Toby Myles described herself as a grown woman when it happened. She was in her mid-30s with a couple of kids. She was a smart, college-educated, middle class woman who found herself in an explosive, abusive and controlling relationship. She wants you to know it can happen to anyone - even smart girls. She shares how that relationship affected her and how she eventually found her way out of it.

Guest Bio

Toby Myles is a conversion copywriter and owner of Toby Myles Copywriting, specializing in email launch and welcome funnels, sales pages, and website copy and copy coaching for women entrepreneurs and solopreneurs. Toby gets to know her clients’ businesses and their customer’s pain points so she can write compelling copy that converts to growth, connections, and sales!

Toby is a bestselling co-author of Business on Purpose: Inspiring Stories of Women Overcomers who are Changing the World. With over 30 years of experience in marketing and entrepreneurship, Toby has a passion for helping other women grow their audiences and business in a way that feels easy and authentic.

Meet Toby MylesToby Myles married her first husband, who was 10 years her senior, when she was still in college. She thought she was pretty mature for a 20-something but realized upon reflection that she didn’t give herself the space in her 20s to learn about herself. Because she was still in college and her husband seemed to have things figured out, she quickly adopted his life goals as her own but that meant she was living somebody else’s idea of what life should look like.

Several years later, they started a family. First a son and, two years later, a daughter and things started to shift in their relationship, in part due to different ideas of how to raise the kids and what a family should look like. In Toby’s family of origin, the parents did things as adults, taking trips without the kids and having date nights. In her husband’s family of origin, everything was focused on the kids and the family unit. As the kids got older, they started to struggle. Toby wanted more couple time and her husband wanted more family time. That led Toby to realize that she didn’t really know who she was as a person and what she wanted in life.

One of the things that held them together was that they had gone into business together; she was a graphic designer and he was an illustrator. They were very compatible in this area of their relationship. When both the marriage and the business ended, Toby was left wondering about her future. Because her now ex-husband seemed like the perfect match on paper, Toby wondered if there would be another relationship. What would that person be like? Because they had seemed like such a good match, she was perplexed and thought “if that’s not the person, then maybe there isn’t anyone out there for me.”

Several years later she did meet someone else, though. He was the polar opposite of her first husband and, in Toby’s mind, that meant he was the right person for her simply because her husband hadn’t been. She thought maybe he was the yin to her yang.

The Polar OppositeToby’s new boyfriend seemed concerned about her well-being. He would tell her to call him when she got where she was going. Or ask her questions about her day - where she went, who she talked to. At first, she thought it was sweet that he cared about her so much.

But things started to shift. What felt like love became controlling. He started asking how many people she talked to at work on a given day. Then how many men hit on her at work. When she said none, he became accusatory and the conversations would escalate into explosive arguments.

Toby thought that this relationship had to work because her marriage didn’t. This man had had a challenging childhood, so he had his own issues. She thought if she could just love him enough and show him what a healthy relationship looked like, she could help him work through his own issues and everything would be ok.

She was wrong.

She says it didn’t take long before she started to see red flags that she chose to ignore. She chalked them up to her “still learning him.”

What she’s learned about being with someone who is controlling and abusive is that you’ll have these conflicts and, when it’s all over, they’re supremely apologetic and promise it won’t happen again. Then things are fine for a while. But the next time it happens, it’s slightly more escalated.

She also realized that he was trying to shape her into an image that he wanted to see. Many of their conflicts were about how she looked or what she was wearing. Little by little she started to lose herself. She forgot what she loved about herself. She felt like she was walking on eggshells when he was around, particularly when he was around her kids.

In fact, one of her deepest regrets is staying in a situation that was unhealthy for her kids. “It's one thing to stay in a situation that is unhealthy for yourself, but it was unhealthy for my kids and that's not something that I can ever go back and apologize enough for.”

Toby thinks she stayed in that abusive relationship because she thought “that’s what you do” when you have kids. She thinks that if she had been more secure in herself after her marriage failed, she would have had the wherewithal to say ‘this isn’t right.’ When that relationship ended, she went the other direction. She didn’t think she’d ever be in a relationship again.

Turning 40Toby has a clear memory of thinking that she didn’t want to be disappointed by how her 40th birthday went, so she planned it herself. She decided she wanted to go to New York City. At the time, her cousin was a chef at a great restaurant so she decided to take the train into the city, have a great meal and do all the NYC things. Her boyfriend agreed to the plan so she made the reservations and bought the tickets.

On that Saturday morning, the day of her 40th birthday, she woke up early but her boyfriend wasn’t making any moves to get up or get ready even though they had planned on catching an early train. This turned into an argument and Toby said she was going to go without him. That’s when he reached for the iron sitting on the ironing board next to his bed and he threw it at her.

Before she even had a chance to leave, there was a knock at the door. It was the police. A neighbor had heard the argument and called the cops.

When she answered the door, she was visibly upset and the police asked to talk to her in the hallway. She had seen this sort of thing on TV and she remembered thinking “who am I?”

She ended up going to New York City by herself that weekend, but it was only the beginning of the end of the relationship.

The next explosive argument was over something disrespectful he had said to her daughter. For some reason, it was ok when he treated her that way but when he did it to her daughter, it was the final straw. During that argument he head butted her in front of her daughter. Toby says it was almost like she needed the literal blow to her head to wake her up. That was the end of the relationship.

Putting Herself Back TogetherAfter that relationship, there was a lot of work to put herself back together. She got into therapy pretty quickly but sometimes even basic daily tasks were a struggle. In addition to the relationship ending, she was in a difficult financial position.

She started looking for a job that would provide stability, security, benefits and reasonable hours. She didn’t need to love it, but she needed security and a routine for herself and her kids. She found a job in corporate marketing that fit all the criteria. It allowed her to take the kids to school in the morning. That was the first step to putting the pieces back together.

Another thing that was important to her was to become financially independent so she never had to depend on anyone again. She learned from that relationship that when you’re not in control of your own finances, it’s easy to get stuck. But when you can cover all your own bills, you don’t need to rely on anyone else.

Little by little she started to reconnect with the pieces of herself that she had buried during that relationship: her artistic side, her quirky side, her silliness and impulsiveness. She realized it’s ok to be these things and she wanted people in her life who would connect with those parts of her. They didn’t need to be just like her, but they needed to accept her and value her for who she is.

Surprise! Toby thought she’d never be in another relationship because relationships hadn’t worked for her. One day she said as much to her ex-husband who suggested she try out online dating. She tried it and found she enjoyed going out to dinner with someone. But it became a lot of work because she scheduled her dates when her kids were at their dad’s house, which meant squeezing dates into weekends. After a while it became exhausting and she decided to shut down her account, but she had already scheduled three dates on that final weekend of her subscription.

She thought maybe it just wasn’t meant to be - and she was ok with that. She was in a place where she liked who she was. She had her friends, her family, her kids. She was happy with herself and her life.

And it was almost like the universe said, "The minute you accept that about yourself, now we're gonna bring you this gift of this new person, this new relationship who is going to complement your life."

On the final date of that weekend she met her husband.

While Toby felt like her first husband was very much like her and her second relationship was the complete opposite of her, her second husband is a combination. They complement each other. They’re different enough that it keeps things interesting but they’re alike enough on their core values to stay aligned.

One of her core values is using her authentic voice in every facet of her life, which is a value she brings to the copywriting business she started in 2020.

SponsorThe Forty Drinks Podcast is produced and presented by Savoir Faire Marketing/Communications

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