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acupofbullshit · 8 months

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The ugly, ugly truth of a stone to the heart.

“Even on my worst days, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me? Because I loved you… I swore I’d love you until my dying day.”

Ladies, theybies, gentlemen and kinfolk alike gather round, Gather round!

For I have quite the tale to tell you.

It’s a cautionary true tale of tragedy, heart ache, heart break, love, loss, kindness and a lesson in why empathy isn’t always the best policy.

Our story spans the better part of a decade and… none of it’s enjoyable.

The people in this story are extremely real and is based entirely on fact, truth and genuine circumstance; that being said please do not take it upon yourself to absorb this traumatic situation to make it your own or to use this as a shield to hide behind your own feelings for the situation and the people involved.

If you care too greatly for those involved and you simply want to stay away from the details or would rather live a Schrödinger’s lifestyle I implore you to back out now, stop reading and call it a night… that’s enough social media for tonight.

If not, please read on.

To start I’ll answer some questions as I usually do.

Q. Why are you doing this?

A. I’ve been hounded relentlessly for it on NGL and there’s a character limit there so I figured if you really wanna know so bad? here we are.

Q. Why do you feel the need to do this?

A. Two reasons

1. He’s gonna say I’m crazy and hide the truth so might as well actually be crazy and spill the beans

2. I’ve accidentally opened a door to social media where some of you feel genuinely entitled to the details of my personal relationships and the damage is done.

Q. Will you share your life openly on social media in the future?

A. Maybe… maybe not.

If this experience has taught me anything it’s you really cannot trust the people around you and sometimes you need to trust that the universe knows details you don’t and hears conversations you can’t.

If the circle needs to close, let it close.

It doesn’t matter how much you love them or how badly you want things to change.

Q. Does the other party know you’re sharing these details?

A. Probs not, hey? But I also don’t care?

Not once did that man think about me or our children at any point through his indiscretions… so… 🤷‍♀️

Q. What happens if your kids read this in the future?

A. I’m extremely honest with my girls and they’re already aware of the important details and this is a lived experience for us all.

I’m not sharing aaaaaaaaalllll the traumatic shit because… I don’t want to relive that? Just the relative need to knows.

trigger warnings in effect for infidelity, abuse, anger, sadness, depression, miscarriage and everything else that feels like anguish.

Are you ready kids?

Because it’s gonna be a bumpy ride…

“I didn’t have it in myself to go with grace”

Let’s take you back 10 years. It’s 2014, MH370 Is missing, Ebolas a problem, Vine is popping off and Fancy by Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX is taking the world by storm.

I’m a newly single 21 year with 2 kids under 3 and my friends are trying to set me up with a cute boy they knew who, I was CERTAIN wasn’t interested in me.

The boy could barely look at me without frowning and when I tried to speak to him he always looked like he was in pain. There was no way he liked me… and yet he was asking me on a date.

He was a little younger, lots of fun and very handsome… and also NINETEEN. And he didn’t have kids of his own. And liked to party. And he didn’t finish school. And he couldn’t drive and he didn’t have any responsibilities and he had his whole life ahead of him… why on earth would this man chain himself to a woman with 2 young children?

Trading in Kesha and Skrillex in dark rooms overflowing with booze and dimly lit with lasers for Peppa pig and Disney movies on the couch illuminated with a nightlight and a 3 years olds giggle… not the most ideal trade for a young man and yet still, he promised he wanted it.

He wanted a family, a life, a house full of love and children of his own someday.

“Even if it does work out and he actually likes me it’s a recipe for disaster … this is a bad idea” I thought to myself.

10 years later I kick myself for not trusting my instincts and hate the fact that, like always, I was right.

Ok I’m not always right.

Once I thought there were 100 seconds in a minute and 60 centimetres in a metre... yeah yeah, I know. I KNOW.

But I am always right about PEOPLE. who they are, how they act as their true selves and their core motivations.

When you’ve been through enough trauma to madden a small army you get pretty good at seeing things for what they are… and even better at delusionally pretending you can’t and especially so when love is involved.

Back to the story.

Time wore on and we were happy... Mostly.

Or at least we were right up until our first major hurdle as a couple… infidelity.

The genius accidentally showed me someone’s nude photographs on his computer while trying to open an anime for us to watch.

How was it handled?

He said I planted it there to make him look bad and that I was trying to set him up.

Listen, I’m crazy… but I’m not INSANE.

I dye my hair pink on a whim and drive interstate for a meal. I’ll laugh so hard at a seal screaming at a traffic cone I’ll accidentally trigger a panic attack.

See? Crazy, but not insane.

Naturally I rebutted and refuted his claims but he doubled down which is when he learned gaslighting was an effective tool to weaponise against someone with admitted lapses in memory.

Yes, you can start cringing now. It only gets worse from here.

We hadn’t even hit our first anniversary before the cracks were well and truly embedded and they ran DEEP.

And I stayed. Stupidly, because I thought somehow I DID somehow plant them there or it WAS somehow my fault.

What if it WAS an old photo that he just happened to have saved to his desktop that he forgot about? Benefit of the doubt right?

Wrong. WRONG.

I look back on that poor young gullible woman and I’m filled with rage. He’s nice, sure but he’s not worth the thousands of dollars in therapy and the years of happiness lost.

Stacey, you should have run. Got out clean! Dodged a bullet!

It doesn’t matter if there was another failed relationship, this wasn’t on your hands you don’t have to prove you can outlast something out of spite anymore.

BUT I DIGRESS.

we move on, things change.

We put in some work together, I change jobs he goes back to school to get his apprenticeship… things are going kinda great! (Aside from my medical mishaps and me losing my job that is)

…And then we got new neighbours.

That’s when the real trouble began.

Within a year of them moving in he had made friends, destroyed a marriage, broke up two families and forced us to move.

Why? Because he just had to try and (maybe) succeed in fucking his best friends fiancée (our next door neighbours).

That one was hard.

I had just endured a miscarriage and was undergoing a likely cancer diagnosis… I’d spent the day before having holes poked into my cervix to remove suspicious cells and I was worn out and exhausted.

After a long ass day of being in pain and raising girls I had just put dinner on the table and felt ready to cry. He tried to cheer me up and show me a “a funny meme” at the table. What he ended up showing me was my very pregnant next door neighbour masturbating in a towel.

I didn’t laugh at the hilarious portrait. He wasn’t laughing when I threw him out of my house and slammed the door. The neighbours saw, they whispered “see, he said she was insane”

I didn’t care.

He deleted the evidence of the affair and tried to convince me I didn’t actually see anything and i had just made it up. She got ahead of the curve and told her partner I was just an awful woman with an axe to grind.

“It’s the stress of the situation, it’s because you’re sick. You’ve just lost your job. You need me”

I could scream now.

Therapy made me believe I was somehow responsible for this adult child’s inability to regulate his impulses

“He has adhd… and addiction issues… relapses will happen but you love each other. He can’t be fully held accountable for his actions you’re going to have to learn to work around these problems”.

“You both want to work on this right?”

Right?

It’s not like you have a lot going for you anyway…

One more shot… just one more.

And then while we were in the thick of working on our relationship to each other he left for work again and lived in Newcastle 5 days to 7 days a week for 6 months.

I stayed here, trying to work full time, raise 2 kids and wrap up a custody battle.. he forgot I even existed. He’d forget to call… forget to message… forget to tell the girls good night…

You can guess what happened.

Of course you can, you see the pattern. You’re not blinded.

And you know what? I definitely saw it too.

Except now? He’s adored by my girls and were newly engaged I can’t just back out now.. I can’t take away their parent.

It’s not their fault he does these things and he’s mostly so good to them… maybe I could just learn to live with this….

Maybe if I just lost the weight or tried harder to be a better wife or was more demure and less abrasive… maybe I needed to change my hair or my style or my entire personality… maybe tattoos might help.

Maybe if I changed everything about myself it might make it easier for him to want to love me…

Stacey you fucking Brussel Sprout you’re TRAUMATISED.

He didn’t need to gaslight me anymore. I was doing it to myself FOR him.

Can you believe we haven’t even hit the half way point yet.

The next ones though… these were DOOZYS.

It’s now 2019. We’re supposed to be getting married in 3 months. Guess who’s texting pictures of his dick to women on the internet again? SPOILER ALERT: It wasn’t me.

The wedding is off. We’re just living together at this point out of sheer necessity.

And that’s when things really took a turn.

I won’t get into the details because.. this bit is really REALLY sad but the highlight reel runs: a broken hand from punching a hole through the floor, a trip to the emergency mental health unit for one, $30,000.00 in debt and three of us in crisis accomodation over Christmas in a hostel later I’m now free… and he was in the local gatts bed the day I left.

Moving forwards I have my own place, I’m feeling better, I worked on myself and I was feeling great about life again.

He and I are still friends trying to maintain a friendship for the girls who still adore him. They don’t know any different and I don’t have the heart to tell them.

And then covid happened.

And he started staying more and more frequently… and he’s changed and he’d worked on himself and things were different this time…

I wanna puke I’m so dumb. DUMMMMBB.

For a while though, things actually were great. We were working together as a team, the girls were thriving and things were going well…

So why won’t he commit to long term goals?

The tension was palpable. Our friends were CONFUSED. I was devastated.

From the very beginning all I had ever asked for was for him to love me and the girls unconditionally and that we’d get married and grow our family together.

This was only ever expanded to include “and to not cheat on me”.

He swore these goals were shared. Promised these were things he wanted too and that he definitely wanted them.

So why, after 7 years of back and forth would he not ask me to marry him and make things official? He’s asked before right? Why won’t he ask again?

Why after 7 years did we have no savings, no shared major assets and no real plan to expand our family? Why did we not have a 5 year goal?

Because he didn’t want too in the first place.

I begged.

Cried.

Pleaded.

“What can I do?” I’d lament.

“Why is this just not working” I’d whisper between sobs. And he’d comfort me. Reassure me it’s not me, things are just tough… the excuses were endless.

“Why am I not enough?” I was torturing myself.

We were in the throws of twice weekly couples therapy that I’m paying a shit tonne for.

I’m doing the homework, I’m working on my communication, I’m engaging in the sessions and baring all because I’m committed to making this work.

Him?

“It’s hard for me, you know I don’t like reading. Talking about myself makes me uncomfortable, I lost the homework binders, I hate doing these exercises they’re dumb and they do nothing”.

And then guess who unexpectedly fell pregnant? Me. It was me.

I was thrilled. He was mad.

I don’t think he actually expected this to happen, I mean I know he didn’t because he accused me of cheating on him for it to have happened. I didn’t, by the way.

No matter though, a routine check up revealed this little angel wasn’t proceeding.

I spent my New Year’s Eve in a hospital alone and scared having the news confirmed to me that the child I had longed for hadn’t made it and it was time to proceed with the next steps… and then we went to a pool party so he could ignore me.

“We can’t let our friends down Stacey, they’re expecting us. It might do you some good.”

My mind was elsewhere. I was a shell. On another astral realm while my body just robotically moved on the physical plane.

He? Was on an inflatable unicorn in the pool living his best life.

Splashing and smiling and laughing like nothing was wrong.

Was I wrong? Was I wrong to feel this way? It had only been 10 weeks maybe he’s right and maybe I was just too attached to an idea…

A few days later I proceeded to endure the most traumatic medical procedure of my life. After bleeding uncontrollably for hours at home I attended the emergency department where they completed a bedside extraction without pain relief because all the ORs were contaminated with covid patients.

A 24 year old nurse named Bethany who confessed earlier she was so overwhelmed and wanted to leave the profession held my hand and let me cry into her shoulder while another nurse held my legs apart so the doctor could do what he needed to do.

He stayed home and played Spider-Man to pass the time. Granted it was during covid and it was suggested he wait outside, I didn’t expect him to go home brag about finishing the game.

Y U C K

Then there was the incident at our best friends wedding… l wasn’t myself again yet after losing the baby the month prior but it was our friends wedding and I wanted to be there.

We booked a hotel room on the premises, I wanted to make it special. I put in some EFFORT to look as hot as I could… it didn’t work.

He got trashed and threw up in a garden because he didn’t want to spend time with me. I wanted to sit next to each other and dance on the dance floor and feel the love in the room…

He staggered to the hotel room.

I stayed a little longer because it was our best friends wedding? And I wanted to enjoy it?

I danced with my friends mum.

Hopped in the Photo Booth with some friends, ate some cake and then my social battery ran dry.

Exhausted, it was my turn to stumble back to the hotel room. My swollen feet rubbing in my heels, a little tipsy from the wine and lost because the room numbers didn’t make sense.

I find my way back and he’s passed out on the bed, fully suited, shoes still on and phone in hand.

Silly man. I thought. Had too much fun.

“I’ll get his shoes off for a start.. now I’ll put his phone on charge for him…” it was still unlocked. Messages open. He was sexting our old neighbour again.

I dropped the phone. Stifled my cry.

I sat cross legged in the bottom of the shower and sobbed for hours.

The usual.

I was embarrassed and ashamed.

My friends can never know… at their wedding?!

He’d be dead by morning.

I kept it to myself. I mean I confronted him when he found me in the shower but that one I wanted to keep to myself.

I wish I didn’t.

It wasn’t long after that he went away for work AGAIN. our entire life was him disappearing for weeks to months at a time for work. This time it wasn’t too far away and it was a short trip to Bathurst for a few days but I had a hunch…

Sigh.

This is just a joke now.

Cycle repeats. There’s another woman, there are photos, there are messages and I feel sick except this time there’s an ultimatum. Do it again and this time I’ll burn your life to the ground.

He promises and I do too. He promised he’d do the right thing, I promised I’d set fire to everything we’d built together just to watch the flames cleanse and scorch the earth between us.

He went straight back to love bombing and I’d just checked out at this point, going through the motions of life waiting for the inevitable error.

Because I knew it was coming.

It could take a week, it could be 5 years but I knew it would come…. And boy oh boy did it come.

The wheels well and truly fell off the wagon when he forgot my 30th birthday and said I was dramatic for expecting him to know he had to plan something.

… what.

It’s your significant others birthday… a milestone one… you didn’t have to build me a palace dude I just wanted a fuckin’ card and maybe for you to plan something with the kids.

I was biding my time. I knew our relationship was over.

We were now approaching 10 years of …. This… and there was still no ring on my finger. No love in our house and no children running free.

25 May 2024, the break up date was set in my mind.

I was waiting it out when again… 2 little pink lines came up in August.

I didn’t want to allow myself to be hopeful but I did.

The more time went on the more excited I got and the more distant he became.

“It’s just nerves after what happened last time”

*pterodactyl screech*

NO IT’S NOOOOOTTTTT.

The Second trimester rolls around, we’re starting to tell everyone... I’m jazzed. I feel like my life’s falling into a disjointed step and things are looking relatively good… that deadlines looking really silly now. Maybe I was wrong? I wanted so BADLY to be proven wrong. I had HOPED I was wrong.

The only thing that stopped me from announcing our news to everyone we knew? We were waiting on our harmony test to confirm a gender before I told my parents who I knew would be over the fuckin’ moon.

A 15 week routine check up confirmed our daughter Emery lost her heartbeat sometime that week.

I was devastated.

Gutted.

Drowned in grief.

And I felt so alone.

I felt like I was mourning this loss and a bit more on my own and I couldn’t understand why. I knew my daughter was gone but I couldn’t understand what else I was grieving.

Subconsciously I think I knew.

Like another cruel twist of fate I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. No waves of rolling pain it was just ow. It’s labour but it’s wrong.

In the middle of the night I drove myself to the hospital and delivered my little girl on my own. The staff were incredible and concerned I was alone.

They dosed me up on morphine and I silently wept for hours.

By the time he arrived to the hospital to “support me” I was ready to go home.

I drove myself home to cry my eyes out and get our kids ready for school and he went to work like it was another normal day.

Weeks go by and I’m lost; spiraling into a deep depression and I can’t anchor myself to anything to slow the decent.

I’m stuck somewhere between sorrow and anger and a weird dissociative state that I can’t shake.

I’m trying to run my household, turn up for work, parent my children, look after myself and be a good friend and an attentive partner but I’m falling short at every turn. Everything I touch becomes sick with melancholy.

Everything I’m trying isn’t working.

And then it hits me. I’m grieving alone.

I am GRIEVING alone.

I am doing it ALL by myself. All the household chores, all the errands, all the things required to maintain a family and a relationship. I’m going to my appointments alone. I’m going through the motions alone. I’m crying alone. I’m awake at night with my heart in pieces alone. I’m reading the books alone, I’m trying to cope alone and I’m trying to love again alone.

Our intimacy disappeared as soon as he knew we were expecting and it just didn’t come back.

He was always so angry at me because I couldn’t get it together and he’s constantly on his phone… I know what this is…. I’ve seen this movie before and I know how it ends.

My heart sank.

Dread seeps in.

The insidious feeling creeps into the back of my mind and I cannot shake it.

So I did the cardinal Cardi B sin.. I went through his phone that night and I found some things I definitely didn’t like.

He was cheating the entire way through our pregnancy, loss and afterwards.

Including the night I delivered.

Who is she? Some girl i met on TikTok. How long has it been going on for? Not long, a few months.

I saw red.

I cut sick.

I went feral.

You don’t need me to tell you why.

I was definitely done this time. The ick was severe.

I screamed in agony. Ugly hot tears spewing from my eyes with pure unbridled rage. How dare you. How very fucking dare you.

I threw what I could get my hands on, clawed at my own skin to try and hold onto the pieces of my soul that were so desperately trying to escape my body… I had descended into madness.

I spat words laced with venom from a place of hurt, building and bubbling over the last 10 years all coming out like an unstoppable crescendo.

My body in a state of shock didn’t know whether to turn my brain off as a response to trauma, have a panic attack or violently grieve through the pain I felt. Somehow, it did all three.

I’m not proud of the woman I was that night… not the nights immediately after.

Grief on grief on grief on grief… I had already lost so much it had just compounded into this hideous snowball.

My best friend, my child and now my love.. what could possibly be next?

Things became extremely uncomfortable when I confirmed to him I was definitely done this time. I couldn’t look at him and feel comfort and I couldn’t find solace in his eyes anymore. All I felt was a burning hot rage and bitter, BITTER betrayal and I wanted to rip down the walls of the house we built together.

He kept telling me we could make it work that it was a mistake and he was regretful and he was committed to change this time around.

Too late bro.

The little part of me that still loved you died the second I read you had called HER the day I delivered a corpse but you couldn’t call me to check on me?

Vile.

I had always thought that I wasn’t a prize, that I wasn’t worth shit and that nobody would love me and I should be grateful for the small bits of love and the bare minimum I got.

I thought that the love and affection I had so desperately tried to cultivate just wasn’t real and only existed to serve as a plot device in fairytales.

I thought that if I left him my life would be over and the walls would collapse in. That I couldn’t live without him in my life… like I didn’t know how. I wasn’t ready to let go or maybe I didn’t want too.

Our shared trauma bonds didn’t allow me to see what a life without toxicity could be.

It was awful and tumultuous but it was familiar and it was safe.

I was terrified of starting over and petrified of being alone.

That I would somehow be judged for not being able to make this work and that somehow it would be me to blame that I couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering. That my daughters would somehow hate me for taking away their father figure.

Stupid, I know.

That night was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. As soon as I verbalised to myself and to him that whatever this was was… whatever the last decade was… was done it was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and the dark rain cloud drowning me had dissipated.

I began to feel free.

The person I thought I lost slowly began creeping back in… I felt more and more like myself everyday.

We made the decision to run the lease out and still live together for the time being. It was only a few months. It was achievable… right?

I hated the animosity I still felt but I loved the person I was rebecoming. I thought I could do it.

I am an idiot and I was wrong.

I hadn’t told anyone about what was happening except my 6 closest friends who have supported me through this like absolute legends. If you were anywhere near my socials you would have guessed something was up but I didn’t really elaborate to anyone outside the 6.

I was happy and coping as best I could. But I wasn’t immune. Crying fits, bouts of anger and just real mean shit wasn’t uncommon… it was quickly becoming apparent this was terrible for my mental health and couldn’t be sustainable.

I can’t live with looking at the face of my trauma and he can’t live with me wanting to rip his throat out of his body any time I see an exposed neck.

Something has to give.

Flash forwards to New Year’s Eve. Some time had passed and a very nice man who had been checking in on me as a friend messaged me nicely on Instagram to wish me a happy new year and said that they were grateful to know me and was excited for us to be excellent friends in 2024.

I echoed the sentiment.

He then replied to a photo I had posted to my story to say I looked very good and that the picture itself was Lock Screen worthy.

A little cheeky, a little flirty… but I liked it.

But just like anything in this story, it’s not quite that simple because even though he was a third party with limited knowledge of the state of my personal affairs except for the fact I was vaguely single and based of that information decided to compliment a girl on the internet… he unknowingly and unwittingly set off an uncomfortable chain reaction resulting in me learning exactly who my ex lover really was and what they were actually capable of… and this poor man was unfairly caught in the crossfires of someone else’s mistakes.

And that’s something I’ll be regretful for, for the rest of my life.

Unbeknownst to me, while I was reading the nice message of appreciation for my friendship and a cheeky compliment that had my self confidence on the rise so too, was my ex partner.

Reading over my shoulder in a veiled attempt to pry into my personal life.

He was big mad.

Mad someone had the audacity to be kind to me. Mad someone had the gumption to think I was pretty. Mad someone had the gaul to tell me so. Mad someone had the hide to appreciate my friendship and what I could offer.

He was MAD mad.

I promise you, if you saw a screen shot from this extremely tame and respectful interaction you’d sit there and think … “is that it?”

No grand display of love or devotion, no vulgar sexting, no big feelings and nothing even remotely derogatory towards my ex partner. Just two pals saying “happy new year and hey, you look cute tonight by the way”.

Until that very moment when he dropped a cheeky flirt it had only ever been platonic between us…Except for the night we met 2 years ago but that’s a story for another time haha.

So why… why was this man reacting like I’d tipped his mother’s ashes down the sink? Like he was somehow still entitled to me and the love I want to give and receive?

He stormed out of the room and disappeared for hours to sulk… I was confused. We weren’t together, it’s not my place to pry into his personal life and whatever’s got him upset… I guess I’ll let him go…

until I get a message from the nice man that read something like:

“Hey, uh I don’t want to start shit but I’m a little concerned… who is this guy and why is he liking my photos from years ago?”

… what.

The screenshots came in.

They didn’t know each other. I was their only mutual friend. I hadn’t mentioned this man by name. He doesn’t go by his legal name on the internet let alone his Instagram handle… How did he know who he was?

“I’m so sorry I’ll handle it”.

We duke it out. Not my best choice to do it infront of a giant glass window.

Our new years guests couldn’t hear what was happening but they sure could see…

I was in protective mode for a man I barely knew but why should this man be a victim of intensive cyber stalking for complimenting me? Why should his privacy be invaded like that because my ex couldn’t get his shit together and fumbled the bag?

None of that is this nice man’s fault.

Besides, WE WEREN’T EVEN TOGETHER. WHY DID IT MATTER SOMEONE ELSE WAS NICE TO ME.

More venom fell out.

“There’s been a line behind you waiting for an opportunity this entire time, you only held your place at the front because I left that place open for you”

Not my best work, but definitely a pivotal moment for my own self confidence because… there WAS a line. I AM desirable. I AM wanted. I CAN be loved and I don’t need to torture myself by staying with someone who can’t offer basic respect let alone something more.

I’ve got goals. I’ve got places I wanna be. I have achievements I wanna tick off and I don’t want to be held back anymore by an emotionally deficient fuck boy.

And I realised I can live my best life with my good Judy’s by my side, my girls by my side and my family by my side.

I mean it would be nice right to have someone love you and see you and love your kids unconditionally and have the same shared interests or goals… but I’m the master of my own destiny and fuck anyone that gets in the way of that.

Anyway, he flipped it.

So much so he did the unthinkable.

Now I understand being upset. I understand acting on impulse and I understand hitting someone where it hurts when they’ve wronged you if it’s deserved.

WHEN it’s deserved.

Over 10 years of knowing someone you come to learn quite a bit about them and what really gets them excited and in turn what really upsets them.

He absorbed my secrets, my fears and my insecurities just to weaponise them against me.

Cheating on me is one thing.

Lying to me is another.

Taking one of the worst parts of my life and making me relive it for your own entertainment and manipulation? NEW LEVEL OF FUCKERY UNLOCKED.

Over the next few days I started to receive some pretty nasty anonymous messages… some I posted to my story some I didn’t.

Most were targeted at me and my appearance, some were targeted at the man that was messaging me to spread rumour, some at my kids and some were targeted at my ex partner.

I’ve been the victim of a hate campaign before so these messages were admittedly quite triggering. They preyed on the most insidious thoughts that live in the back of my mind.

Who was this person? Why would they say these things to me? The only people sending me these messages are people I already know and I can’t imagine these people saying such awful things…

My mental health took a slight sidestep and I went full undercover operative.

I set up my own little investigation. No one was more surprised when it lead me to him.

No.. I must be wrong it couldn’t be…

Until it was with out a doubt confirmed when he stupidly dropped the nice man’s legal name in an anonymous message.

There were only 4 people who knew we were talking to each other let alone his name and I definitely didn’t send the message… neither did the nice man… my best friend certainly wouldn’t have done it so it left only one option.

I paid for premium access to the NGL app. Got the clues I needed about the sender of the messages and confronted him.

He lied.

He always does.

Even when confronted with the truth.

Tried to gaslight his way out of it. Again. But it wouldn’t work this time.

The proof was right in front of us. I had the very compelling evidence. It couldn’t be disputed.

After trying to lie for a 4th time he confessed it was true and he did send some of those nasty ass messages in an attempt to manipulate my self confidence, sow the seeds of deceit between the nice man and I so I wouldn’t want to talk to him anymore and to make me feel sorry for him for all the hate he was getting online.

Again, like a bull charging at a waving flag I saw RED.

“You have a month. Get out of my house. Never speak to me again.”

This was a new low. A real ugly point. I had never cheated on him. I’d never betrayed his trust. I’d never been intentionally mean like this.

Why…

W H Y .

I immediately unfriended him off what I could. What I couldn’t, I blocked.

We weren’t friends. We never truly were. Friends don’t hurt each other like that. Friends don’t do shit like that. That’s enemy behaviour.

Only someone who despises you would do those things, any of those things let alone all of those things over a prolonged period of time.

I didn’t think this could get any worse and yet there I was… publicly bullied by my ex on the internet for his own enjoyment.

It’s time. It’s time to tell everyone. My parents… my siblings… our wider network of friends… my girls.

My girls….

Sitting the girls down was tough… an activity I never want to do again.

A conversation I thought we would have with them together to tell them we couldn’t make it work and their stepdad would be leaving - the last little honourable thing he could do… apologise to them… be honest with them… love them… and let them go gently ended up with me in tears telling them on my own that everything had fallen apart and mum was sorry.

My best friend holding one daughter while I held the other. And we all cried.

My best friend was the one helping me to explain everything to our daughters and work through the complex emotions we were all feeling. Drying tears, answering questions and reminding them this isn’t their fault…

They were devastated. My eldest fumed and my youngest sobbed in pain… their first real heartbreaks.

I’m grateful for her everyday. I’m grateful for her kindness, her love and her support but this wasn’t heartbreak she had to endure. This wasn’t her responsibility to step in… it was his.

He aimlessly folded the same piece of washing and watched the conversation unfold.

He didn’t say a word.

If I had felt guilty before asking him to leave, putting my girls first or leaning into the nice man’s advances I definitely didn’t now.

… And I still don’t.

“2nd of Feb dude, you gotta be outta here. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have anywhere else I won’t put us all through this anymore you need to make your arrangements and your exit from stage left”

I’m in my healing era. My lover girl era. My ‘be a better friend’ era. My ‘be an excellent mum’ era. My stand up for myself era. My evolution era.

And I will not lie, romance has indeed found me along the way.

And I’m so okay with that.

It’s unconventional. It’s different. It’s kind and respectful. It’s considerate and tender. It’s FUN. it’s goofy and it’s pure…

I’m pretty sure it feels like it’s supposed to.

It’s not a fight to the death every day. It’s not a struggle. It’s not nights crying myself to sleep wondering where I went wrong (it was most nights that we were together… I won’t lie). It’s not toxic fights that have me worried about what’s going to be broken this time.

I don’t need to wonder if this man actually likes me, he makes sure I know.

It’s honest and supportive and REAL…

and it’s a steep learning curve.

I have a lot of unlearning to do and behaviours to quash to be a better version of myself… not just for myself but for everyone in my orbit but for the first time in a long time I’m excited for what happens next.

The next few months will be hard financially, emotionally and physically.

But I have a kick ass gang of friends, 2 amazing daughters who under the circumstances are thriving, a fantastic therapist (shout out gabz the big dawg) and someone I can invest all my extra love into and is more than happy to send it right back.

I’m going for surgery in a week, I have a plan in place to correct my health and I’m pushing myself to be the best possible version of myself not just for me or for them… but for you too, dear reader.

Given so much of my life was shared openly and then used against me to hurt me by people I trusted and loved I can’t say for certain this level of openness will remain.

Some aspects of my life will be kept just for me, my girls lives will still stay off the internet until they’re ready (occasional happy snaps and tidbits will still flow freely don’t worry about that), I’ll still share the cool shit I’m up to with work, the dumb shit my friends and I get amongst and life events with my new significant other will be shared when and if I find one.

But only if and when I want too.

And I won’t use social media to cover up my extreme unhappiness.

Not everything you see on the internet is real and I too have played a part in that.

Relationships are complex, no one has the perfect one and keeping up appearances only gives you more heartache than what it’s worth.

So if there’s any wisdom I can impart on you it’s this:

💜 You are more than your relationships.

💜 Fuck the haters, they’re gonna chat shit anyway you might as well give them something to talk about.

💜 You are precious and deserve to be protected and loved and to be happy.

💜 don’t settle because you’re expected to.

💜 You can cut parts of yourself down but no matter how far you trim you’ll never fit into the box you think you should be in.

If you don’t fit, get a bigger box.

💜 Nothing on the internet is real.

💜 Sometimes letting go is necessary to heal.

💜 Love will find you in the most unexpected of ways and in the most unexpected places.

💜 Listen to your friend that gets the weird vibes, they’re usually right.

💜 The NSW healthcare system both sucks and is excellent at the same time.

💜 Do what you want, it’s not too late to start over. You’re gonna die eventually… live the life you want.

💜 Live in the now and the future. The past is a place we can visit but you cannot live there.

💜 Just because you’re happy sometimes it doesn’t outweigh the heartache all the time.

💜 Don’t sacrifice yourself. For anyone.

💜 People will understand eventually.

💜 Just because you can do everything on your own doesn’t mean you have too

💜 You shouldn’t suffer in silence or alone.

💜 HABITUAL CHEATERS WON’T CHANGE

And thus ends a 10 year tale of a strong AF girlie who is owning a new, better phase of HER life.

She rescued herself from the damn tower, set her daughters free, reacquainted herself with her besties and picked up a cutie on the way out to get Starbucks.

I’m writing new pages in a book I thought I’d finished and I’m excited to see the life that’s out there waiting for me. I’m excited to reacquaint myself with myself again. I’m excited for new experiences, better relationships with everyone around me and not having to wear shoes inside to avoid the broken egg shells and bits of ego on the floor.

And him? Feeling sorry for himself I guess. Or not. I’m not sure and I don’t think I care to find out.

Maybe he’s realised what he’s lost, maybe he’s awake in the middle of the night languishing in pain, maybe he’s grieving or maybe he’s just fine and couldn’t care less.

Either way, my thoughts don’t live there anymore, they live with me.

“You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same cursing my name, wishing I stayed… You turned into your worst fears…

And you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain and crossing out the good years… and you're cursing my name, wishing I stayed… Look at how my tears ricochet” - Taylor Swift

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