Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters.
Speaker 2: This podcast is recorded on. This episode deals with domestic violence,
Speaker 2: pregnancy termination, and talk of suicide. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: What would you do, dear listener, if you found out
Speaker 2: something about your partner that changed the very fabric of
Speaker 2: your relationship at a point when you felt you were
Speaker 2: too far in would you cut and run or would
Speaker 2: you trust the fact you've now found out and try
Speaker 2: to move on.
Speaker 1: He knew that I wouldn't have continued with the relationship
Speaker 1: if you told me so. He didn't, and then he
Speaker 1: decided to buy a house with me and start this
Speaker 1: whole life with me without being honest about this very
Speaker 1: crucial part that I deserve to know.
Speaker 2: So maybe you do keep moving forward. Maybe you move
Speaker 2: forward for six years, but through and after it all,
Speaker 2: it turns out what you thought what was the issue
Speaker 2: didn't even scratch the surface.
Speaker 1: At that moment when he had opened up about that,
Speaker 1: it was just like all the pieces just fit. It
Speaker 1: was like that missing puzzle piece that I was trying
Speaker 1: to search for for so many years, and I found it,
Speaker 1: you know, the penny dropped. It wasn't just his depression,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just all these other things. There was no
Speaker 1: hope anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an ex
Speaker 2: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 2: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
Speaker 2: hearts of the very people who lived them. We're so
Speaker 2: often hear that when you're not looking, that's when you
Speaker 2: find the right person. But sometimes, like for Rebecca and Cam,
Speaker 2: it's not even you who finds the person, but someone else,
Speaker 2: a trusted friend with only good intentions.
Speaker 1: We met in January of twenty seventeen. We were set
Speaker 1: up by a mutual friend and at the time I
Speaker 1: was twenty almost twenty one and he was twenty three.
Speaker 1: I wasn't really looking for anything serious, sort of just
Speaker 1: popped up. My friend thought that we would be well
Speaker 1: suited together, and you know, why not give it a crack.
Speaker 1: So I thought, you know, what have I got to lose?
Speaker 1: So we organized a date. It all happened pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: It was within the week. We went on a date.
Speaker 1: We went to the beach, got a coffee, and we
Speaker 1: sort of just sat on the beach talking for a
Speaker 1: couple of hours, and like it was good. First time
Speaker 1: I saw him, I thought he was cute, you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is good. We hit it off
Speaker 1: straight away. Really, we just vibed. He had a good
Speaker 1: energy about him, and I was attracted to him. You know.
Speaker 1: He was wearing a hat and he always seemed to
Speaker 1: wear hats, and he had one of those beaber fringes,
Speaker 1: and he was tall. He had a really nice smile,
Speaker 1: you know, like it was really nice. It was very inviting.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of similarities, like he had had
Speaker 1: a serious motorbike accident when he was fourteen, and I
Speaker 1: had the same one when I was eighteen, and we
Speaker 1: both experienced the same brain injury, which I'm fine now,
Speaker 1: by the way, but that was something that we could
Speaker 1: relate to, and that was something that really sort of
Speaker 1: connected us right from the beginning, because not many people
Speaker 1: in this world know what it's like to have a
Speaker 1: well temporary brain injury. No one really knows what that
Speaker 1: feeling's like. But he did, you know, we did. So
Speaker 1: we just bonded over that and we just laughed and
Speaker 1: he was funny and he was nice, and he just
Speaker 1: seemed to be on my level, and I just really
Speaker 1: like that. And I think because we were set up
Speaker 1: through a mutual friend as well, there's that connection there,
Speaker 1: so it's sort of just like that instant you can
Speaker 1: just you can trust them. I wasn't actually going to
Speaker 1: go on a second date. Towards the end of the date,
Speaker 1: he was talking about his ex a lot, and that's
Speaker 1: sort of like a turn off to me. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not really interested in talking about exes. It's not
Speaker 1: really something you talk about on a first day. But
Speaker 1: I sort of went home and I spoke to my
Speaker 1: sister and she's like, just give it another go, because
Speaker 1: he was really keen to see me again. And I
Speaker 1: was just like, oh yeah, but he spoke about his
Speaker 1: ex and you know, and she's like, just give it
Speaker 1: a go, just give it another girl, and I was
Speaker 1: like okay. So it was like two days later and
Speaker 1: we met up again. I actually went to his house,
Speaker 1: which is not something that I'd usually do, but just
Speaker 1: felt comfortable and easy to do, so so I did
Speaker 1: and we hung out at his and honestly, the rest
Speaker 1: was history. We just we would see each other like
Speaker 1: almost every single day. We lived basically an hour apart
Speaker 1: from each other, but we'd always make the drive, like
Speaker 1: after work or we just had this routine. It all
Speaker 1: just happened so quickly, and we were just like two
Speaker 1: peas in a pod. We spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: at each other's houses. He lived close to the water,
Speaker 1: so we'd always drive to the beach, have a coffee.
Speaker 1: We'd go on hikes. I love deer, so we'd always
Speaker 1: try and find the deer. We just spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time near the water, and we spoke a lot.
Speaker 1: We had good communication, so we just spent most of
Speaker 1: our time talking and it was just strengthening the connection.
Speaker 1: I felt very early on that that I was falling
Speaker 1: in love with him, and I felt that that was reciprocated.
Speaker 1: And three months in I said that I loved him
Speaker 1: and he set it back, and then it just it
Speaker 1: shot off.
Speaker 2: The relationship picked up thick and fast from there. Quickly
Speaker 2: they knew they wanted to live together, so they put
Speaker 2: their financial maturity caps on, saved hard, and after Josh
Speaker 2: I have eighteen months together, they bought a house.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. It was like living with your best friend. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it was like a constant sleepover with your best friend
Speaker 1: every single day. I was so happy. We would both
Speaker 1: work full time and he would leave for work earlier
Speaker 1: than me, and he would always leave a coffee in
Speaker 1: a coffee cup for me with a little note next
Speaker 1: to the kettle, always like a cute note that was
Speaker 1: always really nice. So I'd always have something nice to
Speaker 1: wake up to every morning. And so we would go
Speaker 1: to work, we'd come home and then we cooked dinner together.
Speaker 1: We'd sit out the back. We loved having cups of teas,
Speaker 1: so we just sit out at the back and we
Speaker 1: just talk. We just talk about everything, honestly, like we
Speaker 1: could talk to the cows. Came home like it was
Speaker 1: just we're so close and so that's what our afternoon,
Speaker 1: our evening would look like. It was one of those
Speaker 1: relationships where it's just it's perfect, you know, like even
Speaker 1: people at work they're talking about their relationships, or he
Speaker 1: does this that's annoying or whatever. I never had anything
Speaker 1: bad to say. It was just we were so close
Speaker 1: and connected and every day was just absolutely amazing. It
Speaker 1: was just one of those relationships where like nothing could
Speaker 1: go wrong, you know, like everything's just perfect. And there
Speaker 1: was a lot of faith in the relationship. A lot
Speaker 1: of trust in the relationship and it was just it
Speaker 1: was amazing. So those first six months were just everything.
Speaker 2: Uh oh, what happened? After six months?
Speaker 1: There was one night that we were sitting in the
Speaker 1: back room. He started just having this panic attack next
Speaker 1: to me, and I was looked at him. I was like, like,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And he was like, I can't hide
Speaker 1: this any longer. I need to tell you. And he
Speaker 1: told me that he had cheated on me seven months
Speaker 1: into a relationship with a girl that he used to
Speaker 1: speak to, and you know, he was he started to
Speaker 1: go into detail, but I stopped him in his tracks.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't I don't want to know, I
Speaker 1: don't care to know. And I just sort of just
Speaker 1: jumped up, grabbed my keys, and walked out to my
Speaker 1: car and he was it was like a whole dramatic
Speaker 1: scene where he was chasing me out and he was like,
Speaker 1: please don't leave. I love you. You know I made
Speaker 1: a mistake. And I was like, I'm not hearing it.
Speaker 1: I don't care to hear about it. And I got
Speaker 1: in my car and I took off and I drove
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes and I just sat in my car
Speaker 1: for hours, just trying to process everything. I was shocked,
Speaker 1: and I was angry. I was I was shocked, and
Speaker 1: I was angry because why would you commit to buying
Speaker 1: a house with me and starting this life with me
Speaker 1: and you couldn't be honest about what had happened because
Speaker 1: he knew. He knew. I'd always said it right from
Speaker 1: the beginning, like the one thing you don't do is
Speaker 1: cheat on me, Like he knew that I would have
Speaker 1: continued with the relationship if he told me so. He didn't,
Speaker 1: and then he decided to buy a house with me
Speaker 1: and start this whole life with me without being honest
Speaker 1: about this very crucial part that I deserve to know.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't get my head around what he told
Speaker 1: me and how I was supposed to move forward that
Speaker 1: because I've always been so you know, if someone cheats
Speaker 1: on you, like that's it. I just don't have time
Speaker 1: for that stuff. And you know, I've been with like
Speaker 1: in past relationships where they've been unfaithful, and I felt
Speaker 1: like I'd learned a lot from those times and sort
Speaker 1: of like if something like that came up again, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't put up with that again. Here I was bought
Speaker 1: a house with this guy and he's just told me
Speaker 1: this exact thing. I think it was eating him up inside.
Speaker 1: I mean, we spoke about everything. I was so surprised
Speaker 1: that he kept this so so quiet. You know, we
Speaker 1: spoke about everything. We had great communication, and I think
Speaker 1: just how close we were. I think it was just
Speaker 1: eating him up inside. The gilt was getting to him.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why he decided to tell me
Speaker 1: that point, but he did so. After a couple of hours,
Speaker 1: I drove back to the house. He was waiting at
Speaker 1: the door. When I got home, I didn't speak to him.
Speaker 1: I just straightway went to bed. We didn't speak it
Speaker 1: all that night, made him sleep on the lounge that night,
Speaker 1: and that next morning we spoke about it briefly. I
Speaker 1: was still pretty hurt at that time, but basically he
Speaker 1: just kept telling me that he loved me and that
Speaker 1: he made a mistake. And you know that the reason
Speaker 1: that he told me was because he just couldn't keep
Speaker 1: it in any longer and felt like I had a
Speaker 1: right to know, so so he told me. I think
Speaker 1: it took me a couple of days just to sort
Speaker 1: of get my head around it and work out what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do going forward, because, like I mean,
Speaker 1: if we hadn't bought a house together, I wouldn't ditched
Speaker 1: it and run at that moment. But I felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd moved an hour away from from my home,
Speaker 1: I'd gotten this new job, we bought a house. You know,
Speaker 1: We've got three beautiful dogs, and we started this life together.
Speaker 1: And it's not as easy as just leaving. So it
Speaker 1: was after a couple of days, he was sitting up
Speaker 1: in the garage just on a camping chair, just having
Speaker 1: a beer, and I sort of I pulled up a
Speaker 1: chair next to him. And this was the first time
Speaker 1: I'd sort of been really open to properly talking about it,
Speaker 1: and I sort of took the focus away from me,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to know how he felt. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know what it was like for him to keep
Speaker 1: that secret from me. I basically said that, listen, we've
Speaker 1: got this house together, we've got this whole life together.
Speaker 1: Who we were at seven months is completely different to
Speaker 1: who we are now. Just as long as going forward
Speaker 1: we're always open and we're honest, I can move past this.
Speaker 1: So we agreed that we moved past it, and that
Speaker 1: was it. You know, like it's still hurt, but I
Speaker 1: have a good ability to sort of let these things go,
Speaker 1: sort of heal, and I felt like I could move on,
Speaker 1: and I did. I felt that I still loved him
Speaker 1: the same, But it did, it did change things, at
Speaker 1: least in the interim. For me. I couldn't get it
Speaker 1: out of my head, just the thought of him being
Speaker 1: with somebody else, and especially when it had happened. He
Speaker 1: literally saw me that next day and I'd slept with
Speaker 1: him that next day, you know, and that just it
Speaker 1: makes me feel sick to think of those things. But
Speaker 1: I did feel that we were strong enough to be
Speaker 1: able to get through it, and I felt within myself,
Speaker 1: I felt that I was strong enough, and I felt
Speaker 1: like I'd made peace with it, you know, and we
Speaker 1: were good. It felt like we were sort of on
Speaker 1: track again, and he was loving on me and he
Speaker 1: was everything. And then he just changed. Something changed. He
Speaker 1: became distant. He started to become distant from me. I
Speaker 1: was not sure what was going on, because I mean,
Speaker 1: he's been pleading and telling me how much he loved
Speaker 1: me and how much a mistake he made and everything
Speaker 1: like that, and I wasn't sure why he pulled back
Speaker 1: so much, and then he just basically told me that
Speaker 1: he was struggling with the guilt of it all, and
Speaker 1: basically that he loved me, but he wasn't in love
Speaker 1: with me, and that completely destroyed me. I was like, so,
Speaker 1: I'm like bending over backwards trying to get over this thing,
Speaker 1: and what have I got to hang on to now? Like?
Speaker 1: What have I got to? I mean, you're not even
Speaker 1: in love with me anymore. Like it was just it
Speaker 1: was so brutal. And then he told me that he
Speaker 1: wasn't attracted to me and that he never really was.
Speaker 1: He just fell in love with my heart. That was horrendous.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like everything inside me just changed.
Speaker 1: My appearance in the mirror. Everything when I'd stand in
Speaker 1: front the mirror, it wasn't even me looking back anymore.
Speaker 1: I couldn't everything changed about me. I just I mean,
Speaker 1: you can be told by many people that you know
Speaker 1: you're attractive or whatever, but then that person that you're
Speaker 1: in love with, if he tells you that you're not,
Speaker 1: you believe it. So I did. That was so brutal.
Speaker 1: That was that desdrove me. I was obviously extremely hurt.
Speaker 1: I cried, I cried a lot, but I was also
Speaker 1: so confused. I couldn't understand where this was coming from.
Speaker 1: I mean, a week earlier, he was pleading with me
Speaker 1: to saying that how much he loved me and how
Speaker 1: much he regretted everything. In a couple of days, we
Speaker 1: were going away with his family. So we had decided
Speaker 1: that he was going to go on that family trip
Speaker 1: and I was going to stay home because he wasn't
Speaker 1: sure if he wanted to be with me anymore. This
Speaker 1: all happened within a week, So he went away with
Speaker 1: his family. I stayed home, and that was really hard.
Speaker 1: We didn't have any communication in that time, and the
Speaker 1: whole time I was just roodled with anxiety. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, what's it going to be like when he
Speaker 1: gets back? Will he want to be with me? Will
Speaker 1: he will he want to leave me? Like? Where do
Speaker 1: I stand with this? He got back from his trip
Speaker 1: and basically he said that you know that he feels
Speaker 1: that he wants to work on things. And I was relieved,
Speaker 1: still very confused, but I think it's just been such
Speaker 1: a whirlwind of a week, you know, from being told
Speaker 1: that I've been cheated on and I just bought this
Speaker 1: house and all this stuff had been a lie to
Speaker 1: he's no longer in love with me, nor is he
Speaker 1: attracted to me to that now he wants to work
Speaker 1: on things, and I was relieved, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we can do this, you know, like maybe it was
Speaker 1: just the guilt of everything. Maybe it was just the
Speaker 1: fact that he'd been holding this big secret from me
Speaker 1: for so long, and we were so close. You know,
Speaker 1: we're best friends, and we've been best friends for two years,
Speaker 1: you know, like it was just I sort of was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I can kind of understand this. Okay, okay, like let's
Speaker 1: reset and let's try this again. I just wanted him
Speaker 1: to love me, and I think being cheated on and
Speaker 1: having that ripped away from me, having the relationship ripped
Speaker 1: away from me so quickly, and then being told that,
Speaker 1: instead of feeling like, you know, screw you, it felt
Speaker 1: like I just I just wanted him to love me,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't know why he didn't love me,
Speaker 1: and we'd been so close for so long, so I
Speaker 1: just almost felt desperate for him to love me. So
Speaker 1: I didn't look at it as in, you'd hurt me,
Speaker 1: you'd done this to me, like how dare you. I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm out of here sort of thing. Like, I
Speaker 1: just I was so focused on just getting us back,
Speaker 1: getting us back on track, and getting us back to
Speaker 1: where we were, because everything had just blown up in
Speaker 1: a second, you know, like it was just I did
Speaker 1: not see it coming.
Speaker 2: The relationship inevitably changed. While they acted on the surface
Speaker 2: like everything was okay, behind closed doors, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: We'd always had great intimacy, we were always very bonded
Speaker 1: in that way, very connected in that way. It was.
Speaker 1: It was great. There was never any sign there were
Speaker 1: never any signs that anything was wrong in that department
Speaker 1: at all. But the moment that he told me that
Speaker 1: he cheated on me, that's when its apart. We stopped
Speaker 1: being intimate. When he told me that he wasn't in
Speaker 1: love with me and that he wasn't attracted to me,
Speaker 1: that he never was in the first place. He'd also
Speaker 1: told me that he no longer wanted to sleep with
Speaker 1: me because he wasn't attracted to me, and so that
Speaker 1: fizzled very quickly. He started drinking copious amounts of alcohol.
Speaker 1: I mean I would get home of an evening and
Speaker 1: he'd already be into the beers. Sometimes it was a
Speaker 1: case of beer a night. He would tell me that
Speaker 1: it was from the guilt of everything that he'd done,
Speaker 1: that he just felt so bad about it and so
Speaker 1: bad about himself for what he'd done to me and
Speaker 1: everything like that. So it would almost make me feel
Speaker 1: guilty for well feeling bad about him cheating on me.
Speaker 1: So I just stopped. I felt like I had to
Speaker 1: move on because every time I couldn't, I couldn't draw
Speaker 1: attention to it, because every time that I would, he
Speaker 1: would just withdraw from me, because that's how he got
Speaker 1: when he drank. He would be arrogant, he'd be cold,
Speaker 1: he'd be mean, he'd be distant and on sianta. I
Speaker 1: just I just wanted him to love me again, and
Speaker 1: I just I wasn't able to speak about the cheating
Speaker 1: because he would just he pull away from me, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want that, so I just didn't. I kept
Speaker 1: it to myself, and I just thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: if we didn't bring it up and we just continued
Speaker 1: on as as normal, then then maybe everything would just
Speaker 1: balance back out and he would just because he hadn't
Speaker 1: he hadn't been drinking throughout the whole relationship, not like
Speaker 1: he was now, and he was just this completely different person.
Speaker 1: I look back now and I think, why wouldn't I
Speaker 1: have left? Why would I have not have just packed
Speaker 1: my bags and left? But at that time, I wanted
Speaker 1: us to get back on track because we've been best
Speaker 1: friends for two years, you know, and we'd have we
Speaker 1: had a house together, we had a whole life together,
Speaker 1: and obviously I was I was confused as to what
Speaker 1: was going on because we'd been so close for so long.
Speaker 1: So it was sort of like I knew that something
Speaker 1: was going on with him and that it was something
Speaker 1: more than what he was telling me, and I just
Speaker 1: I just needed to work it out, and I needed
Speaker 1: to to get us back to where we were because
Speaker 1: we were so good. So when he came back from
Speaker 1: his family getaway and he told me that he wanted
Speaker 1: to work on things, I was relieved and I was happy,
Speaker 1: and I was ready to resat with him and move forward.
Speaker 1: So once he told me that, I was kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's something more than me and than us, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of just like it was starting to put
Speaker 1: pieces together. I'm like, Okay, this is something that we
Speaker 1: that we can move forward with we can work out
Speaker 1: it's you know, he's struggling mentally, Okay. I wanted to
Speaker 1: help him, so, you know, we had a lot of
Speaker 1: conversations about that, and you know, I did a lot
Speaker 1: of research and you know, I went to doctor's appointments
Speaker 1: with him. I was always there too. I was always
Speaker 1: talking about it. So when he went to the door
Speaker 1: as he was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, they gave
Speaker 1: him medication for that, some antidepressants for that. And at
Speaker 1: that point he was still very distant from me. We
Speaker 1: weren't really communicating much, we weren't intimate. He was still
Speaker 1: drinking a lot at that point. But he started on
Speaker 1: the antidepressants and probably about I don't know, two or
Speaker 1: three weeks later, things dramatically improved. It's like he did
Speaker 1: this whole one to eighty, you know, and he was
Speaker 1: back to the cam that I knew and loved. He
Speaker 1: was back to normal, and I was like, okay, so
Speaker 1: it was just depression and this medication is obviously helping,
Speaker 1: so okay, Like it just it gave me hope, you know,
Speaker 1: it gave us both hope. To be honest, it was
Speaker 1: just we were back on track. We were starting to
Speaker 1: be intimate again, we were communicating again. He told me
Speaker 1: that he'd fallen back in love with me, and he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm so sorry for everything that happens, you know,
Speaker 1: like that wouldn't ever happen again. I don't know what happened,
Speaker 1: but it felt good and we were back on track.
Speaker 2: Thank god. So that it's the end of the story then.
Speaker 1: But that lasted about a week. He decided that, you know,
Speaker 1: he's feeling good. He no longer needed the medication anymore.
Speaker 1: So he decided to stop. And literally the moment he did,
Speaker 1: everything just flipped on its head again, did another complete
Speaker 1: one eighty well, right back to square one. He told
Speaker 1: me that he didn't love me again. We weren't intimate anymore.
Speaker 1: He was just going back and forth, over and over again.
Speaker 1: He did this so many times. He would go back
Speaker 1: on his medication. He would go back off as soon
Speaker 1: as he started to feel good again. He felt like
Speaker 1: he was strong enough to stop. And honestly, this probably
Speaker 1: happened about ten fifteen times, honestly, just back and forth,
Speaker 1: and in that time, I was just losing my mind.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to help this guy. Initially, when he would go off
Speaker 1: the medication, I would just be looking forward to the
Speaker 1: next time that he got on that medication, because I
Speaker 1: just knew that when he would be on the medication,
Speaker 1: on the antidepressants, that he would come back. But as
Speaker 1: time went on and the more times he did it,
Speaker 1: he just he stopped coming back. He was just sort
Speaker 1: of just still wasn't in love with me, still didn't
Speaker 1: like me, still didn't want to be with me. He
Speaker 1: would become very mean. He'd say very mean things to me.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of the time when he would talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that he wasn't attracted to me, he
Speaker 1: would be basically yelling in my face that he didn't
Speaker 1: want to be with me. A lot of the time,
Speaker 1: when he would drink, he would threaten suicide. He would
Speaker 1: tell me how unhappy he was, how unhappy I made him,
Speaker 1: how unhappy he was with his life, how he should
Speaker 1: just end it all. There were many times that he
Speaker 1: would punch holes in the wall. He was forever just
Speaker 1: fixing up holes in the wall. Even broke his knuckles
Speaker 1: once from punching a hole in the wall. It was
Speaker 1: embarrassing to have people over because it's like, how do
Speaker 1: you explain these random holes in the walls, all these patches,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I felt like I couldn't even have
Speaker 1: my parents over because they'd noticed that stuff straight away.
Speaker 1: I just felt like every single day I didn't know
Speaker 1: what to expect. I mean, if he wasn't punching holes
Speaker 1: in the wall, he was yelling in my face, he
Speaker 1: was hurling Esk's across the room at me. So I
Speaker 1: sort of got to the point that I switched off.
Speaker 1: I still remember the moment that I felt all my
Speaker 1: emotions to switch off, like it'd been complete It'd been
Speaker 1: complete turmoil every single day because he was just in
Speaker 1: this constant cycle and he would be drinking so much,
Speaker 1: and every single day you just never knew what was
Speaker 1: going to happen. I just became a shell of a human.
Speaker 1: It's hard to even think what I was actually like
Speaker 1: at that time. I was just existing, really just making
Speaker 1: it through the next day and just hoping that, you know,
Speaker 1: tomorrow will be a better day. And sometimes it was,
Speaker 1: and other times it wasn't far.
Speaker 2: From Rebecca knew this wasn't the life she wanted, but
Speaker 2: she didn't know how to get out.
Speaker 1: I felt like I couldn't leave. Initially, it was you
Speaker 1: know that we can work on this and we can
Speaker 1: move forward, and you know, there was hope for us.
Speaker 1: But it got to the point that he'd just beaten
Speaker 1: me down so much. My self confidence was so low,
Speaker 1: I had gained so much weight. I felt horrible about myself.
Speaker 1: I just felt completely stuck in this cycle. And I
Speaker 1: felt like I was too weak. I couldn't I couldn't leave,
Speaker 1: and it just felt like even just the thought of leaving.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course I thought about it as anyone would,
Speaker 1: but the process of leaving just seemed way too hot.
Speaker 1: I was the shell of a human and I just
Speaker 1: I just put up with it. I just I just stayed.
Speaker 1: I stopped hoping that he would come back, and I
Speaker 1: just dealt with whatever came my way every single day,
Speaker 1: whether it was violent, whether it was verbal abuse, every like.
Speaker 1: I just I just never really knew what to expect.
Speaker 1: But I just ended up just dealing with it. And
Speaker 1: that was just my life. When we would get into
Speaker 1: our fights when he was drinking, he would become handsy
Speaker 1: with me. He never hit me, but he would become pushy,
Speaker 1: you know, shove me out of the way. There was
Speaker 1: one night where I was in the bedroom and he
Speaker 1: came up behind me and he wanted to have sex.
Speaker 1: I obviously did not want to. We just had a
Speaker 1: fight and he pushed me on the bed and tried
Speaker 1: to have his way with me. Was not successful. I
Speaker 1: was only twenty three, and I was thinking, this is
Speaker 1: my life, this is what my life looks like now,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't see a way out. I couldn't see
Speaker 1: that light at the end of the tunnel. I was
Speaker 1: just constantly caught in a spiral of course rap every
Speaker 1: single day, and this was just my life now. And
Speaker 1: no one really knew the extent of everything that was
Speaker 1: happening at home, because I feel like if I had told, say,
Speaker 1: my family, then for one, I was still trying to
Speaker 1: protect him. People knew that some things were going down,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't completely honest about everything that was going
Speaker 1: down because I I was protecting him, and honestly, I
Speaker 1: just couldn't. I couldn't deal with any added stress or pressure.
Speaker 1: So I just I kept myself. I shut off from
Speaker 1: the world and just dealt with the drunken cam every
Speaker 1: single night, and whatever happened just happened. It was his
Speaker 1: Dad's birthday and he gone out drinking. I stayed home
Speaker 1: because I just didn't feel like going out hadn't been
Speaker 1: the best time for me. He got home and I
Speaker 1: was out the back having a tea and a smoke,
Speaker 1: and he came out and he was drunk, and straight
Speaker 1: away I was just like, I'm not dealing with this,
Speaker 1: and so I went to bed, and probably a couple
Speaker 1: hours later, he came to bed as well. He'd been
Speaker 1: so drunk that night that the next morning his alarm
Speaker 1: was going off at quarter to six, and he always
Speaker 1: had his alarm set and I'd always be like nudging
Speaker 1: him to wake up and turn it off, because he
Speaker 1: always sucked at waking up to his alarm, But because
Speaker 1: he'd been so drunk that night before, he just didn't
Speaker 1: respond to me nudging him. So I grabbed the phone
Speaker 1: and turned off his alarm. And when I turned off
Speaker 1: his alarm, his whole entire screen was just full of
Speaker 1: Tinder notifications. I'm not much of a snoop. I have
Speaker 1: never been much of a snoop. But I looked, I
Speaker 1: absolutely did, and I saw absolutely everything that he'd been saying.
Speaker 1: I looked at every single message, and I realized that
Speaker 1: this had been going on for basically the whole relationship,
Speaker 1: the whole entire time he'd been doing this, My stomach
Speaker 1: absolutely dropped. I felt absolutely sick to my stomach to
Speaker 1: read everything that I was reading, to see the photos
Speaker 1: that he was sending, to see the videos that he
Speaker 1: was sending to and not just to one person, to
Speaker 1: multiple people. I just I felt absolutely sick to my stomach, like,
Speaker 1: who is this person? Who is this person that I'm
Speaker 1: living with? I just it was absolutely disgusting, And I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes sense as to why he was no longer
Speaker 1: intimate with me anymore, right, he was getting his fixed elsewhere.
Speaker 1: But it was really hard to see that there were
Speaker 1: lots of photos of him sending his penis to random people,
Speaker 1: videos of him doing that exact thing. I was also
Speaker 1: could see videos of girls sending him things even if
Speaker 1: they didn't respond, sort of thing. If some people didn't respond,
Speaker 1: like he was just on it, like he was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're so hot, you're beautiful, like I want
Speaker 1: to get to know you, all this stuff, and if
Speaker 1: they didn't respond, like he was just one after the other,
Speaker 1: just sending more and more messages. And I was just like,
Speaker 1: this is absolutely revolting. I was angry, I was hurt,
Speaker 1: but I was just also just disgusted because who is
Speaker 1: this person. I went to the gym twice that morning,
Speaker 1: just trying to clear my head once again, like okay,
Speaker 1: so now this is an added thing to this whole thing,
Speaker 1: is the fact that he's being completely unfaithful and god
Speaker 1: knows what else. And I got back around quarter to
Speaker 1: twelve and he was still in bed at that time.
Speaker 1: When he got up, I asked to see his phone.
Speaker 1: He was a bit appressive about that to begin with,
Speaker 1: but I demanded to see his phone. And when I
Speaker 1: looked to his phone again that whole time, that whole morning,
Speaker 1: he had been talking to more people. He did not stop.
Speaker 1: He did not stop. I was absolutely furious. I dropped
Speaker 1: his phone to the ground and I stumped on it
Speaker 1: and I smashed his screen, and I was just just
Speaker 1: out of my mind. I just couldn't believe everything. From
Speaker 1: going from such a strong close relationship where everything was perfect,
Speaker 1: everything blowing up and he's now a drunk and he's violent,
Speaker 1: and he's cheating on me every single day, and he
Speaker 1: is just saying horrendous things to me. He is beating
Speaker 1: me down every single day, and just to see that
Speaker 1: he'd been speaking to all of these girls on top
Speaker 1: of it. But I was just I was absolutely furious.
Speaker 2: Cam apologized and promised he'd never do it again. He
Speaker 2: gave Rebecca his passwords and said she could check his
Speaker 2: phone whenever she wanted, and she did, and guess what
Speaker 2: she found.
Speaker 1: It was just the same thing every single day. As
Speaker 1: I said, I wasn't ever much of a snoop, but
Speaker 1: I had to be or he would just constantly try
Speaker 1: and pull the wool over my eyes. But it got
Speaker 1: to the point but I would find something every single time.
Speaker 1: It got to the point that I just stopped looking
Speaker 1: because what's the point. You know, I knew what he
Speaker 1: was up to. But at that point I was still
Speaker 1: so beaten down and broken over over everything, more so
Speaker 1: so my self confidence, my self confidence. I mean I
Speaker 1: gained thirty kilos at that point. I was no longer myself.
Speaker 1: But I had started pondering leaving at that point, because
Speaker 1: you kind of get to a point and you're just
Speaker 1: like what am I doing? Like where is this going?
Speaker 1: Like I can't keep living like this? And I mean
Speaker 1: it'd been years, been years of this, Like, I knew
Speaker 1: what I had to do, but trying to find that
Speaker 1: strength to actually do it was a completely different ballgame,
Speaker 1: especially when you're so beaten down and you just don't
Speaker 1: have that energy and you just feel horrible about yourself
Speaker 1: every day. It's just it's too hard, you know. But
Speaker 1: by that stage, I was thinking of what I needed
Speaker 1: to do next, and I was sort of just pondering,
Speaker 1: pondering where I would go, what I would do.
Speaker 2: So at one point Rebecca took matters of self confidence,
Speaker 2: of wanting and the desire to be seen and respected
Speaker 2: into her own hands.
Speaker 1: In that time, I'd started going to the gym, and
Speaker 1: I was feeling a bit better about myself, and with
Speaker 1: everything that he was doing, all the cheating, all the
Speaker 1: constant crap he was doing, I started to look elsewhere
Speaker 1: as well. One night, an old flame reached out to
Speaker 1: me and I ended up just leaving in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night and met up with this person and
Speaker 1: we were intimate, And that was the one time I'd
Speaker 1: done anything like that. I wanted to feel attention, I
Speaker 1: wanted to feel wanted, and I did. I think that
Speaker 1: was sort of like the first time that i'd sort
Speaker 1: of really opened up to maybe going elsewhere, and I
Speaker 1: did feel wanted at that point, and it felt nice,
Speaker 1: and not only that I got to talk about everything
Speaker 1: that was going on as well, and it was just
Speaker 1: it was what I needed at that point. I think
Speaker 1: that was one of definitely the bigger turning points where
Speaker 1: I realized that I am more than more than what
Speaker 1: I thought that I was, and that there needs to
Speaker 1: be a change. When I got home, he woke up
Speaker 1: as I was coming back to bed and he was like,
Speaker 1: what did you do? And to be honest, I was
Speaker 1: upfront about it straight away because I kind of also
Speaker 1: wanted to hurt him as well after everything that he'd done.
Speaker 1: I wanted to stick it to him in that way,
Speaker 1: and I was upfront about it, and I just said that,
Speaker 1: you know, I went for a drive with an old
Speaker 1: flame and we had sex, and I was kind of like,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. And but if I knew
Speaker 1: what came from that, you know, the way that he
Speaker 1: blow up, the way that he would hold it against me,
Speaker 1: and the way that he would tell everyone everything like
Speaker 1: what I'd done and acting like I'm just like the
Speaker 1: villain in this, I wouldn't have gone with that approach,
Speaker 1: but I did. At that point, I was so I
Speaker 1: was getting so over everything. I wasn't scared. I kind
Speaker 1: of felt it was honestly a little bit satisfying at
Speaker 1: that point because the amount of turmoil and the amount
Speaker 1: of hurt that I'd felt, I was kind of like,
Speaker 1: suck shit, you know, like this is what you get.
Speaker 1: It felt good that somebody else wanted me, and it
Speaker 1: felt good that I was able to tell him that
Speaker 1: somebody else did.
Speaker 2: To be honest, Cam punished her for this verbally and
Speaker 2: emotionally almost every day in any way he could. Then
Speaker 2: it all came to a head one night when they
Speaker 2: were out with friends and things escalated to a point
Speaker 2: Rebecca never imagined.
Speaker 1: He was sitting next to me and his phone lit up,
Speaker 1: and it was a girl that he had spoken to
Speaker 1: earlier on in the relationship, one of those ones that
Speaker 1: you just know straightaway that they're someone you know, even
Speaker 1: though he's like, no, no, it's nothing, it's nothing like,
Speaker 1: as a woman, we just know these things. She popped
Speaker 1: up and he'd been deleting her messages, and basically because
Speaker 1: he'd been drinking. As soon as I saw the message,
Speaker 1: I just looked at him, and I was like, are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? And he just blew up and he
Speaker 1: was just like, I did nothing wrong. You know, you're
Speaker 1: just being sensitive, You're being dramatic. I did nothing wrong,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And I was just like I'm not
Speaker 1: doing this here, like there are people around. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this here, Like let's go home, And
Speaker 1: so we decided to leave. On the way back to
Speaker 1: driving home, he was basically yelling at me and he
Speaker 1: drove to the lake and he literally drove straight into
Speaker 1: the car park and he mounted just like accelerated into
Speaker 1: the gutter of the car park. I like smacked his chest.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know if
Speaker 1: he was going to keep driving. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: was going on. But I like slammed my fist onto
Speaker 1: his chest sort of thing, and it made him like
Speaker 1: stop the car. He got out in this like fit
Speaker 1: of rage, and he threw my keys like really far.
Speaker 1: I quickly hopped over to the driver's side and I
Speaker 1: locked the doors, and he was at the window and
Speaker 1: he was like banging on the window and he was
Speaker 1: just like open, open the doors, Open the doors. I
Speaker 1: was like no, and he was just escalating, was escalating,
Speaker 1: and then he went to go find way through the
Speaker 1: keys and he eventually found them, and he kept unlocking
Speaker 1: the car and I kept locking the door again, and
Speaker 1: this was going back and forth, and I knew at
Speaker 1: one point that he was going to unlock it and
Speaker 1: open the door, and that last time that he did
Speaker 1: unlock it, he opened the door and I just like
Speaker 1: threw myself out of the car and like pushed him
Speaker 1: out of the way before anything happened sort of thing.
Speaker 1: He was so angry and so like I pushed him
Speaker 1: out of the way and basically he just started yelling
Speaker 1: at me, and he was like, fuck this. I'm walking
Speaker 1: home and he just started yelling at me and he
Speaker 1: was saying, you over dramatic. Fuck I did nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: Then he was like yelling at It was like it
Speaker 1: was like one am or two am, and he was
Speaker 1: just like, you know, call the police, call your dad,
Speaker 1: tell him I beach you. But the cops aren't the
Speaker 1: ones you're gonna need. It's gonna be the ambulance because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go fucking neck myself. And basically he just
Speaker 1: like stormed off with the keys. So I called the
Speaker 1: family friend, and I was just in like a panic,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, you know, can you come
Speaker 1: pick me up. Cam's gone home and he's going to
Speaker 1: do something. And so the family friend came and picked
Speaker 1: me up and we drove back to the house. I
Speaker 1: got out of the car and I ran up the driveway.
Speaker 1: I couldn't lift myself up, but I jumped up and
Speaker 1: I could see that the garage light because up the
Speaker 1: driveway was the garage, and I could see over the
Speaker 1: fence that the garage light was on, but the roller
Speaker 1: door was closed, and I signaled for my family friend
Speaker 1: to lift me up so I could jump over the fence,
Speaker 1: and he did. He helped me up, and I leapt
Speaker 1: over the fence and running up that driveway, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was going to find. So many things
Speaker 1: just flashed through my mind. And I opened the roller
Speaker 1: door and he was on the ground, crying, with a
Speaker 1: noose around his neck, and he was just bawling his
Speaker 1: eyes out, and at that point I'd already called the ambulance.
Speaker 1: So the ambulance and the police arrived. They ended up
Speaker 1: taking him back to the hospital. I didn't speak to
Speaker 1: the paramedics, but I spoke with the police. They were
Speaker 1: interested to hear my side of the story as to
Speaker 1: what's happened sort of thing and what went on. I
Speaker 1: told them everything, and they asked if I wanted to
Speaker 1: press charges, and I said no because they said that
Speaker 1: it was domestic violence, and I said no, I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to And basically they said that they put a
Speaker 1: mark against his name just in case in the future
Speaker 1: if I wanted to report anything. But that was that. Really,
Speaker 1: After that night, it changed a lot for me. I mean,
Speaker 1: I felt so many different things. I mean, I felt
Speaker 1: more inclined to stay because I felt like I couldn't leave.
Speaker 1: I was scared of what he would do, and I
Speaker 1: last thing that I needed and wanted that point was
Speaker 1: to be responsible for something like that. But then also
Speaker 1: at the same time, I mean, I was so over
Speaker 1: it at that point, there was so like it was
Speaker 1: just I was so numb to it. But then I
Speaker 1: also cared. At the same point, I felt like I
Speaker 1: couldn't leave. Then it made me want to leave even more.
Speaker 1: I didn't know where to go. I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. At that point. This rollercoaster and
Speaker 1: this numbness went on for years. This was just my
Speaker 1: life every single day. And as time progressed, we started
Speaker 1: both getting into drugs. It started with just weed every
Speaker 1: night sort of thing, and then it led onto cocaine.
Speaker 1: But I felt like in those times we had the
Speaker 1: more real conversations when we'd be on it, so it
Speaker 1: was more of like it was a way to communicate,
Speaker 1: really a way to break through, because we just weren't
Speaker 1: communicating anymore, and when we were on those substances, we
Speaker 1: actually we actually had real conversations. And it was at
Speaker 1: that point one night we had done the drugs that
Speaker 1: we were in bed and I was just looking at
Speaker 1: him and I just I saw his whole face just change.
Speaker 1: And at that moment, like I just felt like with
Speaker 1: everything that was going on and how how close and
Speaker 1: solid we were for so long, Like I just I'd
Speaker 1: done so much research and so much like looking into
Speaker 1: everything and just trying to work out where did this
Speaker 1: go wrong? What is happening? Why are we doing constant
Speaker 1: one eighties? Why are we always going back and forth?
Speaker 1: And that night I just looked at him and his
Speaker 1: face completely just changed, and I just it's like I
Speaker 1: just saw it, and I was like, Camp, are you gay,
Speaker 1: and he just like he broke down and he was
Speaker 1: just like, I don't know. It was just like all
Speaker 1: the pieces just fit. It was like that missing puzzle
Speaker 1: piece that I was trying to search for for so
Speaker 1: many years, and it just I found it. You know.
Speaker 1: It all made sense as to why he'd been so
Speaker 1: unhappy and why he was drinking so much, and why
Speaker 1: he was saying that he wasn't attracted to me. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I wish that he'd been honest about it,
Speaker 1: but I also understood as to you know, that was
Speaker 1: hard for him to say that. It was hard for
Speaker 1: him to admit that. So I was able to find
Speaker 1: that place where I was like, Okay, it's been an
Speaker 1: absolute rollercoaster, but like I hear you and I see you.
Speaker 1: I'd already given up hope with our relationship. Our relationship
Speaker 1: was it was south. I thought maybe if he just
Speaker 1: at least hang on to a friendship, if I could
Speaker 1: at least still be me and be supportive and because
Speaker 1: I mean, that's who I am at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, and I could empathize. You know, maybe he's
Speaker 1: just been keeping this massive secret, you know, of his sexuality,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why everything blew up, and I could
Speaker 1: understand that, you know, and it's like, if I had
Speaker 1: to be that person that was essentially the punching bag
Speaker 1: for it, then then okay, like I made peace with it.
Speaker 1: This is never something that I had considered before. After
Speaker 1: he told me, it was like this weight had been
Speaker 1: lifted off his shoulders, you know, like things actually improved
Speaker 1: by me being that supportive well friend at that time,
Speaker 1: things improved. His mental health seemed to improve, you know,
Speaker 1: like the drinking decreased. You know, we weren't doing the
Speaker 1: drugs anymore. He was being very open with me, very
Speaker 1: very open with me, more than I'd ever want to
Speaker 1: know or hear or see. But I still had to
Speaker 1: take that approach of being supportive, so I didn't say anything,
Speaker 1: and I just I was thankful for the fact that
Speaker 1: he was being honest with me and open with me.
Speaker 1: So that was something that we hadn't had for a
Speaker 1: really long time. It helped me in the sense of
Speaker 1: realizing that it was never me and it was really
Speaker 1: that closure that I needed in order for me to
Speaker 1: move forward with my life and really make some real
Speaker 1: gain plan as to how I was going to move forward.
Speaker 1: But yeah, what do you do with something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, the person that you thought was a love
Speaker 1: of your life out to be gay. After that, I
Speaker 1: really started to put things in place as to you know,
Speaker 1: searching for a house, and we were really having those
Speaker 1: conversations of me moving out or we went back and forth.
Speaker 1: He was going to move out, then I was going
Speaker 1: to move out. So we were sort of going through
Speaker 1: that whole process. But during that process a spanner was
Speaker 1: thrown into the works. I found out that I was pregnant.
Speaker 1: I remember just when I took that pregnancy test. I
Speaker 1: remember just screaming because I was I can't deal with
Speaker 1: this right now. I can't. There was a point in
Speaker 1: our relationship earlier on where we were actually trying for
Speaker 1: a baby, which was when things were still going well
Speaker 1: and we were trying for a baby and it just
Speaker 1: wasn't happening, and I went to the doctors and it
Speaker 1: was just there was something like unexplained infertility. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd had tests done and I just wasn't ovulating, and
Speaker 1: so there were all these things that we were trying,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't happening, and I was pregnant, and after
Speaker 1: three years it had happened and it would just had
Speaker 1: come at the complete wrong time. So the way that
Speaker 1: I told him, he got home from work and I
Speaker 1: had already sort of had my breakdown moment, freak out
Speaker 1: moment about it, and I decided I wanted to keep
Speaker 1: the baby. I mean, I'd wanted a baby for years,
Speaker 1: So I decided to keep the baby. And when he
Speaker 1: got home from work, I had my bluetooth speaker and
Speaker 1: I played that songly you have My Baby what one
Speaker 1: of those things, and he was like just sort of
Speaker 1: like listening, and he was just like wait, what And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'm pregnant, and because at that point,
Speaker 1: like I mean, yeah, the whole sexuality thing had come out.
Speaker 1: But I felt like, okay, like maybe we could do
Speaker 1: this and not be like together together, not in that way,
Speaker 1: like I felt like we were a lot better. And
Speaker 1: initially he was like, okay, you know, like we can
Speaker 1: do this, and he felt like okay, Like it just
Speaker 1: he gave him even more of a push to get
Speaker 1: his life back on track and everything, because you know,
Speaker 1: he was going to be a father and we were
Speaker 1: just talking about that we could do this, like not together,
Speaker 1: but we could both be in the child's life. I
Speaker 1: mean like we could be great parents without actually being together.
Speaker 1: And that lasted I think a whole six hours. He
Speaker 1: flipped script and basically was like, you know, we can't
Speaker 1: do this, and he pushed me towards terminating the pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and I went back and forth on that many times.
Speaker 1: I that was a really hard time. I felt like
Speaker 1: mentally I wasn't ready to do this on my own
Speaker 1: because I felt like what he was saying that basically
Speaker 1: like I would be on my own with this, and
Speaker 1: I was not strong enough to do this on my own.
Speaker 1: Weeks went by and I just went back and forth
Speaker 1: and what to do, what to do, and I decided
Speaker 1: to terminate the pregnancy, and I was absolutely just draught
Speaker 1: out of everything that had happened in the relationship. That
Speaker 1: was the biggest thing. And it still stays with me
Speaker 1: today because I mean, for the first time, even though
Speaker 1: I felt that I wasn't ready to be a mother
Speaker 1: at that point, for the first time, I felt like
Speaker 1: I wasn't alone because everything that had been going on
Speaker 1: in the relationship, I kept it to myself, no one
Speaker 1: really knew anything, and it felt like for the first
Speaker 1: time I wasn't alone, and I would lay in bed
Speaker 1: and I'd be just like put my hand on my stomach,
Speaker 1: just like talking. That was my baby, you know. After that,
Speaker 1: I felt there was just a massive turning point. I
Speaker 1: couldn't forgive him anymore. I was done. I was so done.
Speaker 1: I mean, this man had cheated on me, He'd been violent,
Speaker 1: he'd been a drunk, he had said horrendous things to me.
Speaker 1: I had changed so much about myself. I had just
Speaker 1: bent over backwards, and I had just put up with
Speaker 1: so much stuff, constant cheating, the constant agony, the constant
Speaker 1: roller coaster. I was thirty kilos heavier, I was losing.
Speaker 1: I was just completely lost myself. I realized that I
Speaker 1: can't keep doing this. I'm constantly stuck in this constant
Speaker 1: cycle that I can't get out of. And like, I'm done.
Speaker 1: I can't keep doing this. I need to move on
Speaker 1: with my life. For as long as he's in my life.
Speaker 1: I can't move on. For as long as I keep
Speaker 1: doing this, I'm never gonna heal for as long as
Speaker 1: you know, I keep getting caught in this, like, like,
Speaker 1: where is my life going? So I decided to sell
Speaker 1: my house and I moved back home. I realized just
Speaker 1: how I was just staying in this space that was
Speaker 1: just holding me back, and so that that decision to
Speaker 1: move back home, back to where I grew up was
Speaker 1: actually easy. I was just in go mode. I I
Speaker 1: just packed all my stuff, I got my house on
Speaker 1: the market, I sold my house, and I just I
Speaker 1: just left and that was it. It was hard. I
Speaker 1: think my life had been so chaotic. There'd been so
Speaker 1: much going on for so many years, like moving out
Speaker 1: and just being in silence and just living alone. It
Speaker 1: was hard, but it was all that we knew. We
Speaker 1: knew like just each other, and we'd just been through
Speaker 1: so much together and it had just been such turmoil.
Speaker 1: He was he was battling something bigger than this, you know.
Speaker 1: I still to this day will not say that that
Speaker 1: he's a bad person. He's not tortured soul. Maybe the
Speaker 1: last time I spoke to Cam was probably about six
Speaker 1: seven months ago. He checked in just sort of message
Speaker 1: and we had a FaceTime just a couple just to
Speaker 1: sort of like check in and see like how we're
Speaker 1: going and stuff. Because like, even though I know telling
Speaker 1: the story it sounds so bad, but there were also
Speaker 1: like he is a person and he's not a bad person.
Speaker 1: He's a tortured soul and he's just been through a lot.
Speaker 1: He ended up being diagnosed with borderline person disorder, so
Speaker 1: which made a lot of sense with all the flip
Speaker 1: flopping around. And I honestly, after speaking to him, I
Speaker 1: mean I hadn't spoken to him in so long. After
Speaker 1: speaking to him, I just felt completely drained and I
Speaker 1: from that moment, I'm like, I can't keep this person
Speaker 1: in my life at all. He'd reached out again, he
Speaker 1: wanted to catch up again, and I just never responded.
Speaker 1: I hope that he's happy. I just hope that he's
Speaker 1: happy and that he he's true to himself. I don't
Speaker 1: know where he is on his journey. I don't know
Speaker 1: where he is in regards to being true to his sexuality.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he is in his journey right now,
Speaker 1: But I just hope that he's happy. When I moved
Speaker 1: back to where I grew up, everything just changed. I
Speaker 1: ended up losing thirty three kilos. I was back to
Speaker 1: feeling good about myself. I felt stronger. Where I moved to,
Speaker 1: there was just like like it backs onto, like a reserve,
Speaker 1: and it was just all like the nature. And I'd
Speaker 1: just sit out there with my copper cup of tea
Speaker 1: or a cup of coffee, and I just listened to the
Speaker 1: birds and I just be like, look at where I am,
Speaker 1: you know, like it was just such an amazing part
Speaker 1: of my healing journey. It was just part of it.
Speaker 1: And then I just I ended up scoring an amazing job,
Speaker 1: and everything in my life just started just started falling
Speaker 1: into place. And then I met my current partner now
Speaker 1: when he's just everything and more. He shows up for
Speaker 1: me every single day. He's absolutely amazing, and I feel
Speaker 1: stronger for everything that I've been through. I do not
Speaker 1: regret a single thing because it makes me who I
Speaker 1: am today. I'm stronger for it. I feel like I
Speaker 1: had to start from the ground up. I walked into
Speaker 1: that relationship feeling confident. I got beaten down to the ground.
Speaker 1: Every part of me was just destroyed and I had
Speaker 1: to rebuild myself from the ground up, And even though
Speaker 1: it was really hard and painful and horrendous, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't regret a single moment because who I am today
Speaker 1: is so much stronger, and like I have boundaries now,
Speaker 1: I am aware, I am confident in who I am.
Speaker 1: I don't put up with that stuff anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: anything I am, and since then my life has improved
Speaker 1: so much. You know, I only bring in all these
Speaker 1: beautiful people into my life now. I don't have time
Speaker 1: for those energy vampires. I don't have time for anyone
Speaker 1: who is negative or brings me down. I am strong
Speaker 1: in who I am, and I wouldn't be if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for all those times I learned what I need,
Speaker 1: what I need for me, not just out of a relationship,
Speaker 1: but who I am. I think I didn't even know
Speaker 1: who I was properly before all of that. Building yourself
Speaker 1: from the ground up really teaches you a lot about yourself.
Speaker 1: And I'm proud of who I am, and I'm proud
Speaker 1: of how far I've come, and I'm happy. I'm happy
Speaker 1: now and I don't regret anything. The truth is that
Speaker 1: there is that light at the end of the time,
Speaker 1: and it really does come. And I just think that
Speaker 1: you just need to keep going because time doesn't stop
Speaker 1: for anyone. Life doesn't stop, It never stops. It just
Speaker 1: keeps going, and everything always balances out. And no matter
Speaker 1: how hard things feel and how hard things are, life
Speaker 1: really does improve. It really does.
Speaker 2: Everyone has an ex is a Minti Media production and
Speaker 2: proudly part of the Mum and mea network. It's written
Speaker 2: and narrated by me Georgia Love and produced by Linda Scott.
Speaker 2: If you like We've Heard, support the podcast by hitting subscribe,
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Speaker 2: and if you have a story you'd like to share,
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