Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma mea podcast Muma Mer acknowledges the
Speaker 1: traditional owners of the land and waters. This podcast is
Speaker 1: recorded on This episode deals with discussion of mental ill
Speaker 1: health and assault and won't be for everyone. If you
Speaker 1: or anyone you know needs help, there is a list
Speaker 1: of support services in our show notes. Communication is often
Speaker 1: tauted as the number one maker or breaker of any relationship,
Speaker 1: and Ava and Aaron had it nailed.
Speaker 2: We used to have really long intellectual conversations on the
Speaker 2: couch all night. Where most other couples would be going
Speaker 2: to bed and having sex, We'd sit on the couch
Speaker 2: and talk about just the most random thing for hours
Speaker 2: and hours. Yeah, it wasn't just your normal what's your
Speaker 2: favorite color or where's your favorite holiday destination. They were
Speaker 2: really really deep conversation. So we connected on a really
Speaker 2: deep level right from the get go.
Speaker 1: So when open communication is the number one thing you've
Speaker 1: always had, what does it do to a relationship when
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, one party decides to keep something hidden,
Speaker 1: literally hidden under lock and key.
Speaker 2: The shed was locked with like a huge big pad lock,
Speaker 2: so I could never get in there to have a look.
Speaker 2: There were times that I had tried to go up
Speaker 2: there and get in, but I needed like a really
Speaker 2: big pair of bolt cutters to do it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what are you doing up there?
Speaker 1: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an ex
Speaker 1: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 1: unconventional stories about relationships passed through the eyes and the
Speaker 1: hearts of the very people who lipped them. Every single
Speaker 1: girl knows this setup. A friend who knows a guy
Speaker 1: who's just your type, and you have to meet. And
Speaker 1: that's how our story begins today. Well kind of because
Speaker 1: Ava was being set up, yes, but it wasn't with
Speaker 1: the guy this story is about.
Speaker 2: I was single for a very long time in my twenties,
Speaker 2: and then one particular weekend I went to visit a
Speaker 2: friend interstate and she had said to me, I've got
Speaker 2: the most amazing man for you to meet. So I
Speaker 2: flew into state and spent the weekend with my friend,
Speaker 2: and the most amazing man that she wanted me to
Speaker 2: meet was not actually Aaron, It was his best friend.
Speaker 2: So we went out for the night and I soon
Speaker 2: began to realize that I wasn't really attracted to the
Speaker 2: best friend, but I was attracted to Aaron, and my
Speaker 2: friend had said to me, no, no, no, you can't
Speaker 2: be with Aaron. I've known him for a really long
Speaker 2: time and you won't get along and you need to
Speaker 2: hook up with the best friend.
Speaker 3: She thought he was.
Speaker 2: Extremely arrogant and rude and selfish, and she believed that
Speaker 2: I needed someone kinder, maybe a little less extrovert than him.
Speaker 2: She's like, you would suit someone more introvert because I'm
Speaker 2: an extrovert. And she said the two of you will
Speaker 2: will not match because you'll both want the limelight kind
Speaker 2: of thing. So yeah, she was very adamant he was
Speaker 2: not going to be a good match.
Speaker 1: But what do we do when we're told not to
Speaker 1: do something, ladies.
Speaker 3: I was completely drawn to him.
Speaker 2: I ignored the best friend pretty much the whole weekend.
Speaker 2: The initial attraction was his charisma. He could sell ice
Speaker 2: to the Eskimos. He just had this beautiful aura about him.
Speaker 2: He was extremely smart, he was just interesting. He'd lived
Speaker 2: a really interesting life. He'd lived overseas, He'd had interesting
Speaker 2: experiences and jobs, and I just became fascinated. And I
Speaker 2: think because I've lived a very similar life. I've traveled
Speaker 2: a lot and had a lot of exciting jobs as well.
Speaker 2: We kind of just bounced off each other, and I
Speaker 2: was definitely attracted to him in a more of an
Speaker 2: intellectual way than say how he physically looked. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that quickly agrew for me. It was like we had
Speaker 2: known each other for years, and yeah, there was just
Speaker 2: something there. It was I'd never felt that way about
Speaker 2: someone before. After the weekend, I flew back home and
Speaker 2: Aaron and I stayed in touch and struck up this
Speaker 2: really beautiful friendship to begin with. And then work actually
Speaker 2: took me to the city that he was from. I
Speaker 2: was working in the airlines and one of the airlines
Speaker 2: I was working for was opening a new service in
Speaker 2: his city and asked me to go and set up that.
Speaker 2: So I took that opportunity as a good professional opportunity,
Speaker 2: but also an opportunity in love as well. I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm feeling this way about this man professionally, it was
Speaker 2: going to be a really good decision, and so I
Speaker 2: took a chance and moved.
Speaker 1: Sometimes life just finds a way.
Speaker 2: It was around six weeks after and then when I
Speaker 2: first got to his city, was with another friend, and
Speaker 2: then he actually rang me and said I've got a
Speaker 2: spare room in my house now that I could have
Speaker 2: for really cheap rent. So I ended up moving into
Speaker 2: his house about three weeks after being there, and then
Speaker 2: we stayed together the whole time. So we moved in
Speaker 2: very very quickly. It was like we'd been living together forever. Really,
Speaker 2: it was just so easy. He was amazing cook. He's
Speaker 2: a pedantic cleaner, so I was being very well looked
Speaker 2: after doing quite long hours with my new role, and
Speaker 2: he took charge of the house and I thought I
Speaker 2: could get used to this. There were no red flags.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking, this man is unbelievable. There was
Speaker 2: no love bombing. There was We had the same love
Speaker 2: language and everything. It was spending quality time together and
Speaker 2: he said all the right things and made me feel amazing,
Speaker 2: like I was the only woman in the world. We
Speaker 2: used to have really long intellectual conversations on the couch
Speaker 2: all night. Where most other couples would be, you know,
Speaker 2: going to bed and having sex, We'd sit on the
Speaker 2: couch and talk about the most random things for hours
Speaker 2: and hours.
Speaker 3: He was just interesting, you know.
Speaker 2: He was the kind of guy that always wanted to
Speaker 2: know why. I think even growing up his parents would
Speaker 2: say why is the sky blue?
Speaker 3: And why are we here?
Speaker 2: And he was always very curious about life and experiences,
Speaker 2: and I guess he kind of brought out that curiosity
Speaker 2: for me as well.
Speaker 3: We connected on such a like.
Speaker 2: An emotional level, and yeah, just his intellect is something
Speaker 2: I'd never come across in a partner before. It was
Speaker 2: really good to watch how his kind of brain worked,
Speaker 2: and you know, wanting to know about all different belief systems,
Speaker 2: and you know, we even had talks about death and
Speaker 2: after life, and yeah, it wasn't just your normal what's
Speaker 2: your favorite color or where's your favorite holiday destination. They
Speaker 2: were really really deep conversations. So we connected on a
Speaker 2: really deep level right from the get go. I'm not
Speaker 2: a real believer in love at first sight. I could
Speaker 2: tell that he was going to be the one just
Speaker 2: because of the ease. So I would go as far
Speaker 2: to say probably within the first month, I was getting
Speaker 2: the heart flutters and the butterflies, and you know, wanted
Speaker 2: to race home and be with him, and I know
Speaker 2: he felt the same. He said I love you first,
Speaker 2: and I still remember that day.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was probably only six weeks into our relationship
Speaker 2: that he said that it was like we had known
Speaker 2: each other for years, and yeah, there was just something there.
Speaker 2: It was I'd never felt that way about someone before.
Speaker 2: I had had boyfriends in the past, but this was
Speaker 2: just different and it was easy. And I kind of
Speaker 2: knew then and there that we were going to be
Speaker 2: together and get married. We were both twenty nine, a
Speaker 2: lot of our friends were already in the process of
Speaker 2: getting married and starting to have children, so we were
Speaker 2: late starters, but.
Speaker 3: It moved very quickly.
Speaker 1: How quickly you ask.
Speaker 2: We ended up buying a house after four months together.
Speaker 2: We had to move out of this particular rental, and
Speaker 2: I had a bit of money behind me and he
Speaker 2: did as well, so we kind of thought, well, rather
Speaker 2: than getting into a rental, let's just let's just buy
Speaker 2: a little apartment. So yeah, we did that and got
Speaker 2: to set up our own little love nest and you know.
Speaker 3: Just start to build a future together. It just felt right.
Speaker 2: A lot of people were saying, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: think you're rushing into things, but I'm like, oh, you
Speaker 2: need to trust me. I know when I feel something
Speaker 2: which I haven't felt in past long term relationships before,
Speaker 2: I know this is right.
Speaker 3: At no time did I think it was. It was
Speaker 3: too quick.
Speaker 2: I was just you know, hook line and sinker in
Speaker 2: my own little love bubble and just thought I'd completely
Speaker 2: hit the jackpot.
Speaker 3: Then the next step was he.
Speaker 2: He asked me to marry him on a Melbourne cup
Speaker 2: day that was eight months into the relationship. He made
Speaker 2: me do a hot and cold hunt around the house,
Speaker 2: like you know, I'd go into the kitchen and he'd
Speaker 2: say cold, cold, cold, and go out the front and
Speaker 2: he'd say warm, warm, warmer. And then I finally got
Speaker 2: to his car and there was a bottle of champagne
Speaker 2: and the rings sitting on his front car seat where
Speaker 2: I turned around and I was like, oh my.
Speaker 3: Gosh, is this for real? And he's like, yes, marry me.
Speaker 2: And we pop the champagne on the front lawn and
Speaker 2: sprayed it everywhere, and yeah, it was a really beautiful moment.
Speaker 2: I just wish he wasn't so a ne breaded. He
Speaker 2: was blind drunk when he proposed to me. And then
Speaker 2: the next morning I'm like, maybe you might want to
Speaker 2: take this ring back and he's like, no, no, I've
Speaker 2: had the ring.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I wanted to propose. I just wasn't supposed to propose
Speaker 2: in that particular way. He got completely excited. I think
Speaker 2: he'd had this whole thing planned in a beautiful part
Speaker 2: like down at the beach, far more romantic setting than
Speaker 2: being blind drunk after going to the races and coming home.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he couldn't contain himself. He just wanted to
Speaker 2: do it, which I guess was nice At the time.
Speaker 2: It was kind of endearing that he couldn't wait. There
Speaker 2: was a little bit of pushback. Yeah, a few people
Speaker 2: were like, oh, gee, that's like it's only been eight months.
Speaker 2: But I guess when you start living together so soon
Speaker 2: in the relationship, you get to learn a lot about people.
Speaker 3: In that time.
Speaker 2: There wasn't really a time that we were just dating
Speaker 2: and doing our own thing and living separately. But look,
Speaker 2: majority of my support network were very excited for me
Speaker 2: that I'd finally found someone to settle down with. We
Speaker 2: decided to get married exactly twelve months after the proposal,
Speaker 2: so we planned. It wasn't a huge wedding. It was
Speaker 2: pretty traditional, really, Yeah, white dress, bridesmaids, groomsmen in a park,
Speaker 2: a reception at a hotel. It was an an extravagant
Speaker 2: or anything, but it was with our nearest and dearest.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't all perfect. The first thing that ever
Speaker 1: went wrong, the first and only time Aaron had ever
Speaker 1: made a even blink, let alone second guess anything, was
Speaker 1: the very night before the wedding.
Speaker 2: I'm at the hotel with my girls and my bridal party,
Speaker 2: and I get a phone call and Aaron has been
Speaker 2: in a punch on with all of his groomsmen and
Speaker 2: he was crying and saying he can't stay at the
Speaker 2: hotel that they were at, that his mum and dad
Speaker 2: were coming to pick him up because he's all beaten
Speaker 2: and bruised.
Speaker 3: I had never really heard.
Speaker 2: Of him being violent in any sort of way, and
Speaker 2: so I broke down in tears. And all of my
Speaker 2: bridesmaids and my sister were there and they're like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, what are you going to do? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what to do. Do
Speaker 2: I go around there and they're like, no, you know,
Speaker 2: leave him to sort it out. It's you know, this
Speaker 2: is your last night as well, and we're here drinking
Speaker 2: champagne and in our Peter Alexander pajamas and he needs
Speaker 2: to sort that out anyway. His mum was calling me,
Speaker 2: telling me how distraught he was and that he's got
Speaker 2: a fat lip and a bruised eye, and don't be
Speaker 2: shocked when I walk down the aisle tomorrow and see
Speaker 2: him beaten up.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that was the first red flag for me.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh no, what am I doing?
Speaker 2: So what I had known to have happened was that
Speaker 2: he had an expectation that the boys would all come
Speaker 2: to the hotel and have a few beers and hang out.
Speaker 2: Now a couple of them couldn't make it, so he
Speaker 2: got very upset that he had made it to their
Speaker 2: wedding or pre wedding drinks, and so yeah, I think
Speaker 2: he'd had a few drinks and told them exactly how
Speaker 2: he felt about them not being there, and they ended
Speaker 2: up coming around, and I think he was too angry
Speaker 2: by that stage and a fight had broken out, and yeah,
Speaker 2: he did have a huge fat lip when I walked
Speaker 2: down the aisle the next day. I didn't know if
Speaker 2: I believe that it was about the boys not coming over.
Speaker 2: I started to feel really quite insecure about were they
Speaker 2: upset that he was marrying me? Did they think that
Speaker 2: he was rushing into it as well? And thinking it
Speaker 2: was a really bad idea, and his friends were not
Speaker 2: actually very nice people. But I didn't say to him,
Speaker 2: I don't want you to be friends with these people.
Speaker 3: I just used to say to.
Speaker 2: Him sometimes, like they're not very nice and they don't
Speaker 2: treat you very well, and maybe you need to surround
Speaker 2: yourself with better people. And so I started, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: started to get really self conscious about if it was
Speaker 2: about me.
Speaker 3: Didn't mean to make it about me, but he insisted that.
Speaker 2: It was because he had this expectation and they weren't
Speaker 2: meeting it well. His friends all got married and didn't
Speaker 2: have him in the bridal party. Ever, they would go
Speaker 2: surfing and wouldn't invite him, and he was always just
Speaker 2: a second thought. And for me, like, I'm so loyal
Speaker 2: and I've got the most beautiful group of friends around me,
Speaker 2: and I just hated to see that they would treat
Speaker 2: him like that. I just wasn't used to those kind
Speaker 2: of relationships. My friends and I we do so many
Speaker 2: things together and really look out for each other and
Speaker 2: have each other's backs. But I just feel like he
Speaker 2: really didn't have anyone that really had his back. So
Speaker 2: I became quite protective of him in that way.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't about her, and it was very, very
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary, so Aver brushed it aside. What's
Speaker 1: a fat lip in your wedding photos when you have
Speaker 1: your whole life ahead.
Speaker 2: I absolutely had to let the night before the wedding
Speaker 2: go because if I didn't, resentment would start.
Speaker 3: It was in there.
Speaker 2: But I managed to be like, okay, this is one
Speaker 2: night elko oh I was involved. Let's just try and
Speaker 2: try and let it go. And it never really came
Speaker 2: back up in conversation. He assured me that they had
Speaker 2: had punch ons before and were able just to get
Speaker 2: over it and move on, and it was swept under
Speaker 2: the carpet and never discussed again. We had the most
Speaker 2: amazing honeymoon. We went overseas for six weeks, amazing just
Speaker 2: exploring the world together, which we both loved to do.
Speaker 2: And then Aaron comes from a very big family, so
Speaker 2: he was really ready to get cracking and having kids.
Speaker 2: Now I come from quite a small family, and I
Speaker 2: was a bit more of the mindset of, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe we should be married for a couple of years
Speaker 2: before starting to have kids. But because we were twenty nine,
Speaker 2: like while we were thirty by that time, he really
Speaker 2: wanted to get cracking, so we started trying straight away
Speaker 2: and fell pregnant straight away, and our first child was
Speaker 2: born twelve months after the wedding day. As a teenager
Speaker 2: or you know, young woman in their twenties, you always
Speaker 2: have this timeline of I want to be engaged by
Speaker 2: twenty eight, married by thirty and baby by thirty two.
Speaker 2: While I was pretty much living to that of what
Speaker 2: societal expectation was. So you know, for us, we were
Speaker 2: on track to having a successful marriage in life. Our
Speaker 2: first year of marriage was amazing. I just knew he
Speaker 2: was going to be a really good dad because he
Speaker 2: wanted to have kids very much. And yeah, he looked
Speaker 2: after me during pregnancy really well. I had lots of
Speaker 2: really random cravings and things, so he'd be going out
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night to get me Granni
Speaker 2: Smith apples and fruit juice and steam dim sims. So yeah,
Speaker 2: he was amazing and we were just still in this
Speaker 2: beautiful marital bliss. We had to sell our apartment that
Speaker 2: we had bought to move into a into a bigger
Speaker 2: house because our apartment had a three story walk up.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we ended up buying a beautiful family home
Speaker 2: and Yeah, we were ready to start our life with
Speaker 2: bringing kids into it.
Speaker 3: Our marriage was beautiful.
Speaker 2: We had a really good group of friends that we
Speaker 2: had made in the community that we moved to.
Speaker 3: I was really enjoying motherhood.
Speaker 2: We had a very successful business as well, so financially
Speaker 2: we're in a really good position.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Life just really couldn't be any more perfect. So we
Speaker 2: decided to have a second child two years later, and
Speaker 2: that again was just a beautiful experience for both of us.
Speaker 2: And we had made the decision that we were done
Speaker 2: with just having the two kids, and I think we
Speaker 2: were at capacity. Our hands were full with running a business,
Speaker 2: running a household, and having two young children.
Speaker 1: Life continued this way. Ava and Aaron continue their long,
Speaker 1: deep intellectual chats on the couch. They continued to travel,
Speaker 1: They loved being parents, and were smashing goals in their business.
Speaker 1: There hadn't been a single hiccup since the bust up
Speaker 1: with his mates before the wedding, So when life issued
Speaker 1: a curveball six years into their marriage, I even knew
Speaker 1: they could and would tackle it as a team.
Speaker 2: I fell pregnant, so my other two were four and
Speaker 2: eighteen months and I just really didn't know if I
Speaker 2: was going to be able to cope with having a
Speaker 2: third child. So yeah, I had had to have a
Speaker 2: conversation with Aaron and say, I don't know.
Speaker 3: If I can do this.
Speaker 2: I'm at capacity because I was helping run the business.
Speaker 2: He was out all day, you know, working really long
Speaker 2: hours from like six am until like nine pm, so
Speaker 2: really long days. And he had said to me, well,
Speaker 2: I really want to have a big family, and I said,
Speaker 2: I know you do, but I don't think this is
Speaker 2: a financially for us, and be like, I just don't
Speaker 2: know if I'm going.
Speaker 3: To be able to cope with three kids.
Speaker 2: So yeah, he had given me an ultimatum that if
Speaker 2: I terminate the pregnancy that he will leave me. I
Speaker 2: never thought he would give me an ultimatum like that.
Speaker 2: I was just absolutely thrown back. At the time I
Speaker 2: found out I was pregnant with my third we were
Speaker 2: going on a holiday to Thailand with a huge group
Speaker 2: of people, and I said to him, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go on that holiday and have a think about it.
Speaker 3: But the resentment then started to build up. I thought,
Speaker 3: how dare you place that on me?
Speaker 2: So after Thailand, I kind of started to come to
Speaker 2: terms with pregnancy and decided not only coming to terms
Speaker 2: with the pregnancy, but I wanted to save my marriage.
Speaker 2: And during that pregnancy that's when things started to really
Speaker 2: go downhill. Our relationship was great up until that third pregnancy.
Speaker 2: He really really wanted to go through with it and
Speaker 2: I really really didn't and I just felt like he
Speaker 2: didn't respect my views on it at all, that he
Speaker 2: was just thinking about himself and what his wishes were,
Speaker 2: which was.
Speaker 3: To have a big family.
Speaker 2: And yes, so their tension started to grow, and resentment
Speaker 2: did start to grow throughout because I just again became
Speaker 2: another designated driver for him for every function, and you know,
Speaker 2: having to look after two young toddlers at the same
Speaker 2: time as making a baby. And then I started to
Speaker 2: worry that I might resent my third childhood and I
Speaker 2: was like, I can't believe you're putting me in this situation.
Speaker 2: He started to drink heavily during that third pregnancy as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was very, very difficult, and by the time my
Speaker 2: third came, the resentment was really really embedded. Well, there
Speaker 2: was a couple of things that happened. I had to
Speaker 2: have a c section because my baby ended up being
Speaker 2: ten pound five so a really really big boy. And
Speaker 2: while I was in recovery, Aaron had actually named my baby.
Speaker 2: So the nurse came down and said, I'm going to
Speaker 2: take you down to see so and so, and I'm like.
Speaker 3: Who's that.
Speaker 2: She's like, that's your child, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: my gosh, has Aaron named the baby? And she said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all all the documents are done. So they took
Speaker 2: me down there and I walk into Niku. Because he
Speaker 2: was so big he had to go into intensive care
Speaker 2: for a little bit. And Aaron's mum is holding my baby.
Speaker 2: So the resentment that was already there absolutely multiplied with
Speaker 2: within minutes. I was like, a You've named the baby,
Speaker 2: and be everybody in your family has held him before me.
Speaker 3: There was one name that he liked that I was
Speaker 3: not a fan of.
Speaker 2: And he he named him that while I was still
Speaker 2: under a general anesthetic, there is this little stranger that
Speaker 2: has had cuddles with everybody else.
Speaker 3: After such a traumatic birth.
Speaker 2: I just did didn't know how I was going to
Speaker 2: move on from that, so coming home was extremely difficult.
Speaker 2: I would probably say I was pretty close to having
Speaker 2: postnatal depression. Not so much about the baby, I bonded
Speaker 2: with him beautifully, but my marriage was breaking down because
Speaker 2: I was so angry.
Speaker 3: I was so angry.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just knew that I just needed to
Speaker 2: be there for my kids, try and get a routine,
Speaker 2: and then like the marriage would sort itself out later.
Speaker 3: I would say I checked out.
Speaker 2: I started to check out, and I just really needed
Speaker 2: to focus on trying to raise three kids under four, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was really really difficult.
Speaker 3: And he was still drinking. So I started to think, well,
Speaker 3: he's not coping with three kids either, Like he would
Speaker 3: lose his crap if you know, one of them was
Speaker 3: having a tantrum. I would you get to the point
Speaker 3: where I couldn't deal with it? So I'd say to him,
Speaker 3: can you come and like sort this out, takeover. I
Speaker 3: need to tap out.
Speaker 2: And then what would happen was he would then escalate,
Speaker 2: and then I would have to step back in because
Speaker 2: now I've got a child escalating, an arrow escalating, and.
Speaker 3: It was just an absolute nightmare.
Speaker 2: It was almost like I had another child who I
Speaker 2: was consistently trying to de escalate, which, yeah, like I said,
Speaker 2: the resentment would just continue to build up and even
Speaker 2: more every single day. He just continued on this drinking
Speaker 2: cycle until one day he actually came to me and said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have twelve months off the alcohol. And
Speaker 2: I thought, oh my gosh, this is a this is amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh he's understanding, and you know, I started to think
Speaker 2: maybe there is a future for us together. And so
Speaker 2: he stopped drinking completely, but then decided to start smoking marijuana.
Speaker 3: So he was swapping one vice for another vice.
Speaker 2: It would have been a year that it did completely
Speaker 2: turn around, and it did a massive one eighty and
Speaker 2: just continue to go downhill. I didn't think things could
Speaker 2: get much worse, actually, but they did. About a year
Speaker 2: after my third was born, he decided he didn't want
Speaker 2: to own a business anymore. He wanted to sell the business.
Speaker 2: I was okay with him wanting to sell the business.
Speaker 2: Although it made us really really good money, I knew
Speaker 2: how stressful it was for him. So I said to him,
Speaker 2: I'm happy if you want to stay at home and
Speaker 2: look after the kids, I'll go back to work. So
Speaker 2: he said, okay, let's do that then, so we switched
Speaker 2: roles and I went to work and he stayed at home. Anyway,
Speaker 2: he rang me one day while I was at work,
Speaker 2: and he said, I've just sold the business.
Speaker 3: I was like, what do you what do you mean.
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, I've sold the business.
Speaker 2: I've sold it to another another company, and it's all
Speaker 2: sign sealed and delivered. And I said, hang on a minute,
Speaker 2: we need to have a conversation around that. And he's like,
Speaker 2: I know, it's all done. So he sold the business.
Speaker 2: Really the really big decisions without consulting me, and really
Speaker 2: quite irrational decisions. And his behavior just started to become
Speaker 2: really strange with that kind of thing, just like buying
Speaker 2: a two seater car when we're a family of five
Speaker 2: with the money from the business, Like just really really
Speaker 2: strange behavior. I was thinking that he was about to
Speaker 2: have a full blown mental breakdown, a full psychotic mental breakdown.
Speaker 2: I was watching him slowly decline mentally. So I suggested
Speaker 2: to him to seek some therapy and find a psychologist.
Speaker 2: And he was never really into that. Sitting down and
Speaker 2: talking about feelings with a complete stranger. There was absolute
Speaker 2: irony in the fact that we were connected on such
Speaker 2: an intellectual level talking about all these deep topics, and
Speaker 2: at that stage I was a stranger to him. So
Speaker 2: the fact that he was so anti sharing his feelings
Speaker 2: with the stranger and wanting to get better from there.
Speaker 1: He declined further. While he was working on their property
Speaker 1: one day cutting trees, he was hit by a falling
Speaker 1: branch and suffered a debilitating back injury. He needed surgery
Speaker 1: and around the clock care for three months. Ava kept
Speaker 1: the home fires burning as best she could, but Aaron's
Speaker 1: mental health got worse.
Speaker 2: It was clear to me that he was not coping
Speaker 2: with selling his business. He was not coping with three kids.
Speaker 2: He had this idea that life was life was not amazing.
Speaker 2: He had been sold a lie. Was basically how I
Speaker 2: looked at it, that three kids and white picket fence
Speaker 2: and business is not.
Speaker 3: What it's all cracked up to be.
Speaker 2: So he was very open about that with me, that
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be happy. I've got this beautiful wife
Speaker 2: and kids and we live on a beautiful property, and
Speaker 2: it's just I'm just not happy, and I don't know
Speaker 2: what to do. So I took him to hospital, and yeah,
Speaker 2: he spent some time there in the mental health wold.
Speaker 2: I said to him, you need to stay here, get better.
Speaker 2: Once he got discharged from hospital, he came home and
Speaker 2: he was this completely different person, and I'm not saying
Speaker 2: for the better.
Speaker 3: Still making really bizarre decisions. And then he decided he
Speaker 3: wanted to.
Speaker 2: He wanted to build a shed on our property, like
Speaker 2: a man cave that no one else could go into.
Speaker 3: And he's like, I'm going to do it, And so
Speaker 3: he got.
Speaker 2: All the materials together and built this huge, absolutely huge
Speaker 2: shared up the back of our property, and no one
Speaker 2: was allowed to go up there, like the kids weren't
Speaker 2: allowed to go up there. It was padlocked, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing up there? And he said, oh,
Speaker 2: it's like my meditation room. I'm going to meditate twice
Speaker 2: a day. I'll get up early in the morning. So
Speaker 2: he would get up at like five thirty and go
Speaker 2: up there till like seven point thirty and meditate, and
Speaker 2: then once the kids would go to bed at night
Speaker 2: at seven point thirty, he'd be up there again meditating
Speaker 2: for two hours. One day, I actually just said to him,
Speaker 2: what are you doing up there? Let's have a conversation
Speaker 2: about it. And he's like, oh, I'm just it's my cave.
Speaker 2: I just don't really want to share with anyone. It's
Speaker 2: my personal space. The shed was locked with like a
Speaker 2: huge big pad lock, so I could never get in
Speaker 2: there to have a look. There were times that I
Speaker 2: had tried to go up there and get in, but
Speaker 2: I needed like a really big pair of bolt cutters
Speaker 2: to do it. Our relationship went from sitting on the
Speaker 2: couch for hours and talking to me being alone on
Speaker 2: the couch every night because he's up there doing god
Speaker 2: knows what.
Speaker 1: Something else had changed after Aaron's time in hospital. While
Speaker 1: he'd always been a curious person and loved deep conversations
Speaker 1: and deep thinking, the questions he started asking morphed and
Speaker 1: his view on the world began to shift.
Speaker 2: He was spending hours up in the shed. He was
Speaker 2: spending hours on the internet up there. He was spending
Speaker 2: hours on the internet. In the bathroom, he was spending
Speaker 2: hours on the internet. When we would go to bed,
Speaker 2: he constantly had his iPad with him. He was constantly
Speaker 2: on the Internet asking.
Speaker 3: Why, how, who? What are we here for? That's not true.
Speaker 2: He became very pessimistic about life, and then we just
Speaker 2: started to have conversations around conspiracy theories. I remember one
Speaker 2: conversation we had one day, which was about the moon landing,
Speaker 2: and he's like, do you know that there's people that
Speaker 2: don't believe in the moon landing, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I said, that's old news, Like of course theories it's
Speaker 2: always been that way, Like you know, Red Hot Chili
Speaker 2: Peppers filmed in a Hollywood basement, and he's like, I
Speaker 2: can't believe it. I never never knew that. So it
Speaker 2: started with the moon landing. He kind of went exploring
Speaker 2: with that and was like, holy crap, there's like a
Speaker 2: really big community of people that don't believe in that.
Speaker 2: And then it went to September eleven, and then it
Speaker 2: went to the Pyramids. How did the Pyramids get to Egypt?
Speaker 2: It was probably a process of maybe six months of
Speaker 2: investigating online and just going down this absolute rabbit hole
Speaker 2: of conspiracy and qann and like really really dangerous stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, And we'd still have conversations around conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: I'm very flexible and love hearing about people's belief systems
Speaker 2: as well, so we still occasionally had conversations around what
Speaker 2: he's looking up and you know this didn't happen and
Speaker 2: watch this video and they're crisis actors, and you know,
Speaker 2: he was even researching like the crisis actors in all
Speaker 2: these different world events that had happened.
Speaker 3: So I was just like, okay, kind of just let
Speaker 3: him go. He's on a tangent at the moment.
Speaker 2: So it started off as an interest, which I was
Speaker 2: fully supportive of, and then it became his belief system.
Speaker 2: He never had solid belief systems. He was very flexible
Speaker 2: in his thinking, so he was interested in a lot
Speaker 2: of other people's belief systems to try and I think
Speaker 2: he was trying to work out his own. And then
Speaker 2: finally he found something that's it's with him and that
Speaker 2: the whole world is a stage and where just players
Speaker 2: in it. And then it actually became a complete and
Speaker 2: utter obsession.
Speaker 3: He was obsessed with it. It was day night.
Speaker 2: He really started to latch on to these conspiracy theories
Speaker 2: around the Holocaust, Sandy Hook nine to eleven, the news.
Speaker 2: Every time the news came on, he'd get up and
Speaker 2: switch the TV off. He's like listening to that rubbish
Speaker 2: and putting rubbish in our kids' ears.
Speaker 3: And then it went to flat Earth.
Speaker 2: Flat Earth was actually the biggest community that he became
Speaker 2: a part of, and it was even to the point
Speaker 2: where I rang his mum and said, oh, look, I'm
Speaker 2: actually really worried about him, and she said, oh, no,
Speaker 2: it's just a phase he's going through. He'll snap out
Speaker 2: of it. He's done this before. I was like, really, well,
Speaker 2: not since we've been married. And She's like, as a child,
Speaker 2: he used to go on tangents about the world and
Speaker 2: death and things like that. Don't worry, he'll come back around.
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of holding on to hope that I'm
Speaker 2: going to get my amazing husband back. He got T
Speaker 2: shirts printed with hashtag flat earth and was wearing them everywhere,
Speaker 2: like to barbecues, to the school with the kids, and
Speaker 2: again the resentment started to build up, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: you are not wearing flat earth T shirts to the kids' school.
Speaker 2: He's like, you can't tell me what to wear. We'd
Speaker 2: go to barbecues, he'd be cornering people. He was trying
Speaker 2: to recruit people in the town we were living in,
Speaker 2: and then everybody in town started to think, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: this dude's gone crazy. So there then not only did
Speaker 2: I have resentment, I started to be embarrassed and filled
Speaker 2: with shame of like I had this amazing man and
Speaker 2: now he's just the town crazy. So I was constantly
Speaker 2: starting to apologize for his behavior. Everywhere we went it
Speaker 2: was oh, sorry, and then I'd be like, okay, and
Speaker 2: I've got to take you home now because it's getting ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I consistently said to him, it's great that you've got
Speaker 2: this belief system, but you've got to stop trying to
Speaker 2: put it on to other people.
Speaker 3: And then he's, Oh, you're all.
Speaker 2: Asleep and no one's awake, and I have to tell
Speaker 2: everybody that they're asleep.
Speaker 3: It was who have I married? This was not in
Speaker 3: the brochure.
Speaker 1: While Ava didn't share the same thoughts, she tried to
Speaker 1: be as supportive as she could while Aaron went through
Speaker 1: this personal journey. She thought, or hoped, as his mum
Speaker 1: had said, it was a face, a self discovery of
Speaker 1: sorts to help him heal and find himself then come back.
Speaker 1: But he didn't. Over the next two years, he only
Speaker 1: got deeper into the conspiracies, the community he'd found online,
Speaker 1: and further away from the man she'd known for eight
Speaker 1: years prior.
Speaker 3: My self esteem was obviously rock bottom.
Speaker 2: Here I am trying to manage three kids, working full time,
Speaker 2: paying our mortgage because he's busy this breakdown, and you know,
Speaker 2: googling conspiracies, so again, resentment building up just to the
Speaker 2: point where I think I avoided I was just avoiding
Speaker 2: having to have the conversation. I knew what I had
Speaker 2: to do, I absolutely knew what I had to do,
Speaker 2: but I just couldn't even bring myself to say those words,
Speaker 2: because I just was hoping he would get better and
Speaker 2: that it was just a phase and he might come
Speaker 2: out the other end. We did have a conversation one
Speaker 2: day where I said, is this it is this who
Speaker 2: you are now? And he said, yes, it is, and
Speaker 2: you either deal with it, put up with it, or
Speaker 2: you leave. So he again had given me this really
Speaker 2: random ultimatum of do this or then you got to
Speaker 2: do that. So I was in a position where I
Speaker 2: said to him, well, this wasn't in the brochure, and
Speaker 2: you are not the man I'm married, and I need
Speaker 2: to work out whether I'm okay with this, And to
Speaker 2: be honest, the man that I've known over the past
Speaker 2: two years is not really someone I like who has
Speaker 2: the same belief systems as me anymore. That's what we
Speaker 2: our whole relationship grew on, was you know, having these
Speaker 2: same belief systems and now you are a completely different person.
Speaker 2: And I need to work out whether that's actually someone
Speaker 2: I want to be with anymore. So he was very
Speaker 2: blase about it. Oh well, you let me know once
Speaker 2: you make that decision. I was probably most devastated that
Speaker 2: he wasn't fighting for me.
Speaker 3: There was no apology.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I've gone down this path and I'm dragging
Speaker 2: you with me while I try and work out where.
Speaker 3: My place is in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was soul destroying, really really hard to reconcile.
Speaker 2: But I had my kids, and you know, I had
Speaker 2: a good support network. I just couldn't make that step
Speaker 2: to say we're done. Yeah, it just wasn't easy to
Speaker 2: walk away because I knew the man that he was,
Speaker 2: and I guess I was going through a green process
Speaker 2: of losing him while he's still sharing my bed and
Speaker 2: you know, eating dinner with us, and you know, spending
Speaker 2: time with us. I was absolutely going through a grief process,
Speaker 2: and it was so hard to cut the tires because
Speaker 2: grieving someone that's still there every single day is extremely
Speaker 2: hard to do. And I just couldn't get to that
Speaker 2: final acceptance stage of grief where I had the strength
Speaker 2: to walk away. So, yeah, I was still stuck in
Speaker 2: this denial cycle, you know, the bargaining kind of cycle
Speaker 2: of grief as well of like, oh well, maybe if
Speaker 2: I just wait a couple of months longer, he'll snap.
Speaker 3: Out of it.
Speaker 2: That was a very common common phrase I would say
Speaker 2: to myself, and his family were saying that to me as.
Speaker 3: Well, he'll snap out of it. But there just didn't
Speaker 3: seem to be a point that he was going to.
Speaker 2: And then things started to get really really strange. I
Speaker 2: was at home one day and a part Russell was
Speaker 2: delivered and I opened it up and it was about
Speaker 2: ten books of black magic and a cape, a black
Speaker 2: cape with a hood. I started to flick through some
Speaker 2: of the books that had arrived, and there's all these
Speaker 2: spells and just really really bizarre stuff in this book.
Speaker 2: He came home and I said, what the heck is this?
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, that's my magic stuff. And I
Speaker 2: said what do you mean magic? And he's like, I'm
Speaker 2: delving into black magic. And I said, well, what does
Speaker 2: that even mean? And he's like, oh, you know, if
Speaker 2: you've got someone that's annoying you at work, like I
Speaker 2: can do something about it. I said what do you
Speaker 2: mean and he's like, oh, well, if you can get
Speaker 2: one of their hairs. I can put it in the
Speaker 2: freezer and I won't kill them, but I'll make sure
Speaker 2: that they have a really difficult life moving forward. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking he's actually lost the plot. So at that point,
Speaker 2: that's where humor started to come into it for me,
Speaker 2: because I just couldn't even reconcile that he's ordering capes
Speaker 2: and magic books online. How far fetched and how ridiculous.
Speaker 2: This just could not get any more ridiculous. So my
Speaker 2: group of friends and I started to actually laugh about it,
Speaker 2: like it started to become comical.
Speaker 1: I've had well and truly checked out of the marriage.
Speaker 1: They were living separate lives in every way possible, So
Speaker 1: what would it take to make her finally break the spell.
Speaker 2: We're probably coming on three years now of him not
Speaker 2: snapping out of it, and so this was our tenth
Speaker 2: year of marriage. He said to me, Oh, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go to my mate's house and have a boy's night.
Speaker 2: Is that okay? And I said, oh, go dock your
Speaker 2: sucks off like it. Finally someone in town had invited
Speaker 2: him over, and I thought, this, this is good. You know,
Speaker 2: he needs to have connections with people that are not
Speaker 2: conspiracy based. So anyway, Aaron went to this guy's house
Speaker 2: and this guy has like a dartboard and table, tennis
Speaker 2: table and pool table and had invited a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of guys over so they had drinks. Anyway, Aaron didn't
Speaker 2: get home until ten am the next morning, and I
Speaker 2: was thinking, Wow, that's like, that's a bloody good night.
Speaker 2: But I was also really happy, like it didn't bother
Speaker 2: me that he came home at that time. I was
Speaker 2: actually happy because I thought he must have had a
Speaker 2: really good night with all of the boys in town.
Speaker 2: But he was really really quiet and just wanted to
Speaker 2: go to bed and wouldn't talk about the night or
Speaker 2: anything else.
Speaker 3: And I said to him, I'm not upset that you
Speaker 3: went out. I think it's really good, and he goes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I just you know, I just don't want to talk
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: About two weeks later, I get a text message from
Speaker 2: the guy who's had the party at the house and
Speaker 2: he said, I need to talk to you urgently. And
Speaker 2: I said, okay, what is everything okay? And he said, no,
Speaker 2: not really. Can you come and meet me for a coffee.
Speaker 2: So the next day I went and met him for
Speaker 2: a coffee in town with him and his wife, And
Speaker 2: at that time, I kind of thought, oh gosh, something
Speaker 2: happened at the kids' school because the kids were friends,
Speaker 2: so these were actually our friends in town, and I
Speaker 2: thought something had happened with the kids, maybe they'd had
Speaker 2: a fight at school or something. So, you know, I
Speaker 2: was preparing myself for that. But I walk into this
Speaker 2: coffee shop and there he is with his wife, and
Speaker 2: his wife is hysterical crying, and I was just saying,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, what the hell's going on?
Speaker 1: Remember the night of the party when Aaron didn't get
Speaker 1: home until ten am, Well, that night he crossed a
Speaker 1: line that can't be uncrossed. An allegation of assault was made,
Speaker 1: and for Ava, that changed everything.
Speaker 2: Well, I nearly dropped my cappuccino and just absolutely burst
Speaker 2: into two And they're like, we're so sorry.
Speaker 3: We know what you've been going through with him.
Speaker 2: We know you're really struggling with him at the moment
Speaker 2: with a lot of stuff going on, and we just
Speaker 2: didn't want to have to add to your problems. So
Speaker 2: I came home and Aaron was sitting on the balcony
Speaker 2: and said to me, where have you been? And I said,
Speaker 2: pack your bags, you've got ten minutes. I knew that
Speaker 2: the marriage was over. There was no doubt that I
Speaker 2: was going to have to walk away from that. All
Speaker 2: of that strength and everything that I was lacking previously
Speaker 2: just came over me.
Speaker 3: I had this.
Speaker 2: Overwhelming feeling of I didn't even hesitate. There was no fighting,
Speaker 2: there was no yelling, there was no screaming. It was
Speaker 2: just pack your stuff and get out. So that was
Speaker 2: really difficult for me because I wanted him to fight
Speaker 2: for me, and he didn't. He literally packed his stuff
Speaker 2: and walked out in ten minutes. And I'm thinking, that's
Speaker 2: ten years of marriage just literally down the gurgle. And
Speaker 2: I have stuck by you through your most difficult time,
Speaker 2: through hoping that you would eventually change, and you're just
Speaker 2: not even sticking by me. Just the value of marriage
Speaker 2: for him was just no longer. He just didn't care.
Speaker 3: To him, it was just.
Speaker 2: Another institution that he was stuck in, along with governments
Speaker 2: and banks and paying taxes, and marriage to him was
Speaker 2: just another institution.
Speaker 3: And so my marriage went.
Speaker 2: From this amazing, wonderful, most beautiful love story to being
Speaker 2: over in literally ten minutes. I always knew the first
Speaker 2: day was going to be the worst. And for any
Speaker 2: of my friends that have separated since I have, I
Speaker 2: always say to them day one is the worst, and
Speaker 2: it is. I just gave myself space to be in
Speaker 2: the fetal position and cry and grief. I could finally
Speaker 2: get to that point of the grief cycle, that acceptance.
Speaker 3: This is it now and this has happened, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to be okay.
Speaker 2: I've got you know, amazing people around you know, I
Speaker 2: might even have an easier life.
Speaker 3: That's what my hope was.
Speaker 2: It was the week of my fortieth and I was
Speaker 2: having a huge party at my house with like one
Speaker 2: hundred people coming with a DJ and everything. We lived
Speaker 2: on five acres, so I was having a huge, big party.
Speaker 2: Aaron had said to me, I, well, you going to
Speaker 2: cancel the party And I said, no, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to cancel. You coming to it, And I said, I've
Speaker 2: got people flying in into state, I've got DJ, I've
Speaker 2: got catering.
Speaker 3: No, I'm not canceling it.
Speaker 2: So I actually sent out a text message to everyone
Speaker 2: and said, look, this has happened. Aaron and I a
Speaker 2: broken up, but I'm still in the space to celebrate
Speaker 2: a new decade. That's about to begin. It's going to
Speaker 2: be a very different looking decade. I want you all
Speaker 2: to be here. If you feel uncomfortable, I'm okay if
Speaker 2: you don't come, but when you do come, you're.
Speaker 3: Not to talk about it at all.
Speaker 2: And I rang my friend Ben, who was coming to
Speaker 2: the party, and I said, bring a pair of bolt cutters.
Speaker 2: He said why, and I said, We're going to go
Speaker 2: into that shed. I had the best freaking night. It
Speaker 2: was a really really good night. Yeah, we did speeches
Speaker 2: and it was amazing. Had the best night. And because
Speaker 2: I lived on property, a lot of people bought their
Speaker 2: caravans and swags and tents and things. And in the
Speaker 2: morning when we woke up, because Ben was there with
Speaker 2: his caravan, we were all sitting around having breakfast outside
Speaker 2: and he went down to the van and came back
Speaker 2: to the breakfast table and he's like, what do you
Speaker 2: want these bolt cutters for? And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 2: everyone there was eleven of us. Let's go, We're going
Speaker 2: to the shed. Everyone was so excited because everyone had
Speaker 2: heard about this shed for years and no one knew
Speaker 2: what was in there. So we were like, let's go.
Speaker 2: We race up to the back of the property. Ben
Speaker 2: gets the bolt cutters, snaps off the lock. We throw
Speaker 2: the doors open, and oh, my gosh, well, the first
Speaker 2: thing I saw was a big pentagon painted onto.
Speaker 3: The concrete slab.
Speaker 2: There were all these black drap curtains and piles of
Speaker 2: his magic books. There was the diary that we got
Speaker 2: stuck into and read. There was a tree of life
Speaker 2: with all pictures of our dead relatives hanging off this
Speaker 2: tree of life, like he'd gone and got photos printed
Speaker 2: of them to hang off this tree. There was the
Speaker 2: wand there was all these like mixing glasses. It was
Speaker 2: like he had been making potions and things like that.
Speaker 2: It was just absolutely creepy. We all went through his
Speaker 2: stuff and just could not be I just could not
Speaker 2: believe what I was seeing. We're even reading through his
Speaker 2: diary and he's predicting everybody's death, and one girl who
Speaker 2: was with us at the time, he had predicted her death,
Speaker 2: which was like two weeks down the track, and so
Speaker 2: we were just like, this is ridiculous. In the diary,
Speaker 2: he was even referring to himself as a completely different name,
Speaker 2: like this Latin name.
Speaker 3: So yeah, things started.
Speaker 2: To get really really bizarre, And again I was filled
Speaker 2: with shame and embarrassment. There was eleven of my friends there,
Speaker 2: you know, unbolting the door and seeing this really creepy
Speaker 2: random space.
Speaker 1: Ava needed to not only get out, but away from
Speaker 1: whatever this was. After a decade with three children in toe,
Speaker 1: she packed everything and moved back to the city she'd
Speaker 1: originally come from. But as she did so, Aaron still
Speaker 1: had one more blow to deliver. While Ava had come
Speaker 1: to terms with the fact she'd never understand why he'd
Speaker 1: become like this, she did have one more question. Did
Speaker 1: he still love her?
Speaker 2: He was of the mindset that you only have one
Speaker 2: true love. He would label me as his life creator partner,
Speaker 2: and then eventually he'll meet his twin flame. He had
Speaker 2: this whole plan of you were just here to make babies.
Speaker 2: You're here because you're my obsession, and I will eventually
Speaker 2: meet my twin flame who I'll spend the rest of
Speaker 2: my life with. I rang his mum and I said,
Speaker 2: you've got to go and scoop him up and take
Speaker 2: him home, like he needs protecting. He's doing some really
Speaker 2: stupid things that are dangerous and abnormal, and you guys
Speaker 2: need to help him. And I said, he's not stapping
Speaker 2: out of it. Let's just be clear about that. It's
Speaker 2: been three years that we've put up with this crap.
Speaker 2: As his parents, you need to go and scoop him
Speaker 2: up and take him home and make sure he gets
Speaker 2: the support he needs. So they ended up doing that,
Speaker 2: but he was still never admitted into any hospital or
Speaker 2: didn't get any treatment or anything.
Speaker 3: He just.
Speaker 2: Sold our house and then packed up and moved to
Speaker 2: the city I was in so he could continue to
Speaker 2: see the kids. But there was a stage there where
Speaker 2: I had to really reconcile whether I wanted him to
Speaker 2: see the kids and.
Speaker 3: Whether that was a good idea or were they at risk.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there was quite a period of time there
Speaker 2: where I'm like, you need to prove that you're sane
Speaker 2: and able and stable enough to.
Speaker 3: Have them.
Speaker 2: It was very difficult to work out whether I was
Speaker 2: making the right decision. I didn't trust my own decisions
Speaker 2: at the time, and through my separation and divorce, that's
Speaker 2: been probably the number one thing that I've struggled dealing with,
Speaker 2: is trusting your own emotions and trusting your own decisions.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I thought I'd just I'm going to have
Speaker 3: to give it a try.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to have to leave it up to
Speaker 2: the kidskids as well, they were you know, they were
Speaker 2: getting older, as long as I gave them phones where
Speaker 2: they were able to contact me if they needed it.
Speaker 2: Just started with you know, maybe spending going out for dinner,
Speaker 2: spending one night, and then it went to two nights
Speaker 2: every second weekend. The therapy that I seeked at the
Speaker 2: start was how am I going to co parent with
Speaker 2: someone that.
Speaker 3: I absolutely hate, absolutely hate?
Speaker 2: And again the grief as well, like trying to unpack
Speaker 2: and process that, how am I going to co parent
Speaker 2: with someone that I'm also grieving but I absolutely hate?
Speaker 2: But then it went to how am I going to
Speaker 2: co parent with someone that I feel so sorry for?
Speaker 2: Like I'm just like, oh my god, at what point
Speaker 2: in your life did you think that all of this
Speaker 2: was a good idea? So that's where I knew that
Speaker 2: I was getting better, because I had turned that you know,
Speaker 2: low self esteem and low self worth and everything into
Speaker 2: I actually feel sorry for you. What a terrible life
Speaker 2: you've led and what a trail of destruction you've left behind,
Speaker 2: And how can you even get to that point? Like
Speaker 2: you've had no one to share or support you or
Speaker 2: protect you or anything. You've just had to navigate that
Speaker 2: whole dump fire like an absolute shit show on your
Speaker 2: own because you just wouldn't let anyone in and you
Speaker 2: thought what you were doing was the right thing.
Speaker 3: I just think it's a really lonely existence.
Speaker 2: I may ears down the track of separation now, and
Speaker 2: it probably took a good couple of years of me
Speaker 2: having to unpack what the hell happened, and.
Speaker 3: You know, seek lots of therapy about my self esteem
Speaker 3: and my worth and my value.
Speaker 2: I have had conversations with him since saying well, did
Speaker 2: you ever really love me? And he's like, I absolutely did,
Speaker 2: I really really loved you. And yeah, he's apologized since
Speaker 2: for taking me on him his journey which was.
Speaker 3: Not a part of mine.
Speaker 2: So still at times it is very hard to reconcile,
Speaker 2: and I've just got to be It's like something that's
Speaker 2: happened to me and it doesn't actually define me. It's
Speaker 2: just a really bizarre experience that I've had in.
Speaker 3: You know, this thing we call life.
Speaker 2: Now, we actually have the most beautiful relationship.
Speaker 3: It's taken a lot of work. We communicate.
Speaker 2: He consistently messages me and tells me you know what
Speaker 2: a beautiful job I'm doing of raising our kids, and
Speaker 2: he has the kids. Often when he's down and visiting
Speaker 2: in our town, we all go out for dinner together.
Speaker 3: Still to this day, he does random things.
Speaker 2: But I think I'm able to reconcile it a little
Speaker 2: bit more because I know he wasn't going to snap
Speaker 2: out of it, and this is who he's become, and
Speaker 2: this is the life he wants to lead, and I
Speaker 2: just have to be accepting if that. Otherwise, resentment does
Speaker 2: eat you up as a And now he has completely
Speaker 2: gone down the spiritual path, and I kind of believe that.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like some people will join a church
Speaker 2: when they've done something really terrible, they will join a
Speaker 2: church and try and find faith that way, or you know,
Speaker 2: you get people that go into the prison system and
Speaker 2: become religious to try and reconcile what they've done. I
Speaker 2: think he's gone down that spiritual path to really try
Speaker 2: and understand or forgive himself and have a reason for
Speaker 2: why he did what he did. So he's really into astrology,
Speaker 2: past life regression, quantum healing, all of the reiki. So
Speaker 2: he's gone from this beer guzzling trade to this absolute
Speaker 2: spiritual guru really into astrology. So sometimes he'll say, avy,
Speaker 2: you're not communicating very well, and it's because mercury.
Speaker 3: Is in retrograde.
Speaker 2: And I'll be like, well, you know, you're an asshole
Speaker 2: because satin is conjunct uranus. Still, I have to use humor. Like,
Speaker 2: even when I'm spending time with him, I just I
Speaker 2: just feel I just feel sorry for him. I can't
Speaker 2: I can't feel anything else anymore, that all those other
Speaker 2: emotions have gone, and I just need to channel the
Speaker 2: sadness that he's probably carrying with him.
Speaker 3: He's got a new partner.
Speaker 2: Actually he's had a few new partners, but this one
Speaker 2: is solid, I think, and they're engaged and they've bought
Speaker 2: a house. But it's just bizarre that the whole institution
Speaker 2: that he was so against, he's now gotten back into it.
Speaker 2: So for me, that's been a little hard to reconcile
Speaker 2: that he was so anti marriage and you know, he's
Speaker 2: gone to do it all again. So that's something that
Speaker 2: I'm currently working on. I take from this whole experience
Speaker 2: that you have to learn the art of forgiveness and
Speaker 2: that everybody is on their own journey. And what upsets
Speaker 2: me the most about my whole story is that he's
Speaker 2: taken me on one of the biggest.
Speaker 3: Journeys I've ever I've ever heard of, you know, from anyone.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: This was not a normal marriage breakdown of you know,
Speaker 2: I've fallen in love with someone else, or you know,
Speaker 2: infidelity or gambling or drugs or whatever. So I've I've
Speaker 2: had to learn the art of forgiveness, and in the past,
Speaker 2: I've never been a huge person to really channel that,
Speaker 2: so that's taken a lot of work. And I just
Speaker 2: can't be angry because I lived with anger for you know,
Speaker 2: the first couple of years, and it's just not good
Speaker 2: for you. It's not good for your health, it's not
Speaker 2: good for your work, it's not good You're not a nice.
Speaker 3: Person to be around, it's not good for the kids.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I started to see the effect that that
Speaker 2: was having, and I just I think I literally woke
Speaker 2: up one day and said, I'm not living like this anymore.
Speaker 3: I can't. I literally can't do it.
Speaker 2: So I've managed to, yeah, be able to move on
Speaker 2: and have a really really good life. I have, like
Speaker 2: I said, the most amazing group of women around me,
Speaker 2: really amazing group of friends, Yeah, good family, and I.
Speaker 3: Travel a lot.
Speaker 2: I've got a really really good job, and I've been
Speaker 2: in my job for a really long time, and I'm
Speaker 2: very well looked after, and I've managed to buy my
Speaker 2: own house, and yeah, set up life for the boys
Speaker 2: and I really really well, and yeah, I would consider
Speaker 2: that I'm thriving. Probably one of the things that's made
Speaker 2: it very, very difficult for me to have.
Speaker 3: A relationship again.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm just very scared of, you know, falling
Speaker 2: in love again and someone else taking me on this massive,
Speaker 2: huge rollercoaster ride. Hopefully, one day we'll be able to,
Speaker 2: you know, work out that I'm worthy and does erv love,
Speaker 2: and yeah, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3: I've got a lot of love to give.
Speaker 2: I'm just not ready to give it yet, but I
Speaker 2: think I'll eventually get there. Not everyone had a love life,
Speaker 2: so I guess I've got to be grateful that. You know,
Speaker 2: some people go through their life never having love, and
Speaker 2: you know what a terrible.
Speaker 3: Lonely existence that would be.
Speaker 2: So I kind of think I got to I got
Speaker 2: to have it for you know, an amazing eight years.
Speaker 2: My hope for him is that he is just settled
Speaker 2: and I always said to him, you know, you're you're
Speaker 2: constantly asking the why about life?
Speaker 3: Why are we here?
Speaker 2: We can't just be here to get married, have children,
Speaker 2: have the white picket fence. There has to be more
Speaker 2: to life. So he's like, what's our role on this planet?
Speaker 2: And I really hope that one day he finds the
Speaker 2: answer that he's been looking for.
Speaker 1: Everyone Has and X is a Minti Media production and
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Speaker 1: This episode is written and narrated by me Georgia Love,
Speaker 1: produced by Linda Scott. If you have a story you'd
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