Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma mea podcast. Muma Me acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of the land and waters. This podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on There's nothing quite like the instant connection
Speaker 1: you feel when you meet someone and just know they
Speaker 1: could be your person. It's a bond that runs deep,
Speaker 1: felt emotionally, intellectually and physically so powerful that together you
Speaker 1: feel capable of conquering anything and everything.
Speaker 2: I was so into it, and I was really taken
Speaker 2: with his views of the world and his approach on things.
Speaker 2: And there's a saying that says small minds speak about
Speaker 2: other people, medium sized minds speak about events, and open
Speaker 2: large minds speak about ideas. And I really felt it
Speaker 2: was like that we would were solving the problems of
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: And it was a really.
Speaker 2: Nourishing experience to be in where I felt like this
Speaker 2: is good for the soul and the and the body.
Speaker 2: I felt we were completely infatuated with each other.
Speaker 1: Everything was perfect. But with a connection this strong, it's
Speaker 1: easy to overlook a few signs to give your person
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn't mean everyone
Speaker 1: in your corner will see it the same way.
Speaker 2: My little sister, she put her energy into investigating Jake.
Speaker 2: Whatever it took, she was on the case. And of
Speaker 2: course she's relaying all this information to my other sister
Speaker 2: and my mum, and so it was like this three
Speaker 2: way onslaught from my family of what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And get out of there? And what's wrong with you?
Speaker 2: And how can you be so stupid? Like it was text,
Speaker 2: it was calls, it was relentless.
Speaker 1: I'm Georgia love and this is everyone has an ex
Speaker 1: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 1: unconventional stories about relationships passed through the eyes and the
Speaker 1: hearts of the very people who lived them. We've all
Speaker 1: heard the saying love finds you when you least expect it. Well,
Speaker 1: for twenty seven year old Scarlet, a TV presenter living
Speaker 1: in Brisbane, that couldn't have been more true, because on
Speaker 1: one completely unassuming evening, an unlikely wing woman stepped in
Speaker 1: and set everything in motion.
Speaker 2: It was one of those nights where I had got
Speaker 2: my pajamas on ordered takeaway. It was in front of
Speaker 2: the TV. It was like I'm not leaving the house again.
Speaker 2: And then it was actually a message from my mum
Speaker 2: who was in town. She was a flight attendant and
Speaker 2: said come and meet me, and so I saw, okay, mom,
Speaker 2: I will, and so that set me on being out
Speaker 2: that night, and later on into the night, I met
Speaker 2: a friend at a pub after a rugby match who
Speaker 2: introduced me to Jake. As soon as we met, it
Speaker 2: was this crazy connection, emotional, intellectual. We were talking, we
Speaker 2: were kissing, and o member At the end of that night,
Speaker 2: I'd only met him five hours before, but prying myself
Speaker 2: away from him to go to my apartment seemed impossible,
Speaker 2: like I was just so in it.
Speaker 1: And from there it was full steam ahead.
Speaker 2: We became pretty much inseparable, and we spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time together. Not every single day, but before long
Speaker 2: we were seeing each other every single night. He was
Speaker 2: staying at my place, and we were pretty soon talking
Speaker 2: about marriage and kids and all of those things that
Speaker 2: set up a future. A couple of weeks later, it
Speaker 2: became more official. But it was one of those experiences
Speaker 2: in the past you're sort of seeing someone you go, oh,
Speaker 2: is it a situation?
Speaker 1: Ship?
Speaker 2: Are they seeing other people? Are we actually a thing?
Speaker 2: But the connection was so strong from the start it
Speaker 2: was like it would have even been offensive to suggest
Speaker 2: to the other person that we were doing anything outside
Speaker 2: of each other. He was very dark, very handsome, very charismatic,
Speaker 2: physically my type, and he just seemed to have such
Speaker 2: an interesting view on the world. And I feel like
Speaker 2: I was learning so much with him, and we were
Speaker 2: in this absolute love bubble like nothing else seemed to
Speaker 2: be a problem.
Speaker 1: We were just together.
Speaker 2: And he told me he was a doctor, but that
Speaker 2: was the least interesting thing about him. We would spend
Speaker 2: so long just walking by the river, getting food, drinking wine.
Speaker 2: I came home one day and the whole living room
Speaker 2: had been completely transformed. He'd put tea like candles all
Speaker 2: the way along the window sill and along the wall
Speaker 2: and the cabinet, and it was all pillows and plush
Speaker 2: blankets and a bottle of champagne and a big cheese platter.
Speaker 2: And this was just how it was any given day.
Speaker 2: One time he picked me up from work in a
Speaker 2: convertible luxury car that he'd hired just to give me
Speaker 2: a bit of a nice afternoon fancy restaurants. And it
Speaker 2: wasn't like it was all these luxury things. They were
Speaker 2: definitely there, but I had just as good a time,
Speaker 2: like staying in bed all day or sitting around watching TV,
Speaker 2: so it was whatever we were doing, the connection was
Speaker 2: so good. There was definitely chemistry, physical attraction, and intellectual
Speaker 2: was really strong, like he'd talk about big ideas and things.
Speaker 1: That were going on in the world.
Speaker 2: And as a journalist who kind of felt like I
Speaker 2: knew a lot about a lot of things, you know,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people, a lot of people I
Speaker 2: spoke to, I'm like, oh, gosh, ah, the poor uninformed,
Speaker 2: you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It was not like that at all.
Speaker 2: I was so into it, and I was really taken
Speaker 2: with his views of the world and his approach on things.
Speaker 2: And there's a saying that says small minds speak about
Speaker 2: other people, medium sized minds speak about events, and open
Speaker 2: large minds speak about ideas. And I really felt it
Speaker 2: was like that we would were solving the problems of
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: And it was a really.
Speaker 2: Nourishing experience to be in where I felt like, this
Speaker 2: is good for the soul and the mind and the body.
Speaker 2: The I Love You came a few months later, but
Speaker 2: I feel like we both wanted to say it immediately,
Speaker 2: but it was one of those you know, social rules
Speaker 2: that you just wait a little while to say it.
Speaker 2: But I felt we were completely infatuated with each other.
Speaker 2: Everything was perfect. I would go to work in the day,
Speaker 2: he would go to work. Often he would drop me
Speaker 2: at work, so I wouldn't even have to drive myself.
Speaker 2: He'd dropped me at work, and then he'd go to work,
Speaker 2: and then he picked me up and we'd be back
Speaker 2: in the love bubble and everything was just as good
Speaker 2: as it can be.
Speaker 1: I was totally on cloud nine. Things were moving pretty fast,
Speaker 1: and at the time Jake was in the process of
Speaker 1: moving out of his place, so it was only natural,
Speaker 1: especially with a connection like theirs, that he spent more
Speaker 1: time at Scarlet's, and that, dear listener, is when you
Speaker 1: can observe your person a little more closely.
Speaker 2: I think I might have said thing, oh, well, no problem,
Speaker 2: you can just stay here. So there was never an
Speaker 2: official you can move in with me, and he never
Speaker 2: did move in with me, but it was like an
Speaker 2: unspoken scenario that just started playing out. I got to
Speaker 2: a stage where it was every night, and when that
Speaker 2: was happening, I suppose I may have questioned why he
Speaker 2: didn't have night shift, but he said that he was
Speaker 2: only on day shift. It was something about the hours
Speaker 2: there seemed to be like the explanation made sense, and
Speaker 2: I didn't really think anything of it. He had this
Speaker 2: doctor's kit, which was this old looking briefcase with a
Speaker 2: stethoscope in it. It really looked like some kind of
Speaker 2: vintage relic, you know. I didn't think it looked quite right.
Speaker 2: But then also, I am not a doctor. I don't
Speaker 2: know what it's supposed to look like. And he would
Speaker 2: dress super casually, like in like almost gym gear to
Speaker 2: go to work, which I thought, oh, that seems a
Speaker 2: bit odd. He told me that he got changed at work,
Speaker 2: so he had his uniform work and got changed, and
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, well that makes sense. And it was
Speaker 2: a few months in and I'd never met any of
Speaker 2: his colleagues. Again, they're doctors, they're busy, they're probably working
Speaker 2: and sleeping.
Speaker 1: And then there came an issue with money.
Speaker 2: So we'd have these extravagant experiences together, helicopter tours of
Speaker 2: wineries and fancy weekends away and dinners at the best restaurant,
Speaker 2: and it was all looked after by him. And then
Speaker 2: the next morning he'd say he didn't have any money
Speaker 2: to get coffee, and I was like, well, the least
Speaker 2: I can do is shout you at coffee. That's absolutely fine.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't the actual money itself. It was more
Speaker 2: just unusual behavior. How you could have so much and
Speaker 2: then straightaway have nothing.
Speaker 1: It seemed.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, there's just something that doesn't quite add up.
Speaker 2: I'd met all of his family, really beautiful people. He
Speaker 2: was a doctor in their eyes, the doctor of the family.
Speaker 2: So while there were a couple of things that didn't
Speaker 2: add up, there were also things that did. So at
Speaker 2: that stage, I was, I suppose, just deep down feeling
Speaker 2: like there's a few things we need to figure out
Speaker 2: before we get married and have lots of babies. I
Speaker 2: asked a couple of questions about the money and about
Speaker 2: the uniform to work, and I'd dropped him at the
Speaker 2: hospital a couple of times, and every time I asked
Speaker 2: him he seemed to have an explanation quickly or he
Speaker 2: shut it down. And I didn't want to make things worse,
Speaker 2: because we wanted to be happy and enjoy our day
Speaker 2: and not go into an argument.
Speaker 1: Almost a year into the relationship, tragedy strunk. Scarlet's dad
Speaker 1: passed away suddenly. Through the shock and grief, Jag stayed
Speaker 1: by her side, but it was also a time but
Speaker 1: it began to raise new questions about who Jake really was,
Speaker 1: especially when he was around her entire family.
Speaker 2: All of the family went to my hometown of Wollongong
Speaker 2: to be together, my mom and my sisters. We'd lived
Speaker 2: in different areas of Australia, so we'd all come together,
Speaker 2: including Jake.
Speaker 1: He was with me at the time.
Speaker 2: My sister was pregnant and she was needing to have
Speaker 2: injections just as part of the pregnancy, very very routine,
Speaker 2: and Jake did not want any part of it. He
Speaker 2: didn't want to administer the needle, he didn't want to
Speaker 2: know what was going on, he didn't want.
Speaker 1: Any part of it.
Speaker 2: He almost recoiled at the thought of having to do that.
Speaker 2: It just seemed to be at odds with how you
Speaker 2: think a doctor would react in that situation. But then
Speaker 2: I thought, well, I guess you can still be a
Speaker 2: doctor and not be overly caring. Or also, because he's
Speaker 2: with me and she's my sister, therefore it didn't feel
Speaker 2: like it was the right place that either way, My
Speaker 2: poor sister was back on the job with having to
Speaker 2: do it herself. And then after the funeral, my sister
Speaker 2: and I decided to go and see my dad's GP
Speaker 2: because my dad had seen the GP who had sent
Speaker 2: him home with a life threatening infection which ended up
Speaker 2: taking his life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we were.
Speaker 2: Just curious as to why the GP sent him home
Speaker 2: when he should have been rushed straight to hospital at
Speaker 2: that stage and he ended up dying from sepsis with
Speaker 2: an infection that was untreated. So we thought, great, we'll
Speaker 2: bring Jake because wouldn't it be good speaking to the
Speaker 2: GP to have somebody who knows about medical information to
Speaker 2: be there with us. Not only did he not ask
Speaker 2: any questions, there was something the doctor said that we
Speaker 2: didn't quite know what was. My sister turned to Jake
Speaker 2: and said, oh, what does this mean? And he had nothing.
Speaker 2: He couldn't explain it. So he'd gone from being my
Speaker 2: boyfriend to sitting in the front row of my father's
Speaker 2: funeral with a lot of doubt around who he was
Speaker 2: and what.
Speaker 1: The story was.
Speaker 2: Because we were there for my dad's funeral, it was
Speaker 2: sort of down the list of things to talk about.
Speaker 1: As you would know, there's just a.
Speaker 2: Lot of things that had to be done in that
Speaker 2: period while you're in shock, while you're grieving, and so
Speaker 2: it was just little seeds that got planted.
Speaker 1: But these little seeds for Scarlet were big red flags
Speaker 1: for her little sister, who went into full Nancy Drew mode.
Speaker 2: Everybody grieves differently, and for my little sister, she put
Speaker 2: her energy into investigating Jake.
Speaker 1: Whatever it took. She was on the case.
Speaker 2: I had mentioned a few concerns about the money to
Speaker 2: my older sister, which pretty much means it goes through
Speaker 2: the whole family, let's be honest.
Speaker 1: So I think that.
Speaker 2: The whole family had knew that there was not everything
Speaker 2: being perfect and tracking, But that visit was what inspired
Speaker 2: her because it went from him doing something to me
Speaker 2: to him wronging the whole family at one of the
Speaker 2: most devastating times in our life. So it became personal
Speaker 2: for her. I said to her, I remember going, why
Speaker 2: are you doing this?
Speaker 1: Like go and live your life. It's my problem.
Speaker 2: And that's when she said, if he sat in the
Speaker 2: front row of my father's funeral and he sat in
Speaker 2: that GP office with me, is my problem.
Speaker 1: And she took it on. They were calling up going Scarlet,
Speaker 1: I don't know about this guy. Have you got proof?
Speaker 2: And being a journalist, you are used to getting the
Speaker 2: facts and getting verification. But I'd never really thought to
Speaker 2: order a boyfriend quite so strictly, I'm not sort of like,
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it's a good thing to be, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now can you give me your resume and your job
Speaker 2: description and your references? But I sort of didn't think
Speaker 2: to do that, so I sort of said, well, no,
Speaker 2: I haven't. I've dropped him at work, I've met his
Speaker 2: whole family. I'd met him through a friend originally, Like
Speaker 2: there was lots of reasons to support him, and all
Speaker 2: my friends and family loved Jake. He was an extremely
Speaker 2: charismatic guy, he really was. Everybody loved him. But my
Speaker 2: little sister, she was not going to let this go,
Speaker 2: and she phoned the university, no record of him having
Speaker 2: a medical degree. She phoned the hospital, no record of
Speaker 2: him being at the hospital. And then the big one,
Speaker 2: no record on APRA. So APRA is the site where
Speaker 2: anyone registered as a health practitioner in Australia needs to
Speaker 2: be registered. And it wasn't like he was there with
Speaker 2: a little bit of a black mark against his name.
Speaker 1: He wasn't there at all. There were so many questions
Speaker 1: rolling around in Scarlett's head. It was overwhelming. She didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do or how to approach this newfound
Speaker 1: information to the man she loved. There was so much
Speaker 1: going on, but one thing was clear. Her family was
Speaker 1: not going to let this go.
Speaker 2: It was harassment by family like it was text, it
Speaker 2: was calls, it was relentless. And during that time I
Speaker 2: had also lost my job. The reason for that is
Speaker 2: I've been freelancing, so I didn't lose my job. With
Speaker 2: everything that was happening, they needed somebody else to fill
Speaker 2: those shifts, and so I'd changed jobs and gone into
Speaker 2: PR during that period.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot on my mind.
Speaker 2: And when you start a new job, you don't really
Speaker 2: want your phone ringing like ten times a day while
Speaker 2: you're at your desk. Not a good look. And one
Speaker 2: day I was at work, Ignore, ignore, Ignore, I just
Speaker 2: started a new job, and she called the office reception.
Speaker 2: She called the reception of where I worked, and they
Speaker 2: came over to me because she was so panicked that
Speaker 2: something had happened to me, because she started fearing for
Speaker 2: my safety. So my little sister was investigating, and of
Speaker 2: course she's relaying all this information to my other sister
Speaker 2: and my mum and So it was like this three
Speaker 2: way onslaught from my family of.
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: And get out of there? And what's wrong with you?
Speaker 2: And how can you be so stupid? At a time
Speaker 2: when I was grieving the loss of my dad, I
Speaker 2: had lost a job and was trying to make a
Speaker 2: way in an new career and trying to save a
Speaker 2: relationship which I believed was endgame for me. So there
Speaker 2: was a lot going on.
Speaker 1: The mental load was becoming unbearable, and Scarlett knew what
Speaker 1: she had to do. She had to confront Jake.
Speaker 2: I needed to find the right time because I knew
Speaker 2: that it would be a big fight, a big stress.
Speaker 2: I kept pushing it back, pushing it out of my
Speaker 2: mind because it was all I could cope with. So
Speaker 2: the first time I brought it up with him and said,
Speaker 2: these are some concerns I have. There's this, this, and
Speaker 2: this that doesn't add up. And the first response was, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: well I don't think we should be together, and he
Speaker 2: broke up with me. No answer, no explanation, He broke up.
Speaker 2: And when that happened, I sobbed like a baby for
Speaker 2: like twenty four hours in my bed and then came
Speaker 2: down with the worst flu.
Speaker 1: I've ever had.
Speaker 2: I felt like the worst thing had just happened, and
Speaker 2: I begged for.
Speaker 1: Him to take me back.
Speaker 2: I begged him to take me back, and so when
Speaker 2: I did that, I was on the back foot because
Speaker 2: I couldn't really beg to take him back and then
Speaker 2: be demanding answers about who he was.
Speaker 1: So she dropped it. The thought of losing Jake was
Speaker 1: just too much, so they carried on as if nothing
Speaker 1: had happened. But as you can guess, there were a
Speaker 1: few people that weren't too happy about that. My family
Speaker 1: was calling me, texting me, and emailing me hundreds of
Speaker 1: times a day. It was really out of hand, and
Speaker 1: of course it was coming from a place of love
Speaker 1: and a place of concern, because they were getting really
Speaker 1: concerned because there was no evidence he was who he
Speaker 1: said he was. So once the relationship sort of picked
Speaker 1: back up and I was feeling like we were going okay,
Speaker 1: I started to raise these questions again, and he said, Okay, Scarlett,
Speaker 1: I can send you a pay slip. Great, Okay, if
Speaker 1: you've got a recent payslip, I'll take it. Wonderful. Can
Speaker 1: I send it to you tomorrow? Wonderful? So I'm waiting
Speaker 1: with baited breadth at my email.
Speaker 2: I've never been so excited to get an email coming
Speaker 2: in and I opened it up. It didn't look like mine,
Speaker 2: but I thought, oh, okay, that's okay. We had a
Speaker 2: good night, and by this stage, this is what our
Speaker 2: relationship was like, good nights, bad nights, good days, bad days,
Speaker 2: very much walking on eggshells, trying to protect the chemistry
Speaker 2: and the attraction that we had. And I said, okay,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, thank you so much for the payslip. Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was sorry for asking. You know, it's just my family,
Speaker 2: my sister, my mom, and you know I've been going
Speaker 2: through a lot and there's been a lot of stress
Speaker 2: going on. And the way it worked out, my family
Speaker 2: became the enemy. And I did say, thanks for the
Speaker 2: pay slip. How do you explain the opera registration? And
Speaker 2: that was when the story changed. That was when he
Speaker 2: gave me an answer that absolutely flawed me. He said,
Speaker 2: the reason my name isn't there is because I'm in
Speaker 2: witness protection and it's been wiped so I can't be found.
Speaker 2: Because I'm an informant with a secret criminal investigation. I
Speaker 2: work for a national intelligence agency. I used to be
Speaker 2: in Special Forces, and I've protected the Malaysian Prime Minister's children.
Speaker 2: He seemed very matter of fact, to the point where
Speaker 2: I thought, well, if it was so matter of fact,
Speaker 2: why did it take this long for this to come out?
Speaker 1: Because we'd had such a.
Speaker 2: Close, open relationship where we would spend hours having dn
Speaker 2: ms about our childhoods and what was important to us,
Speaker 2: and there were multiple opportunities for this kind of information
Speaker 2: to come up. And so I just took a deep
Speaker 2: breath and said, right, okay. It was such a fantastical,
Speaker 2: bizarre response that I needed time to devise my cross examination.
Speaker 2: I suppose, like I guess, I'm an interest of journalist's brain,
Speaker 2: going what questions do I ask?
Speaker 1: From here?
Speaker 2: I felt like I could physically feel the cogs of
Speaker 2: my mind turning.
Speaker 1: So janke buy his own admission was a spy, and
Speaker 1: around this time it prompted Scarlet to do a little
Speaker 1: spying of her own.
Speaker 2: In the top of my printer. You know how you
Speaker 2: can lift up the lid to scan things. I was
Speaker 2: looking in there, which is not something I do every day.
Speaker 2: This is why it was a few weeks later I
Speaker 2: found the pay slip It was a cobble together sticky
Speaker 2: tape and liquid paper like arts and craft job. So
Speaker 2: it wasn't the pay slip. It was a doctor document.
Speaker 2: I had approached it very sarcastically, like you call this
Speaker 2: by work, This is pretty amateur, this is pretty dodgy,
Speaker 2: and it was, Oh, what's wrong with you? You know,
Speaker 2: why do you keep going on with this? And he
Speaker 2: also started to step away again of oh, okay, all right,
Speaker 2: well you know, I'm out, and I was scared of that.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to lose him. I was always trying
Speaker 2: to get back to that incredible, great connection that we
Speaker 2: had when we met, which was still there in pockets.
Speaker 2: I was wanting to protect my own integrity and reputation
Speaker 2: through all this, and also I had the view that
Speaker 2: we were going to be together forever. Still through all this,
Speaker 2: the view was that.
Speaker 1: He was my forever person.
Speaker 2: So I was wanting to protect both of our reputations
Speaker 2: because when you share certain information about a relationship, there
Speaker 2: is no going back. Through all this, I never wanted
Speaker 2: to leave him or break up. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: understand what was going on, and I was constantly giving
Speaker 2: him the benefit of the doubt. With that I was
Speaker 2: no closer to finding answers. In fact, I was more
Speaker 2: confused before me starting the investigation. During this the family
Speaker 2: pressure was becoming more and more relentless, and the language used,
Speaker 2: which they've since apologized for, was very much victim blaming.
Speaker 2: What is wrong with you? You're an idiot? How could someone
Speaker 2: smart like you end up in a situation like this?
Speaker 2: And I suppose they were saying out loud the things
Speaker 2: that deep down I was saying to myself. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to admit to myself that I'd been such an
Speaker 2: idiot and got it so wrong, because in the beginning
Speaker 2: it was such a strong intuitive connection, like I believed
Speaker 2: with every cell of my body that this person was
Speaker 2: the person I was meant to be with forever. So
Speaker 2: going back on that was me denying the strength and
Speaker 2: integrity of my own intuition. It was me admitting to myself, well,
Speaker 2: my sense of what's real and what's right is completely off.
Speaker 2: So I felt like by believing the lies would have
Speaker 2: been dismantling everything that I believed to be true for
Speaker 2: myself and my life. The consequences were much greater than
Speaker 2: just the relationship breaking up, And so I did what
Speaker 2: any love blind woman in my situation would do told
Speaker 2: my family I broke up with him and then continue
Speaker 2: to date him in secret. When I told my family
Speaker 2: that I'd broken up, it did stop the relentless calls
Speaker 2: and texts and pressure. It also meant I started this
Speaker 2: secret part of the relationship with I don't care who
Speaker 2: he is or what he does, it doesn't even matter.
Speaker 2: I just want to be with him because I love him.
Speaker 2: And I rationalized it in my mind by saying, of
Speaker 2: course you can love someone and still have no idea
Speaker 2: who they are.
Speaker 1: It had become so secret, so he was lying. I
Speaker 1: was lying.
Speaker 2: And the ironic thing was is my job was in
Speaker 2: pr at that stage before had been journalism, where your
Speaker 2: job is to use your voice, share the facts, tell
Speaker 2: the truth, be accurate. And in my home life everything
Speaker 2: was a lie. It was eating me alive inside.
Speaker 1: It was killing me.
Speaker 2: I am a open, honest person, very close to my family.
Speaker 2: I was at this luxury weekend away because we were
Speaker 2: back to these beautiful luxury weekends, you know, with spars
Speaker 2: and champagne and or dervs and all the things and fireplaces,
Speaker 2: and got a call from my mum. But because I
Speaker 2: was keeping up the facade. I couldn't just not be
Speaker 2: answering the phone. So here I am in a bubble
Speaker 2: bath with a glass of champagne, saying to Jake, you.
Speaker 1: Know, sh it's my mum, Hi mom, Oh honey, what
Speaker 1: are you up to?
Speaker 2: Oh? You know, just pottering around the house, my head
Speaker 2: down to Woolli's like just trying to keep up this
Speaker 2: story of me being alone and not being with him,
Speaker 2: And the calls were starting to be sympathetic. My family
Speaker 2: was saying, how you're going, love, you know what with
Speaker 2: the breakup and the emotional stress, and with my dad
Speaker 2: they were saying, how are you? And so there was
Speaker 2: this incredible guilt that I felt because I was with Jay.
Speaker 2: Yet they were comforting me because they felt that I
Speaker 2: was all alone wanting to start afresh, but I wasn't.
Speaker 1: The more Scarlet thought about it, the more she felt
Speaker 1: like a hypocrite. And Jake, well, he tended to agree.
Speaker 1: The conversation turned to, well, if you're lying to your
Speaker 1: whole family, then this can't be the real deal sort
Speaker 1: of vibes. So there was so much lying going on.
Speaker 1: He was lying, I was lying.
Speaker 2: It was eating me up inside and I thought How
Speaker 2: can I expect him to ever tell me the truth
Speaker 2: if I'm not being truthful in my own life. I'm
Speaker 2: believing now the key to us finally being together, finally
Speaker 2: being in the clear. Throughout this time, I really had
Speaker 2: this visual that it was going through this fog, and
Speaker 2: if we just got to the end of the fog,
Speaker 2: everything would be fantastic again and we could live happily
Speaker 2: ever after. So it was time to stop lying, and
Speaker 2: I wrote an email saying I've been seeing Jake, I
Speaker 2: will be seeing him. You can either get on board
Speaker 2: or you can cut me off. And I waited until
Speaker 2: my family were all in the one place. They lived
Speaker 2: all over Australia, so I'll wait until they were at
Speaker 2: a gathering, all in the one place, and I hit send.
Speaker 2: It was like dropping a bomb. They absolutely lost it.
Speaker 2: But they were not physically in the same city, so
Speaker 2: I was a little bit protected by being able to,
Speaker 2: you know, not answer the thousands of phone calls coming through.
Speaker 1: But what was.
Speaker 2: Even more diabolical was how Jake reacted. He was in
Speaker 2: my living room.
Speaker 1: I said, we.
Speaker 2: Can finally be together. I've told my family, like we
Speaker 2: can be in the open. We don't need to hide it.
Speaker 2: Let's just move forward, Let's do this. I felt, finally
Speaker 2: we're free, and that weight had lifted off my shoe,
Speaker 2: that tight feeling that you have when you're not speaking
Speaker 2: your truth, it was released. He turned to me and said,
Speaker 2: what did you do that for? I don't love you anyway.
Speaker 2: My body just crippled. I was in so much shock,
Speaker 2: like it really felt like being shot in the heart.
Speaker 2: And so within an hour I had put a chasm
Speaker 2: between myself and every single person in the world who
Speaker 2: I cared about.
Speaker 1: And I said, you don't mean that. I stood up
Speaker 1: and tried to hug him.
Speaker 2: I tried to beg for the love I suppose he
Speaker 2: wasn't ready to give.
Speaker 1: He wasn't ready to give that commitment.
Speaker 2: He didn't mean it deep down. It was such a mirror.
Speaker 2: It was such a mirror. It was me who didn't
Speaker 2: love myself. It was like I thought the weight would
Speaker 2: be lifted by telling my family the objective truth, but
Speaker 2: really I was still lying to myself.
Speaker 1: And that was the conversation that ended.
Speaker 2: It well sort of after that, and then began, I
Speaker 2: guess the great untangling, because throughout the period of time
Speaker 2: there had been so much on and off we were on,
Speaker 2: then we were off, and then it was a secret,
Speaker 2: and then it wasn't. I wasn't the person to end it.
Speaker 2: I really admire women who can end it and then
Speaker 2: just go no contact. I wasn't able to do that
Speaker 2: with him. The energetic connection in the chemistry was too strong. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: I really loved my job and it gave me a
Speaker 2: focus of I knew where to go each day and
Speaker 2: I could be on. If I didn't have that, I
Speaker 2: would have really spiraled into a deep depression, because I
Speaker 2: was spiraling that way anyway. But I still needed to
Speaker 2: get out of bed, have my shower, get to work,
Speaker 2: And for a long time, it was going through the
Speaker 2: motions of just getting through the next day, and it
Speaker 2: was a game of can I go through today without
Speaker 2: texting him? All I was thinking about was texting him.
Speaker 2: I would hope that I would see him. I'd be
Speaker 2: checking my phone to see if he texted me, and
Speaker 2: then double checking that I hadn't gone through one of
Speaker 2: the blocking him.
Speaker 1: Periods, And it was all I thought about.
Speaker 2: And I would write a little diary when I got
Speaker 2: home from work, going okay, if I go to the gym,
Speaker 2: and then I make my dinner and then I watch
Speaker 2: my show, then I can go to bed. And if
Speaker 2: I just follow that list, I won't text him. It
Speaker 2: was one of those things where you know what is
Speaker 2: good for you. I was very low in willpower. I
Speaker 2: was feeling very, very depressed. I was questioning my intuition.
Speaker 2: You know how they say, you know, this is why
Speaker 2: they've got to trust your gut. But to myself, I
Speaker 2: had trusted my gut and I'd chosen this person, So
Speaker 2: what does that say about my gut? That's why we
Speaker 2: kept having these rendezvous because I guess both of us
Speaker 2: couldn't keep away from each other. There was one day
Speaker 2: when my building manager said, oh, we found your boyfriend's license.
Speaker 2: Because they weren't quite up with what was going on
Speaker 2: in the relationship. They didn't know that we'd entered it.
Speaker 2: I said oh, and she handed me his license and
Speaker 2: I said, where did this come from? And she said, oh,
Speaker 2: it was dropped outside, dropped outside the door. So he
Speaker 2: had been at the door of my apartment without me knowing.
Speaker 2: He's either left the license on purpose, or was drunk
Speaker 2: and it just or something. It just fell out and
Speaker 2: it was there. So this is what also happened over
Speaker 2: that period. There was a series of him being around
Speaker 2: me without me knowing there was once he messaged me
Speaker 2: and said, you look really right in pink, because I
Speaker 2: was wearing a pink shirt to work that day, but
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen him. It was this weird he was
Speaker 2: there without me knowing, and for a while I was
Speaker 2: bringing home random men to have someone else in my
Speaker 2: apartment in case he turned up. I was also airbnb
Speaker 2: hosting at the time, which was fantastic, like there was
Speaker 2: the safety and security of having other people in the house,
Speaker 2: and so in the months following we would still catch
Speaker 2: up from time to time. I told him I was
Speaker 2: moving on started dating other people, and it became so
Speaker 2: toxic that he would even drop me off at dates
Speaker 2: with other men and then pick me up at the.
Speaker 1: End of it.
Speaker 2: It was like, we can't be together, but it was
Speaker 2: just those pockets of not being able to be away
Speaker 2: from each other, and he allowed it because I guess
Speaker 2: he knew without stepping forward to claim me, there was
Speaker 2: nothing he could do. But then, of course that was
Speaker 2: just my attempts to forget about him.
Speaker 1: This went on for months until one day when he
Speaker 1: picked Scarlet up from work. Something in who just switched.
Speaker 2: I looked at him with that different feeling, was like
Speaker 2: it wasn't the same person. It was like some sort
Speaker 2: of energetic cord had been cut and I was able
Speaker 2: to let it go. It became very clear that I
Speaker 2: didn't want the answers because finding out the truth with
Speaker 2: him was not what it was about. Because the resolution
Speaker 2: happened with me where I was able to feel like
Speaker 2: I got what I needed and I got the closure
Speaker 2: I needed. For the first time, I wasn't attracted to him.
Speaker 2: I felt a bit of disgust. Actually, I just looked
Speaker 2: at him, and he's a beautiful man.
Speaker 1: In that moment, I.
Speaker 2: Just saw he was a bit bedraggled. I think he
Speaker 2: had a bit of sauce on his shirt or something like.
Speaker 2: This happened to us all, you know, and it just
Speaker 2: gave me the ick. I'd never throughout all of this scenario,
Speaker 2: I never ever ever got the ick, But in that
Speaker 2: final time I saw him, I did, and I just
Speaker 2: breathed this sigh of relief and I thought, Yep, I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm truly done. And that was the last time I
Speaker 1: ever saw him. Jake didn't give up easily, hundreds of
Speaker 1: calls and texts followed, all of them ignored as Scarlet
Speaker 1: stayed focused on what mattered most, making amends with her family.
Speaker 1: The next day was when I had the conversation to say, look,
Speaker 1: this is what's happened. And I was leaning at that
Speaker 1: time really into what I was being told about myself.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of self loathing, a lot of yes,
Speaker 1: I'm an idiot, I know I'm stupid, and I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: and I just things are over now, and things started
Speaker 1: to repair, the relationship with my family was quite rocky,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, for a while before it started
Speaker 1: to build back up. And it might sound like my
Speaker 1: family has this strong hold over me, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: like that at all.
Speaker 2: It was really just normal, concerned family. I was going
Speaker 2: to do what I wanted to do anyway, which I
Speaker 2: clearly did. They were the voice that I had deep
Speaker 2: inside that I was ignoring and didn't want to listen
Speaker 2: to myself about. This is why it hurt so much,
Speaker 2: because they were saying out aloud the very thing I
Speaker 2: was needing to tell myself. I felt so ashamed, I
Speaker 2: felt so embarrassed. I felt it changed the whole way
Speaker 2: I looked at myself. I'd always felt that I was
Speaker 2: this confident, expressive speaker, and that completely broke my whole
Speaker 2: self identity. I became an salute man, hating be arch.
Speaker 2: I remember I was at a bar after work, and
Speaker 2: where I worked was actually close to the hospital. So
Speaker 2: I'm at the bar and there's this quite nice looking
Speaker 2: guy and he said, oh, hi, how are you going?
Speaker 2: And said, oh hi, how are you and what do
Speaker 2: you do? Probably not the best opening line, but hey,
Speaker 2: you know that's what came up. And he said, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm a doctor, and I said that's what they all
Speaker 2: left and say, and then like walked off. So the
Speaker 2: poor man must have been like, far out, what is
Speaker 2: wrong with that woman?
Speaker 1: So I was very.
Speaker 2: Skeptical and for a long time was going into situations
Speaker 2: wanting to have the upper hand and not believing anything.
Speaker 2: I would verbally say in the shower every day, Oh fuck,
Speaker 2: I hate men or psychopaths, narcisst misogynists like I was
Speaker 2: really like that, and I had to change that thinking.
Speaker 2: I had to change that thinking because if I believed
Speaker 2: that I was never going to find connection with someone,
Speaker 2: so a lot of it was rewiring my beliefs around,
Speaker 2: there are good men, there is something to believe in,
Speaker 2: you can have connection. It's very funny because my current
Speaker 2: partner actually did work for a national intelligence agency. So
Speaker 2: when when we met and he sort of told me
Speaker 2: on the you know, the second meeting, I was like,
Speaker 2: you're joking, Like, what is it with me in the
Speaker 2: intelligence community? This has never been anything intentional? He doesn't now,
Speaker 2: but it was. You find out, it's kind of quite boring.
Speaker 2: The way that Jake painted it was much more exciting now.
Speaker 1: I bet you're wondering whether Scarlet actually did get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of Jake's career. Dear listener, I realized that
Speaker 1: my desire to get to the bottom of what happened
Speaker 1: was more the journalist in me coming out wanting to
Speaker 1: give people the end of the story, rather than me
Speaker 1: wanting it for myself. It was more like I felt
Speaker 1: like this public service. It's more I felt like this
Speaker 1: community service that I needed to find the end so
Speaker 1: I could give all the people who were hanging on
Speaker 1: the edge of their seats the end of the story.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't about that I'd receive the lesson that
Speaker 1: I needed to and me going down that rabbit hole
Speaker 1: would have not helped me. It would have distracted me
Speaker 1: from getting on with my life, from my work, from
Speaker 1: meeting someone else. It would have just become me going
Speaker 1: right down into that never ending abyss. Because I thought
Speaker 1: about do I reach out to the ex girlfriend and
Speaker 1: things like this, I thought, no, what will it serve?
Speaker 1: I started writing a book called The Spy Who Shagged
Speaker 1: Me and my book is actually called voice Print. But
Speaker 1: I was like the Spy who Shagged Me and I
Speaker 1: wanted to record it. But then I thought, would the
Speaker 1: process of writing this book help me or hinder me? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Speaking about the story, sharing about what happened, sharing the
Speaker 2: feelings from my own perspective, the lessons that I learned.
Speaker 2: That has been healing and that has been helpful. But
Speaker 2: getting to the bottom of who he is and what
Speaker 2: he does, I just thought wouldn't be a great use
Speaker 2: of my time or energy. To this day, I don't
Speaker 2: know where he is, I don't know what he does,
Speaker 2: I don't know if he's still a doctor. But I'm
Speaker 2: okay with that because I understand myself better. I know
Speaker 2: who I am, I know the truth of what I
Speaker 2: stand for, and that's way more important than getting to
Speaker 2: the bottom of his life. I don't know why he lied,
Speaker 2: and I don't know if he even knows the truth
Speaker 2: of what he does or who he is. I've never
Speaker 2: felt love and attraction like that since that relationship, and
Speaker 2: I have a lot of gratitude to him for being
Speaker 2: able to experience that feeling. And I also believe that
Speaker 2: feeling was so closely linked to the danger and deception
Speaker 2: of the relationship. I had those highs because I had
Speaker 2: those incredible lows. It was dangerous, it was risky, and
Speaker 2: that's what potentially gave me that feeling. And I believe
Speaker 2: with relationships now you do have a choice of what
Speaker 2: kind of relationship you want. The relationship I'm in gives
Speaker 2: me incredible peace and stability and reliability. There's not the
Speaker 2: peak high as I suppose, as you could describe with
Speaker 2: that previous relationship, but there are also not those lows.
Speaker 2: It's very stabilizing. It's a great foundation, and that can
Speaker 2: be a hard pattern to recognize if you're used to
Speaker 2: being in relationships where it.
Speaker 1: Is those.
Speaker 2: High highs we go chasing that again. I like feeling
Speaker 2: safe and secure and cared for in a relationship. I
Speaker 2: can totally be myself. I can speak my truth. I
Speaker 2: never feel like I have to filter what I'm going
Speaker 2: to say before it. I can be open with my
Speaker 2: friends and family, and the relationship is a real foundation
Speaker 2: to live the life I want to live and do
Speaker 2: the things I want to do, rather than being this
Speaker 2: all consuming focus in my life. Because I look back
Speaker 2: at that time and I can tell you objectively other
Speaker 2: things that I was doing, but he was the only
Speaker 2: thing that was taking up all of my emotional headspace.
Speaker 1: But every dark cloud has a silver lining, and this
Speaker 1: one will. It led to a brand new career path.
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for that experience because it's what taught
Speaker 2: me that there is a huge difference between speaking with
Speaker 2: confidence and speaking your truth. And now as a voice
Speaker 2: and speaking coach, I serve my clients so much better
Speaker 2: because I'm not just about the surface level speaking tips.
Speaker 2: I really know what it truly means to speak your
Speaker 2: truth and to find your voice. So without that experience,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now, and I'm
Speaker 2: incredibly grateful for it, which I'm able to many years
Speaker 2: later in the moment, not so much now. I honestly
Speaker 2: feel nothing but gratitude for the situation. It really was
Speaker 2: something that happened for me, not to me. When these
Speaker 2: things happened at the time, you can feel like such
Speaker 2: a victim.
Speaker 1: How could they do this to me? How could this
Speaker 1: happen to me? I went and saw a counselor with
Speaker 1: all this, and.
Speaker 2: I was feeling, oh my gosh, like this is terrible,
Speaker 2: and was saying.
Speaker 1: He lied about this and lied about that, and she said, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I just had somebody in with a similar situation. I said, sorry,
Speaker 1: what she was like, yes, happens more than you think.
Speaker 1: And then since that happened, and I have told the
Speaker 1: story to friends and family that I meet, everyone seems
Speaker 1: to have a similar story about someone lying similar to
Speaker 1: this circumstance, and so I don't feel special that having
Speaker 1: happened to me. In fact, now I feel incredibly grateful
Speaker 1: for the experience, grateful to have met him, to have
Speaker 1: known him.
Speaker 2: He's definitely played a role in my journey, and I
Speaker 2: would not be able to be the coach that I
Speaker 2: am today without that experience. I can definitely work on
Speaker 2: a much deeper level with an understanding that I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have had I'd put all of my energy and pinned
Speaker 2: all my hopes on this person being my husband, being
Speaker 2: the father of my children. And I've learned about relationships
Speaker 2: that it's really less about the other person and more
Speaker 2: about yourself, understanding what you want, loving yourself, having compassion
Speaker 2: for yourself. And I am absolutely thriving now. I have
Speaker 2: a successful business, I have a beautiful partner. I've chosen
Speaker 2: not to get married or have children. I feel very independent,
Speaker 2: and any young women who are getting into relationships, I
Speaker 2: feel absolutely qualified to be able to give them advice
Speaker 2: on what to do. And it's always listened to your
Speaker 2: own inner voice. Don't look for someone else to complete you,
Speaker 2: look at how you yourself can be completed. And if
Speaker 2: something happens in a relationship, it's always a lesson.
Speaker 1: It's often a mirror. It's giving us the opportunity to learn.
Speaker 2: More about ourselves. And that's why I say relationships and
Speaker 2: time with people is never wasted. It is if you
Speaker 2: stay there for too many years. But if you can
Speaker 2: appreciate that interaction and learn those lessons, then you'll end
Speaker 2: up being much further ahead in your own life. I
Speaker 2: had been on radio and TV all through my twenties,
Speaker 2: really confident speaking, and I thought that made me a really.
Speaker 1: Confident communicator, but it didn't.
Speaker 2: It was the relationship that taught me to truly find
Speaker 2: my voice. I had to learn what the truth was.
Speaker 2: I had to learn how to use my voice in
Speaker 2: all areas of my life, not just professionally. In my book,
Speaker 2: I talk about finding your FMV moment, So people think, oh,
Speaker 2: fuck my voice, but FMV is a find my voice.
Speaker 2: Where is that find my voice moment? We often reflect
Speaker 2: on the time when we lost our voice, so we
Speaker 2: were embarrassed or we didn't speak, but this is going
Speaker 2: back and going when did we speak? And for me,
Speaker 2: that relationship was my FMV moment.
Speaker 1: Everyone has an Ex's a MINTI Media production and proudly
Speaker 1: part of the Mum and mea network. This interview was
Speaker 1: conducted and episode narrated by me Georgia Love and was
Speaker 1: written and produced by Linda Scott. If you have a
Speaker 1: story you'd like to share, email podcast at momameia dot
Speaker 1: com dot au. You can support us by following the
Speaker 1: show in your favorite podcast app and leaving us a
Speaker 1: five star review. We'll see you for the next episode.