Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mom and Me a podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. Hey, friends, it's Mia.
Speaker 2: I'm popping into your ears because if you love no Filter,
Speaker 2: you're going to love a show called Everyone Has An
Speaker 2: Ex because it's about stories. It's about relationships, and it's
Speaker 2: about what happens when they end and when things go
Speaker 2: really really wrong. Today's episode that I'm going to share
Speaker 2: with you is called Double Trouble, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to spoil it, but it's about a guy called Josh
Speaker 2: and it's about a double life. Enjoy this episode, and
Speaker 2: if you want to hear more if Everyone has an Ex,
Speaker 2: we'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Young love, remember that reading someone your part time hospital job.
Speaker 4: We get together every.
Speaker 3: Night, they start making eyes at each other and one
Speaker 3: thing leads to another. Soon you're spending the night at
Speaker 3: their family home and having dinner with their parents. Well
Speaker 3: that's exactly how Emily met Josh.
Speaker 1: We just had such an instant connection at the time,
Speaker 1: and he was quite assertive person where he was like, yep,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to meet your family. Literally within the first
Speaker 1: two months, we had met each other's families. His family
Speaker 1: were beautiful, My family were beautiful as well, so we
Speaker 1: both came from quite good people around us. And then
Speaker 1: our relationship just grew.
Speaker 3: And when you meet someone so young, it really only
Speaker 3: goes one of two ways. You either grow up and
Speaker 3: apart or you grow together, like Emily and Josh did
Speaker 3: after seven years. They knew each other like the back
Speaker 3: of their own hands and trusted each other implicitly. At
Speaker 3: not even thirty years old, life was only just beginning.
Speaker 1: And then everything came crumbling down one day when my
Speaker 1: sister knocked on my door and said, Emily, I think
Speaker 1: your partner has another girlfriend.
Speaker 3: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an ex
Speaker 3: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 3: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
Speaker 3: hearts of the very people who lived them.
Speaker 4: Meet Emily.
Speaker 3: She's twenty eight now, but our story begins back in
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, when she was, in her words, just a baby,
Speaker 3: twenty year old.
Speaker 1: Just come out of high school, started studying. I was
Speaker 1: going out a bit more, starting to socialize, meet new guys,
Speaker 1: and had had previous experiences in the past but not
Speaker 1: an actual long term relationship with someone. So I actually
Speaker 1: started working at a club back in the day and
Speaker 1: I developed a good connection with one of my colleagues, Josh.
Speaker 1: I then said, look, we're good friends right now. I
Speaker 1: went to Europe, did like a little girl's trip, came
Speaker 1: back and continued to grow with this person that I
Speaker 1: worked with. We had a really good friendship and I
Speaker 1: think we had a lot of common interest. We both
Speaker 1: were interested in the same things. We just got along
Speaker 1: really well, started going out and we started to develop
Speaker 1: a relationship. And we were only kids when we met,
Speaker 1: so we were just learning about ourselves who were just
Speaker 1: starting our degrees, just starting to change jobs, starting to
Speaker 1: figure out whether we're going to stay at home or
Speaker 1: we're going to move out of home. So it was
Speaker 1: a pretty healthy relationship. When I met him. He gave
Speaker 1: me all the things that I wanted. So he was
Speaker 1: this person not from my world. He was someone that
Speaker 1: kind of opened up other avenues where he was someone
Speaker 1: that I was, Oh, this person does something that I
Speaker 1: don't do, such as go surfing, lives on the beach.
Speaker 1: We just had things that I found really interesting about him.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was really intrigued by what he
Speaker 1: was studying as well. We were both into health degree,
Speaker 1: so that's where we also had a connection with what
Speaker 1: we wanted to pursue in our careers, so finding someone
Speaker 1: aligned in my career in my life at that time.
Speaker 1: We both had good friends and family as well, so
Speaker 1: we were aligned in our values. But we were also
Speaker 1: very young school still kind of learning our values as
Speaker 1: well of what we want out of people. He was
Speaker 1: the same age as me, so we were both twenty.
Speaker 1: I found him quite I would say handsome, but he
Speaker 1: was still young so still had those boy features where
Speaker 1: he had fair eyes, light blue eyes. He had brown hair,
Speaker 1: quite a fair complexion. He's European, so he, you know,
Speaker 1: was quite a handsome young man who I was attracted
Speaker 1: to at the time of work. But he had a
Speaker 1: really good personality. So the way he would talk to
Speaker 1: me was very intelligent. From the start, he was a
Speaker 1: very good person to be around, so I found the
Speaker 1: way he would interact and articulate his words was also
Speaker 1: very attractive to me. He was someone kind of at
Speaker 1: my level with interactions, so as an overall, when I
Speaker 1: met him, I was like, Wow, he's smart, he's intelligent.
Speaker 1: He's tall, he's handsome, he knows how to talk to me.
Speaker 1: We can hold conversations for hours and hours, and that's
Speaker 1: what you look for, someone that you can just basically
Speaker 1: become best friends with when you first meet them. Then
Speaker 1: we just started to progress and started seeing each other.
Speaker 1: We were pretty quick for our families to meet as well,
Speaker 1: so I think just because we just had such an
Speaker 1: instant connection at the time, and he was quite assertive
Speaker 1: person where he was like, yep, I'm ready to meet
Speaker 1: your family. Literally within the first two months we had
Speaker 1: met each other's families. His family were beautiful, My family
Speaker 1: were beautiful as well, So we both came from quite
Speaker 1: good people around us, and then our relationship just grew.
Speaker 3: I mean, it all sounds pretty great so far, and
Speaker 3: it was. They both lived at home, but they'd stayed
Speaker 3: at each other's places, go out for lots of dinners,
Speaker 3: and away for the weekends. It was all just so
Speaker 3: nice and normal. Emily couldn't believe her luck.
Speaker 1: When when you're young, you're not used to this, You're like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this guy is adoring you. He just takes
Speaker 1: you everywhere, like treats you how you should be treated
Speaker 1: in your relationship. So if you wanted to go for
Speaker 1: dinner here, books that here, we want to go our
Speaker 1: way for a weekend book this, we would go shopping.
Speaker 1: He would buy things for me, you know, just doing
Speaker 1: the little things. He was very loving and acts of
Speaker 1: service was what he brought to me at such a
Speaker 1: young age as well. Over so I would say the
Speaker 1: first two years we just continued to grow with each other.
Speaker 1: He finished his degree, we started to think about maybe
Speaker 1: moving out in the next few years, so our relationship
Speaker 1: just grew that. We became a lot closer with my
Speaker 1: friends as well, so his friends. He started to lean
Speaker 1: away from just being that. He started to be involved
Speaker 1: a little bit more with my life, so my friends,
Speaker 1: he was around a lot more. My family, he started
Speaker 1: to hang around a lot more. And when we looked
Speaker 1: in the next few years, we started to progress about
Speaker 1: moving out together. We decided to look at moving somewhere
Speaker 1: around my area, so he was from a different area.
Speaker 1: So my life started to become the bigger version in
Speaker 1: the relationship, which was not bad. He really loved being
Speaker 1: a part of my life at that time. So the
Speaker 1: progression was that we were going to look at moving out.
Speaker 1: So that's what we did, so by the age of
Speaker 1: around twenty three twenty four, we started to look around,
Speaker 1: We're getting really excited or we'd also bought a car
Speaker 1: as well together, and then we did secure a rental
Speaker 1: at the end of around twenty twenty one, I think
Speaker 1: when around COVID kind of happened, So we actually moved
Speaker 1: out during that COVID period. So that was the next
Speaker 1: big step of our relationship. So there was always like
Speaker 1: goals of moving out and then in the next few
Speaker 1: years probably getting engaged and then obviously getting married. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, I was still studying, he was working full time.
Speaker 1: I was also working, so we're still really working hard
Speaker 1: in our relationship, but we still had our main values,
Speaker 1: which was to move out and move in together, which
Speaker 1: we did. It was so exciting when you move out,
Speaker 1: like especially going to all the open homes in the beginning,
Speaker 1: and you're just so excited. You're like, wow, we're going
Speaker 1: to take this next step. We were so in love, like
Speaker 1: we just could not wait to take this next step
Speaker 1: and be in each other's lives all the time and
Speaker 1: be able to come home from work and have someone
Speaker 1: there and talk about our days and be able to
Speaker 1: really live in our relationship one hundred percent. Because beforehand,
Speaker 1: you know, you go to your parents' house. It's still
Speaker 1: like a dating situation. It's a very different relationship to
Speaker 1: when you move out and you're able to plan the
Speaker 1: future ahead. We were like excited the real test, like, oh,
Speaker 1: can we handle being around each other all the time.
Speaker 3: So some quick maths, it's now twenty twenty one, Emily
Speaker 3: and Joshua twenty four and have been together almost four years.
Speaker 4: It was the perfect time to take this next step.
Speaker 1: The first six months is that honeymoon stage, right, So
Speaker 1: it's maybe similar to when people get married and they
Speaker 1: move out as well. You move out and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like this is amazing. You know, you're
Speaker 1: you know physically, emotionally, mentally, you're just so attracted to
Speaker 1: each other. You just can't wait to just see each
Speaker 1: other every day and be with each other after work,
Speaker 1: or just go out with your friends and just really
Speaker 1: enjoy each other's company. You know, you're excited to cook together,
Speaker 1: you're excited to build the home together, like we were
Speaker 1: doing all this shopping and getting the place really ready
Speaker 1: for building a home. The only issue was that it
Speaker 1: was during COVID, so things started to get restrictive, as
Speaker 1: you know, so we weren't able to do as much
Speaker 1: outings as we wished we could. So when we actually
Speaker 1: moved out, we were kind of forced to stay inside
Speaker 1: all the time and be with just each other. So
Speaker 1: it was a real test. Josh was able to leave
Speaker 1: and go to work because they worked in healthcare. For me,
Speaker 1: I was still studying and my job was from home,
Speaker 1: so I was home a lot of the time. But
Speaker 1: the satisfaction when he came home and being happy started
Speaker 1: to change. He started to not be as happy, started
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more tired, and the way
Speaker 1: he communicated and spoke to me started to change. And
Speaker 1: at the time we looked at it as, oh, it's
Speaker 1: just because when he comes home, it's just me there
Speaker 1: in that seat. He can't really go out and see
Speaker 1: his friends. We can't really go out and see our family.
Speaker 1: So that was a difficult period of our relationship. We
Speaker 1: were never a fiery couple. We were quite relaxed and
Speaker 1: we got along so well that there was not much
Speaker 1: to fight about, and especially at that time, the only
Speaker 1: issues was that we were come all the time together.
Speaker 1: There was not much space and there was nothing we
Speaker 1: could do, so there wasn't much fighting. It was just
Speaker 1: more maybe get irritable with each other. And then COVID
Speaker 1: finished and we started to go out with friends a
Speaker 1: little bit more. We started to see our families again,
Speaker 1: but there was just something not right. He just still
Speaker 1: didn't seem happy. I started to notice these emotions where
Speaker 1: he wasn't very excited to be home with me anymore.
Speaker 1: He just seemed a bit mellow down, a little bit
Speaker 1: of a concern to be around. And I actually approached
Speaker 1: him about his emotions and how he's been at home,
Speaker 1: and it was simple, just it's just work, like it's
Speaker 1: just so much, you know, it's stressful. It was always
Speaker 1: about his work or his life. It wasn't so much
Speaker 1: that there was anything between us. But something's just not
Speaker 1: right because he's not you know, when's your relationships not
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, you know, when there's just starting to
Speaker 1: have doubts. And that's what started to come in, and
Speaker 1: we kind of started to just become a little bit distant.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't sure what was going on. I felt
Speaker 1: like everything was fine on my end, but he was
Speaker 1: very difficult to communicate that with. So there was one
Speaker 1: day we'd been out with friends and the next morning
Speaker 1: he explained to me that he's not sure he can
Speaker 1: commit to our relationship anymore. I sat there with him
Speaker 1: on the couch, go what do you mean, Like, what
Speaker 1: are you talking about? And he's just started to explain
Speaker 1: that he's not sure if he made the right decision
Speaker 1: I guess by staying in this relationship, and he's not
Speaker 1: sure he can commit and he doesn't know what it is,
Speaker 1: and started to make all these excuses about why he
Speaker 1: maybe thinks that us being together isn't really a good idea.
Speaker 1: And I'm really not stupid, I'm not oblivious to signs.
Speaker 1: And that's what I said to Mago. There's been nothing,
Speaker 1: like you haven't shown me that there have been issues
Speaker 1: apart from how you've been irritable and tired and stressed
Speaker 1: or whatever, but you haven't actually communicated to me that
Speaker 1: there was something wrong.
Speaker 3: He wasn't actually breaking up with her, but he certainly
Speaker 3: threw a bomb, and that started a really hard and
Speaker 3: pretty toxic cycle through.
Speaker 1: End of twenty twenty one till about January. We started
Speaker 1: to have fights, so we started to really become intolerable
Speaker 1: with each other because he just was really changing. And
Speaker 1: then when he said all that, two days later, he
Speaker 1: would pull me aside and say, I'm really sorry. I
Speaker 1: don't mean what I said. You know I love you
Speaker 1: so much, you know I didn't mean why. So he
Speaker 1: starts to kind of love bonb me with his emotions
Speaker 1: of being confused and not sure what's wrong. And it
Speaker 1: just really confused my head. So when someone's telling you
Speaker 1: they can't commit and then someone tells you, actually, I
Speaker 1: take it all back, like I'm really sorry, and if
Speaker 1: you love that person, of course you're gonna sit there.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, no worries, that's fine, Like I know
Speaker 1: you're going through something. It's all good. I told him,
Speaker 1: I've said I want to fight for this because I
Speaker 1: really love you. I really and truly love you with
Speaker 1: my heart. And you know we've been together for that.
Speaker 1: This time was like four or five years. Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of work to do. When we're young, we
Speaker 1: can work through it. And a feeling of doubt and
Speaker 1: that's what we would talk about ago. He goes, I
Speaker 1: think I'm having doubts and I'm not sure why. We
Speaker 1: were always sitting there at night and trying to work
Speaker 1: out why why are you having these doubts anyway? And
Speaker 1: then I always put me in a position where I
Speaker 1: thought I'm doing something wrong. Am I not giving him
Speaker 1: enough love? Am I not challenging him enough? Am I not?
Speaker 1: And then you start to put it on yourself and
Speaker 1: you just don't know what to do, start to feel
Speaker 1: really insecure in your relationship because your partner's starting to
Speaker 1: throw these words and terms that you've never heard before
Speaker 1: in the last few years, and all of a sudden, yeah,
Speaker 1: it just starts to confuse you. Really, the end of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, once are going to twenty twenty two New
Speaker 1: Year's we had officially had a very big fight, and
Speaker 1: I said, I'm just I cannot be treated like this anymore.
Speaker 1: I can't be with someone who doesn't know what they want.
Speaker 1: I can't be told I want you one day and
Speaker 1: I don't want you the next day. I started to
Speaker 1: take days off from living with him, so we thought
Speaker 1: maybe giving each other space would be good. So a
Speaker 1: few days away from the apartment, I would stay with
Speaker 1: my parents. Obviously, I had a very close relationship with
Speaker 1: my parents. They knew everything, so it was very fine
Speaker 1: to go back home to mine and then he would
Speaker 1: also do the same, so I would come back to
Speaker 1: the apartment and he would spend a few days at
Speaker 1: his parents. And this went on maybe for about one
Speaker 1: or two months, until I just called it and said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to move back home. Throughout that period, he
Speaker 1: still never gave me one hundred percent. We both kind
Speaker 1: of agreed maybe we should take a relationship back and
Speaker 1: I will move out, and maybe he needs to work
Speaker 1: on himself a little bit more and really prove to
Speaker 1: me that he wants to be with me. But the
Speaker 1: best thing for me right now is to move away
Speaker 1: from him, be a bit more independent. It got to
Speaker 1: a point where I didn't want to break up, but
Speaker 1: I knew mentally I cannot go through these emotions anymore.
Speaker 3: It wasn't really a break up, more of a break
Speaker 3: because Emily wanted to be with Josh more than anything,
Speaker 3: and soon he realized that's what he wanted to.
Speaker 1: It was just a rollercoaster those periods of two months,
Speaker 1: three months. When you like someone and your heart is
Speaker 1: still in love with that person, you go back, and
Speaker 1: that's what happened. What he was saying was, this is
Speaker 1: the biggest mistake of my life. I should not have
Speaker 1: told you to move out. I was just going through
Speaker 1: some emotions. I promise you, I'm just working on myself.
Speaker 1: Just a few months apart and will keep seeing each other.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this because I want to be the best
Speaker 1: version for when we are together in the future. He
Speaker 1: who would say about how much he loved me, and
Speaker 1: how much he would say about how it's all about
Speaker 1: building himself for being a better partner later on in life.
Speaker 1: He consistently messaged me every single day, as much as
Speaker 1: I told him, maybe we should just lay off speaking
Speaker 1: for a little bit. That was near and possible because
Speaker 1: I would still get my phone calls, I would still
Speaker 1: get constant messages. It was almost like we never broke up. Really,
Speaker 1: it was just a break from living together. I thought
Speaker 1: he might just be going through some emotional things. Could
Speaker 1: have just been a really hard year with everything going on.
Speaker 1: I put that aside and I said, all right, let's
Speaker 1: work on our relationship. I won't live with you. Let's
Speaker 1: keep moving forward. And we did, and we worked very
Speaker 1: hard for the next two years. So I lived at home,
Speaker 1: he continued to live about a home. I helped him
Speaker 1: find his next apartment. So we were very much still together,
Speaker 1: just not living together. We went to weddings, we traveled,
Speaker 1: and then we went away in the middle of the
Speaker 1: year to South Australia did a two three week wine trip.
Speaker 1: We were really excited because we're like, yes, this is right,
Speaker 1: Like we love being with each other, we love traveling.
Speaker 1: So end of twenty twenty two, I said, look for
Speaker 1: financial reasons, I prefer to live at home. Since our
Speaker 1: relationships working so well, you know, it's really not that different. Now.
Speaker 1: Everything's fine. Our friends know we're back together, our family
Speaker 1: know we're back together. We really are just working well.
Speaker 1: We're both loving each other again. It just kind of
Speaker 1: excelled back to where we were. The fear of like, oh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to commit to me had kind of
Speaker 1: disappeared in that period because he started to just give
Speaker 1: me one hundred percent when I was with him, and
Speaker 1: I didn't need to see him every day because he
Speaker 1: was being a healthy partner and that he gave me
Speaker 1: the things that I wanted again and everything was fine.
Speaker 1: We planned a trip for Europe in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: and we traveled to Europe for six weeks, went with
Speaker 1: just us two and the only thing I would say
Speaker 1: about that trip was that before we went away, I
Speaker 1: was thinking, like would he propose? And before we left
Speaker 1: he kind of said to me when we were sitting
Speaker 1: at the airport, and I remember this, he said, just
Speaker 1: letting you know, I'm not proposing to you because I
Speaker 1: don't think I can afford it right now. And I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, right, and I go, I know that's
Speaker 1: not what the troop's about. I said yes, because an
Speaker 1: engagement won't change anything. We've been together for years, like
Speaker 1: I know this person will do it. And I also
Speaker 1: said to my I'm not asking for it right now,
Speaker 1: like I understand, Like if you're able to show me
Speaker 1: that you love me and that you want to be
Speaker 1: with me and you're still promising me that future, then
Speaker 1: I'm going to agree day you don't need for proposing
Speaker 1: this trip, because you can maybe can do it the
Speaker 1: next one that we go on or the end of
Speaker 1: the year or whatever. There was no I still had
Speaker 1: that certainty from him because he still showed me that
Speaker 1: we would still be potentially getting married even when we're away.
Speaker 1: We're like talking about places that could be nice to
Speaker 1: get married, and especially when we were in Amalfi and Italy,
Speaker 1: we were talking about like, oh gosh, how beautiful would
Speaker 1: be to do our wedding here, Like the intentions were
Speaker 1: always still there. He started to plan like that we
Speaker 1: would get married overseas and maybe a lope overseas and
Speaker 1: have a real intimate wedding with like our closest friends
Speaker 1: and just really he still painted this picture about getting engaged.
Speaker 1: So we go on our trip. Everything was beautiful. It
Speaker 1: was that European trip. Were traveling everywhere, so in love.
Speaker 1: We're like, oh my gosh, like this is amazing. We
Speaker 1: can't wait to do this again. And then we come
Speaker 1: back and something changes again. I don't know what it was.
Speaker 1: I could not figure it out, but he starts to
Speaker 1: become the most up and down person I've ever met.
Speaker 1: So leading up to Europe, everything was fine. We go away,
Speaker 1: we come back, and he just becomes a person of
Speaker 1: doubts and insecurities again.
Speaker 3: It was an absolute rollercoaster. But Emily wanted to stick
Speaker 3: by him and help him. It had been almost seven
Speaker 3: years they've been together now, and she loved him, didn't she.
Speaker 1: We get to around February, he starts to really change,
Speaker 1: and this is a side of him I've never seen before.
Speaker 1: So this is when I start questioning if I want
Speaker 1: to be with this person anymore? Am I really going
Speaker 1: to be waiting around for someone to make up their mind?
Speaker 1: And the way he would talk to me was irritable, angry, tired.
Speaker 1: He didn't treat me how I was treated in the
Speaker 1: first few years. We weren't going out as much anymore.
Speaker 1: He started to not make sense with how he spoke
Speaker 1: to me. His actions just were different. He would not
Speaker 1: touch me anymore, he was less physical, emotionally, started to
Speaker 1: be disconnected, and I really noticed it around my friends
Speaker 1: as well. How he started to treat me, it was
Speaker 1: quite rude. How he talked about me started to change
Speaker 1: as well. He just became a different person. I always
Speaker 1: gave him the benefit of doubt that maybe it's because
Speaker 1: of his work or because of something going on with
Speaker 1: his friends, but it just got to the point where
Speaker 1: there was one night where he started to tell me
Speaker 1: that he had anxiety, and I said, what anxiety. You've
Speaker 1: never had anxiety around me before. What's going on? And
Speaker 1: he did have a really big anxiety attack one night
Speaker 1: and woke me up in the middle of the night
Speaker 1: and said he can't breathe and just something's not right.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really do anything about it. I just
Speaker 1: let him be. I let him treat me how he
Speaker 1: wanted to treat me. And I continued on until we
Speaker 1: get to April, and then everything came crumbling down one
Speaker 1: day when my sister rocked up to my door. She
Speaker 1: knocked to my door and said, Emily, I think Josh
Speaker 1: has another girlfriend. They've been together for two years.
Speaker 3: Meet Olivia in twenty twenty two. She was twenty six
Speaker 3: and just out of a long term relationship when she
Speaker 3: went to work one day in a job in healthcare
Speaker 3: and was on shift with a guy she hadn't met before,
Speaker 3: a guy named Josh.
Speaker 5: We have the same job, but we didn't work in
Speaker 5: the same area. I had to go to his area
Speaker 5: to work that day, so I'd never met him before. Initially,
Speaker 5: at the start of the shift, I didn't think anything
Speaker 5: of it. You just go to work, you're in work mode,
Speaker 5: you just get talking. He came across as very confident,
Speaker 5: but during the shift he asked me a lot about myself.
Speaker 5: So the job was really intense and we were working
Speaker 5: together one on one for twelve hours. That's obviously a
Speaker 5: lot of time to get to know somebody he came across,
Speaker 5: very charming, charismatic, wanted to know a lot about me,
Speaker 5: asked a lot of questions during the twelve hours. But
Speaker 5: it started off with just general chit chat, but quite
Speaker 5: quickly it got into quite serious questions. He wanted to
Speaker 5: know about my family, my past relationships, what I wanted
Speaker 5: in a relationship. He had a way of asking the
Speaker 5: questions without it seeming like they were too intimate. He
Speaker 5: asked me a lot about my previous boyfriend and why
Speaker 5: we broke up, and I said, you know, we had
Speaker 5: a great relationship. He was a great person, but just
Speaker 5: wasn't the person for me. And I remember saying a
Speaker 5: few of the reasons why I broke up with him,
Speaker 5: and he then said to me, oh, they're very similar
Speaker 5: reasons to why I broke up with my ex girlfriend.
Speaker 5: So I'd say that's actually probably how we bonded the most.
Speaker 5: I would say.
Speaker 1: He spoke a lot.
Speaker 5: About his ex girlfriend and what they were missing in
Speaker 5: their relationship and what he wanted in his next relationship.
Speaker 5: I then went home that night and he'd added me
Speaker 5: on social media as you do, and slid into my DMS,
Speaker 5: and we just got chatting when I left the shift.
Speaker 5: I remember driving home and thought, oh, wow, I've met
Speaker 5: someone that will be in my life for a long time.
Speaker 5: You have that feeling where you know that you met them.
Speaker 1: For a reason.
Speaker 5: That's definitely how I felt. I don't know if I
Speaker 5: knew in what capacity. Because of work, it's obviously like
Speaker 5: a different environment. I didn't know if we would just
Speaker 5: be friends, or if we would go out on a
Speaker 5: date or anything like that. But I definitely had the
Speaker 5: feeling that I'd met someone that we had a lot
Speaker 5: in common with and that i'd want to see again.
Speaker 5: So when he messaged me on social media, I did
Speaker 5: feel happy. I thought, oh, he obviously thought it as well.
Speaker 5: We obviously did have the cane. It wasn't just one sided.
Speaker 5: From that day when we messaged each other, that was it.
Speaker 5: You start talking to each other every day, and we
Speaker 5: did not speak to each other for a day from
Speaker 5: July twenty twenty two onwards. I think initially my thing
Speaker 5: was I felt very seen. He seemed to really understand
Speaker 5: my personality. He seemed to really connect with my personality.
Speaker 5: It seemed like I had met the boy version of me.
Speaker 5: Almost When he was asking me questions, he would always say, oh,
Speaker 5: that's the same as me, or that's what I'm looking for,
Speaker 5: or oh wow, we seem like we really want the
Speaker 5: same things in the future. Even that first shift, I
Speaker 5: remember him comparing me to his family and saying that
Speaker 5: I had a lot in common with his family, and
Speaker 5: he thinks that just things like that, you know, my
Speaker 5: sister does that, or you know, you have a lot
Speaker 5: in common with my sister, or he would say things like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, it's so weird, like you remind me
Speaker 5: a lot of my family. You would fit in really
Speaker 5: well with my family. Spend a lot of time together.
Speaker 5: We spoke every day, We started going out on dates.
Speaker 5: He was definitely the type to want to impress, want
Speaker 5: to whine and dine, you take you out to different restaurants,
Speaker 5: try different wines, things like that. He always thought of
Speaker 5: himself as a romantic and he wanted to.
Speaker 1: Convey that as well.
Speaker 5: I would say it was pretty standard the way it happened.
Speaker 5: You just start spending more time together, and then a
Speaker 5: couple of months later, you know, you just have the
Speaker 5: conversation and we were boyfriend and girlfriend. So that was
Speaker 5: maybe three to four months after July. We had the
Speaker 5: conversation that we were together, and that was it. I
Speaker 5: remember thinking that the feeling that I have for Josh
Speaker 5: is very different to the feeling that I had for
Speaker 5: my ex partner. I remember with my ex partner, I
Speaker 5: always felt very safe and secure, and with Josh, I
Speaker 5: always felt excitement. I thought that maybe this is what
Speaker 5: butterflies were. I didn't recognize the feeling. I didn't know
Speaker 5: if it was love. I think it was definitely something
Speaker 5: that I wanted to explore. Because I'd only just gotten
Speaker 5: out of a relationship a couple months earlier. I was
Speaker 5: still very much in the era where I was wanting
Speaker 5: to do things for myself. I was wanting to keep
Speaker 5: my independence. So I would say that probably the first
Speaker 5: year I was a very slow progression, but it was fine.
Speaker 5: It was healthy because we worked in the same workplace.
Speaker 5: We worked in different areas, but I did know a
Speaker 5: lot of the people that he was friends with, and
Speaker 5: he knew a lot of the people that I was
Speaker 5: friends with. So we slowly started to just go out
Speaker 5: into different work things or I would meet his friends.
Speaker 5: But a lot of his friends from work I already knew,
Speaker 5: so it wasn't necessarily getting introduced to his friends, it
Speaker 5: was more just meeting them in the capacity of Josh's girlfriend.
Speaker 5: He was European, one of his sisters lived over in Europe,
Speaker 5: and one of his sisters lived quite rurally, so it
Speaker 5: wasn't easy for us to organize to meet his family.
Speaker 5: Josh's mum lived between Europe and Australia, so there was
Speaker 5: only small windows where we would have the opportunity for
Speaker 5: me to meet her. He would always say, like, my
Speaker 5: mum is really excited to meet you. My sisters and
Speaker 5: my mum have heard so much about you. They're going
Speaker 5: to love you. Your everything that they kind of envisioned me with.
Speaker 5: He then went to Europe in the middle of twenty
Speaker 5: twenty three. He told me that he had booked that
Speaker 5: trip prior to meeting me a year before with one
Speaker 5: of his best friends, so even though we were together now,
Speaker 5: he'd already booked this Europe trip prior to meeting me.
Speaker 5: I didn't have to leave from work, so I wouldn't
Speaker 5: have been able to go on this Europe trip either,
Speaker 5: I would say. When he was in Europe, he was
Speaker 5: very intense with me. He used to message me every day,
Speaker 5: call me all the time, send me a lot of
Speaker 5: voice notes. It had never really been like this before.
Speaker 5: It was always quite it seems like quite a healthy
Speaker 5: relationship initially, and when he was in Europe, I thought
Speaker 5: maybe it was just because he was there and he
Speaker 5: was missing me and he was sad that he had
Speaker 5: gone to Europe without me. But there was a lot
Speaker 5: of like intense conversations, a lot of conversations about the future,
Speaker 5: a lot of how much he loved me, a lot
Speaker 5: of how much he missed me. And then when he
Speaker 5: came back, So this is a year into our relationship,
Speaker 5: in July twenty twenty three, I would say that it
Speaker 5: started to become a lot more intense. He would start
Speaker 5: talking a lot more about the future. I suppose I
Speaker 5: thought that was normal. We've been together for about a
Speaker 5: year at this point, so I thought that he had
Speaker 5: just kind of realized that I was the person that
Speaker 5: he wanted to be with at this point, I would say,
Speaker 5: throughout the relationship, though it was a lot of push
Speaker 5: and pull, it was never this linear good stage. It
Speaker 5: never felt like a healthy balance of a normal relationship
Speaker 5: to what I thought a normal relationship was. There was
Speaker 5: always good times and bad times. There was always times
Speaker 5: where he was really attentive, and then times where he
Speaker 5: wasn't really attentive. So for the first year, the ups
Speaker 5: and downs that we had were definitely more time that
Speaker 5: we could spend with each other because we were both
Speaker 5: so busy. I would say that we would go through
Speaker 5: periods where we were able to see each other a lot,
Speaker 5: and then periods where we weren't able to see each
Speaker 5: other a lot. There'd be periods where he was really
Speaker 5: busy and unable to see me, and then periods where
Speaker 5: he'd want to see me every single day. It was
Speaker 5: just like how you always kind of know, like is
Speaker 5: someone texting you all the time? Is someone calling you
Speaker 5: all the time? Or was he a little bit more distant,
Speaker 5: not wanting to talk as much, not able to talk,
Speaker 5: maybe not answering my phone own calls for a couple
Speaker 5: of hours, or things like that. When I first got
Speaker 5: into a relationship with him, I was pretty anxious.
Speaker 1: I would say.
Speaker 5: I started going to therapy for anxiety around the same
Speaker 5: time that we had gotten together, and I thought that
Speaker 5: the ups and downs were always me. So when I
Speaker 5: wasn't feeling secure in the relationship, I would always think, like,
Speaker 5: it's just because you're anxious, it's your fault. Anything that's
Speaker 5: going on would just be because of you. So I
Speaker 5: thought that potentially that everything was always normal in our relationship,
Speaker 5: and my emotions were the ones that changed. I would
Speaker 5: always end up leaving the conversation feeling like I had
Speaker 5: done something wrong and my reaction was the problem, and
Speaker 5: I would always bring something up but leave the conversation apologizing.
Speaker 5: So the time where that kind of became really evident
Speaker 5: was on my birthday. It was my birthday when we
Speaker 5: were overseas with my friend and we had an argument
Speaker 5: on the phone, and he made me feel really bad
Speaker 5: about it, and I left the conversation saying to my friend, oh,
Speaker 5: I expected too much on my birthday. He did his best.
Speaker 5: He called me up. You know, He's told me that
Speaker 5: I expected too much of him and I should have
Speaker 5: just been happy with what I got from him. At
Speaker 5: that time, I think potentially having the space saying it
Speaker 5: out loud, and then also just having a friend to
Speaker 5: talk to made it quite obvious that that wasn't normal.
Speaker 3: After a year together, Olivia decided this maybe wasn't the
Speaker 3: relationship for her. After all, it had been fun, but
Speaker 3: it wasn't too serious. So when she got home from
Speaker 3: her holiday, she decided to call it quits. She told
Speaker 3: him this wasn't what she wanted, but Josh wouldn't let go.
Speaker 5: I was getting messages the next day saying that he
Speaker 5: didn't want to break up and that he will fix it,
Speaker 5: and he doesn't know how he's going to fix it yet,
Speaker 5: but he's going to start going to therapy and he's
Speaker 5: going to be better and he's going to learn a
Speaker 5: lot about it, and he would really like if I
Speaker 5: could stick by him. Everything kind of turned after that.
Speaker 5: It went to a completely different level of a relationship.
Speaker 5: I was completely love bombed. I was getting text messages
Speaker 5: every single day. I was getting phone calls every day,
Speaker 5: big paragraphs, and emails and letters, and he would do
Speaker 5: things for me. So he would come to my door
Speaker 5: and he would drop off meals that he'd made for
Speaker 5: me for the whole week and bring me flowers and
Speaker 5: organize dinners. And it was just zero to one hundred.
Speaker 5: He came and spent Christmas with my family in Queensland.
Speaker 5: He booked his flights. They were obviously expensive over Christmas.
Speaker 5: I think he spent upwards of five hundred dollars to
Speaker 5: fly there. He said that he was really excited. He
Speaker 5: spoke a lot about it. He was I to meet
Speaker 5: my family. He wanted to know if he could get
Speaker 5: them presents. He was doing all the things that you
Speaker 5: would expect of a loving partner at that time. I
Speaker 5: would say we had a perfect relationship where he was
Speaker 5: completely devoted to me. He was always infatuated with me.
Speaker 5: He used to tell me how great I was, and
Speaker 5: he would send me pictures of things that he would,
Speaker 5: you know, see in a magazine or on Instagram and say,
Speaker 5: I want this for our house, or he would just
Speaker 5: randomly text me and say, oh, I think you're going
Speaker 5: to be such a great mother. I can't wait to
Speaker 5: have children with you one day. Or it was just
Speaker 5: like I was the best person in the whole world,
Speaker 5: and it was It's very hard to not like feeling
Speaker 5: like that when someone is just like absolutely infatuated with
Speaker 5: everything that you could do, and I could do no wrong.
Speaker 5: And he started doing a lot of things that I
Speaker 5: was doing as well. So we were in the same job.
Speaker 5: I had gone back to UNI to study something, and
Speaker 5: then all of a sudden he wanted to go back
Speaker 5: to UNI as well, and he would want to study something,
Speaker 5: or I remember deleting my Instagram because I wanted to
Speaker 5: have some time off social media. So he also deleted
Speaker 5: his Instagram. And he would always just think that every
Speaker 5: idea that I had was honestly like the best thing
Speaker 5: ever I could have never imagined. April twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: when it all unraveled the way that it did, I
Speaker 5: was between night shifts. It was probably five pm. I'd
Speaker 5: just woken up and I had a text from Josh
Speaker 5: and had said, can you give me a call? We
Speaker 5: need to talk. I was half asleep at this point,
Speaker 5: and I call him up and I'm like, what do
Speaker 5: you want? Like, I'm getting ready for work, half asleep,
Speaker 5: and he was like, so I really need to tell
Speaker 5: you something. When we first started seeing each other two
Speaker 5: years ago, there was a slight overlap with another girl,
Speaker 5: and I had said, what do you mean by a
Speaker 5: slight overlap? Just be straight with me. We met in July.
Speaker 5: Let's say we didn't have the our friend boyfriend chat
Speaker 5: till November. From November, how long was the overlap? And
Speaker 5: he said until February twenty twenty three, And I said, okay,
Speaker 5: I'm done, and I just hung up the phone he
Speaker 5: had told me about another girl from our workplace that
Speaker 5: he had seen slightly before me. So when he said that,
Speaker 5: I thought that he was talking about this girl at
Speaker 5: work called Amy. And I just continued to get ready
Speaker 5: for work. And he had texted me saying I'm coming over.
Speaker 5: Don't leave for work. I said, do not come over.
Speaker 5: I won't be here. I'm going to work, And in
Speaker 5: the meantime he came over. He pulled up at my
Speaker 5: house and messaged me saying I'm outside, let's talk. Just
Speaker 5: as I was about to go outside, I got a
Speaker 5: message from Emily and it said something like, hey, Olivia,
Speaker 5: my name is Emily. Just in case you didn't know,
Speaker 5: I have been in a relationship with Josh for seven years.
Speaker 5: And I just walked out calm it, and he was
Speaker 5: yelling over the fence, this doesn't change anything. We've been
Speaker 5: doing so well. I still love you. You're the one
Speaker 5: that I want to be with. And I just held
Speaker 5: up the phone and I said, look, she's messaged me.
Speaker 5: This photo that she's just sent me is date stamped
Speaker 5: from January. That's not February twenty twenty three. And he
Speaker 5: was saying, no, she's crazy, she's crazy. Don't believe her.
Speaker 5: I was like, babe, it's time stamped, like you just
Speaker 5: stop lying to me, Stop lying to me, and just
Speaker 5: admit to what you've done, because there's evidence here. I'm
Speaker 5: not going to believe you. Stop with the act. And
Speaker 5: he just kind of was silent and he wasn't saying anything.
Speaker 5: I said, let me make it easy for you, because
Speaker 5: you've got a small little brain. I'm going to ask
Speaker 5: you some simple questions. Have you slept with her this year?
Speaker 5: And he said yes. And then I made him come
Speaker 5: over and I said, look at me in the eye.
Speaker 5: And he came over and I said, I'll never forgive you,
Speaker 5: never speak to me again. And then I just walked
Speaker 5: back inside and I went to work.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're all caught up, one guy, two girls, same time,
Speaker 3: So let's go back to Emily and her sister and
Speaker 3: dig into what she found out.
Speaker 1: So when my sister came over and saw me, she
Speaker 1: showed me a message and it was stating that Josh
Speaker 1: has another girlfriend from work for the last two years
Speaker 1: and everyone knows. And I go, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: And I go to my sister, where did you get
Speaker 1: this from? And she goes, look, I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: there's a photo of Josh with the other woman, and
Speaker 1: I go, this can't be real. At first, you go
Speaker 1: no way. I literally thought, there's no way. He's not
Speaker 1: capable of that. Where would he find the time to
Speaker 1: have another girlfriend? That was the first thought through my head,
Speaker 1: like who has time like for one relationship, let alone
Speaker 1: another one. So I had a chat to the person
Speaker 1: that sent the photo to my sister, and that person
Speaker 1: began to explain everything to me and said, look, Emily,
Speaker 1: I'm really really sorry. Basically, everyone knows that Josh has
Speaker 1: been in a relationship with Olivia for the last two years.
Speaker 1: These are the photos of them. I don't know what
Speaker 1: else to say to you, but yeah, he's got another partner.
Speaker 1: And when I heard those words, I actually didn't doubt it.
Speaker 1: I go, okay, you know what, I think this makes
Speaker 1: sense because I've been feeling like something was not right,
Speaker 1: and now I think I finally know. But of course
Speaker 1: I'm sick to my stomach because I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: register that my partner has another partner. What do I do?
Speaker 1: Do I confront him in person? Do I say something
Speaker 1: over the phone. You don't really know how to handle it,
Speaker 1: And at that time, I just thought, look, I know
Speaker 1: when he's going to call me. It's four thirty in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. He's just going to wake up from being
Speaker 1: asleep because he has a night shift tonight. I'll have
Speaker 1: a conversation with him on the phone. So I had
Speaker 1: my sister there at the time, so it was good
Speaker 1: to have someone with me, and I was very straight
Speaker 1: to the point he called me. I said, Okay, who
Speaker 1: is Olivia? And he kind of gasped, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? I go, no, you tell me who Olivia
Speaker 1: is and then we can continue the conversation. And then
Speaker 1: he starts to say, I don't know where you're getting
Speaker 1: this from. What are you talking about? I'm on a
Speaker 1: highway right now. How dare you start talking to me
Speaker 1: like this, I'm on the way to work. I go, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you need to tell me. Have you had another girlfriend
Speaker 1: for the last two years from work named Olivia? And
Speaker 1: then he proceeds to say, no, I haven't. I don't
Speaker 1: know where you're getting this from. I go, have you
Speaker 1: hooked up with someone else while you've been a relationship
Speaker 1: with me for the last seven years? And then it
Speaker 1: goes quiet and He's like, Okay, i've kissed someone. You've
Speaker 1: kissed someone, and obviously my reaction starts to become reactive.
Speaker 1: So little by little he starts to say, look, I
Speaker 1: can't talk right now. I'm on the highway. Please let
Speaker 1: me pull over and we can talk about this in
Speaker 1: five ten minutes. So he hangs up the phone and
Speaker 1: I go to my sister. Oh my gosh, I don't
Speaker 1: believe him, like I actually think he's got another partner.
Speaker 1: So I found out the girl's name and I said, look,
Speaker 1: in that interim period where he was pulling over, I
Speaker 1: messaged the other girl, Olivia, and I said, Hi, Olivia,
Speaker 1: my name's Emily, just letting you know I've been a
Speaker 1: relationship with Josh for the last seven years. I highly
Speaker 1: doubt you had any idea about this, but I'd really
Speaker 1: like to talk to you. And he's some phone of
Speaker 1: us for the last few months, just in case you
Speaker 1: wanted to see if she doesn't believe me.
Speaker 4: So Olivia called. She wanted to know what the hell
Speaker 4: was going on too.
Speaker 1: Basically, that phone conversation was Olivia explaining to me that
Speaker 1: she'd been with my partner, Josh for the last two years.
Speaker 1: They'd met at work. They were planning to move out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the year. Basically every single aspect
Speaker 1: of his life was a lie to me. First, it
Speaker 1: was really angry, and my heart just sank just through me.
Speaker 1: I just felt like I'd been actually hit by a truck,
Speaker 1: because I just you would never think tomorrow that your
Speaker 1: partner's just been with someone for them, not just cheated
Speaker 1: on you, but had another relationship with someone else. But
Speaker 1: I think my mind didn't register what was going on,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't even able to cry. I had no emotion.
Speaker 1: I was just really confused and I wasn't sure how
Speaker 1: to process it. And as soon as I'd found out,
Speaker 1: I just kind of felt like, this can't be real.
Speaker 1: This isn't real. I'm in a dream and it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very typical line to say, but really you
Speaker 1: sit down and you just don't feel like it's real life,
Speaker 1: because five minutes ago, I was waiting for him to
Speaker 1: call me before he goes to work, and now I'm
Speaker 1: finding out that he's had another girlfriend and he's setting
Speaker 1: up a life with someone else. When I feel like
Speaker 1: understanding in that moment, there was no like the emotional
Speaker 1: side of it was completely cut. It was just this
Speaker 1: like numbness and I don't know what to do and
Speaker 1: what do I do next?
Speaker 4: Olivia felt the same.
Speaker 5: Initially, I didn't have, yeah, the feelings of sadness. I
Speaker 5: just had the feelings of warning to understand it, because
Speaker 5: it's your mind can't comprehend something that is so unfathomable,
Speaker 5: like surely this only happens in movies. So I spoke
Speaker 5: to her on the way to work and we started
Speaker 5: kind of surface level, getting to the bottom of a
Speaker 5: few things, and then we said, you know, let's meet
Speaker 5: up for coffee the next day after I'd had a sleep,
Speaker 5: and we went through pretty much the last two years
Speaker 5: of our lives.
Speaker 1: We both just gave each other all the truth that
Speaker 1: we needed to hear. I found out there was also
Speaker 1: another woman as well, so he did wasn't just with
Speaker 1: one partner for the last two years. I actually found
Speaker 1: out that the reason why we've broken up in the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty one was because he cheated on
Speaker 1: me with another woman from work named Amy, who he
Speaker 1: had been on and off scene between the end of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Between twenty twenty two, there was quite
Speaker 1: an overlap of three girls in that year. A few
Speaker 1: weeks before, Josh comes over to my house and says,
Speaker 1: I'm so sick of my mates, so, you know, they
Speaker 1: just he kind of painted this picture that he's had
Speaker 1: a really big falling out with his friends and the
Speaker 1: wedding we were planning to go to this wedding in
Speaker 1: a few weeks that was going to be our first
Speaker 1: wedding of his friends. He told me, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to go anymore because I'm just so sick of
Speaker 1: my mates. They just can't make their minds up about something.
Speaker 1: I feel like they're just not the right people around me.
Speaker 1: He always kind of explained to me that his friends
Speaker 1: were never really good people, just never showed up. They
Speaker 1: didn't have very good values. So he painted that to
Speaker 1: me at the time, and he made me believe that
Speaker 1: he had it falling out with the groom of the
Speaker 1: wedding that was coming up in the next two weeks.
Speaker 1: So he had a shift that day of the wedding,
Speaker 1: and leading up to that, I was like, Hey, you
Speaker 1: sure like you're not going to go to the wedding
Speaker 1: because he has no like I don't care about this guy.
Speaker 1: I just you know, I don't want to go to
Speaker 1: the wedding. We're not talking at the moment, so in
Speaker 1: my head I thought he was going to work that day.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, he actually was at mine the
Speaker 1: night before and we packed his lunch and his uniform
Speaker 1: was all laid out for work the next day, and
Speaker 1: he set the alarm for four point thirty five in
Speaker 1: the morning and got up, got ready, literally said goodbye, Emily,
Speaker 1: I'm going to work, and I'm my gosh, like, you know,
Speaker 1: it sucks you're going to work today, you know, have
Speaker 1: a great day. He's like, yeah, like, you know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. You know, I don't really want to go
Speaker 1: to this wedding. The man literally left my house in
Speaker 1: uniform only to probably get change in the cart and
Speaker 1: drive home and get ready to go to the wedding
Speaker 1: with Olivia. And that was not the first time he'd
Speaker 1: left mine and put his uniform on and pretended to
Speaker 1: go to work. That was a massive theme that we
Speaker 1: figured out when we'd met up with each other, and
Speaker 1: that's why I learned that he'd made fake rosters and
Speaker 1: sent them to me. Throughout the last few years of
Speaker 1: our relationships, I'd never actually seen a real roster of
Speaker 1: their work until I'd met Olivia.
Speaker 5: Obviously, because we worked together, he couldn't lie to me
Speaker 5: as much about his day to day life, so I
Speaker 5: think I was probably lied to less. I knew more
Speaker 5: about his day to day life. I knew more about
Speaker 5: his work, I knew more about his friends. And I
Speaker 5: had said to you, like, what did you think he
Speaker 5: was doing on his birthday? Christmas, New Year?
Speaker 1: All those times? I thought he was.
Speaker 5: At Valentine's Day? Just little things, but it was easy
Speaker 5: to use big dates for us to because obviously there
Speaker 5: was a lot over the last two years, but it
Speaker 5: was easier to use big dates. So for Christmas, that
Speaker 5: was the first time you met my family. Actually he
Speaker 5: went to Queensland for my family. So he had told
Speaker 5: Emily that he was at work, and I said to her,
Speaker 5: how much do you think he works? Like can you
Speaker 5: send me what roster you think he has? And Emily
Speaker 5: sent me a roster. I was like, no, that's not
Speaker 5: our roster. And obviously, if you're not in a certain
Speaker 5: profession that does shift work, you're not going to know
Speaker 5: our roster pattern. You're not going to know.
Speaker 1: And you trust and you believe your partner, right when
Speaker 1: they're telling you they're going to work, you think they're
Speaker 1: going to work. He told me over Christmas, when he
Speaker 1: obviously was with Olivia, because I'm in health as well.
Speaker 1: Work with the public holiday because I'll be working the
Speaker 1: public holidays, work on New Years because I'll be working
Speaker 1: New Year's. And I did work because I actually went
Speaker 1: to work thinking my partner was at work. Because they
Speaker 1: would message me and call me and pretend to me like,
Speaker 1: I've just taken five minutes. How you're going, how's your day?
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't like I didn't believe him. And
Speaker 1: I would get photos sent to me as well, so
Speaker 1: there were pre made photos as well of him at work,
Speaker 1: so that I would believe that he's at work. And
Speaker 1: I've now found out all those times that it was
Speaker 1: just a complete lie.
Speaker 5: His birthday was in April, so that was only literally
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks before everything happens. He had told
Speaker 5: Emily that he was working on the day and we
Speaker 5: had like a big brewery Barkraur with a bunch of
Speaker 5: his friends from work, and obviously I went to that
Speaker 5: and he told Emily that he was working. But then
Speaker 5: I said, oh, like, what did you do for his
Speaker 5: birthday from you. Emily had taken Josh out on a
Speaker 5: picnic the next day and bought him like this, like
Speaker 5: beautiful food and wine and things like that. And I
Speaker 5: went over there a couple of days later and I said,
Speaker 5: why do you have all this like gourmet food in
Speaker 5: your fridge? And he'd said, oh, it's all from eld
Speaker 5: you know, I just I just got it all, like,
Speaker 5: you know, I'd like to snack on it. And Emily's
Speaker 5: like that was from a gourmet.
Speaker 1: Groser for his birthday, mind you, because I had to
Speaker 1: take him out for his birthday the day after because
Speaker 1: I thought he was working on his birthday. So when
Speaker 1: we went to Europe, when i'd met up with Oliviage,
Speaker 1: I asked her, so, what did you believe when he
Speaker 1: was in Europe for six weeks last year that he
Speaker 1: was with a friend, And she goes, yeah, you thought
Speaker 1: he was with one of his mates that he was
Speaker 1: traveling with overseas. What we'd figured out was that he
Speaker 1: lied to me about who he was on the phone to.
Speaker 1: So he would tell me that, oh, my mom's calling
Speaker 1: me or my sister's calling me. I'll be five minutes,
Speaker 1: I'll be ten minutes. I remember this morning distinctly when
Speaker 1: Leamatha Coast and he goes for a well, He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to go for a morning walk. It
Speaker 1: was early six in the morning, really early, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, that's very early to get up when we're
Speaker 1: on holiday. And it had been like two hours, and
Speaker 1: I go, where are you? Like I was messaging him,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, so sorry. I got really caught
Speaker 1: up on the phone with my mum. I promised I'll
Speaker 1: be here soon. But it was all lies, all these
Speaker 1: times that he was maybe left for like an hour
Speaker 1: or half an hour, or he'd go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: and pretend to be in the bathroom and gone for
Speaker 1: half Now he'd be calling Olivia and expressing his love
Speaker 1: for her.
Speaker 5: We also realized that he was real gifting, so obviously
Speaker 5: Emily's parents used to buy him a lot of groceries,
Speaker 5: buy him a lot of staff, pay for a lot
Speaker 5: of stuff. It was pretty much like the Tinder swindler situation,
Speaker 5: where you were paying for him and then he was
Speaker 5: paying for me. So he would come and say, you know,
Speaker 5: I bought this beautiful bottle of wine, or I made
Speaker 5: you this food, but it was always we realized it
Speaker 5: was always from Emily's parents' house, and he would say,
Speaker 5: you know, I've bought this beautiful bottle of wine for us,
Speaker 5: but it was really something that like he'd made Emily
Speaker 5: pay for. One of the worst things I think was
Speaker 5: when we were going through what his house looked like,
Speaker 5: I said, what about his phone background? What about our
Speaker 5: pictures next to our bed? You know, what about all
Speaker 5: my stuff that I left there? What about my bikinis
Speaker 5: that I left in the shower. And he would go
Speaker 5: around the house and put all of our stuff in
Speaker 5: these plastic bags and then take the other person stuff
Speaker 5: into the garage. When obviously the other girlfriend was over,
Speaker 5: he would switch the photos next to his bed. He
Speaker 5: would change his wallpaper on his phone, like obviously the
Speaker 5: contact changes as well, the contact changes on the phone,
Speaker 5: just to make sure.
Speaker 1: When we were going through what.
Speaker 5: Each other had left at his house, I said to Emily,
Speaker 5: what color was your toothbrush? And she said mine was
Speaker 5: the pink right, And I said, oh, no, so we
Speaker 5: had we were using the same toothbrush.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. That is the most like disgusting.
Speaker 4: But there was more.
Speaker 1: He was vegetarian with Olivia and with me, complete meat eater.
Speaker 1: He ate everything with me. This guy ate everything. When
Speaker 1: I met Olivia and she explained to me that, oh,
Speaker 1: he ate vegetarian with me. What do you mean he
Speaker 1: ate vegetarian with you? This guy would if we went
Speaker 1: to a restaurant, it was, oh, let's get the steak, babe,
Speaker 1: Well let's get the chicken, or let's I go. This
Speaker 1: guy is not vegetarian. This guy changed every part of
Speaker 1: himself to please the other person in the relationship, so
Speaker 1: to please Olivia, for example, and didn't eat meat, which
Speaker 1: was just news to me that I think that is
Speaker 1: the most probably insane part of this whole person. This
Speaker 1: person is actually living and leading a double life, and
Speaker 1: I had no idea.
Speaker 5: So when he met me in July twenty twenty two,
Speaker 5: as I said, he was quite attentive. Initially, he spent
Speaker 5: a lot of time with me. He had a lot
Speaker 5: of time for me. We would go out on dates.
Speaker 5: And it turns out you were in the hospital having
Speaker 5: surgery during that time, and then you were in rehab
Speaker 5: for a number of weeks, So that's obviously how he
Speaker 5: had so much time initially, and then the other time,
Speaker 5: how I said, we were really good after breaking up
Speaker 5: September twenty twenty three to December twenty twenty three, we
Speaker 5: were together a lot, like how I said, it was
Speaker 5: a very perfect relationship during that time, and you were
Speaker 5: doing real placement in Victoria. Yeah, so obviously he had
Speaker 5: a lot of time for me then, And it made
Speaker 5: sense why there were so many ups and downs, because
Speaker 5: we kind of figured out that if one of us
Speaker 5: was having a really good time, the other person was
Speaker 5: not having a good time, because it's impossible to give
Speaker 5: someone one hundred percent of yourself, so he would just
Speaker 5: be giving more to somebody else and less to the other,
Speaker 5: and then it would kind of switch. And when you
Speaker 5: had these feelings of you know, he's not giving enough
Speaker 5: to me, or he's being different in high that it
Speaker 5: was completely accurate for us to be feeling that way.
Speaker 3: I know what you're thinking, though, dear listener, how in
Speaker 3: this day and age can someone really lead a double life,
Speaker 3: especially millennials.
Speaker 1: Social media so, like Olivia said, she didn't use it,
Speaker 1: so she was not active on it. But for me,
Speaker 1: so when I first had used so Instagram or whatever
Speaker 1: we were using the first years of our relationship, I
Speaker 1: was quite public and I used to post a lot
Speaker 1: more As the last two years came across, he really
Speaker 1: became we should be more private about what you post,
Speaker 1: maybe stop posting so much. He'd actually kind of made
Speaker 1: me believe I should really be a private person. So
Speaker 1: I stopped posting photos as often. I actually removed a
Speaker 1: lot of the people that followed me. I became really
Speaker 1: private in my life and in public, like we still
Speaker 1: were tagged in photos. There was still stuff on his Instagram,
Speaker 1: but he actually didn't upload for years, and that was
Speaker 1: just he said, I don't use it, I don't post,
Speaker 1: I don't need to do it.
Speaker 5: I didn't use social media. So that was another way
Speaker 5: that he got.
Speaker 1: Away with it. When you would delete yours, he would
Speaker 1: tell me I'm going to delete mine for a bit
Speaker 1: because I think I need a break because I feel
Speaker 1: like I use it too much. I'm like, whatever, that's
Speaker 1: what you want to do, that's fine. I didn't actually
Speaker 1: think he'd deleted it because his other partner doesn't use it.
Speaker 5: And I think initially your first thought is, am I stupid?
Speaker 5: Am I an idiot? Did I miss out on all
Speaker 5: of the signs? But when you think about how convoluted.
Speaker 5: This was to keep up this parade for two years.
Speaker 5: People like this are obviously very good at what they do,
Speaker 5: and I don't think he was obviously very good at lying.
Speaker 5: He always had a good answer, there was always a
Speaker 5: backstory to everything. He never slipped up, he never got
Speaker 5: us confused. There was never any any moments where he
Speaker 5: made a mistake. So obviously, speaking to you, I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 5: Emily doesn't sound stupid, so I'm not stupid. But I
Speaker 5: just think you got to remember that this isn't normal,
Speaker 5: normal behavior. That these people can lie and they're rid
Speaker 5: of empathy or guilt, and that means that you don't
Speaker 5: have the normal responses when you are lying. If I'm
Speaker 5: sitting here lying, I feel bad about it, so I
Speaker 5: have like an emotional or physical reaction, and you would think, oh,
Speaker 5: maybe she's lying because I'd be giving away signs or
Speaker 5: as he never had that because he didn't feel the
Speaker 5: emotions that we feel.
Speaker 3: I probably don't need to point out that both girls
Speaker 3: broke up with Josh immediately, but for Emily at least
Speaker 3: this had been her partner of seven years. She couldn't
Speaker 3: hear all of this from a girl she'd never even
Speaker 3: heard of before without trying to get some answers from
Speaker 3: the man she'd loved.
Speaker 1: My last conversations with him, it was hours long. We
Speaker 1: were on the phone, and I just wanted him to
Speaker 1: come cleaner by everything. So I basically just confronted him
Speaker 1: and said, Hey, what did you do on this weekend?
Speaker 1: What about when we went to South Australia? What did
Speaker 1: you do? What did you say? I said? He said
Speaker 1: it went with friends, So it was just continue lies
Speaker 1: and I just said my main thoughts. I was emotional
Speaker 1: on that phone call, and I remember being just like,
Speaker 1: how dare you? How dare you do this to me?
Speaker 1: How could you have lied to me? I don't care
Speaker 1: if it was one years, two years, whatever it was
Speaker 1: to have done what you've done to your partner, the
Speaker 1: person that you meant to love. And I remember saying
Speaker 1: to him and like, you can't love two people at once,
Speaker 1: You can't be in love with two people. This is
Speaker 1: why you never gave me one hundred percent, and this
Speaker 1: is why I had doubts. And I actually I really
Speaker 1: was quite firm with my wording with him, and I said,
Speaker 1: now every single thing makes sense because you have been
Speaker 1: in multiple relationships, and he still tried to deny the
Speaker 1: other girl Amy, but I said, what you've done you
Speaker 1: can't take back. I will never ever speak to you again.
Speaker 1: All I asked, I said, is that you never contact me.
Speaker 1: And I go, this will be the last time you
Speaker 1: ever hear my voice. I don't need to hear anything
Speaker 1: else from you, and I hung up. I blocked him
Speaker 1: from every form of social media, every contact, and I
Speaker 1: think that was the pivotal point of moving on, is
Speaker 1: having zero contact with that person. My feelings of disgust
Speaker 1: were so overaught with my emotion at the time that
Speaker 1: I couldn't even be sad about it. I was just
Speaker 1: so disgusted and betrayed that I just I didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear a sorry from him anymore. His sorry was
Speaker 1: pathetic to me. His sorry was almost like he didn't
Speaker 1: mean it. He's almost sounded like when I spoke to
Speaker 1: him that he was emotionless. He just felt like he'd
Speaker 1: been caught. And I just said, okay, well I'm done,
Speaker 1: and like I said, after everything was blocked, that was it.
Speaker 1: That was my last conversation with him.
Speaker 4: Of course, it wasn't easy.
Speaker 3: It was really hard and really really heartbreaking, but in
Speaker 3: being by herself and out of what was an incredibly
Speaker 3: toxic relationship, Emily's found a new version of herself, the
Speaker 3: real one that she actually likes so much more.
Speaker 1: I no longer have the lease insecurities and doubts about
Speaker 1: a person. I feel like I'm more secure with myself
Speaker 1: because I was with someone who, like I told you earlier,
Speaker 1: when I felt like I was never good enough, like
Speaker 1: I wasn't questioning enough. I would give another example of
Speaker 1: where he'd put a lot of pressure on my degree,
Speaker 1: like you need to make sure you pass, like I'm
Speaker 1: doing a medical degree. You need to make sure you
Speaker 1: pass your exams because we can't move on with our
Speaker 1: life unless you pass his exams in the next few months.
Speaker 1: Like I can't wait around for you, and you know
Speaker 1: you're not waiting around for me, Like this is this
Speaker 1: is my career, It's not just about you. And now
Speaker 1: I feel like, well, fuck you, I fucking passed my exams,
Speaker 1: and now I know when I'm going to finish and
Speaker 1: how much I'm going to excel my life without you.
Speaker 1: He always painted this picture that he was supporting me
Speaker 1: so much this journey, and he'd done everything for me
Speaker 1: to get to where I am now. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: everything's for myself, and I didn't realize that until coming
Speaker 1: out of relationship, Like how hard I've worked, how much
Speaker 1: I've studied person I am today, I've just realized, like
Speaker 1: being my best version of myself, being on my own,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm happier, Like I've learned so much
Speaker 1: from how I was treated, and staying with someone for
Speaker 1: the sake of saying with someone because you love them,
Speaker 1: it's just not It's not a real reason, and no
Speaker 1: relationship should have these highs and lows, Like I've literally
Speaker 1: come out of that and being like I can do
Speaker 1: so much better. I'm going to get someone at my
Speaker 1: level and I deserve the world because what I went
Speaker 1: through is so not normal. It's not fair. But I
Speaker 1: don't sit there and pity myself. I'm glad I've got
Speaker 1: it out of it, had that experience because I can
Speaker 1: only be a better version of myself and hopefully teach
Speaker 1: other people to look out for these things and not
Speaker 1: settle for less and put yourself first in your relationship,
Speaker 1: because that will be my next goal for my next relationship,
Speaker 1: that I am an equal to that person. That's why
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm my best version of myself now.
Speaker 3: On top of that, they've both come out of this
Speaker 3: awful situation with something they really never expected.
Speaker 1: I've also formed the most incredible relationship with Olivia. That
Speaker 1: is I think is the best thing to have ever
Speaker 1: come out of this.
Speaker 5: Obviously there's been a lot of lessons that have come
Speaker 5: out from it, but I think go one of the
Speaker 5: days where I wouldn't have believed you. I think when
Speaker 5: you're young, particularly maybe high school, there's always this tall
Speaker 5: poppy syndrome situation happening with females. I think you're taught
Speaker 5: that the other female is the one to blame or
Speaker 5: the other female is crazy. The way that he tried
Speaker 5: to make it out on that night, but there wasn't
Speaker 5: a second that I didn't believe her. And I just
Speaker 5: think we have just come so far as females that
Speaker 5: we are willing to be united and we're willing to
Speaker 5: be friends and some other female success doesn't mean that
Speaker 5: you're going to be less and I think that was
Speaker 5: definitely a way of the past, and I think we've
Speaker 5: just come so far, and we've just come out of
Speaker 5: this situation and we just want the best for each other.
Speaker 5: I just want her to do so well, and we
Speaker 5: can talk openly about the situation, and we can talk
Speaker 5: openly about our goals and just say one of us
Speaker 5: is having a bad day, because healing obviously is not linear.
Speaker 5: I think we're doing so well, but obviously some days
Speaker 5: there's still repercusions from going through a situation like that
Speaker 5: where you might just not be feeling your best self.
Speaker 5: But I know that I can message her, voice, note her,
Speaker 5: call her, and just have this platform where I'm not judged,
Speaker 5: and I always walk away from the conversation feeling so
Speaker 5: much better, and then we can just move on with
Speaker 5: our day, move on with our lives, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 5: It was really hard not to have a victim mentality.
Speaker 5: It was really hard not to sit there and think
Speaker 5: why did this happen to me? Why did I have
Speaker 5: to be the person that he chose?
Speaker 1: Why? Me?
Speaker 5: But there's good to come out of every single situation,
Speaker 5: So it's only going to be a waste if we
Speaker 5: don't learn those lessons. Obviously we have each other, but
Speaker 5: going into our next relationship will be so much better
Speaker 5: for it, and we'll have learned all the hard lessons,
Speaker 5: and I genuinely believe that we will stand there one
Speaker 5: day marrying the loves of our lives and we'll be
Speaker 5: so happy that everything happened the way that it did.
Speaker 5: I think it's just hard to see it at the time,
Speaker 5: but now in hindsight, I wouldn't change it. I know
Speaker 5: that it was a terrible situation and I wouldn't wish
Speaker 5: it upon anyone. But I'm sitting here now, I've got
Speaker 5: this opportunity to do a podcast. I have you as
Speaker 5: my friend, and yeah, I think there's only good things
Speaker 5: to come from now on.
Speaker 1: The one thing he did well was pick two girls
Speaker 1: that are very alike and very intelligent and very beautiful
Speaker 1: people inside and out. So you know, I feel very
Speaker 1: blessed to have her around me and to grow with
Speaker 1: her in the next part of my life and just
Speaker 1: be someone around me forever, because he really did pick
Speaker 1: well with who we are run the real love story.
Speaker 3: Everyone has an X is a Minti Media production and
Speaker 3: proudly you're part of the Muma mea network's written and
Speaker 3: narrated by me Georgia Love and produced by Linda Scott.
Speaker 3: If you have a story you'd like to share email
Speaker 3: podcast at momamea dot com dot au. You can support
Speaker 3: us by following the show in your favorite podcast app
Speaker 3: and leaving a five star review. We'll see you for
Speaker 3: the next episode.
Speaker 4: How good was that story?
Speaker 2: What a Dirty Dog is? Josh? If you want to
Speaker 2: listen to more episodes, if everyone has an X, there's
Speaker 2: a link in the show notes of this episode, and
Speaker 2: make sure you follow the show. I've been binging this show.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did.