When Michelle Cumberbatch was a child, her Regent Street neighbour ‘Aunty Ethel’ discussed her marital issues with her and, she recalled, she was always ready to listen. Over the years, that listening ear was always there for whomever, but it was only a few years ago that the mother of four decided to make what may have been her lifelong passion, a career.
Now 50, Cumberbatch believes she is where she belongs as a ‘healthy relationship’ coach. It took building and bettering her marriage of 27 years – which, she acknowledged, for many years was fraught with issues – to reach the point where they are now comfortable as a couple.
For her, that experience trumps any academic qualification she has as she journeys on her new career path. It is that experience and her conversion into the Christian faith that she leans on heavily as she works with mostly women in the US and more recently in Guyana as well. Cumberbatch admits that she is not equipped to counsel abused women (she makes it clear to all that once abuse is involved they should leave) but said she is more focused on helping women to date healthily and also make their existing relationships healthy and grow.
During a virtual interview with this newspaper from her US home, it was raised with Cumberbatch that some may baulk at her Christian-oriented approach to coaching. She admitted that it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, she said she has not received any such push back, but there have been cases, especially in the US, where she opted not to coach someone or they refused her service because of their beliefs.
“I don’t deal with religiosity. I deal with stuff that you can even back it up with science. I am not shying away from loving Christ but that’s not how you receive what I give… I am only interested in the ones who are going to run to what I am saying because it makes sense to them, it actually aligns with them…,” Cumberbatch explained.
If there is anyone’s life experience that helped to propel their new career path it is Cumberbatch’s. As a young mother of two, she found herself without her husband 30 days after they were married due to his incarceration. She, however, navigated those uncharted waters and in the end remarried. It was not all smooth sailing and she is not shy to share her life’s experiences.
Initially, her coaching business, Our Life’s Moments, offered one-on-one sessions but she has moved off from this (she still does a few for a period of six months) and does coaching in groups from ten and up; these last for ten weeks. She offers four courses: love yourself, dating with a purpose, becoming his wife and relationship rehab. She has a bachelor’s degree in leadership, a certified licence to be a coach and associate degrees in culinary and marketing.
“But I think my experience and my connection to Christ trumps it all. My programmes are not cultivated out of academia, [but] from downloads of literal feelings that God puts into me…,” she said confidentially.
For her, it is not about telling people what to do with their relationships but helping them to make decisions outside of their emotions which cloud them, as opposed to being informed and clear headed. She makes an exception if violence is involved as she encourages women in abusive relationships to leave.
‘Passion talent’
Cumberbatch refers to her coaching career as her ‘passion talent’ and referring to the ‘Aunty Ethel experience’ she recalled that the woman discussed her marital problems with her for years, before she left Guyana bordering on her 13th birthday.
“This was going on for years. I would ask her what happened, even the sexual details,” she recalled. “I am in this woman’s business as a child and I am asking for all the details. I find myself also being constantly [sought] out to hear people’s problems, never thinking of it as anything that I should pursue…”
It was a “little situation”, she said, referring to her childhood sweetheart turned husband going to jail days after they tied the knot. It was during that process she met a family friend whom she fell in love with.
“I believe that is where my journey started because in that process I thought I knew myself… I was the girl that had all the things you could think about, the exterior was perfect. I wasn’t lacking anything but yet still my husband could throw my mind into total chaos because my insecurities came up big time,” she said.
This saw her constantly not “feeling enough” and finally she had to “confront my demons. My demons were, I had a bunch of insecurities and I found my validation through the things I was able to adorn myself with.” Her husband is ten years her senior and an intellectual and Cumberbatch said this contributed to how she felt. She said it was her conversion to Christianity that helped to save her and ultimately the marriage.
Referring to her first marriage, Cumberbatch said there were many signs that the wedding should not happen, but she paid no heed. The night before the wedding, one of her hands was smashed in a car accident; her mother’s dress zipper malfunctioned on the day of the wedding; three of her bridesmaids’ dresses disappeared from the seamstress; the wedding was held up for four hours because they could not locate the licence, which was eventually found in plain sight and to top it off the car she hired could not find her and she ended up being transported in an old car.
“Things like that did occur to tell me don’t, but I didn’t listen, so I did pay. Within 30 days, he was incarcerated…,” she said. It was as a result of a criminal act that saw him being sentenced and later deported to Guyana. She shared that she had a huge wedding and that she later had to explain that her husband was in jail.
As a young bride, Cumberbatch said, she had every intention of standing by her man but then she met her present husband. Her first husband had encouraged her to communicate with him as he had offered to assist him in the judicial process. In the end, however, she fell in love with the man who was also married but separated from his wife.
“He came into my life and turned it upside down. He was a lot. When I tell you I was out of my league, I was out of my league. I just fell and I fell hard…,” she recalled.
From that experience, Cumberbatch said, she has learnt that no one should be so intimately involved with a man who is not her partner and they also should not communicate on such a level because it will place them in jeopardy as the man becomes a comforter.
“I literally started to wait for his call instead of my husband’s because he could have fulfilled the things that had nothing to do with sex…,” she shared.
They eventually started living together and she got pregnant. Four years after both their divorces were finalised, they got married.
With her new husband, Cumberbatch said, she realised, “I didn’t know anything. I found myself quite a bit insecure, quite a bit trying to measure up, quite a bit trying to compete with my own demons. I say my own demons because I knew how we got together so that was always at the back of my mind.”
There was infidelity in the marriage, which she said made it worse for her and when she couldn’t cope anymore and she was at a crusade one weekend weeping, she got baptised.
“I gave my life to Christ and started the journey of discovering who I was. I found the power of actually literally finally knowing who I was authentically and saw the value of how it made a huge difference in my life…,” she said
Finding Christ straightened how Cumberbatch functioned. She was no longer the same person and her marriage improved.
Before becoming a relationship coach, Cumberbatch said, she helped to run the family’s retail stores and also worked for the Chick-fil-A chain as a culture ambassador and human resources manager; the latter position saw her listening not only to employees but also to directors.
In 2017, she decided to register Our Life’s Moments as a business, even though initially she was not clear on its form. It was not until 2019 that she went fully into running the business. It was scary at first, as she admitted that what she teaches women in most cases is different from most coaches and initially she questioned whether she was doing the right thing.
“I don’t teach the bible but I do not avoid it because without the actual understanding of it and how it actually syncs with you, I feel there is a gap,” she said adding that she cares about the women who understand what she is saying.
Guyana
Cumberbatch’s work in Guyana started by chance when she was invited to have a chat with a few women while visiting. Initially, she thought she would have been standing on the road corner but she was invited into a church where she addressed a number of women for hours, with them sharing. The next day she was invited again and this drove her to convene a free seminar; by the end of the month she had four clients. More clients came and now 70% of her business is in Guyana and the Caribbean.
In Guyana, Cumberbatch said, most of the women she has met, she goes back to teaching them to first love themselves before working on relationships. She said as well a lot of Guyanese women have turned to YouTube for information and while she is not against this process as there is a wealth of information, the problem arises when they are unsure how to make it applicable to their lives. In some cases they don’t realise but utilising the information they actually make their partner more insecure and instead of helping the relationship they make it worse.
Cumberbatch said she helps them to apply what they have learnt and locally she has dropped the prices for her services in an attempt to help more women. She is now incorporating men in her programme in Guyana.
“There is nothing else, nothing else, nothing else. You could give me ten million. I don’t want it. I am serving my almighty…,” Cumberbatch said, when asked if she has found her niche. For her, serving women in Guyana and other Caribbean countries is paramount even though she will make more money if her business is centred in the US.
She has commenced coaching others, she said, as she needs people to help her make a change to see a better society in Guyana.
