Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mother mea podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of the land and waters. This podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on. On this podcast, we've spoken about great relationships,
Speaker 1: terrible relationships, broken relationships, and all those relationships in between.
Speaker 1: But there's another kind. We don't talk about that often,
Speaker 1: perhaps because it's not really a relationship yet we all
Speaker 1: know about it.
Speaker 2: Everyone that we were friends. We knew that we were something,
Speaker 2: but they didn't know what we were. So it was
Speaker 2: we were the people that always shed a bed, but
Speaker 2: we were just friends. But then people didn't really know
Speaker 2: what was happening. But we were always together and we
Speaker 2: were always there was always touching and hugging, and people
Speaker 2: would always ask me, what are you and I'd be like,
Speaker 2: we're just best best best friends.
Speaker 1: That's right, dear listener. This situationship, while not having a title,
Speaker 1: they can be just as intense, confusing, or consuming and
Speaker 1: chaotic as something more official. Just ask Amanda.
Speaker 2: You don't want to overreact, and you don't want to
Speaker 2: seeing like you're too into them because they're going to
Speaker 2: not be into you. And I thought I knew what
Speaker 2: we were and then at the time I was just
Speaker 2: utterly confused and utterly panicked. I think about losing something
Speaker 2: that I had more than anything else. My heart was
Speaker 2: definitely hurting in a way that I'd never felt it
Speaker 2: hurt before.
Speaker 1: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an X.
Speaker 1: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 1: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
Speaker 1: hearts of the very people who lived them. Today's story
Speaker 1: is about Amanda and Aaron double a buddies at high school,
Speaker 1: the very best of friends. They really were meant to be.
Speaker 2: I met Aaron in huh high school. We were in
Speaker 2: the same year level, and he went on an excursion
Speaker 2: with my best friend at the time, and then she
Speaker 2: came back and she was like, you have to meet
Speaker 2: this guy. I just know you're going to get along.
Speaker 2: And then he and I met and we just clicked immediately.
Speaker 2: And I had this group of girlfriends and we were
Speaker 2: always together, and then he was leading the guys in
Speaker 2: a way, so we bonded and formed the group together
Speaker 2: a little bit. And that was I think year eleven,
Speaker 2: so I was seventeen years old. So we started as friends,
Speaker 2: but it quickly went into best friends and just very close,
Speaker 2: a little bit maybe competitive with each other, a little
Speaker 2: bit like enjoying each other's power struggle a little bit
Speaker 2: in high school as it is. And then I would
Speaker 2: host a lot of events and the parties, and he
Speaker 2: would always encourage that, and he would come and bring
Speaker 2: all the boys and have fun. Then we got very,
Speaker 2: very close, and we started to really bond about just
Speaker 2: our families, and he started to come over to my
Speaker 2: house a lot and things like that. I think what
Speaker 2: drew me to him was he had a really like
Speaker 2: leadership power vibe to him. He was always in control.
Speaker 2: He was always the coolest guy in the room. He
Speaker 2: would like tell a joke in the whole room would
Speaker 2: laugh at it like one of those guys. And I
Speaker 2: was really drawn to that because I really thought that,
Speaker 2: like we were a little bit of a power couple,
Speaker 2: Like we would not power in the sense of, you know,
Speaker 2: controlling people with power in the sense of we'd get
Speaker 2: everyone to come to the parties and to do the
Speaker 2: things and to do the fun activities. And it was
Speaker 2: a very drawn to each other. It was probably the
Speaker 2: year after we finished high school, and it was when
Speaker 2: I started to spend a lot of time in his house.
Speaker 2: And everyone sort of knew we were something without being something,
Speaker 2: I guess, and everyone could see we were extremely close,
Speaker 2: and we went to everything together, and we left everything together,
Speaker 2: and we were always just together. He made me feel
Speaker 2: very seen, I think, and he made me feel very funny,
Speaker 2: and he really enjoyed my personality, and he enjoyed my quirks,
Speaker 2: and he thought that, you know, when I was silly,
Speaker 2: I was being hilarious, and that made me feel really safe.
Speaker 2: And he made me feel very like someone was really
Speaker 2: looking at me for the first time and just really
Speaker 2: lacking every single thing about me, which was really enjoy
Speaker 2: able and quite a dictal to be around.
Speaker 1: I think we can all see where this friendship was headed.
Speaker 2: My parents went through a really bad divorce when I
Speaker 2: left you twelve, and I remember my eighteenth birthday was
Speaker 2: the day that they had to sell my house, and
Speaker 2: it was this awful, horrible thing. So I was drawn
Speaker 2: to him and his family because he was very much like,
Speaker 2: come and spend all your time with us, and he
Speaker 2: had a beautiful house and we would go and just
Speaker 2: I'd spend all my time there with his mum and
Speaker 2: with his brother, and we would just hang out and
Speaker 2: I felt very safe there. So it got to a
Speaker 2: point where, like a couple of years in, I was
Speaker 2: probably spending four or five nights a week in his house,
Speaker 2: and when I was there, we always shared a bed
Speaker 2: and it was always very like loving and couplely, and
Speaker 2: it was like we were a couple without ever really
Speaker 2: being a couple in a way. Definitely started as staying
Speaker 2: on the couch, staying in like not being together at all,
Speaker 2: and then it progressed to there was one night we
Speaker 2: were out at a bar or something, and then we
Speaker 2: came home and he just sort of went, you've had
Speaker 2: a really bad day, would you want to stay in
Speaker 2: bed with me? And then it went to this really comfy,
Speaker 2: cuddly placed and then it just became the norm that
Speaker 2: we were in bed together, and we would even on
Speaker 2: holidays with friends, we would share a bed together, or
Speaker 2: he would invite me into the bed and like, but
Speaker 2: it was always a if you would like to come in,
Speaker 2: you can sort of thing, and I would always be like, well,
Speaker 2: I do want to come in, So I would go
Speaker 2: and get in bed with him. It was very cuddly
Speaker 2: and very you know, you're safe here if you're not
Speaker 2: safe anywhere else. That sort of thing, and we would
Speaker 2: spend hours in bed just talking and cuddling and just
Speaker 2: spending time together really and it felt really good at
Speaker 2: the time if a very like I'd found a person
Speaker 2: and only I knew that person, and that person wanted
Speaker 2: me to be there, even if he couldn't admit it
Speaker 2: to anyone else, he wanted me there sort of. So
Speaker 2: I was very happy to be there for most of
Speaker 2: the time, and probably for the first three years, I
Speaker 2: was very happy to be there just contently in his
Speaker 2: little cuddle sort of area. I think I realized I
Speaker 2: was falling for him at the end of high school,
Speaker 2: especially when my family break downside to happen. I think
Speaker 2: he became a really safe place, and I remember remember
Speaker 2: after a big argument with my family in an awful day,
Speaker 2: I would just go to his house and he would
Speaker 2: just take me in and he would just put me
Speaker 2: in bed with him, and it was this really sweet
Speaker 2: moment of just feeling very loved and very safe. About
Speaker 2: a year into sharing a bed together a couple of
Speaker 2: nights a week, it was probably the first time something
Speaker 2: sexual happened, and I was over the moon because I
Speaker 2: thought he was falling in love with me, and I
Speaker 2: thought he was into me, and I thought I'd met
Speaker 2: someone who was playing hard to get, but he made
Speaker 2: me feel very safe. The vibe the next morning after
Speaker 2: we did something sexual was pretty chill. Actually, we just
Speaker 2: kind of kept going as normal. It felt a bit
Speaker 2: more cupply. I actually remember we went to a football game.
Speaker 2: We went straight to we met some friends out and
Speaker 2: I remember seeing this sort of being like, ooh, that's
Speaker 2: my guy, because it felt like we were starting a relationship.
Speaker 2: We were starting something and we were so close at
Speaker 2: that point because we talked all the time and we
Speaker 2: were together all the time, and it felt really nice
Speaker 2: to be in something definitely and like very very connected
Speaker 2: to someone. I told him about my feelings. It was
Speaker 2: sort of a It was a scary moment for me
Speaker 2: because I wasn't very good at sharing my feelings. I
Speaker 2: thought it was also just definitely happening naturally by itself.
Speaker 2: And he would always sort of make jokes about like, oh,
Speaker 2: I know, you have a crush on me, and I
Speaker 2: would always be like, oh, yeah, you know a little bit.
Speaker 2: And it was a bit of a game we were
Speaker 2: playing with each other. And I did tell him a
Speaker 2: couple of times oh, I think that I'm really falling
Speaker 2: for you. And he would always be like, oh, you're
Speaker 2: so silly, and like brushed off a little bit. But
Speaker 2: then it was always the actions were so different. It
Speaker 2: was always a come and sleep and bear with me afterwards,
Speaker 2: and then something sexual would happen, and you know that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. So I always assumed it was always reciprocated,
Speaker 2: just never able to say it was where we're at.
Speaker 2: But a couple of times he did say it. He
Speaker 2: would say it or he would tell it to someone
Speaker 2: else and they would tell me, and I was just
Speaker 2: very like, Oh, we're just in this little thing together.
Speaker 1: And this little thing continued for quite some time.
Speaker 2: We were about three years in at this point, and
Speaker 2: we were spending some time with some friends. They were
Speaker 2: actually doing tough better. We was a normal week. I
Speaker 2: spent a couple of weeks at night to his house.
Speaker 2: That week, I had dinner with his family, I was
Speaker 2: watching TV with his brother and doing these kind of things.
Speaker 2: I was really part of his life. And the night
Speaker 2: we had a big party and I watched him take
Speaker 2: my best friend into his room to hook up with her,
Speaker 2: and I just felt something change in my body and
Speaker 2: I just for the first time felt pure anxiety that
Speaker 2: I've never felt before, and I remember just sort of
Speaker 2: looking back and just feeling my whole body start to panic.
Speaker 2: And he just did it. He just took her in
Speaker 2: there and he was like, yep, this is what we're
Speaker 2: doing and closed the door. And I had to wait
Speaker 2: for the whole night sleeping on the couch for them too,
Speaker 2: because I was able to drive home, so I had
Speaker 2: to sleep on the couch and wait for the next
Speaker 2: morning for them to reappear. And the whole night I
Speaker 2: just lay there and just waited with the anxiety just
Speaker 2: building up inside me. I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 2: and I didn't know if I should call someone, and
Speaker 2: then I didn't think. I didn't know if I was
Speaker 2: being ridiculous. My best friend and everyone that we were friends.
Speaker 2: We knew that we were some thing, but they didn't
Speaker 2: know what we were. So we were the people that
Speaker 2: always shared a bed, but we were just friends. But
Speaker 2: then people didn't really know what was happening. But we
Speaker 2: were always together and we were always there was always
Speaker 2: touching and hugging in anytime there was alcohol involved. He
Speaker 2: was way too close to me, and it was always
Speaker 2: that sort of. We were very very very close, and
Speaker 2: no one quite understood, and people would always ask me,
Speaker 2: what are you and I'd be like, we're just we're
Speaker 2: just best best best friends, you know, and it was
Speaker 2: hard to explain what we were. So she thought the
Speaker 2: same thing. She was like, they're just really really really close,
Speaker 2: and why would anyone pursue someone if they were with
Speaker 2: someone else. He most definitely pursued her, and he made
Speaker 2: her feel like there was nothing going on between him
Speaker 2: and I, so she didn't think that there was anything
Speaker 2: happening between us when she pursued things back with him.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to overreact. When you're nineteen years old
Speaker 2: and it's the first boy you've ever had a crush on,
Speaker 2: you don't want to overreact, and you don't want to
Speaker 2: seem like you're too into them because they're gonna not
Speaker 2: be into you. And I thought I knew what we were.
Speaker 2: And then at the time, I was just utterly confused
Speaker 2: and utterly panicked. I think about losing something that I had.
Speaker 2: So the next morning I drove her home actually, and
Speaker 2: I went home and I went straight to bed, and
Speaker 2: I started to just question everything, and I went over
Speaker 2: and over in my head. I didn't actually even talk
Speaker 2: to him the next morning. I just couldn't face it,
Speaker 2: and I went to bed, and I remember he came
Speaker 2: over that night and he was just like he just
Speaker 2: kept asking me what was wrong, and I kept saying,
Speaker 2: I don't understand why you would have done that, and
Speaker 2: then he started to get more and more and more angry.
Speaker 2: And that was the first time I ever saw the
Speaker 2: anger side of him, which was this I can do
Speaker 2: anything I want side, and then I have a really
Speaker 2: clear image of it in my head. He looked me
Speaker 2: down in the eye and he was like, I never
Speaker 2: promised you anything, And that was the first time I
Speaker 2: really saw that side of him, and it was a
Speaker 2: whole new side that I never really I was always
Speaker 2: very safe and very open with him, and then suddenly
Speaker 2: it was a who were you to think or that
Speaker 2: we are anything sort of reaction. And he did say
Speaker 2: to me, you are making this all up in your head,
Speaker 2: and at nineteen, I went, I must be making this
Speaker 2: all up in my head, and so I believed him,
Speaker 2: and I definitely just spent the next two weeks just
Speaker 2: trying to dampen down my anxiety and tell myself I
Speaker 2: was being ridiculous. So I calmed myself down. I went
Speaker 2: back to normal, and we rebuilt a friendship and I
Speaker 2: didn't think about it again. And it was different though.
Speaker 2: After that, everything was a little bit different. Something was
Speaker 2: a little bit more. I was trying hard to rebuild
Speaker 2: a friendship that he was a bit like above me.
Speaker 2: Now there was something that was different in our dynamic.
Speaker 2: We didn't agree on what was happening, but we didn't
Speaker 2: talk about it either. So if I said to him
Speaker 2: I thought we were becoming something, I thought you had
Speaker 2: feelings to me, he would just brush me off. And
Speaker 2: I didn't want to lose him, so I kept doing
Speaker 2: what we were doing, and we were just best friends.
Speaker 2: We just we did pull back. We stopped sharing a
Speaker 2: bed as much, and we stopped engaging in anything sexual
Speaker 2: after that that much, and then it became a much
Speaker 2: more about taking care of me. I think he knew
Speaker 2: that I was enjoying having a place to go. I
Speaker 2: hadn't quite figured out my family situation yet, and so
Speaker 2: it became much more, Oh, she needs me, so I'm
Speaker 2: giving this to her.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, the sexual side picked back up too.
Speaker 2: It stayed as this strange thing that sometimes would happen
Speaker 2: when we were drinking, or especially if he drank a lot,
Speaker 2: it would happen all the time, and there would be
Speaker 2: declarations of love and there would be a lot of things,
Speaker 2: and it was always like his true feelings came out
Speaker 2: if he had a little bit of alcohol, but anytime
Speaker 2: he was sober, he was so controlled and so calculated,
Speaker 2: and so no, no, no, this is this is what we
Speaker 2: are sort of thing. And then it became a don't
Speaker 2: question it anymore. It became if you want to be
Speaker 2: in each other's lives, you don't question it anymore. You're
Speaker 2: just here. But at the same time, we were basically married,
Speaker 2: like we spent every day together. We did everything together,
Speaker 2: we were in each other's families, we would go to
Speaker 2: family functions together. We were talking all day every day.
Speaker 2: It was a full blown relationship. So I didn't even
Speaker 2: have any space for anything else because I was in
Speaker 2: a relationship with this person. I was so attached to
Speaker 2: this person and it felt like, yeah, it felt like
Speaker 2: a full on husband. I was completely in love with him,
Speaker 2: and I was in love with the idea of our
Speaker 2: life together, I think, and I didn't want to let
Speaker 2: that go. And I loved being involved with his family,
Speaker 2: and I loved being just with him and safe with him.
Speaker 2: And there was a couple of times where he would
Speaker 2: tell me he loved me back, and we had these
Speaker 2: amazing moments, and I just I was completely smitten and
Speaker 2: fallen for him. I think my body was reacting more
Speaker 2: to the ups and downs than my brain was. I
Speaker 2: think I got very used to ignoring what my gut
Speaker 2: was telling me, especially after that first time. When I
Speaker 2: did that on purpose, I would start to get quite sick.
Speaker 2: I gained weight, I got more and more anxious, and
Speaker 2: more and more issues like that, and I started to
Speaker 2: do things like my hair wouldn't grow very quickly, and
Speaker 2: just I was always just a bit sick and always
Speaker 2: just a bit off, and my gut was always really bad.
Speaker 2: And I remember going to doctors for stomach problems and
Speaker 2: things like that, and it was usually always your anxious
Speaker 2: and I would go, I don't know what I'm anxious about,
Speaker 2: and I would never figure it out. And then a
Speaker 2: lot of it had to do with this relationship that
Speaker 2: wasn't really a relationship, but it was just slowly kind
Speaker 2: of tearing me apart a little bit. So he simultaneously
Speaker 2: was my best friend in the entire world, and the
Speaker 2: person I told everything to and who was there for
Speaker 2: me all the time, but also the person who was
Speaker 2: very slowly messing with my confidence and my self esteem
Speaker 2: and everything about me, but I never quite noticed. I
Speaker 2: think I was holding onto the idea of what we
Speaker 2: could be, and I was holding onto the idea of
Speaker 2: the safety that I had with him, and I was
Speaker 2: holding on to the idea of I needed this, I
Speaker 2: needed this person to survive, and he knew exactly how
Speaker 2: to make it seem that way too. He knew exactly
Speaker 2: how to make me feel like, oh, this is this
Speaker 2: is what I need because I can't function without him.
Speaker 2: And he would always sort of do this like you know,
Speaker 2: I'm here for you, and I'm here for you, and
Speaker 2: I'd be like, yeah, I know, like it's great, and
Speaker 2: he would always push that side of things to the
Speaker 2: point where I didn't even realize how much he was
Speaker 2: kind of skewing things a little bit. I think I
Speaker 2: had gotten over the truly deeply first love love for
Speaker 2: him at that point, but I think I was extremely
Speaker 2: close to him, and I think I was still in
Speaker 2: love with him. It felt like a five ten years
Speaker 2: in relationship with a husband at that point, because we
Speaker 2: knew each other so well and we'd gone through things
Speaker 2: together at that point, and I was deeply in love
Speaker 2: with him, but he was also just my best friend.
Speaker 2: He was the person that I wanted to spend all
Speaker 2: my time with who knew me better than anyone else
Speaker 2: who I think there was also a sense of panic
Speaker 2: in it now, a little bit like I couldn't live
Speaker 2: without him, Like I didn't know what to do without him.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to detach. I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to be myself, so I needed him.
Speaker 1: It was incredibly confusing and seemingly not good for her,
Speaker 1: but she kept it going as it was because she
Speaker 1: couldn't bear the thought of losing her person, a concept
Speaker 1: she didn't think she'd ever have to comprehend until.
Speaker 2: Five years after we met. But three years into this
Speaker 2: very close relationship we had, he found out Who's moving
Speaker 2: to Sydney for work and he got Groven a great opportunity.
Speaker 2: I was devastated. I was really, really really upset, and
Speaker 2: I would cry and I would get really stressed. I
Speaker 2: would ask a lot of questions about, well, what does
Speaker 2: that mean for us? And why are you leaving and
Speaker 2: this sort of thing, and I did get really hurt
Speaker 2: by the idea of him leading. And a lot of
Speaker 2: that was my own anxieties because I'd obviously been through
Speaker 2: a lot with my family, but it was also just
Speaker 2: having this person who I don't really know what they are,
Speaker 2: I am I as close to them as I think
Speaker 2: I am. He was leaving and I was just devastating.
Speaker 2: I was crying. I remember lying on the bed in
Speaker 2: his house just crying while he was packing the bag,
Speaker 2: and he was just sort of he was trying to
Speaker 2: comfort me, but he was also just determined to go,
Speaker 2: and he really wanted to go, and that was fine,
Speaker 2: but I felt like I was losing my best friend.
Speaker 2: Felt like a breakup. It felt like he was leaving me.
Speaker 2: It was the way that my heart felt like it
Speaker 2: was a breakup. It was the person I'd spent all
Speaker 2: my time with, who was very happily going somewhere else
Speaker 2: without really thinking about what it meant for anything to
Speaker 2: do with us. And my heart was definitely hurting in
Speaker 2: a way that I'd never felt it hurt before because
Speaker 2: I didn't really know what to do, and when he left,
Speaker 2: I was very lost. I think is the way to
Speaker 2: put it, I was very confused and just lonely well
Speaker 2: than anything else. So the friendship when he moved, it
Speaker 2: stayed close as it could. We caught on the phone
Speaker 2: all day every day. He kept talking to me, we
Speaker 2: kept doing things. I visited Sydney couple of times with
Speaker 2: some friends, and when I was there, we would share
Speaker 2: a bed and we would always cuddle and it would
Speaker 2: go back to normal when I was there. I remember
Speaker 2: going to see him, but I would never meet his
Speaker 2: Sydney friends. I would never meet anyone. There was a
Speaker 2: girl in Sydney who he was seeing, and he purposely
Speaker 2: made sure we'd never met, made sure we didn't and
Speaker 2: even I do remember asking him, if we are best friends,
Speaker 2: why don't I get to meet anyone? And he would
Speaker 2: just be like, you're just going to be over the
Speaker 2: top about it. And I remember going, well, if you
Speaker 2: want to be best friends, I should meet the girl,
Speaker 2: and he was like no, no, no, no, no no. But the
Speaker 2: way I found out about the girl was he didn't
Speaker 2: tell me. I was there visiting him one weekend and
Speaker 2: we were sharing a bed and we were doing all
Speaker 2: these things together, and I found her stuff in the
Speaker 2: bathroom and I found her hairbrush, and I found all
Speaker 2: these female things, and I went out and was like,
Speaker 2: are you seeing someone? And he was like, I was
Speaker 2: waiting for you to find it. And that's how he
Speaker 2: told me. And I was like, why wouldn't you just
Speaker 2: tell me straight out? And he basically just said, I
Speaker 2: just wanted to see what you would do, because I
Speaker 2: knew that you'd overreact. And so I slept on the
Speaker 2: couch that night and I talked to my best friend
Speaker 2: on the phone and she was saying to me things like,
Speaker 2: that's just not okay. He should just tell you. He's
Speaker 2: just messing with you. And I'd go like, oh, maybe
Speaker 2: you're right, Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe he like, you know,
Speaker 2: he wants to see what I would do, because I
Speaker 2: have overacted in the past, and I know I can
Speaker 2: be very anxious.
Speaker 1: And was in Sydney for a year, and over that time,
Speaker 1: Amanda did realize actually she could live without him. God,
Speaker 1: she missed him, but she survived something that until she
Speaker 1: was forced to, she didn't know if she could. And
Speaker 1: then he moved back.
Speaker 2: He was in Sydney for a year and then he
Speaker 2: came back and just settled back into life again. So
Speaker 2: I was living with two wonderful housemates and I loved
Speaker 2: there were my guy friends, and I loved them so much.
Speaker 2: And he was definitely a little jealous of that. I
Speaker 2: think he thought that I would stop being friends with
Speaker 2: people without him. And these are people we all went
Speaker 2: to school with, so they weren't his, they weren't mine.
Speaker 2: They were very shared and we had a great house dynamic.
Speaker 2: I felt very happy and like I had a really
Speaker 2: great bunch of friends while he was in Sydney, and
Speaker 2: I was very much myself, I think. And when he
Speaker 2: came back, he did slip back into sort of coming
Speaker 2: to things again, and he came back into the friendship group,
Speaker 2: and he was a little bit I think jealous. It
Speaker 2: came across as jealousy more than anything else, not that
Speaker 2: I was friends with them and not him, that I
Speaker 2: think we were friends without him. He got a place
Speaker 2: really close by. It was ridiculously over the top expansive
Speaker 2: and he didn't need to live there by himself, but
Speaker 2: he got one really close by because every Monday night
Speaker 2: we had a dinner with the people that lived in
Speaker 2: the suburbs we were in close by, and he was
Speaker 2: not part of those suburbs, and instead of moving to
Speaker 2: where he used to live, he moved very close and
Speaker 2: then demanded he was invited. I mentioned to him, like,
Speaker 2: this is just something we do. It's been going on
Speaker 2: for years without you, you know, do you need to
Speaker 2: do it? And he made me feel so bad about
Speaker 2: the fact he wasn't invited that eventually he was invited
Speaker 2: and he was just there. He was part of everything,
Speaker 2: and it manifested in a more of just a guilt
Speaker 2: tripping way. Every now and then it was just a oh,
Speaker 2: I'm doing this, Oh well, I want to come. So
Speaker 2: he was at everything all the time. He would say,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to spend time together. While we
Speaker 2: spending time together, and I would have him there. So
Speaker 2: he was always at my house, he was always around.
Speaker 2: He started to be at everything again. I definitely was like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's missed me and he's come back from Sydney. You know,
Speaker 2: he wants to spend time with me again, and here
Speaker 2: we are, and this is this is going to be great.
Speaker 2: And I wanted him around. I missed him. It was
Speaker 2: it was my close person. He was the person in
Speaker 2: the room who whenever I was talking and like, you
Speaker 2: feel a little bit alone because you're in a room
Speaker 2: full of people, he'd like lock eyes with you, and
Speaker 2: he was the one that saw you. He was that
Speaker 2: guy in my life. A lot of my friends were,
Speaker 2: you know, getting engaged in doing the things you do,
Speaker 2: and I was going, it's okay, it's okay, I have
Speaker 2: this guy, and this guy has me, and every part
Speaker 2: of it was an emotional relationship. It was we went
Speaker 2: immediately back into being those close, close people who spent
Speaker 2: all that time together, who talked NonStop, who were just
Speaker 2: not seeing other people. He never saw anyone else, and
Speaker 2: I never saw anyone else, And like I would go
Speaker 2: and you know, have casual relationships here and there with people,
Speaker 2: but I never connected emotionally to anyone else the whole time.
Speaker 2: And he hated everyone I ever went and saw, and
Speaker 2: I never knew about anything that he was doing, and
Speaker 2: if I did, it was always this I knew you'd
Speaker 2: be jealous reaction.
Speaker 1: One thing that did change, though, when Aaron came back
Speaker 1: from Sydney, they stopped hooking up.
Speaker 2: I did reach a point of I just need to
Speaker 2: be friends with this guy. But it was not a
Speaker 2: normal friendship in any way. There was just so much
Speaker 2: emotional connection there, and there was so much closeness, and
Speaker 2: there was so much getting drunk at a party and
Speaker 2: still sort of saying stupid things to each other, and
Speaker 2: he would be it was character party one time and
Speaker 2: I was singing and he was sitting on a seat
Speaker 2: so close to me and staring up at me, drunk,
Speaker 2: and all my friends are like, that guy's in love
Speaker 2: with you, and I was like, yep, but what does
Speaker 2: that matter now, Like he's not gonna say himself. So
Speaker 2: it was just this constant everyone knew it. I thought
Speaker 2: I knew it. Thing that was happening all the time.
Speaker 1: So when Amanda found out her housemates were moving out,
Speaker 1: it was totally fine for Aaron to move in, right right.
Speaker 2: My best friend told me not to do it, My
Speaker 2: housemates told me not to do it, and I told everyone, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we are so fine. It's gonna be so great. We're
Speaker 2: in a really great place. I'm really in control of it.
Speaker 2: Everything's fine. And he moved in. It was really fun.
Speaker 2: I had my best friend in the house, so we
Speaker 2: played a lot of video games and we had a
Speaker 2: lot of people over and we hung out and we
Speaker 2: knew how to get along really well. And he got
Speaker 2: a puppy, which she was amazing, and I got to
Speaker 2: help raise the puppy, and it was it was great.
Speaker 2: He was having my best friend around and it was
Speaker 2: always someone that was there. That was the thing. It
Speaker 2: was because it was also COVID. We were working from home,
Speaker 2: and I would just go into his study and I
Speaker 2: would just sit on his couch, and whenever things were wrong,
Speaker 2: my best friend was right there next to me, and
Speaker 2: it was so easy to have him around. I definitely
Speaker 2: started to develop feelings again for him. I think we
Speaker 2: both kept it very separate because there was also at
Speaker 2: that point a part of my gut which was like,
Speaker 2: don't you can't do that again. I think maybe my
Speaker 2: body had learned by that point a little bit more,
Speaker 2: but I was starting to see some cracks growing. So
Speaker 2: even though my heart was like, this is the guy
Speaker 2: for you, there was something in like my gut and
Speaker 2: my head's saying, don't cross online. But you know that
Speaker 2: being said, we were cuddling on the couch and we
Speaker 2: were hugging five times a day, and we were, you know,
Speaker 2: attached to each other, and we were doing everything together.
Speaker 2: So I was basically married at that point. We were
Speaker 2: just sleeping in separate beds is kind of what it
Speaker 2: felt like. We were cooking for each other, like it
Speaker 2: wasn't exactly like we were housemates. I'd had male housemates,
Speaker 2: and this was very different.
Speaker 1: And they didn't cross the line, I mean, depending where
Speaker 1: you see that line as being, but they continued on
Speaker 1: as they always had. The relationship, though, wasn't the only
Speaker 1: thing on Amanda's mind at that time. There was something
Speaker 1: in her life that became a much bigger issue.
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, my mum was diagnosed with cancer. It
Speaker 2: started off as breast cancer. So she just found a
Speaker 2: lump in the shower one day and went in and
Speaker 2: they found two different sides and it was awful when
Speaker 2: I did find that out. He was in Sydney, so
Speaker 2: I sort of did a lot of that by myself,
Speaker 2: and he was there and that sort of stuff. But
Speaker 2: across the years, my mother's eldest progressed and kept growing
Speaker 2: and they kept finding things, and so started twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: her illness had gotten way worse. She was died of
Speaker 2: with brain cancer and she got taken her to hospital
Speaker 2: in about February and she basically was told she had
Speaker 2: about six weeks to live after that, so I said,
Speaker 2: step away from the house more and more, and my
Speaker 2: sister and I were going into the hospice every day.
Speaker 2: At that point, my cousin had actually moved in with us.
Speaker 2: She had gone through a horrible divorce herself, and I
Speaker 2: basically was like, look, I have a place to stay.
Speaker 2: It's a safe place for you. It's somewhere that's not
Speaker 2: going home to your parents, you know. Would you like
Speaker 2: to come in? Would you like to come live with me?
Speaker 2: She was my cousin. I wanted her to have a
Speaker 2: place to go. So Stephanie moved in with me and Aaron.
Speaker 2: We had always been close, but never like like great
Speaker 2: friends close, and she left that relationship and we decided
Speaker 2: to build a friendship up. So I saw it as
Speaker 2: a really good opportunity to have someone that I was
Speaker 2: close to in the house. And Aaron and I lived
Speaker 2: there together for a really long time, so we would
Speaker 2: set in our ways and I didn't see it as
Speaker 2: an issue originally. It all went really well. She moved in,
Speaker 2: We got along out, the dogs all got along. We
Speaker 2: were a cute, little happy family. We went and played
Speaker 2: tennis a lot. We did a lot of things that
Speaker 2: were great. The three of us got along really well,
Speaker 2: and she was really excited to be there. She had
Speaker 2: a lot of time for him. She found him really funny,
Speaker 2: she found him really great. He was selling the funniest
Speaker 2: guy in the room, and he was the coolest guy
Speaker 2: in the room, and she wanted to do what he
Speaker 2: wanted to do. And I just started to notice, and
Speaker 2: I did comment to a friend of mine, she reminds
Speaker 2: me of me when I was seventeen. It started to
Speaker 2: instead of just being friends' housemate vibe sort of thing.
Speaker 2: She started to really want to become close to him
Speaker 2: very quickly. She started to sort of really want to
Speaker 2: be in every conversation and if ever, he and I
Speaker 2: went and had a private conversation with the door closed
Speaker 2: about anything really was we were leaving her out and
Speaker 2: why are we doing that? And she should be in
Speaker 2: there too. When I wasn't at the hospital or at
Speaker 2: the hospice, I was spending time with them, and it
Speaker 2: was this kind of strange universe where they were being
Speaker 2: really close to me and really like being friends with me.
Speaker 2: But then stuff was going on, Like there was one
Speaker 2: time they wanted to watch a horror film and I
Speaker 2: was like, look, I spent the day in a hospice.
Speaker 2: Can we maybe chill it out and not, you know,
Speaker 2: do that. And he got so angry and he was
Speaker 2: like oh and just went into his room and then
Speaker 2: he started messaging me, this is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: You're just such a down or you're such a drag,
Speaker 2: like you just ruined things. And I started to cry
Speaker 2: on the couch and I showed my cousin the photos,
Speaker 2: like the photos of the messages that he was sending,
Speaker 2: and she was just like, oh, I don't know, like
Speaker 2: you know, it's a bit. She just kind of didn't
Speaker 2: quite she said it was wrong, but she didn't quite
Speaker 2: react to it. And then he came back out was like,
Speaker 2: let's go outside and do this thing instead, and she
Speaker 2: went off and did it with him. And I remember
Speaker 2: going outside crying and being like, so am I supposed
Speaker 2: to join in? Or how is it working now? And
Speaker 2: I was really angry and he was just sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: come join in, and then I was just kind of
Speaker 2: happy to be there. So I said nothing for the
Speaker 2: rest of the night, and I kept wondering if I
Speaker 2: was grieving and emotional and anxious, and there was so
Speaker 2: much going on that. I was questioning myself a lot.
Speaker 2: I can't even describe it, like there was this strange
Speaker 2: vibe in the house. They were being weird with each other.
Speaker 2: She was being very, very keen to be very close
Speaker 2: to him. So he went through a bit of a
Speaker 2: family situation at that time with some illness, and I
Speaker 2: would go along a little bit to the hospital. But
Speaker 2: I also knew him at that point for ten years,
Speaker 2: and I'd known his family, and I was very close
Speaker 2: to his family, and she would get a little bit
Speaker 2: upset that she wasn't invined to come, and she'd send
Speaker 2: things like, oh, if you guys are going to go
Speaker 2: do that, then oh should I come over? And I
Speaker 2: was a bit like, you've only known him for about
Speaker 2: a month, like not quite understanding. But every time I
Speaker 2: brought it up to him, he would just be like,
Speaker 2: you're just jealous. I didn't want my relationship with my
Speaker 2: family to be tainted. I did say to him, look,
Speaker 2: she's my family, and I remember saying to him, please
Speaker 2: don't mess with my family, like straight out, and he
Speaker 2: was sort of a bit angry about that. He was
Speaker 2: a bit like, well, who are you to give me,
Speaker 2: you know, tell me what to do. I was like,
Speaker 2: if you want to stay friends, we just need to
Speaker 2: have I think I said highness, respect and consideration for
Speaker 2: each other, and he was like, I can't do that.
Speaker 2: The next thing that happened was, unfortunately my mother passed away.
Speaker 2: He was supportive, he was there. He turned up at
Speaker 2: the hospice the day it all happened and he gave
Speaker 2: me a big hug. But three days later, I was
Speaker 2: doing her photo tribute and I was borrowing his laptop
Speaker 2: to do it, and Aaron and Stephanie went to the
Speaker 2: shops together and I was on the laptop at the
Speaker 2: house and I was just I was basically tired, just
Speaker 2: trying to get this thing done for my mum's funeral,
Speaker 2: and their Facebook chat popped up on the screen. And
Speaker 2: I am not proud of it. I'd never been the
Speaker 2: type of person to want to snoop into a phone
Speaker 2: or to ask a guy to show me his phone
Speaker 2: or be that way, but I just had this feeling.
Speaker 2: I just immediately was like, you know, I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: it because and I did it, and I'm not I
Speaker 2: am not that person, but I'm so glad I did
Speaker 2: because it was the moment I saw what they were
Speaker 2: talking about. I never felt less crazy. They were calling
Speaker 2: me crazy Amanda every time, and they were talking about
Speaker 2: how crazy Amanda that morning did this, and crazy Amanda
Speaker 2: that morning did that, And the mornings that I was
Speaker 2: going off to the hospice and doing things like that,
Speaker 2: they were calling me crazy all the time and about
Speaker 2: how I would overreact, and you know, they would do
Speaker 2: things like they'd make plans to go and go to
Speaker 2: places and then they wouldn't tell me, and then I
Speaker 2: would feel left out, so I'd ask them like why
Speaker 2: and I'm not invited? And it was crazy. Amanda attacked
Speaker 2: me today about this. They were just bonding so hard
Speaker 2: about me being the worst person in the world, and
Speaker 2: he was creating situations that made me look like the
Speaker 2: worst person in the world, and I was buying into
Speaker 2: them every time. And the horror movie thing, I realized,
Speaker 2: was another one of those where I was confused because
Speaker 2: I didn't know what I'd done wrong, but he was
Speaker 2: just making it seem like his life was so awful
Speaker 2: having to deal with me, and she would say, I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry you have to deal with her. In the conversation.
Speaker 2: I was very, very very hurt, but that wasn't all.
Speaker 2: I saw that they were sexting each other on the chats.
Speaker 2: I didn't read the sex specifically, but I didn't really
Speaker 2: want to know the details, but I did see that
Speaker 2: it was sexual. But I mostly also just saw them
Speaker 2: planning to lie about it. So the messages that I
Speaker 2: saw were the two of them sort of just openly
Speaker 2: saying that they can't tell me and they don't want
Speaker 2: to tell me, and you know, just keep just keep
Speaker 2: lying to where it's okay, you know that sort of
Speaker 2: those sort of messages, and I just I knew, you know,
Speaker 2: I did see him say something to her about keeping
Speaker 2: it secret, and she's saying something back about calling him
Speaker 2: sir and he doesn't want to. They had set up
Speaker 2: this dynamic which was just and honestly, it felt like
Speaker 2: they set up a dynamic which was me when I
Speaker 2: was seventeen meeting him, and I kind of just knew
Speaker 2: what was happening because I'd lived it before. So they
Speaker 2: did come home and I actually, quite calmly just sort
Speaker 2: of said are you two hooking up into the room,
Speaker 2: and he was like no, no, no, no, no, no no, And then
Speaker 2: she wouldn't look at me, and she was putting the
Speaker 2: shopping away, and you could tell she was very stressed
Speaker 2: and a little like sort of waiting to know what
Speaker 2: to say. And he looked me down in the eye
Speaker 2: and he kind of looked at me and he was like,
Speaker 2: what have you done? I remember he was leaning on
Speaker 2: the kitchen bench and I watched his eyes like change
Speaker 2: into this fight mode a little bit, and then she said, well,
Speaker 2: why is it your business? I felt angry, and I
Speaker 2: felt sad, incredibly sad, but it was actually more energy
Speaker 2: than I had had in a long time. I was
Speaker 2: still grieving and I was still extremely heartbroken about my mum,
Speaker 2: but it was this clarity that I finally needed. I
Speaker 2: felt like something just changed in my body a little bit.
Speaker 2: But I you know, I went from having massive cries
Speaker 2: and massive just what is going on? Because I just
Speaker 2: lost someone and I was losing other people. And then
Speaker 2: I went from just being so rage driven adrenaline running
Speaker 2: around and like wanting to know answers. And I left
Speaker 2: and I went to my friend's house and well, actually
Speaker 2: she picked me up and we drove around and we
Speaker 2: talked and I just told her everything and she was
Speaker 2: just like, what is going on? And I called my
Speaker 2: ex housemates on a grip chat and I actually remember
Speaker 2: saying to them, I need you to tell me if
Speaker 2: I'm crazy, and they're like, what do you mean? And
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm feeling like this was really bad,
Speaker 2: but am I overreacting? And they're just like, no, you're
Speaker 2: not overreacting. And I needed someone to tell me that
Speaker 2: before I could, you know, figure that out. And I
Speaker 2: needed my best friend to tell me that. So I
Speaker 2: called her and she was like, I hate this guy,
Speaker 2: you know. She was so done, and she was just like,
Speaker 2: this is what keeps happening. And the fact that you're
Speaker 2: even having to ask people if your reaction is too much,
Speaker 2: because I was in a house with people who were
Speaker 2: telling me it was too much, like what have you done?
Speaker 2: Like why are you even thinking that this is bad behavior?
Speaker 2: And so to the point where I didn't know what
Speaker 2: I was supposed to feel anymore. And I stayed at
Speaker 2: my sister's house for a couple of days and tried
Speaker 2: to stay away, tried to plan the funeral, do all
Speaker 2: the things we were doing, and they kind of did nothing.
Speaker 2: We didn't really interact. I just kind of went, I
Speaker 2: have to do what I have to do, right now
Speaker 2: and I can't focus on this. The next day is
Speaker 2: a kind of a blur, to be honest. I stayed
Speaker 2: at my sister's house. I hid, I planned a funeral,
Speaker 2: which was awful. The day of the funeral, I was
Speaker 2: just kind of I was at home. I just remember
Speaker 2: being alone. Mostly they were just very much just with
Speaker 2: each other. They were just kind of only focusing on
Speaker 2: each other. She was really focusing on him, And I
Speaker 2: remember the morning of I was getting ready and doing stuff,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I just feel very alone in
Speaker 2: this day, like no one's gone. Today is the day
Speaker 2: of your mother's funeral. Do you want a cup of tea? Like?
Speaker 2: I just did all these things alone. But I just
Speaker 2: did them. And I had my sister and my best
Speaker 2: friend flew in from New York, which was beautiful, and
Speaker 2: I was very lucky to have a very great group
Speaker 2: of friends around me who had had for years, and
Speaker 2: they just bolstered me up. But three days after the funeral,
Speaker 2: we got through the funeral, he did come. I did
Speaker 2: actually ask him to come. I remember messaging him and
Speaker 2: just being like, look, I just don't know how to
Speaker 2: do it without you. Can you just turn up? He came.
Speaker 2: He sat on the other side of the room to
Speaker 2: my friends and we hiled goodbye, and that was the
Speaker 2: last time we hugged ever since. But and his brother
Speaker 2: came and you know, it was it was almost like pause,
Speaker 2: just pause for that day. I spent the next three
Speaker 2: days just doing things. People were really kind to us,
Speaker 2: and like, spent time with friends and just tried to
Speaker 2: calm down. I remember messaging them three days after the
Speaker 2: funeral and I said to them, I'm coming home. I
Speaker 2: know we have stuff to talk about and sort out
Speaker 2: and figure out. I have to start work tomorrow. I'm
Speaker 2: doing my best. Just leave me alone, Please, just leave
Speaker 2: me alone. My sister took me home. She took me
Speaker 2: upstairs to my room, and I just I was sort
Speaker 2: of like, I'm just gonna have a shower. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna just chill into the day and try and regroup
Speaker 2: for tomorrow. Maybe wash my hair, you know, the small
Speaker 2: things you can do when you're green. And it's an
Speaker 2: awful time. And so I told her to leave. The
Speaker 2: second she was at the door. They appeared at my
Speaker 2: door holding a phone and they're like, I know you
Speaker 2: didn't want to be doing anything today, so you don't
Speaker 2: have to we don't have to have a conversation, but
Speaker 2: just so you know, we're going to send this message.
Speaker 2: And then they pressed send at the door, and my
Speaker 2: phone buzzed and they started a new chat with all
Speaker 2: my friends and me in it. The first sentence of
Speaker 2: the chat was, it's been four days, so now you
Speaker 2: know it's been a respectful amount of time, so now
Speaker 2: we can do this. Basically, he's telling their side of
Speaker 2: the story, which was basically a huge, long punch of
Speaker 2: paragraphs about how awful I was. And he started to
Speaker 2: talk about how when he hooked up with my friend,
Speaker 2: I tried to control him. He's had to deal with
Speaker 2: me for years. It was this just paragraphs long. It
Speaker 2: was ranting message about like our entire history of everything
Speaker 2: that was bad, about how he'd had to put up
Speaker 2: with me for years, everything I'd ever said about anyone
Speaker 2: in the Green that was negative anyway. He just defamed
Speaker 2: so hard. And the worst bit is that my cousin
Speaker 2: pressed send straight after him and sent a message in
Speaker 2: the chat with all my friends in it, saying her
Speaker 2: side of the story, which is apparently that I never
Speaker 2: made her feel welcome and I never wanted her there,
Speaker 2: and I never wanted it, Like I was never a
Speaker 2: nice person to her, and I never wanted them to
Speaker 2: be together. And I was always this and that, them
Speaker 2: backpedaling basically, and to try and just take all the
Speaker 2: blame off them, to try and justify everything they'd been doing,
Speaker 2: to try to make me out to be the crazy
Speaker 2: one in the situation. I think for him it was
Speaker 2: a desperate attempt to salvage his friendships, because at that
Speaker 2: point a lot of my friends decided to see what
Speaker 2: was going on and were feeling quite done with it too,
Speaker 2: and they had seen me be really hurt by him.
Speaker 2: The message also hadn't it this is our home, so
Speaker 2: if you would like to come and see Amanda, you
Speaker 2: need to ask permission before entering the house. So at
Speaker 2: that point I went, I'm now being isolated away from
Speaker 2: my friends because they have to ask permission to even
Speaker 2: spend time with me. My friends, bless them, They just
Speaker 2: responded with, look, this is a trying time. We're trying
Speaker 2: to help her through this. This doesn't seem like our problem,
Speaker 2: and they all just left the chat. So I called
Speaker 2: my sister. She came straight back and we sat around
Speaker 2: the dining room table and I begged him to leave.
Speaker 2: I remember I was looking at him to take in
Speaker 2: the eye, and I was like, you just need to
Speaker 2: move out. I'm just I'm so done. Can you please
Speaker 2: just leave? Like the house we were in I had
Speaker 2: lived in for years before he moved in with the boys.
Speaker 2: It was my place more than theirs, and I just
Speaker 2: sort of went, I will pay what I need to pay,
Speaker 2: I will do what I have to do. Please just leave.
Speaker 2: I'm just so done. And he smiled at me across
Speaker 2: the table and he looked at me in this way
Speaker 2: of just like pity, I guess, or this way of
Speaker 2: just like I don't know. It's like he was not
Speaker 2: the same person is then that I can describe it.
Speaker 2: His eyes were different, all the softness was gone. He
Speaker 2: just sat there and he didn't really react. He just
Speaker 2: kind of smiled. And my sister did actually say to him,
Speaker 2: you are a cancer in my sister's life, which is
Speaker 2: a huge thing to say after your mother's just passed
Speaker 2: away from cancer. And my cousin was there, she was
Speaker 2: in the kitchen, she was watching. We did say to
Speaker 2: her a couple of times like do you see this,
Speaker 2: Like do you see what's happening? And she a couple
Speaker 2: of times said, I don't see a problem, and she
Speaker 2: a couple of times said. I did say to her,
Speaker 2: she doesn't have to leave, and she said, if he leaves,
Speaker 2: I have to leave. And I said to her, I
Speaker 2: have been you, I have been you, and it ends
Speaker 2: in this awful way because he discards you, and you're
Speaker 2: watching that happen right now, and she just couldn't see it.
Speaker 2: She just couldn't see it. So I ended up having
Speaker 2: to just sort of say fine, go to the both
Speaker 2: of them, and she was quite angry, and the next
Speaker 2: couple of weeks was trying to figure out the logistics
Speaker 2: of getting them out. I felt very done. I felt
Speaker 2: pretty empty, to be honest, Like it was very hurtful
Speaker 2: and it was very was also not surprising. I think
Speaker 2: I knew him so well at that point that him
Speaker 2: doing that to me was just like, oh, yep, this
Speaker 2: is exactly what he would do situation. But it also
Speaker 2: was my best friend in life just absolutely disgarding me,
Speaker 2: and it was brutal and it was I cried, and
Speaker 2: I just I didn't know how to take the amount
Speaker 2: of grief I think I was feeling the couple of
Speaker 2: weeks it took to settle things down. I feel like
Speaker 2: I was just running straight on adrenaline. I was so
Speaker 2: heavily grieving both my mother and just even just in shock.
Speaker 2: I think about my mother's death and how fast it
Speaker 2: was and the trauma of it all, and dealing with that,
Speaker 2: and then dealing with my sister who had to go
Speaker 2: back to where she was and trying to deal with that,
Speaker 2: and then dealing with his home life, which was just awful.
Speaker 2: I was mostly sad. I just cried and cried and cried.
Speaker 2: And there was one night I came home and he
Speaker 2: was spending time with my family and I was not
Speaker 2: welcome to join, and then my family members were there
Speaker 2: and I just kind of lost it that night. I
Speaker 2: remember sobbing in my room, like just sobbing and sobbing
Speaker 2: and sobbing, and he texted me and he said, can
Speaker 2: you please be quiet? And then I just stopped crying,
Speaker 2: like something just I just sort of went, what the
Speaker 2: hell are you crying for over this guy who doesn't
Speaker 2: care about you? And I don't know what it was,
Speaker 2: something just I just stopped crying and then I just
Speaker 2: went into Okay, we're done. I don't know what changed
Speaker 2: it was just hidden texting with zero care whatsoever. I
Speaker 2: think I kept thinking if I was if I showed
Speaker 2: how sad I was, or if I showed stuff, he
Speaker 2: would crack and go back into that guy he was.
Speaker 2: But it was gone. It was completely gone. This person
Speaker 2: that had been my constant companion basically for twelve years
Speaker 2: and my best friend and my safe place was gone.
Speaker 2: And I didn't quite know how to function without him,
Speaker 2: or how to be an adult, or how to how
Speaker 2: to think without him, or how to to trust the
Speaker 2: world without him. Eventually, when they did move out, I
Speaker 2: was in this big house by myself, and I was
Speaker 2: happy to be there by myself, to be I'm not happy,
Speaker 2: but I was relieved to be by myself because for
Speaker 2: the first time in a long time, I was like
Speaker 2: very trusting of my own thoughts, and I didn't realize
Speaker 2: how much I had been just slowly messed with across
Speaker 2: like years and months at that point and just hard
Speaker 2: gas lit to be honest, and like it was a relief,
Speaker 2: and I threw myself into work, and I threw myself
Speaker 2: into building a life for myself again and just trying
Speaker 2: to process everything that had happened, and so it was
Speaker 2: an awful time, but it was this, it sounds strange,
Speaker 2: almost a relief. So since all of that went down,
Speaker 2: I've really thrown myself into work. I've been trying to
Speaker 2: process grief a lot, which has been really hard. I'm
Speaker 2: still trying to that. I met a guy at work
Speaker 2: who has been lovely, but again, he was extremely unemotionally unavailable.
Speaker 2: I realized that it was the love I was used to.
Speaker 2: It was someone so unavailable and me having to like
Speaker 2: prove they should pick me. So I very quickly went, oh,
Speaker 2: hold on, no, no, no. But it was actually also
Speaker 2: quite nice to be with someone who really wanted me back.
Speaker 2: So it was it was a learning opportunity. But life
Speaker 2: since then has been it's been pretty good. I've been trying.
Speaker 2: I've been working really hard. I've been doing a lot
Speaker 2: of things, a lot of grief, a lot of trying
Speaker 2: to manage the hardest part, which is that he is
Speaker 2: still with my family. So my sister and I spent
Speaker 2: Christians for the first time member without our family. We've
Speaker 2: spent it with other family, but it was the first
Speaker 2: time without them. But yeah, so he's still infected the
Speaker 2: little bits in things, but I don't talk to him
Speaker 2: or go anywhere near human. I would love to talk
Speaker 2: to my cousin again, but while she's talking to him,
Speaker 2: I can't go anywhere ney that because it's just too much.
Speaker 2: But I think I see it a little bit as
Speaker 2: two people who or at least maybe from her. I
Speaker 2: don't know her perspective, but it's someone who maybe has
Speaker 2: not done the right thing and doesn't want to face it,
Speaker 2: and so she's in a bit of a situation. But yeah,
Speaker 2: he's still very much. He's in my family, which is
Speaker 2: a bit gross. So I'm trying to stay away from that.
Speaker 2: But for me personally, I'm a lot better without him
Speaker 2: and even grieving even when horrible things happen. I've had
Speaker 2: to move house, I've had to do like big things.
Speaker 2: I have never wanted him back in any way, Like
Speaker 2: there's no part of me that missus. I miss my friend,
Speaker 2: I miss you know, the person who used to spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time with. But I don't want that
Speaker 2: back ever again, because I'm just I'm over it. I'm
Speaker 2: just over being confused all the time and told I'm
Speaker 2: not good enough all the time and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So we're in a journey. We're in a healing journey,
Speaker 2: is how I would put it. Now. The future is
Speaker 2: a lot of healing and a lot of slowing down
Speaker 2: and a lot of taking care of myself. But I
Speaker 2: want to keep working and I want to eventually find
Speaker 2: a good relationship, and I would love to be with
Speaker 2: someone who is completely opposite. I want to be in
Speaker 2: a really great thing and I want to feel very
Speaker 2: safe in something, but I want to feel like myself
Speaker 2: in something. For him, I don't really wish anything for him.
Speaker 2: For her, it's very different. I don't want her to
Speaker 2: go through what I've been through, and I just have
Speaker 2: this feeling it's going to happen because it's a pattern,
Speaker 2: and I'm watching her just be like, this is my
Speaker 2: guy now, and it's just not She can't see it.
Speaker 2: I could see it because i'd been there and I
Speaker 2: had been her. I want her to be happy and
Speaker 2: I want her to be back in my life, I think.
Speaker 2: But it's just it's just I can't force something to happen.
Speaker 2: I have to just sit back and watch and just
Speaker 2: tell my story and hope that it works out. But
Speaker 2: so if they ever are not together, I will happily
Speaker 2: see my cousin again, but I don't want anything to
Speaker 2: do with him, and if they do choose to be together,
Speaker 2: then I hope that he changes his ways and makes
Speaker 2: her very happy. Right now, my focus is on my
Speaker 2: personal healing and trying to grieve and trying to process
Speaker 2: what happened to my mother and focus on myself as
Speaker 2: much as I can.
Speaker 1: Everyone Has an X is a Minti Media production and
Speaker 1: proudly part of the Mum and mea network. It's written
Speaker 1: and narrated by me Georgia Love and produced by Linda Scott.
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