BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 125: The Divorce Glow-Up: Why It Happens & How to Glow Without Leaving

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

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Welcome back to my podcast. Today we're talking about the divorce or post-relationship glow-up. It is gone viral. If I can get some of the viral clips of post-divorce glow-up, it is absolutely diabolically shocking. And I should have come correct in this video and done my makeup and looked incredible to prove to you that one can be married and still look okay. So don't tell me in the comments, I'm ugly. I don't want to know, okay?

I'm putting on my makeup later. today and it needs to be fresh because I'm actually having a date with who with my husband. That's right. Ladies and Jerms. But the point is, and I also forgot my makeup. I forgot my makeup. Who does that? Oh, and in other news, somebody told me on here on my podcast to stop ranting about my personal

life and the sushi worm story and they don't want to, you know, hear about my private life and I should just get down to the points. So fine, we'll get down to the points. We'll get down to the points if that's all you care about. Okay, here we go. I find it a very strange phenomenon, and the reason I want to address it and I want to address things

that are in the social sphere in general is because it's very, very important to address. The rhetoric around a woman who has, I don't know, 15 extra kilos on her, I don't know how much that is in pounds, she is tired, exhausted, sleep deprived, overweight, underweight, whatever she is. She just looks like,

you know what, to be honest, an average, amazing still mum, right? Or grandma even. And then you see her after breakup persona and look and your jaw literally hits the floor. You cannot believe it. And you're like, oh my God, I'm literally going to dump every partner I've ever been with again. I'm going to call them back. Take them into a relationship and dump them again because I want to have that kind of glow up. I want to have this incredible glow up that she's had. And the comments are of course full of women talking about the cortisol spikes that you get when you're in a relationship with someone you shouldn't be with and all of these things which are 100% universally true. What I want to make this video

about is not how you should dump your boyfriend, husband and potential date in order to have a glow up, but more so about why that phenomena happens and what we can do in order to have the glow up within the relationship. Yes, sometimes it's about dead weight, but I want to pivot your opinion and your mind view in this because I don't want you to get to the point of completely abandoning yourself I don't want you to get to the point of the 20 extra kilos and having to rehaul your life I want you to always stay as the priority become obsessed with yourself be on your selfish journey I want you and I know this sounds so unorthodox and unlovely but it is what it is again my notes are

my phone here it is I want to start talking to you why you should not let yourself get to that point. How you need to spot whether the man in your life is going to get you there? Is he a vampiric energy and force in your life? Is he going to drain you and cause you to lose your beauty, your youth, your life force? By the way, I've said this time and time again, your life force, your beauty and your energy should be going towards things that need it. Plants, children, animals and everything else that needs nurturing.

Not grown men. If you're mothering your man, that is the number one sign, of him about to take your beauty, beauty youth and everything, okay? This isn't about glamorizing divorce too. I want you to know that I am not pro-divorce, as in if you want to divorce divorce, I don't really care what you do. But I am not here to just sit and have the old rhetoric of, yes, divorce him queen, leave him queen.

People have children, people have relationships where there's misunderstandings. I believe in the foundation of marriage and working through things. I have had to work through things in the 10 years that I've been married, okay? I want you to learn not to burn yourself to the ground for the sake of relationships, to not center even their relationship, but to detach from the ownership of him in order to have yourself. This is a 10 point system because I like point some of ego, okay? And we're going to go about why it happens, what it means and what you're going to do about

it. So number one is the drop in emotional labor. That is why she's gone from an average overweight, underway. under deprived, over deprived, whatever she is woman, to a 10 out of 10 knockout. Sometimes I cannot believe it's the same person. When I see this content, I'm like, what on earth is going on? And dumb men, stupid men will say, why couldn't she get hot in the relationship? Then it wouldn't have ended.

Because she couldn't Gary, because she dropped the emotional labour. She no longer has to manage two people's feelings, schedules, and has to be in survival mode. A lot of men delegate everything to the woman in their life. and we could sit here until the cows come home and talk about how it's his fault, how he should pick up the slack, da-da-da-da-da. I've told you, let him lead, not because I'm a patriarchal supporter of the patriarchy, but because I want you to do what it is you want to do in your own good free time because I know you've got better things to do than controlling a guy.

Oh my God, why are you controlling him? Why are you telling him what to do? You need to detach from him and be unbothered in entirety about what he does. He is not your son. You do not need to raise him. Okay? If you start to take on the labor of looking after someone else's son who is grown and 40 years old, you will drive yourself into ugliness. Let's just say it. It's going to make you the ugly version of yourself. The relationship may have been subtly or overtly imbalanced. You have taken ownership for some reason and control, which feels like safety and security in the beginning over the life of this man. What you're going to do if you're in a relationship. relationship right now or you're in a dating situation. Check the distribution of energy before it gets too far. Before you divorce him, before you dump him, because truth be told ladies, you're going to

have your glow up, you're going to get hot, you're going to move on, right? And you're going to fall exactly back in the same situation with Richard, okay? Or somebody else. Or Luca. Okay? We're going to go with different names today. You're going to become another codependent in another relationship with another guy because this is what you're used to. You need to check the distribution of your energy. Is your partner? And look, I know what you're going to say. Oh, no, but I've told him to pick up the pace.

I've told him to look after himself. You don't tell, you do. Men do not understand telling. They understand doing. You stop picking up the slack and you let the chips fall where they may. And that might be on his forehead. Do you know what I mean? That he might have to have a few slip-ups, a few oopsies, a few, oh, shit, that happened.

In order to understand that this life cannot be curated for him by another person. He might have been used to it from his mum. He might have been used to it from other girlfriends. That's not going to be you. Your life force should be going to you or to your dependence, animals, plants, children, okay? Not him. Community even, okay? Number two, the loss of yourself in wife mode is another thing that happens. And this one is tragic because I believe wifehood is amazing. I love being someone's wife. I love being someone's mom. I love being someone's sister. I have been someone's friend. I love community. I'm number one advocate for community. But many women subconsciously shift from woman to wife and they see those things as not mutually the same.

Like I always saw growing up and maybe this is due to my mom or the fact that her and all her friends in the 90s in Russia, in the 80s, had kids at the same time when they were 20 years old. So I never identified with matronly loss of self, with motherhood or one. wifehood, but many women do. Many women unconsciously shift from women and sexual being and feminine energy human to caretaker and peacekeeper. They completely give up those roles and then they wonder why their husband no longer finds them attractive. And I know what you're going to write. I don't care what he thinks about me. But you do though. But you do Patricia. You do care what he thinks about you because you love him and you want community and you want companionship and you don't want to be rejected.

So if you don't want that, stop trying to win. favor by always trying to perform the duties of manager, mother, caretaker, matronly woman, and be a sexy being, be a feminine woman. It means her identity is suppressed, okay, when she's in a relationship and you lose yourself because you go, oh, I'm no longer a feminine woman and a sexy being. I am now a wife. And that means a wife is no more important or better than a chair or a utensil in the house. And that is not the case. You're way more. more useful as someone who gives this life force and energy into your relationship. Stop thinking that it's different. Keep your goals, routines and dreams separate. You have your wife role and you have

your woman role. You have to remain being a woman and not just a wife and a mother. Okay. Number three reason this happens. The glow up is nervous system recovery. Okay. It's not just like she started going to the gym and the spa. We know all those girls who go to the gym every day and they eat right and the cortisol is raging through their body and they cannot get a break, right? They're just adrenalinely fatigued. Chronic emotional stress lowers immunity, raises cortisol, affects sleep, affects your weight. Okay? You are chronically worried about him. You are worried, worried, worried. If you cannot detach from a person from trying to control them, from trying to guide them, from trying to make them do right by you, let go. If he's going to do wrong by you, let him. Let him do wrong by you.

Let's see it faster than what you can control. If somebody wants to cheat on you. If someone wants to do wrong, they will do it. There is no hell or high water from you that is going to stop them. Everyone chooses their own path. Her glow up wasn't just aesthetic in terms of these women who have it. It was biochemical, okay? You need to build nervous system regulators. I have just completed my three-day intensive. It's called Unbothered, but it's about balancing your anxious attachment and becoming self-reliant and balanced and whole. it's probably closed now, yeah, it will be closed now. If I run it again next year or at the end of this year, go on the wait list. It's a life changer. It's a game changer. Don't normalize continued dysregulation. You need to self-regulate. You cannot outsource your regulation to him. It cannot depend on him behaving. Of course, if he's doing crazy things that are completely unexpected, yes, you will get dysregulated. But usually you get dysregulated by him not calling you when he said he would, him not being home on time when he said he would. You get constantly dysregulated and so when the woman divorces him or when she leaves her boyfriend,

her system regulates. She doesn't have that stress in her life. You need to have the skills to de-stress yourself within a relationship if you want to be in one. Number four, she puts herself first. Finally, post the divorce, you should be doing that within the relationship, within the marriage. She has no one else to consider and so she's got no guilt about putting herself first because there's no one else there is just her. Women often glow up after their kids go to school. or when their husband leaves and they become hats,

she has optimized herself in her own life as the most important thing, not because she's decided it, and you need to have the balls, or the lack of balls, to prioritize yourself before everyone exits your life stage left, okay? Practice it now, practice it with people around you. Do not wait for yourself to be alone to prioritize yourself. That is not the only time that you should put yourself first when everyone is exited, okay?

The pain becomes a portal. That is reason number five. Divorce brings you to your knees, guys. It breaks you, right? I've not been through it. I don't want to be through it. And that's when she meets herself in those cases. She starts to admire herself. She sees what she's made of. She's not just someone else's wife who she married at 20, who's been doing all the things and paying all the bills and doing all the things. She gets to finally meet herself as an entity as a powerful being, as a being in all these metrics. And when there is no emotional, person to hang yourself on and you've hit emotional rock bottom and you can see yourself in the raw frame of who you are and identify yourself again it's a very powerful feeling and I would advise to not wait to collapse but build a way of self-auditing yourself of being honorable and accountable to yourself of meeting your goals of meeting your deadlines of being who you truly are and connecting with who you truly are before you hit rock bottom if you're in a relationship And all you do is you're his Robin to his Batman.

You need to meet yourself earlier. You need to start relying on yourself earlier. And I don't mean financially, he should be doing everything for you because I want you to win. Okay. But you should also be doing things for yourself. Number six, community comes back on a line. A lot of us disregard our community when we're in a relationship. Yes, we do.

We isolate ourselves. We become, we disappear in our relationship. We ghost our friends. after divorce, we reconnect with people. That is not good. You should be connecting with women because we feed each other in our community, in our raising children. Even when you're burnt out as a mom, it should be a community thing. Don't think of community as asking people for a favor.

Think of it as you owing them a favor, if that's what you struggle with, okay? Prioritize connections outside of your relationships now and nurture your circle. If he has not made plans with you to go on a date, go with someone else. I don't mean a man, okay? if you're not committed to a relationship. I mean, your friends, your girlfriends. And if he then suddenly arcs up and goes, oh, do you want to do something on Friday?

And it's Thursday. And you've already said that you're going out with Eleni. Okay? Then you're going to go out with your friend. You're going to go out with her. You're not going to go, oh, sorry, babe. Now he's free. Now he's free.

So, so, so I'm going to go out with him. No, you need to prioritize people in your life. And if he learns the algorithm that if he misses out, he misses out, then he's going to love you more. it. Number seven, desire returns. A woman's sensuality, appetite and self-expression awakens after she is no longer suppressing it because the sexual relationship with that man was not to her liking or it didn't satisfy her in some ways. Women often numb themselves or turn themselves off physically because she has lost the feeling of safety with a man who betrays her. In some sort of way, he's betrayed her in the

emotionally and she thinks she's just not physically attracted to him anymore but the reality is we are very much emotionally guided and if she feels betrayed by him in the past and i don't mean any epic ways but maybe just as a human being or maybe he didn't show up when she had young kids or maybe he she saw and she voiced it but he never really changed that kills the sexual spark because her intricate safety with him is gone and when he is gone she identifies herself as a sexual being again because she doesn't have to hide. She doesn't have to hide. You see, I wanted to comment on that car being so loud,

but, but, but, but someone told me off in my comments, and now I can't do tangents, and it's really hard. It's really hard not to do tangents. You need to stay in your feminine essence within the relationship and don't let resentment or fatigue mute your magnetism. You need to still think when you're not a sexual being, why? What is it that I don't feel safe about? And if you feel like you need to yell at him, yell at him,

as opposed to muting your own sexuality and sensuality. Because if you suppress it, it's a really painful place to be in. Number eight, you're in control of your time again. You're no longer waiting, negotiating or beforeing for someone else's time. A lot of times women don't do their laser, cryotherapy,

whatever it is that they need to do because they're on someone else's time cooking someone else's meals when that someone doesn't even appreciate it. She gets her own time back and she uses it how she wants to. This woman is glowing up because she's using her time how she wants to.

You need to start using your own time how you want to now. Obviously, don't neglect your children and your family, but you need to start being there for yourself as well. You are your own responsibility. No one else is going to look after you, okay? You need to time block segments of time in your life that you are going to look after yourself because you have to.

It is your duty, okay? Number nine, you rediscover your voice, okay? You rediscover yourself as a person, okay? divorce removes the fear or separation removes the fear of rocking the boat a lot of women are very emotionally aware and men aren't so women start to bend to the likes of what their partner wants to not rock the boat so she just starts speaking a little bit less and expressing herself she leaves him and starts speaking up becoming more bold reinventing herself having decisions like i like the color blue i like the color red it translates as something really

admirable, sexy and gorgeous to the outside eye, okay? But she never expressed herself that before because she was thinking, oh, he's not going to like that, he's not going to like this, he's not going to like that. I've fallen in those traps before in my 10-year marriage and in my relationships where I know exactly what my husband likes or my partner at the time likes, and I just go along with that because I'm not bothered to have an argument. Not that they'd argue with me, but let's just say he likes tacos and I like Italian, I don't, but it's okay. Why do I have to go on a tangent again? Why am I not allowed to go on a tangent?

I actually like tacos and he likes Italian. Anyway, I'd rather go to Italian because I'm just like, I'm not bothered to have that debate, and I want to see him happy, and we're going to be happy, and it's going to be a vibe, right? But if you speak now, not post-breakup, and you practice honest self-expression, you are actually way more attractive in all possible ways and merits than you could ever think you could be, okay?

Number 10, it's an identity rebirth. you're no longer someone's partner, you're just yourself. And being single and being out on the marketplace, potentially even if you don't want anyone, gives you this gravity of like having to identify yourself as someone. You're not just someone's sidekick anymore. You're a claim your own body, you're desires, your own values, but you can't wait for it to rupture within a relationship. Like I said, a lot of people might comment and say, oh, just drop the guy, just forget the guy and move on. But people who are codependent or anxious have a way. to constantly position themselves in the shadow of a partner anyway.

So if you don't address these things within a relationship, a lot of narcissistic men, a lot of men who don't want to be with you, who don't love you, are going to leave anyway, right? So you might as well practice on him within the relationship and see what it looks like when he isn't interested in you anymore because you, I don't know, made pancakes one day because you wanted pancakes as opposed to bacon and eggs, okay? So you might as well practice that within the relationship.

It's not a call this whole thing to leave and glow up because that doesn't happen for everybody, okay? this is a call to already act within the marriage as if you are separated, okay, because then you might be able to save the marriage. If he's an amazing guy, if everything is right except for you yourself, have locked yourself in this pattern where, you know, to truth be told, if I was with a woman who was spiraling like this, always trying to please me and always this, I might not know the reality of the relationship, right?

You as the guy might not even, you know, when you have that friend and you're like, hi, babe, where should we go tonight? And she said, I don't know, I don't mind. It's up to you. up to you, up to you. It's hard to be with a person like that constantly. You know what I mean? So it's on you as well, baby, girl. Time to pour into yourself and have the glow up within the relationship, not outside the relationship, because communal life with other human beings is everything and you cannot just isolate yourself in order to have a glow up. Do it now. Don't feel guilty.

I believe in you. Love you lots like jelly tots. Bye.