Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mom with Me podcast, Muma Me
Speaker 1: your acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters.
Speaker 1: This podcast is recorded on Relationships can be a lot
Speaker 1: like games. You win some, you lose some, and just
Speaker 1: when you think you know the rules, they change. There
Speaker 1: are highs, lows, and the occasional plot twist you don't
Speaker 1: see coming.
Speaker 2: I finish the appointment and check my phone and I
Speaker 2: have a whole string of texts from him, basically saying,
Speaker 2: I can't believe you do this to me. This is
Speaker 2: the last straw. We're done. It was such a tiny
Speaker 2: little tiff that we'd had, and we've been together for
Speaker 2: nearly two years, and I was like, surely he's not
Speaker 2: breaking up with me.
Speaker 1: But the thing about games is when they're over, you
Speaker 1: usually get a clean slate, a chance to reset and
Speaker 1: start again. But sometimes just when you think it's over,
Speaker 1: that's when the real games begin.
Speaker 2: I have an email from the Healthcare Complaints Commission and
Speaker 2: my stomach drops to think that someone has put in
Speaker 2: a complaint about me. It was really frightening. I just
Speaker 2: had no clue why on earth they would decide two
Speaker 2: years after to have her go at my career.
Speaker 1: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an ex
Speaker 1: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 1: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
Speaker 1: hearts of the very people who lived them. Remember being nineteen,
Speaker 1: meeting someone, forming a friendship that develops into a crush
Speaker 1: and then effortlessly into something more. Ah, those were the
Speaker 1: days when everything felt simpler, lighter, and full of possibility.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly how it began for Jade and Harry.
Speaker 2: We met at church. We were part of a giant
Speaker 2: friend group. I was really good friends with his sister,
Speaker 2: and then I just met him in the group and
Speaker 2: we kind of clicked and it went from there. We
Speaker 2: naturally kind of just gravitated towards each other within those
Speaker 2: groups on our little nights out. We were good at
Speaker 2: catching up with other people, but we still just kind
Speaker 2: of hung with each other. It was nice to see
Speaker 2: that my friends within that group they all liked him
Speaker 2: to We could do the same things together, so it
Speaker 2: wasn't like we had separate hobbies or separate passions and
Speaker 2: things like that. We had joint groups. So that was
Speaker 2: really fun. There was a lot of people around and
Speaker 2: he had eyes to me, and I think that was
Speaker 2: really awesome. It was such a nice feeling to be
Speaker 2: like this guy who I think is so cool. And
Speaker 2: he lived on campus at UNI, so I thought he
Speaker 2: was really cool and had his stuff together. He likes me,
Speaker 2: and he was pretty direct about it. He said, I
Speaker 2: want to take you on a date, I want to
Speaker 2: do this, all this kind of stuff, and so all
Speaker 2: of that attention and just directness was really nice. At
Speaker 2: the time, we both were committed churchgoers, and so I
Speaker 2: guess that was a nice commonality that built a bit
Speaker 2: of a foundation in our relationship. Pretty early on, I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's going to be my boyfriend, and things were serious.
Speaker 1: And he pretty much nailed the dating stuff too.
Speaker 2: He would do kind of the cheesy romantic stuff, which
Speaker 2: at nineteen I thought was the best thing ever. You'd
Speaker 2: get a love note, or you'd get a printed out
Speaker 2: photo or his ten things I love about you things
Speaker 2: like that. So all the cheesy stuff that nineteen year
Speaker 2: old me wanted and thought was the dream in a
Speaker 2: relationship he did. We did a lot of beach dates,
Speaker 2: so we would go on like little hikes and have
Speaker 2: like a picnic. I remember doing a sunrise picnic over
Speaker 2: the beach and bringing all the snacks and card games
Speaker 2: and things like that, which was really nice. I went
Speaker 2: to India on a mission trip. I was over there
Speaker 2: for like three weeks, and when I came back, it
Speaker 2: was so nice. I had really missed him and I
Speaker 2: had been saying how much I had been craving a
Speaker 2: pizza the entire time I was in India, and so
Speaker 2: he had brought pizza and then we went down to
Speaker 2: the beach and ate it on the beach because I
Speaker 2: hadn't been for a swim in weeks because I was
Speaker 2: in India, and it was just kind of everything that
Speaker 2: I'd said that I wanted. He had it all there
Speaker 2: ready for me, and because I hadn't seen him in
Speaker 2: a few weeks, I was really missing him. So that
Speaker 2: was like a really precious time. I would go out
Speaker 2: of my way, because we lived about forty five minutes
Speaker 2: from each other. I would make the time. You know,
Speaker 2: I might have finished UNI and I might have a
Speaker 2: really long day, but I was like so excited I
Speaker 2: wanted to spend my time with him. It was perfect.
Speaker 2: He told me I was beautiful. He told me all
Speaker 2: the things I wanted to hear, just.
Speaker 1: When you thought this seemingly perfect relationship couldn't get any better.
Speaker 2: We spent a lot of really nice time with each
Speaker 2: other's family, which was really precious. I was really close
Speaker 2: with his sister. He had a really really big family.
Speaker 2: He was actually a triplet and he had twin brothers
Speaker 2: as well, plus two older sisters. So hanging out with
Speaker 2: his family, we'd do often beach trips together was really
Speaker 2: really precious, and that was really nice. Memories. My family
Speaker 2: right up front were like, yeah, he's great because he
Speaker 2: showed a really really good face to my family. The
Speaker 2: fact that his family loved me was so reassuring. The
Speaker 2: fact that he introduced me to his family really early.
Speaker 2: He had like these twin brothers that were really little.
Speaker 2: They were like little babies, and he was so good
Speaker 2: with them, and I went, oh, he's perfect. About two
Speaker 2: months into the relationship, I remember going on a date night,
Speaker 2: and I'm a perfectionist. I need everything to go to plan,
Speaker 2: and so I had thought that I felt that I
Speaker 2: loved him, and I knew that I was going to
Speaker 2: say it at some point, and I had this big
Speaker 2: plan in my head that Okay, on this really nice
Speaker 2: date night, that we're going on, we're going to say it,
Speaker 2: and then for some reason we got into a bit
Speaker 2: of a tiff that night and it wasn't anything major,
Speaker 2: but we were just a little bit annoyed at each
Speaker 2: other and it didn't go perfectly to plan, and I
Speaker 2: was so disappointed because in my head, that was when
Speaker 2: we were going to say we loved each other. And
Speaker 2: I ended up crying to him, and then he told
Speaker 2: me he loved me. I thought I was dating to
Speaker 2: marry right from the get go, so with my first boyfriend,
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, maybe, but then that was definitely not it.
Speaker 2: And then when I met Harry, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is serious, Like this is my person, this is it.
Speaker 2: I'm especially coming from a church world, a lot of
Speaker 2: people get married really really young, and I didn't want that.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of the understanding that I had of it,
Speaker 2: because everyone else around me was in serious relationships and
Speaker 2: was getting ready to like lock it down.
Speaker 1: But like any relationship, they also had their little TIFFs.
Speaker 2: It was such silly things. It wasn't anything of importance
Speaker 2: that we would fight over. We wouldn't fight over life
Speaker 2: decisions or values or things like that. It was just
Speaker 2: disagreements where he would get frustrated with me or I
Speaker 2: would get frustrated with him, and we couldn't work through
Speaker 2: it because we were immature and young. We had come
Speaker 2: from different churches and met at a common church, and
Speaker 2: we definitely had a few different views, and so we
Speaker 2: had a few fights about it. Nothing crazy, because I
Speaker 2: thought that I was pretty open, so if he told
Speaker 2: me something new, I was happy to believe it or
Speaker 2: go along with it or question it. But sometimes, because
Speaker 2: I can be a little bit stubborn, we did have
Speaker 2: a few fights over it. Because he would never ever
Speaker 2: change his mind. It was something that I really strongly
Speaker 2: believed it would kind of turn into a fight because
Speaker 2: he wouldn't change his mind. Ever, there was.
Speaker 1: One thing that did eat away at Jade.
Speaker 2: He didn't have a job. So when we first met,
Speaker 2: we're nineteen and we're both in UNI. But by twenty
Speaker 2: I had graduated UNI and started my full time career
Speaker 2: and he was kind of still figuring things out, and
Speaker 2: I was trying to be really gracious and go, that's okay.
Speaker 2: I'm really fortunate to have known what I wanted to
Speaker 2: do from a really young age. So not everyone is
Speaker 2: in that same boat, so I was trying to give
Speaker 2: him some grace in going figure out what you want
Speaker 2: to do, restart, all that kind of stuff. He didn't
Speaker 2: drive a car, and some of the behaviors that came
Speaker 2: up were he was pretty self centered, and I am
Speaker 2: quite a giving person, so I thought, it's totally fine.
Speaker 2: This is what you do in a relationship. You give
Speaker 2: and you sacrifice, but it wasn't necessarily two way. I
Speaker 2: really liked that he was protective. I liked that he
Speaker 2: cared about me so deeply and he was vocal about it,
Speaker 2: and he was vocal about it to me and to
Speaker 2: other people. And I really appreciated that. I'm an oldest child,
Speaker 2: so I think you always take on the protector role yourself.
Speaker 2: You're the care for other people, and having someone be
Speaker 2: the care for me and the protector for me was
Speaker 2: really nice because took the pressure off. It felt like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was really loved and looked after and cared for.
Speaker 1: About a year into their relationship, Jade was still living
Speaker 1: at home when she received some pretty big news.
Speaker 2: I found out that my parents were going to have
Speaker 2: to move up to the Gold Coast for work, and
Speaker 2: so I was stuck with this decision going do I
Speaker 2: move with them or do I move out of home?
Speaker 2: Because I've just got this full time job, which is
Speaker 2: really exciting, and so I made a decision that I
Speaker 2: was going to move out of home when they left.
Speaker 2: So they were moving in June or July of that year,
Speaker 2: and I found out in January. So over the next
Speaker 2: six months, my decision was to find a house. Really
Speaker 2: cracked down into my full time job and see how
Speaker 2: we go with that. With Harry, he was living at
Speaker 2: home at the time, still figuring out his job. And
Speaker 2: I remember one day I came home from work and
Speaker 2: my mom pulled me aside and she said, I need
Speaker 2: to talk to you. And I said to her, what's
Speaker 2: going on? And she said, look, Harry called me. He's
Speaker 2: had a fight with his dad. He's been kicked out
Speaker 2: of home, and he called me to come and stay
Speaker 2: at our house. So I had heard none of it.
Speaker 2: I was at work the whole day and it was
Speaker 2: only as I walked in the door that my mom
Speaker 2: told me. So I had no clue that he had
Speaker 2: had a fight with his dad. I had no clue
Speaker 2: that he was kicked out of home, but he felt
Speaker 2: comfortable enough to call my mom and ask for a
Speaker 2: place to stay. And because of my parents' personalities, they
Speaker 2: really saw this as a good thing. They want my
Speaker 2: partner to feel comfortable with them, They want him to
Speaker 2: be able to come to them with issues and concerns,
Speaker 2: and so they thought this is great. Actually, it's a
Speaker 2: good thing that he cares enough to come to us.
Speaker 2: It was just a little bit of a shock. I
Speaker 2: thought that if he had enough time to call my
Speaker 2: mom and ask if he can stay with us, maybe
Speaker 2: he would have had time to flick a message to
Speaker 2: me to say that he was going to be staying
Speaker 2: with me for a little bit, because he's in a
Speaker 2: rock and a hard place at the time. Because I
Speaker 2: loved him, I thought it was perfectly fine, and I
Speaker 2: was glad that he felt comfortable with us, but still
Speaker 2: would have been nice to heads up. And so he
Speaker 2: came and he moved in with us, without really any
Speaker 2: clarity around how long this would be, what the rules
Speaker 2: of it were. My family are very religious, so it's
Speaker 2: not like we were staying together. And I had always
Speaker 2: said that I wouldn't move in with him until we
Speaker 2: were engaged or married, so that wasn't really on the cards.
Speaker 2: So there was a lot of ambiguity around what was
Speaker 2: going on. But he started to live with.
Speaker 1: Us and things were going really well.
Speaker 2: I liked that we don't have to drive forty five
Speaker 2: minutes to catch up with each other. We can just
Speaker 2: hang out, you know, we can be in the TV
Speaker 2: room at the same time and things like that. Because
Speaker 2: he was a gamer and I absolutely am not a
Speaker 2: gamer in the slightest. He would play his little games
Speaker 2: sometimes and so that was a bit of space too.
Speaker 2: I would go to the gym. We had different hobbies
Speaker 2: things like that. But yet it actually didn't come with
Speaker 2: the complications that you would expect from moving in with someone.
Speaker 2: I guess because it was that step of distance. My
Speaker 2: parents were still around, we're still He's more just rooming
Speaker 2: with us rather than living together. It was great coming
Speaker 2: home from work and just having him there so that
Speaker 2: then we could hang out rather than organizing a date night.
Speaker 2: And when I can see you, it's really good. And
Speaker 2: just the fact that we could do those couply things
Speaker 2: that I had like fantasized about, like come make dinner
Speaker 2: with me and things like that, Like it was really
Speaker 2: nice playboard games, watch the same TV shows together. We
Speaker 2: had to pull at our house, go for late night
Speaker 2: swims together. It was really really lovely. I went, perfect,
Speaker 2: this is it, this is what it's meant to be.
Speaker 2: This is how you do a serious relationship. You don't
Speaker 2: do fancy dates. You just watch movies together and do
Speaker 2: life together. We definitely thought the marriages where we were headed.
Speaker 2: I can't remember if we had a timeline. I feel
Speaker 2: like we'd spoken about potentially dating for three years before
Speaker 2: we got engaged, because we saw so many people who
Speaker 2: in the church got engaged within like a year of
Speaker 2: dating each other, and we both agreed that we didn't
Speaker 2: want that, but we both agreed that that's where we
Speaker 2: were headed. We wanted to get married to each other,
Speaker 2: and we wanted to do a lot of travel together
Speaker 2: once we got married. So we were working towards that,
Speaker 2: but we were still maybe like a year out. I
Speaker 2: could work one hundred percent picture myself marrying him, and
Speaker 2: while that picture was kind of interrupted with a few
Speaker 2: concerns that I ignored and I definitely pushed down, I
Speaker 2: could still picture it, and if I ignored all the
Speaker 2: other concerns, it was exactly what I wanted. We still
Speaker 2: fought pretty much the same amount as we did before.
Speaker 2: It was all over silly things. He still was a
Speaker 2: bit self centered, he still wasn't working a few of
Speaker 2: those things, but I thought I loved him for.
Speaker 1: The most part. It was domestic bliss. How he had
Speaker 1: lived with Jade and her family for almost six months
Speaker 1: when Jade's parents moved into state, so there were some
Speaker 1: pretty big decisions to be made.
Speaker 2: I was moving out, and the conversation came up of
Speaker 2: what on earth are you going to do? At this point,
Speaker 2: He's still not really talking with his family very much,
Speaker 2: and my family's going to go in a minute, so
Speaker 2: he can't live with them, And so he decided that
Speaker 2: he was going to move with his grandparents in a
Speaker 2: really small country town about six hours out of Sydney,
Speaker 2: and so that's what happened. I moved up home, stayed
Speaker 2: in Sydney full time working, my parents moved up to
Speaker 2: the Gold Coast, and he moved six hours away was
Speaker 2: more country town. That meant that in my first year
Speaker 2: of full time work, living out of home for the
Speaker 2: first time at age twenty one, and with my parents
Speaker 2: moving away, I was also in a long distance relationship
Speaker 2: for the first time, which was really tricky. He did
Speaker 2: come and visit a few times. But even the times
Speaker 2: when he would visit, it wasn't really lovely as I expected.
Speaker 2: We thought it was complicated. I was really trying to
Speaker 2: put the screws on to say, Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Are you getting a job? What are you doing? All
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff, And we weren't the best at
Speaker 2: communicating long distance. We'd have face times, we'd text, but
Speaker 2: we would even fight over face times and things like that,
Speaker 2: and as we were creeping up to almost the two
Speaker 2: years of being together, it was really tough. So I'm
Speaker 2: a FaceTime kind of person. So we'd have some face times,
Speaker 2: often for a couple of hours, but conversation wasn't flowing.
Speaker 2: And then we'd talk about some serious things, so I'd ask, Hey,
Speaker 2: how we going with job applications, and then he'd get
Speaker 2: annoyed at me, and then I would get upset, and
Speaker 2: then he'd get annoyed that I was upset, and then
Speaker 2: it just perpetuated into these awful little arguments. And the
Speaker 2: only reason that we're on FaceTime is because we're living
Speaker 2: apart and we supposedly love each other, and life is hard,
Speaker 2: so when you're having a FaceTime that's supposed to reassure
Speaker 2: you and make you feel better, and it turns into
Speaker 2: this argument. It was just really awful. I had a
Speaker 2: little bit of a higher expectation of him because he
Speaker 2: had made the decision to move away and he didn't
Speaker 2: have a job, so I expected him to drive and
Speaker 2: visit me when he could, and when things were really
Speaker 2: really rough, I really asked him, please come. We need
Speaker 2: to catch up in person. We need to see each other.
Speaker 2: You're not doing anything out at your grandparents' house, so
Speaker 2: why don't you just come and be at my house
Speaker 2: instead so we can spend some time together. And he
Speaker 2: was pretty annoyed about that, so he did it in
Speaker 2: the end, but begrudgingly, which was really tough. And I
Speaker 2: just remember some of those nights when we would have arguments,
Speaker 2: just crying, like because I just I wanted my person
Speaker 2: and I thought that he was my person, but he
Speaker 2: wasn't giving me anything that I needed, and it was
Speaker 2: just making my already hard life even harder. He could
Speaker 2: have gotten a job and rented his own place, but
Speaker 2: he didn't. He could have gone back to his parents
Speaker 2: and apologize and asked to stay with them, but he didn't.
Speaker 2: He decided to move out with his grandparents because it
Speaker 2: would be a free place to live, there wouldn't be
Speaker 2: the pressure from his parents, and he could just kind
Speaker 2: of do what he wanted. So the plan was that
Speaker 2: he was going to live out there and potentially apply
Speaker 2: to be in the police force or something. That was
Speaker 2: his next career goal. But it really wasn't happening during
Speaker 2: those six months that we were kind of apart. I
Speaker 2: think maybe we saw each other three times.
Speaker 1: Three times wasn't ideal. But with Christmas approaching, quality time
Speaker 1: together was only a few short weeks away.
Speaker 2: The plan was he was going to come spend most
Speaker 2: of the month of December with me, and we're going
Speaker 2: to do Christmas together. So he comes back to Sydney
Speaker 2: in December, we spend a couple of days together, and
Speaker 2: he does have a little bit of conversation with his
Speaker 2: family while he's in Sydney, which is awesome. And during
Speaker 2: that conversation they start to talk about potentially a trip
Speaker 2: to America. So one of his sisters had married an American,
Speaker 2: moved over to America and had a baby, and so
Speaker 2: none of the family had met this baby. And because
Speaker 2: Harry wasn't employed, he was kind of the perfect candidate
Speaker 2: to be the family representative to go over and visit
Speaker 2: the baby. And so as he started rekindling this relationship
Speaker 2: with his family and having more communication with them, they said, Hey,
Speaker 2: why not for Christmas as your Christmas present, why don't
Speaker 2: we send you over to America. And he came back
Speaker 2: to me told me about this. Obviously, I was a
Speaker 2: little bit upset because we had these plans to spend
Speaker 2: Christmas together. But I was like, absolutely, go, I think
Speaker 2: that's a great thing that you can go visit your sister.
Speaker 2: She's had a baby, she's gotten married, she really does
Speaker 2: need the support. And so, as sad as it was,
Speaker 2: we decided that that's what we're gonna do. He had
Speaker 2: bought me a whole bunch of Christmas presents and left
Speaker 2: all this stuff at my house and then I dropped
Speaker 2: him at the airport.
Speaker 1: Coincidentally, Harry also had a small network in America, connections
Speaker 1: he'd built through online gaming friendships forged behind the scenes
Speaker 1: that suddenly didn't feel so far away.
Speaker 2: He played PC games a lot, and he had friends
Speaker 2: on Discord, which I even spoke to. At times. I'd
Speaker 2: put on his headset and have a chat with them
Speaker 2: as a joke. I know that he would play games
Speaker 2: quite late into the night because the people that he's
Speaker 2: playing are in America. I know that they were real friends.
Speaker 2: He spoke to me about them all the time.
Speaker 1: So while it was hard to say goodbye, Jade was
Speaker 1: excited for Harry to reunite with his family, to meet
Speaker 1: his new niece, and to finally connect with his online
Speaker 1: friends in the flesh. They'd be fine, wouldn't they.
Speaker 2: So he goes to America. On the trip there and
Speaker 2: on the layovers, we're texting a little bit. We still
Speaker 2: have a fire overtext, which is just ridiculous. It was
Speaker 2: such a I can't even remember what we fought over it,
Speaker 2: but it was something so tiny, and he got an
Speaker 2: anoyed at me, maybe for messaging too much or something
Speaker 2: like that. And then he gets to America and his
Speaker 2: plan is to spend a couple of days by himself,
Speaker 2: doing a bit of solo travel, and then he'll catch
Speaker 2: up with his sister. He's maybe been in America for
Speaker 2: like two three days, and one day he asks me
Speaker 2: to do him a favor, and I was at work,
Speaker 2: and I think the favor was to convert some of
Speaker 2: his cryptocurrency or something like that, and I was like, no,
Speaker 2: I am at work. I'm busy. I don't do cryptocurrency,
Speaker 2: and he's like, but I need help. I can't do
Speaker 2: it when I'm overseas. I have to do it in Australia.
Speaker 2: And I just texted him and said, I'm at work,
Speaker 2: I can't do it right now. I'm really busy. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: We can chat after work if you're really stuck, but
Speaker 2: surely you don't need me to do this right this
Speaker 2: very second. I go into an appointment with a patient
Speaker 2: and then I finish the appointment and check my phone
Speaker 2: and I have a whole string of texts from him
Speaker 2: basically saying I can't believe you do this to me.
Speaker 2: This is the last straw. We're done. And I'm a
Speaker 2: little bit gobsmacked because it was such a tiny little
Speaker 2: tiff that we'd had, and we'd been together for nearly
Speaker 2: two years, and I was like, surely he's not breaking
Speaker 2: up with me. And I went to respond and I
Speaker 2: was blocked, And so then I went to Instagram and
Speaker 2: I was blocked on Instagram. I went to TikTok and
Speaker 2: I was blocked on TikTok, and I checked and I
Speaker 2: was blocked on Discord and I was like, wow, this
Speaker 2: guy has gone to the nth degree to block me
Speaker 2: on everything. We're in different countries. It's over. And I
Speaker 2: was just gobsmacked at the time. I don't even think
Speaker 2: I cried. I just was so shocked that he had
Speaker 2: broken up with me over such a small thing and
Speaker 2: had blocked me on everything, and so I just told
Speaker 2: my friends what happened and was really in a state
Speaker 2: of shock. I think I went out for dinner with
Speaker 2: some friends that night, trying to distract myself, and then
Speaker 2: reality started to hit. I guess that it was really over.
Speaker 2: The next day, I got a message from his parents saying, hey,
Speaker 2: how are you just wondering if you've heard from Harry,
Speaker 2: because he's supposed to be catching up with his sister
Speaker 2: today and we haven't heard from him. And I said, oh, actually, no,
Speaker 2: he broke up with me, and so they didn't know
Speaker 2: this either, and they were super apologetic and so sad
Speaker 2: and so sorry. His sister came over a couple of
Speaker 2: days later and we had this lovely girl's night and
Speaker 2: I vented to them about what had happened. I decided
Speaker 2: that I would pack up all of the Christmas presents
Speaker 2: that he'd bought me. I think he had his Xbox
Speaker 2: at my place, all of his belongings. I packed them
Speaker 2: all up. I gave them back to his sister. But
Speaker 2: before I did that, I took a photo of them,
Speaker 2: and I emailed it to him because I thought, if
Speaker 2: he's in another country and I'm blocked on every social media,
Speaker 2: I need to get through to him somehow. So I
Speaker 2: sent him an email that just said, Hey, I've given
Speaker 2: all your stuff back to your sister. Your family is
Speaker 2: a bit worried about you because you haven't caught up
Speaker 2: with your other sister. I hope you're okay. Reach out
Speaker 2: if you can. And that opened the lines of communication.
Speaker 2: So he responded to that email a day later with
Speaker 2: this really really long email, this essay saying, I am
Speaker 2: so sorry. I got really scared. I'm in America. I
Speaker 2: got COVID and so now I'm in lockdown. I don't
Speaker 2: know what to do. It's really scary. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't have broken up with you. I just got scared.
Speaker 2: He kept saying that he was trying to figure out
Speaker 2: some accommodation he couldn't stay with his sister because he
Speaker 2: was sick and he didn't want to get the baby sick.
Speaker 2: He needed to figure out how to get flights back
Speaker 2: to Australia. He went so far to say that he
Speaker 2: wants to come back to Australia because he desperately wants
Speaker 2: to marry me, and so he's going to earn me back.
Speaker 2: All this time, he still hasn't caught up with his sister.
Speaker 2: I'm still not unblocked on everything. We're still emailing, but
Speaker 2: the general vibe of conversation is him saying he's going
Speaker 2: to get back he wants me back, and me saying, well,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to earn it, because I don't
Speaker 2: think that's good enough.
Speaker 1: Three weeks of emails back and forth followed, and while
Speaker 1: Harry was saying all the right things, his behavior was
Speaker 1: still a little off.
Speaker 2: I decided to check if I'm still blocked, because I
Speaker 2: was like, surely at this point he's reconsidering. And I
Speaker 2: was still blocked on Instagram. I was still blocked on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And then I looked up his name on TikTok and
Speaker 2: a TikTok came up of him and another girl. He
Speaker 2: hadn't posted it, but he was tagged in it, and
Speaker 2: it was just a really stupid TikTok trend. But at
Speaker 2: the end of the video they kiss and my stomach dropped.
Speaker 2: I was just like, Oh, my gosh, he has moved
Speaker 2: on that quickly from a two year relationship. It was insane.
Speaker 2: I decided to comment on the TikTok and I just
Speaker 2: said run. He broke up with me two weeks ago.
Speaker 2: The next day I received a DM from this girl
Speaker 2: and she says, hey, can we talk And we end
Speaker 2: up having a call, and on this call, she tells
Speaker 2: me that he has actually been staying with her the
Speaker 2: entire time. Harry had met this girl, Emma on Discord
Speaker 2: nine months earlier. They used to play games together, PC
Speaker 2: games together, and nine months earlier, Harry had told Emma
Speaker 2: that he loved her, and that was the start of
Speaker 2: their nine month long internet relationship. When his parents had
Speaker 2: offered to fly him to America to see his sister,
Speaker 2: Harry decided that he was going to see Emma instead,
Speaker 2: and so he took the tickets with the intention to
Speaker 2: never see his sister, flew directly to Emma. So even
Speaker 2: when he was talking to me on the flight there,
Speaker 2: he was actually talking to her because she was the
Speaker 2: one who picked her up from the airport, and he
Speaker 2: stayed with her the whole time, and they started their
Speaker 2: real life relationship. It was unbelievable. I was so shocked
Speaker 2: because even when Harry had first broke up with me
Speaker 2: and I was chatting to my friends, one of my
Speaker 2: friends said to me, oh, do you think he's cheating?
Speaker 2: And I literally laughed in her face because I went
Speaker 2: no way, like, absolutely not. There's no sign. He lived
Speaker 2: with me for three months and my family I would
Speaker 2: have known. He's not that kind of person. He keeps
Speaker 2: emailing me saying he wants to marry me. There's no way.
Speaker 2: He's had every opportunity when we nearly broke up multiple times,
Speaker 2: he had every opportunity to take that and run if
Speaker 2: he was seeing someone else, and he didn't. He begged
Speaker 2: me back. He did all these things to be with me,
Speaker 2: so I really didn't think that he would be cheating.
Speaker 2: So when she told me, I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: I felt sick. It was awful. She ended up sending
Speaker 2: me a lot of screenshots as proof, and it was
Speaker 2: so interesting comparing because at the same time he was
Speaker 2: telling two girls that he loved them, and two girls
Speaker 2: that he wanted to be with them and was planning
Speaker 2: a life with them. It's just psychopathic. I could not
Speaker 2: believe that he could do that, and also to take
Speaker 2: a free flight from his parents to see his sister
Speaker 2: who needed family and support, and to go and see
Speaker 2: his other girlfriend. It was just crazy.
Speaker 1: So Jade broke the news to his family.
Speaker 2: I said, hey, I don't know whether you've heard from him,
Speaker 2: but I've just found out that he's okay, but he's
Speaker 2: staying with this chick. He wasn't planning on seeing his sister.
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry. His family was so beautiful about it.
Speaker 2: They were so apologetic. I had a FaceTime with the
Speaker 2: sisters as I was crying, and they were just really
Speaker 2: kind and supportive. They were so apolyg jed it for
Speaker 2: his actions, not that it's had anything to do with them,
Speaker 2: And from that point onwards, his mum decided that they
Speaker 2: were going to bring him back, so they were organizing
Speaker 2: his flights, liaising with this girl and her family because
Speaker 2: they weren't sure if her family was aware that he
Speaker 2: was cheating on her With me. Kind of we were
Speaker 2: both the other woman in this situation, and so they
Speaker 2: were chatting with her and her family and organizing to
Speaker 2: bring him back because they were so ashamed of what
Speaker 2: he'd done and how he behaved and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. Me and this girl kind of bonded. We
Speaker 2: both were like, I can't believe that this guy is
Speaker 2: so awful. She told me that she didn't know about me,
Speaker 2: that she just thought she was yet in a relationship
Speaker 2: with him. She didn't realize there was someone on the side.
Speaker 1: Harry moved back to Australia to his grandmother's house six
Speaker 1: hours away, and Jade didn't hear a word from him. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: her bond with Emma only continued to grow until.
Speaker 2: Emma blocks me and I find out from Harry's sister
Speaker 2: that he sold his car and use the money to
Speaker 2: buy one way ticket to America to be with her,
Speaker 2: and I just couldn't believe it. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: I can't believe a that she would be with him,
Speaker 2: and b that after a month of knowing each other
Speaker 2: in real life, he's willing to move countries for her,
Speaker 2: when literally a few weeks ago he was telling me
Speaker 2: that he wanted to marry me. So my brain always
Speaker 2: goes a million miles an hour, and all it was
Speaker 2: telling me was all of these awful things about how
Speaker 2: he picked someone better, how he wasn't good enough, how
Speaker 2: I should have known better, how I did this to myself,
Speaker 2: all of these really awful negative thoughts that obviously are triggered.
Speaker 2: I was depressed. I couldn't control these awful thoughts that
Speaker 2: were going around in my head, and doing everyday lovely
Speaker 2: things was just getting really hard because my brain was
Speaker 2: just going a million miles an hour telling me all
Speaker 2: these bad things and reminding me or making up stories
Speaker 2: about what could be happening or what they could be
Speaker 2: saying about me, or what this said about me, or
Speaker 2: what my life would be now that this is over.
Speaker 2: I didn't believe I could get any more. So it
Speaker 2: was a lot of sleepless nights, struggling to get up
Speaker 2: in the morning, really just dragging my feet through the
Speaker 2: day and not being able to find the joy in life.
Speaker 2: And so during that period, reaching out, going to see
Speaker 2: a therapist and just getting over the stigma was so helpful.
Speaker 1: Jad was doing all the work to get herself into
Speaker 1: a better place, and it was working. Harry and Emma
Speaker 1: were starting to become a distant memory, but that was
Speaker 1: about to change.
Speaker 2: My mom calls me and she says, hey, I need
Speaker 2: to tell you something before you hear it through the
Speaker 2: grape vine. She says that she's had a conversation with
Speaker 2: Harry's mum and they found out some information that they
Speaker 2: wanted to tell me, and that information was that Harry
Speaker 2: and Emma got married. Emma was nineteen, Harry was twenty one.
Speaker 2: They'd known each other in person for a month, that
Speaker 2: had an online relationship for nine months. I was just
Speaker 2: so gobsmacked, but it was so hilarious. I remember that
Speaker 2: night texting my girlfriends and being like, we need to
Speaker 2: go out, but this is the funniest thing that's ever
Speaker 2: happened to me. This is now a joke. Let's go celebrate.
Speaker 2: And so we went out. We had heaps of fun
Speaker 2: coming out of it. I definitely worked on myself, so
Speaker 2: all the normal things, working out, going to my therapist,
Speaker 2: eating well, working like, doing my job well and investing
Speaker 2: time into that. But then the other thing was I
Speaker 2: started to date like properly, so I jumped on online
Speaker 2: dating all that kind of stuff, and I just went
Speaker 2: out with people just for the sake of it. I
Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily looking for anything serious, but I wasn't opposed
Speaker 2: to it, and I think that was actually something that
Speaker 2: was really helpful in helping me move on and develop
Speaker 2: that level of self confidence, because not only was I
Speaker 2: working on myself and getting proud of myself on my own,
Speaker 2: but also seeing that there is so many fish in
Speaker 2: the sea and people want you, you just have to
Speaker 2: put yourself out there. So it really helped for me
Speaker 2: to take him off this pedestal of being the only
Speaker 2: guy that will ever love me and going there are
Speaker 2: so many other people that will love me. I actually
Speaker 2: have the power to choose someone who is good enough.
Speaker 1: For me, and she did. His name was Matt, so.
Speaker 2: We did meet on hand. There was not necessarily huge
Speaker 2: fireworks when I first met him. There was just a
Speaker 2: sense of calm. When I went on our first date,
Speaker 2: I was running super late, and he was really patient
Speaker 2: and waited and it was just really natural, And I
Speaker 2: think that's the thing that I have really appreciated. It
Speaker 2: was just steady but nice. It's not like I wasn't
Speaker 2: enjoying my time. I really enjoyed my time, but I
Speaker 2: didn't feel pressure. I didn't feel anxious before date, I
Speaker 2: was looking forward to it, but it just brought a
Speaker 2: sense of peace and calm, which was really lovely. He's
Speaker 2: like the nicest person ever, literally like my other half.
Speaker 2: So my life goes on. I move on. I have
Speaker 2: forgotten about Harry. And then one night in December, I'm
Speaker 2: sitting at work scrolling my emails and I see an
Speaker 2: email from Emma and Harry and it takes me a
Speaker 2: minute to be like, who are these people? And then
Speaker 2: it clicks and I'm like, oh my goodness, Harry my
Speaker 2: and Emma his new wife. And so I get one
Speaker 2: of my friends to read the email first because I'm like,
Speaker 2: what on earth have they sent me? And she tells me,
Speaker 2: don't read it. She goes, don't read it, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: It's a load of full I obviously read it, and
Speaker 2: so Harry had basically sent me this really long email
Speaker 2: that said I never loved you, I was never attracted
Speaker 2: to you. I only stayed with you because I was
Speaker 2: using you. I was using your family. You're worthless and
Speaker 2: now I'm really happily married. Emma's email, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: was a lot of fun. She sent me an even
Speaker 2: longer email and the whole gist of the email was
Speaker 2: that she basically thought that I was still in love
Speaker 2: with Harry, and she had proof. Her email starts out
Speaker 2: with saying how worthless I am and what a terrible person.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that she decides to mention
Speaker 2: is my career, the fact that I work in healthcare.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that she says in the email,
Speaker 2: which is just so random, She's like, how can you
Speaker 2: even call yourself a midwife? You take me here are
Speaker 2: selfies in the bathroom. Do you know how dirty bathrooms are?
Speaker 2: There are so many more gems on a phone than
Speaker 2: a toilet, And it was just the most random, ridiculous thing.
Speaker 2: Then she goes on to say her proof that I'm
Speaker 2: still in love with Harry, and her proof had an
Speaker 2: attached PDF file. And when I opened up this pdf file,
Speaker 2: there was screenshots of so much. The first thing was
Speaker 2: tagged photos on Facebook. So even though I wasn't friends
Speaker 2: with him anymore, he was blocked. I deleted all our photos.
Speaker 2: There was still some group photos that were tagged in together,
Speaker 2: and she couldn't believe that I still had those on
Speaker 2: my profile. The other thing is she had gone through
Speaker 2: my Spotify so she found me on Spotify, went through
Speaker 2: my whole Spotify and screenshotted lyrics of songs in my
Speaker 2: playlists that obviously were like love songs or breakup songs,
Speaker 2: and she said, look at the songs that you listen to.
Speaker 2: This is proof that you're still in love with him.
Speaker 2: She signed off by saying, well, you'll never have him.
Speaker 2: We're married now and we're going to come to Australia
Speaker 2: to get married for a second time. Good luck and
Speaker 2: all the best.
Speaker 1: I took those emails with a grain of salt. It
Speaker 1: had been a years since she and Harry had broken up,
Speaker 1: and their words said far more about them than they
Speaker 1: did about her. Clearly they needed to unburden themselves. So
Speaker 1: Jade didn't reply. She let the silence stand. That was
Speaker 1: the end of it. Well so she thought, Because one
Speaker 1: year later.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in the car at my current boyfriend's basketball
Speaker 2: game and going through my emails yet again, and I
Speaker 2: have an email from the Healthcare Complaints Commission and my
Speaker 2: stomach drops because I really love my job. I'm really
Speaker 2: proud of it, and to think that someone has put
Speaker 2: in a complaint about me, it was really frightening, and
Speaker 2: I open up the complaint and it's anonymous, but I
Speaker 2: start to read it, and the complaint says, Jade is
Speaker 2: such a terrible midwife. She takes mirror selfies in the bathroom.
Speaker 2: Bathrooms are really unhygienic. How can she be a midwife?
Speaker 2: And instantly I know, without a shadow of doubt, this
Speaker 2: is Emma. Emma has put in a complaint to the
Speaker 2: health Care Complaints Commission about me because it mirrors the
Speaker 2: email that she sent me a year before. I was
Speaker 2: really upset and I'm like, I can't believe that she's
Speaker 2: doing this to me. What have I done to deserve this?
Speaker 2: And so I reached out to the union. It was
Speaker 2: about a four week process of putting in my response,
Speaker 2: waiting for the Healthcare Complaints Commission to come back and
Speaker 2: to state our case and things like that. And luckily
Speaker 2: when we so, I actually had a screenshot of the email,
Speaker 2: so I hadn't deleted it. I just never responded to it.
Speaker 2: So when we put the email next to the complaint,
Speaker 2: it was very clear to see. I just had no
Speaker 2: clue why on earth they would decide two years after
Speaker 2: to have a go at my career. I explained the
Speaker 2: situation we have to get a lawyer, and so I
Speaker 2: work with the lawyer and basically we fight this claim
Speaker 2: as what's called the vexatious claim, which just proves that
Speaker 2: this is someone who's just trying to have a go
Speaker 2: at you to ruin your career, and it's not actually
Speaker 2: an unsafe practice or something that needs to be investigated.
Speaker 2: And of course it gets wiped and everything's fine. But
Speaker 2: I could not believe it, and so so I hadn't
Speaker 2: had any contact with Harry's family for that year. But
Speaker 2: I do reach out to his mum and I go, hey,
Speaker 2: this has just happened, and this is really serious. She's
Speaker 2: tried to attack my career. I know that it's her
Speaker 2: because it mirrors the email verbatim. It's been proved that
Speaker 2: it's her, even though it's anonymous. Have you had any
Speaker 2: contact do you know why this might be happening? Now?
Speaker 2: A year later, and Harry's poor mom says that Harry
Speaker 2: hasn't had any contact with her since he cheated on
Speaker 2: me and got married to this girl, So he's completely
Speaker 2: cut off his whole family, and so his poor mom
Speaker 2: is really sad about it and goes, look, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 2: I don't know why this is happening, but unfortunately he's
Speaker 2: not a part of our family anymore either, by his choice.
Speaker 1: It was a stressful situation, and even though Jade's name
Speaker 1: was cleared of any wrongdoing at work, it had rocked
Speaker 1: her pretty hard. Thankfully, Matt was there supporting her the
Speaker 1: whole time.
Speaker 2: He'd heard the story about my ex and all of
Speaker 2: the craziness, so he was super supportive, but definitely was
Speaker 2: pretty and going, let's make sure that there's nothing that
Speaker 2: they can do to get to you. I mean, I
Speaker 2: hadn't done anything wrong at work, so I was safe,
Speaker 2: but it stills a little bit of a hit to
Speaker 2: the ego and the confidence when that happens. So we
Speaker 2: both made sure that all of our socials were on private,
Speaker 2: which they were, and all that kind of stuff, and
Speaker 2: he just supported me through it and made me able
Speaker 2: to see the laughable side of it. So life moves on.
Speaker 2: I just add it as yet another chapter in this
Speaker 2: crazy story and I forget about it once we're finished
Speaker 2: with the lawyer.
Speaker 1: And then you guessed it.
Speaker 2: One year later, I am on a holiday with my family.
Speaker 2: We were talking about the fact that my boyfriend used
Speaker 2: to make little DJ mixes back when he was in
Speaker 2: UNI and post them on SoundCloud, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's so funny. I wonder if they're still there, And
Speaker 2: so he brings up his SoundCloud to see if the
Speaker 2: mixers are still there, and SoundCloud gives you a little
Speaker 2: bit of a breakdown of your top listeners and things
Speaker 2: like that. And because he only mixed DJ things tracks
Speaker 2: in Uni, he didn't think that he would have any listeners.
Speaker 2: It's just a silly Uni thing. But he has a
Speaker 2: number one top listener who listens to each of his
Speaker 2: two tracks every single month for the last eight months.
Speaker 2: And it's Emma. Emma has found my boyfriend on SoundCloud
Speaker 2: and has for some reason decided to listen to every
Speaker 2: single one of his things, his two uploads, every single
Speaker 2: month for eight months. And at this where just like,
Speaker 2: what the hell? How I don't understand what is your
Speaker 2: motive behind this? How did you find him? How did
Speaker 2: you find him on SoundCloud of all things? His username
Speaker 2: wasn't even his proper name. I just was like, this
Speaker 2: is crazy, it was insane. I had blocked and made
Speaker 2: myself really private before I posted anything, just to protect
Speaker 2: our safety. And so unless she has a burner account
Speaker 2: that I wasn't aware of that she's talking me on
Speaker 2: unless she has a burner account that she's stalking him on.
Speaker 2: But how would she find him? I don't even get it.
Speaker 2: He and I literally didn't even grow up in the
Speaker 2: same place. I don't understand how she could have known
Speaker 2: and we met on hinge. It's not like we met
Speaker 2: at the same church or at the same workplace. But yeah,
Speaker 2: and also, what do you gain from stalking someone's SoundCloud
Speaker 2: and listening to their mixes twice a month every month?
Speaker 2: It's just so random. So when he pulls it up
Speaker 2: and sees Emma, he goes, hold on, I think I
Speaker 2: know who that is. Is that your ex's wife? And
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my gosh, it is. We're both gobsmacked.
Speaker 2: And then in May of twenty twenty five, we pull
Speaker 2: up the SoundCloud again, just curious to see if she's
Speaker 2: still looking, and she is. She still has continued every
Speaker 2: month to listen to the tracks twice from December until May,
Speaker 2: and so at that point my boyfriend blocks her and goes,
Speaker 2: that's it. We cannot do this anymore. And that was
Speaker 2: the last that we heard from Harry or Emma.
Speaker 1: And While Jade was relieved to finally be on her
Speaker 1: own three years after the breakup, what she missed most,
Speaker 1: the ache that never fully faded wasn't Harry, but the
Speaker 1: family she'd lost with him.
Speaker 2: I haven't had any conversation with Harry's family or anything
Speaker 2: like that, so I'm not sure whether he's ever spoken
Speaker 2: to them again since the breakup. And unfortunately, my friendship
Speaker 2: with the sister did kind of deteriorate just because of
Speaker 2: the distance that we had to make to protect myself
Speaker 2: and my life and my current relationship and those kind
Speaker 2: of things. But no bad blood. I ran into one
Speaker 2: of his brothers at the beach and we didn't say
Speaker 2: anything to each other, but Harry definitely wasn't there, so
Speaker 2: I assume that he's just living life in America with
Speaker 2: a girl who still wants to stalk his ex. It's
Speaker 2: really sad when you lose other things when you end
Speaker 2: a relationship, anyr relationship is obviously hard, regardless of whether
Speaker 2: it was bad blood, nice blood, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But that was one of the really hardest things, was
Speaker 2: losing a family that was really kind to me and
Speaker 2: was supportive, and some really good friends. But I think overall,
Speaker 2: I have gained so much from this breakup. I've gained
Speaker 2: a really funny story to tell when you've had a
Speaker 2: few drinks. I've also gained an amazing therapist and a
Speaker 2: good boyfriend, and emotional maturity and so much that I
Speaker 2: would never have achieved if I didn't go through this trauma,
Speaker 2: because I feel like sometimes you really need to be
Speaker 2: broken down in order to be rebuilt, and this gave
Speaker 2: me such a great opportunity. So while they're auscars and
Speaker 2: things that I've lost along the way that are really sad,
Speaker 2: there's also so much that I've gained that I just
Speaker 2: have to be grateful for it. All.
Speaker 1: Everyone has an ex It's a Minti Media production and
Speaker 1: proudly part of the Mum and mea Network. This episode
Speaker 1: was written and produced by Linda Scott, interview conducted by
Speaker 1: Eilish Laney and narrated by me Georgia Love. If you
Speaker 1: have a story you'd like to share, email podcast at
Speaker 1: momamea dot com dot au. You can support the show
Speaker 1: by following it in your favorite podcast app and leaving
Speaker 1: us a five star review. We'll see you for the
Speaker 1: next episode.