral. Influencers serve as a loophole and simplify this process. Content created by influencers works like user-generated content. Instead of an ad, it’s like a credible testimonial or product review. Your audience processes the reviews as unbiased and will be more likely to use your product than if they had viewed an ad.

4. They boost organic traffic and engagement

As of last year, 615 million devices now use Adblock and it’s now mainstream across all ages, according to PageFair. This is where influencers come in. Working with credible influencers who are trusted amongst an audience allow brands to bypass the adblocking obstacle and better connect with buyers on social media. We can think of influencers as a form of “word of mouth” business mixed with native advertising. This combined with their massive social media followings allow companies to create organic traffic, engagement and grow their social followings.

5. They improve your SEO rankings

Working with social media influencers doesn’t always mean them posting your products or services on their social channels. You can also collaborate with them and request that the influencer mentions your brand on their blog or post one of your articles. This can result in generating high-quality backlinks to your website, which improves your SEO. Backlinks are a crucial component of any SEO strategy. Search engines like Google are constantly changing their algorithms to filter out junk posts. Having natural links on an influencer’s page to your site or blog boosts your page in Google’s search results.

6. They generate sales

Influencers enable your company to tap into your niche audiences with tailored content so your message will resonate with your target prospects and drive conversions. In fact, for every $1 invested influencer marketing, businesses make $6.50 in revenue according to the latest poll from Tomoson, an influencer marketplace. So, for your marketing funnel, influencers are essential to converting your prospects into customers.

Jolie Shapiro

Influencer

@jolie_shapiro

Passionate about all things communications, Jolie found her dream job as a copywriter with Critical Mention, where she’s continuing her passion for writing and editing. With a background working for high-profile clients in the financial, hospitality and technology industries, she’s excited to bring her experience to Critical Mention. When she’s not writing, you can find her at music festivals, hiking or snowboarding.

My Random Musings

Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” is on my reading list so I am delighted to share a review of it from Bijal Shah. Bijal is a book therapist, author, poet & founder of Book Therapy where she harnesses the power of literature for therapeutic purposes.

Michelle Obama

“With February being Black History Month, there’s no better book that I can think of to recommend. This is the book that I have already gifted more than 25 copies of and as a book therapist, have prescribed to every single one of my clients this year.

Yes, it’s Michelle Obama’s “Becoming”. The book has influenced me hugely. It has given me so much hope and inspiration and I’m not the only one. I have been in bookstores, accidentally eavesdropping on conversations and this has been the most-talked about book with everyone trying to get their hands on it.

On the surface, Obama seems to have it all: the picture-perfect marriage, family, career, ambition, confidence – was she born with it? No. If there was one thing that got her to this stage, it was her attitude, her mind-set, her belief in herself and her single-minded focus to never concede her identity to simply be Barack Obama’s wife.

She refused to be his follower. She needed to anchor herself in her own identity, her own capabilities, her own ambitions and motivations to make a difference. This was tremendously important to her for her own self-esteem but also that of her daughters. The following quote from the book eloquently articulates it:

“I felt like, I need to anchor myself in who I was so I wouldn’t be this woman following this man. I really felt that I could get caught up in his swerving, that I would just become part of his swerve rather then figuring out my own self. So, yes, it was destabilizing but it was a motivator. … So that I didn’t just become his woman, which I knew I didn’t want to be.”

She inspires women to pursue their identities beyond that of a mother and a wife – to truly contribute to your family and society over and above simply being a mother. How did she do this when she had her own fair share of struggles – inability to conceive children naturally, the struggles of IVF, learning to release “mum-guilt”, seeking help by attending marriage counselling, hoping to get through the daily life struggles that every couple goes through.

Michelle Obama

The key things that stood out for me personally were:

• Never give up your identity in a relationship for the sake of your partner’s. This is a lose-lose outcome for both of you.
• Don’t expect your partner to create happiness for you. Happiness is a skill and you need to work at building it for yourself.
• Ask for help – and never feel guilty about this. No one can do it alone and ditch the “should”.
• We are all unfinished products and are constantly “Becoming”.
• Consider every single possible outcome when making a decision.
• Make time for your relationship – even if you’re deeply in love.

I listened to it on Audio and instantly felt a connection with her. It truly is an intimate portrait of a lady who has inspired millions around the world and I hope it will inspire you too. It’s been added to my A-Z Book Prescription for Women’s Empowerment Book Prescription. Enjoy!”

You can email Bijal at bijal@booktherapy.io for a personalized reading list.

My Random Musings

Sometimes after a long and hard day at work, all we crave is to get home, climb into our beds and sleep. With that in mind, you’ll be pleased to know that sleep is incredibly important for us to allow our bodies to relax and replenish., as well as helping us to avoid potentially serious health implications.

During the process of sleeping, many important mental and physical processes take place in our bodies. It helps to improve brain functionality, emotional wellbeing, and helps to aid muscle recovery & physical health.
Research has previously suggested that around 7-8 hours sleep is vital to allow our body and mind to fully recover and be completely functional the next day.

So what happens when we sleep?

Sleep allows our bodies to rest, this includes the conservation of energy, as well as decreasing blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate and breathing. Our brain remains active, logging memory and restoring your day to day mental functionality and helps to carry out the different processes needed to grow physically.

When we sleep, there are five stages:

• Stage 1, Light Sleep: This is where we transition between sleeping and waking. We are easily roused, and our eyes begin to move slowly.
• Stage 2, Eye Movement Stops: During stage 2 our eye movement ceases and we begin to enter into a light dream state.
• Stage 3, Deep Sleep: This is where our bodies enter a far deeper sleep and we are far harder to wake from our slumber. Our body temperature also rapidly reduces.
• Stage 4, Deep Sleep: Our body temperature reduces further, and our brain’s use of energy begins to decrease. If you’re a sleepwalker, this is the stage when this phenomenon occurs.
• Stage 5, Rapid Eye Movement (REM): During this stage our eyes begin to move rapidly, this is the state when most dreams occur. Our heart rate and blood pressure increases and our limb muscles become paralyzed.

So, how much sleep is enough?

The answer to this question varies depending on your age, but it can also vary from person to person. As you grow older, sleep becomes less important. For teenagers (ages 13-18) around 8-10 hours is important, however from the ages of 18+ you only require around 7-8 hours a night.

Foe infants and children, it’s important during their cognitive and behavioral learning stages they acquire as much sleep as possible to allow their brains to hold the memory, learn and grow. For infants between the ages of 4-12 months they will need (including naps) around 12-16 hours of sleep a day. As they grow older the amount of sleep needed decreases.

What happens if we don’t get enough sleep?

A lack of sleep is incredibly dangerous, and this is called sleep debt. So, as an example, if you lost an hour of sleep a night, you’d have a total sleep debt of around 7 hours after a week.

This can, surprisingly, cause you harm and over time could cause serious chronic health issues. A lack of sleep can lead to several different health issues, from the following:

• Excessive tiredness in the daytime
• Headaches and difficult focusing
• Poor memory logging
• Mental health issues (anxiety/depression)
• Chronic health issues
• Making mistakes at work

Those are just a handful of the issues that sleep deprivation can cause. With that in mind, you can see just how important it is to ensure you have a good night’s sleep on a regular basis. So, grab your duvets, and truly enjoy your sleep!

Musings Of A Tired Mummy

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