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Nothing But Trouble · Everyone Has An Ex

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a mother Mer podcast.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Muma Me acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: This podcast is recorded on This episode discusses domestic violence, drunks,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: and other explicit content and is strictly for over eighteen's.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: If you will anyone you know needs help, there is
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: a list of support services in our show notes. We
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: all have types, tall, dark, blonde, tradees, the nice guy.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: The list goes on. Well, Tessa definitely had a type,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't any of the above.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Jail birds as no, like, I've had a very colorful life,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and I find it a lot easier to see males
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: that have at least knowledge about a colorful life. But yeah,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: he was very much the jail bird as soon as
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: you looked at him.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: In you the issue with time, They can often come
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: with well certain baggage.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I did find out through the grapevine that he apparently
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: used to have a really bad gambling, pokey addiction. I
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: started to think, well, maybe what he's doing is he's
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: creating a fight with me to create a reason to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: be able to leave and storm out, and I guess
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a reason to be away from home for the next
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours so he could go and gamble and
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: get on Pokey's.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an ex
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: hearts of the very people who lived them. When this
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: story begins, our girl Tessa here was twenty nine. She'd
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: worked much of her life as an adult entertainer and
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: now owned her own business in that industry. It could
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: be a tricky world to find and date a nice guy,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: but work was work, and she loved it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I would do topless wat dressing at Bucks parties, boat parties,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I'd been doing that for a while.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: I'd always had really really bad luck in relationships. And
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine said, Oh, I've got a business
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: partner that needs to book strippers for their Christmas party.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And he gave his friend my number and I went
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and worked that night. And he was the friend of
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a friend.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: His name was Daniel, and immediately Tessa heard a certain
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Taylor Swift song playing in her mind.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It was almost instant, like we just looked at each
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: other and it was like, oh no, this is going
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to be trouble. This is like like bad bad. Instantly
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh god, I'm going to date him.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I knew instantly it was very much my type. Tall,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: very very bright blue eyes, the coolest clothes on ever,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and just held himself in such a way that was
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: just he was so witty and funny and on the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: ball and just so good with banter. But also very
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: much the look he gave me too, very charming character.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he was very much the jail bird. As
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: soon as you looked at him, you knew I've had
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: a very colorful life, and I find it a lot
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: easier to see males that have at least knowledge about
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a colorful life.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: They hung out all night, chatting about what turned out
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: to be a heap of mutual friends they shared. They laughed,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: had banter, and yeah, there was very obvious flirting.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It was just really fun, like we just had fun.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And as the night progressed, there was a few moments
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: where he just he would freak out and go, oh,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this is trouble. I would act o'coy and be like,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: what do you mean? This is trouble, and he's you
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: because you what do you mean? He's like, you're my
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: future ex wife, and then because I was so infatuated
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: with him, I was like, oh haha, hopefully hah. He
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: kept coming up to me and going, fuck, you're so hot.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And then it ended just me and him in one
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of the spare rooms together, just talking shit the whole night, laughing.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: It felt like I'd known him for twenty years and
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: we were from not the same area, but areas that
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: were very close, and it was just so fun and comfortable.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: It was the comfortability of it. I ended up going
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: home about four am, I think, and that was the Saturday.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And then on the Monday he messaged me and he said,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I'm so upset I didn't go home with you. And
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I was like, we're on here, girls, like message to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the girls, cup chat, let's go girls. And then it
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: was just back and forth texting, really flirty banter, sarcasm,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: kind of like making fun of each other. And that's
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the thing that really gets me that it's the ongoing banter.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: That's the thing that makes me go hard eyed. And
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: then he just said, oh, what are you doing on Friday,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Let's catch up for a drink. I thought, okay. In
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: all week I was like, oh my god, I believe.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I was so excited and so nervous at that point
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: in time because we did have a lot of mutual friends,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: and I had asked maybe two or three of them
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: what they knew about him as a trade he was
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a carpenter, and that he was a very violent guy.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: The thing that everyone referenced was he got found guilty
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of these really big charges. He ended up going to
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: jail for it, and you know, his victim services, you know,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars or something, and I just thought, oh,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: that's pretty crazy. But it was in his I think
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: it was when he was about twenty four, and I
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: just thought, oh, you know, like young. He was a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: very cruel guy in the area too. Everyone knew him.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: All the other guys were scared of him. Quite masculine,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and you know, really like held himself, and someone with
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: a past like mine, I like to feel protected. I
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: like to feel like someone's holding the reins and I
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: can just kind of chill, like I'm an independent woman,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: but sometimes it's nice to, you know, hand the reins
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: over and he was exactly that, and I was just
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: so infactuated by it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Tessa decided to overlook any potential red flags. Yes, they
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: could have been that for others, but for her, this
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: was exactly the type of guy she wanted. So it
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: was time for a proper first date.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: They said, let's go to a pub New Yorks. So
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I lived in a very cool inner city suburb. Lots
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of really cool pubs are aunts. So we arranged a
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: pub to meet up. I walked in, I couldn't see
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: him anywhere, and then I went into the poky room
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and he was there playing the pokys, and I just thought,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: oh god.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: But there.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Of course, within about ten minutes, I was back to
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: being absolutely infatuated. And we had a few drinks there,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: and then we went to another bar. But the whole
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: time his phone kept ringing consistently, over over over, like
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: to the point where he couldn't really use his phone.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: It was just NonStop, and it got to the point
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: where I was like, you probably want to answer that
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: it might be an emergency. Oh no, no, no, it's nothing,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: it's nothing, okay. So we kept partying at this bar,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: went back to mine. Obviously, he stayed the night. We
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: slept together, of course, and then he literally never left
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: my house from that day. It just felt so comfortable
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and even though we hadn't known each other for long,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: it felt like we had And with myself being thirty
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: living alone for many years, it was really nice to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: have that comfort. And he was the same age as me,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: had the same values as me, and I just thought,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I found my person great. So I
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: just completely I wanted him to be there. I loved
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: having him there. Probably within the first three weeks, really
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: really quickly. He made me feel so comfortable and so
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: at ease, and yeah, it's almost like I felt more
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: relaxed having him there than without him there. He was
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: telling me I was the love of his life and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that we were going to get married, and we sat
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: out a timeline that did it approximately in about a
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: year's time. We would try for a baby before then,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: we were going to go to Thailand. We had all
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the plans in the world. We were speaking about where
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: we were going to live, what he was going to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: do with his career, what I was going to do
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: with my career, and I just thought, oh my god,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: this is it. It's finally my turn. Finally.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I know what you're thinking. We've released enough of these
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: episodes by now, isn't this about the time our spidy
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: senses prick up hearing these stories, and we get that
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: sinking feelings something's about to burst the bubble.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: During that time, I'd noticed he was very suspicious, I
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: guess with his phone and it would always be ringing always,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: And he was at my house for about two weeks
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: and then a friend of mine messaged me and said, oh,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I heard you're seeing Daniel. You do know that he's
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: got a wife and two kids at home, right, and
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: there it is. I confronted Daniel about it. He apologized profusely,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: said that his ex wife he had left weeks and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: weeks ago and she just wasn't over it. And then
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: he told her that I knew that she knew about us.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And then every single day she would call his phone
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and he would answer it in fear it was about
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: his sons, and she would just hurl abuse of me
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: for like a good twenty thirty minutes. It got to
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the point where it was comical. But then the longer
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it went on, the worst it got. It got to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the point where she would call and be speaking to
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: her sons. Oh, this is the fucking dirty slut that
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: your dad left us for. These kids were about four
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and nine maybe, and she would say, like, oh, go,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: your dad's nothing but a fucking dirty jail bird. He's
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: just run off through this fucking dirty ganger. It was
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: to the point that I actually felt for this woman,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: like it was annoying, but I was just like, Oh, whatever,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: it's going to make her feel better for twenty minutes
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a day, go for it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: But the thing is, Daniel had never mentioned an next
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: wife at all, let alone kids.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: When he apologized, he said that he did want to
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: tell me, but he was just so infatuated with me
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: that he didn't want to ruin any chance of us
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: being together. He was quite insecure about it because he
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: knows a lot of single women without kids don't really
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: want a guy with kids on first Bay, which I
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: understand that he apologized profusely. He really really utilized the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: fact that I'm a mental health social worker, so I'm
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: very understanding, very empathetic. And he said he got abuse
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and it started to all come back up and it's
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: impacted everything in his life, and he started crying, and
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I just was like, I was heartbroken for him. And
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: then when this woman was calling daily and saying all
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of this stuff, it made it seem believable, like really believable.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Now it was all out in the open. Tenser never
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: questioned whether Daniel was telling the truth when he said
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: he and his ex had separated months ago and he'd
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: been living with his parents since that's why he was
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: staying with her so much, so it only made sense.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: He slowly started to move in, but from there the
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: drama only worsened with the ex, but also with Daniel himself.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It went on for months and months, and just more
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of his stuff he just started bringing every week. There
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: was just more of his stuff at my house. And
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: then she would go through periods of stopping him from
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: seeing his sons, which would really upset him. I think
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: after about three months of that, we were partying with
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: some of my friends one night and he just turned
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: around to me and said, I know, when you went
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to the bottle before, you were sucking cock in the alleyway,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm so what. For probably about
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the first ten seconds I was laughing because I actually
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: thought he was joking, And then when I noticed that
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: wild look on his face that I'd never ever seen,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it was kind of, oh, crap, he's being serious. I'd
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: never seen this look on his face before. I'd never
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: seen him look that absolutely terrifying. It's like his whole
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: eye shape changed, and he'd never spoken to me like
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: that before. It felt like the person I knew had
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: just been thrown out the window and this was a
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: whole new person. And I just kept saying, Babe, what
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? What the heck are you? Have
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: you taken something? What is wrong with you? And it
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: was like just like he couldn't hear me, and he
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: was so livid and serious and had this crazy look
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in his eyes, and I just thought, what the fuck
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: is going on? And then he just told me that,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: you know, he can't fucking deal with me, and then
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: he left and I didn't see him till the next day,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: and then just walked out, turned his phone off, and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I just stood there for so long with my girlfriend,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: like what just happened? And I was so perplexed my
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: brain was spinning. The next day, in the afternoon, he
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: called me. His phone had been off that entire time.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: He was living with me by this stage too, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: he had been out all night all the next day,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and then he called me in the afternoon and he
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: just said, yeah, I'm really sorry, hey, And I said,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: do you know what you're sorry for? And he said, yeah, absolutely,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: just I just love you so much and it's just
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: so scary, and you know, because my ex is such
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a psycho, I'm so paranoid that I'm going to get
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: another one. And me being me, oh babe, like no,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I understand, like I understand trauma, I understand triggers and
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: how you'll respond to them, etc. Everything went back to normal,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: and then about two weeks after that, the exact same
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: thing happened when we were out with friends, and it
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was just a repeat. He went out all night all
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the next day, called me, apologized, and ended up coming home.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't all bad. Tessa swears, outside of these
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: blow ups, the relationship she thought was otherwise wonderful.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: It was absolutely beautiful. Just on the way here, just
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to refresh my memory, I watched a video of the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: day he came home with these huge buquet of flowers
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and he filmed it and he just said I love you, baby,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and gave me a big hug and kiss. That was
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: just for no reason, or he would he was so affectionate,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: and he would present it in a way, even though
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: he would use my trauma against me. When he was
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: not being an asshole, he was so caring and empathetic,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and he saw me as a whole person. He didn't
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: just see me as a stripper. He saw everything. It
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: seems like he saw everything about me, and that's what
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: was I thought he's the one.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: But dear listener, once a leopard shows his spots, it's rare.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: He'd change them. The same toxic patterns kept coming back.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So we would be at a pub, for example, and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: he would just say, I just saw you looking at
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: that guy. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there, what guy? I can't
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: see him? And he would really believe it and be
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: really angry, take it and run with it. And even
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: if other people kind of interjected and said mate, like no,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: she wasn't she wasn't doing that at all, he would
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: just try and fight them, and because he was this big,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: tough jail bird who everyone was really scared of, no
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: one would say anything to him, and then he would
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: just leave again. I truly believed that he would never ever,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: ever be unfaithful to me, but I couldn't think of
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: anything else until I did find out through the grape
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: vine that he apparently used to have a really bad
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: gambling Pokey addiction, so I thought, maybe he's going to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: do that. I started to think, well, maybe what he's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: doing is he's creating a fight with me to create
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: a reason to be able to leave and storm out
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: and I guess, a reason to be away from home
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: for the next twenty four hours so he could go
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and gamble and get on Pokey's without knowing and be
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: really undercover about it. Then the way he would speak
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: about it the next day, he was super gas lighting.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: He would tell me that I was the one with
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: trauma and I'm the one who's triggered by him, and
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: really use I guess my trauma and my life experience
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: against me. When I would try and call him out
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: on these behaviors, he would get really angry and say
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: things like, well, no, wonder your dad didn't fucking want you,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and my dad left the country when I was three
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: days old, and I've never heard from him, don't know
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: who he is. And obviously because I doing sex work,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: he would say, oh, you're nothing good but a fucking
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: pair of chis to stare at, or you're nothing, or
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: go and fucking hang out with those old gross men
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that pay you like, really really demeaning things, and it
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: really quickly broke my whole self esteem, ego, self worth, everything.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So at the beginning, it seems like it was a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: few you know, every few weeks something like this would happen.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: But then as time went on, it progressively started getting
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: shorter in time of when it would happen and more intense.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: He started being quite physically abusive, but I think the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: worst thing was the verbal abuse from him, because he
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: would really go for the jugular and say things that
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: are really out of line, really personal, hurtful things with
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the intention to hurt me as well. But then as
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that journey continued over time, the worst he got and
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the more frequently he did. This time had gone on,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: so my self esteem and my self worth had gone
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: whew so quickly. And he would come home the next
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: day and say say sorry, but not really explain anything.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And if I asked, he would just say, we've spoke
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: about it, it's done. Leave it in the past.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Now, Tessa is going to jump in here and answer
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: the question she thinks you're all asking at this point,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: why did she stay?
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I grew up in a really really really low socio
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: economic household, grew up in social housing, a lot of addiction,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of domestic violence. My home was always really chaotic,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: and the men in my home abused every woman, and
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: that was a very normal thing to me. I ended
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: up leaving home when I was fourteen or fifteen because
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I told my mother, you need to make a choice
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: me or him. With her boyfriend that she'd been with
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: for about ten years, and every weekend he would beat
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: her black and blue, and she told me, you can
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: get your stuff and go. So I was out, and
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: then being so young, homeless, so traumatized, without realizing it
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: was trauma, I ended up in a relationship with a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: twenty three year old and I would get fourteen fifteen
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: at the time, and I lived with him and he
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: ended up being horrible too. I somehow managed to finish
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: high school, though, and it's just been a pattern since then.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: And it's the amount of self hate I have about it,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: because someone who grew up in it, someone who's a
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: social worker, I've worked in dev services, I should know better.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And there's so much shame in that. And I think
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of not leaving was just trying to keep
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: hoping it would get better, rather than admitting default that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: it was ruined. And I think also my age. I
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: mean I was thirty at the time. A lot of
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: my girlfriends, if not all of them, were in long
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: term relationships. The body clock's ticken, you know, and that
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: was still only about five months in. Everything moved real quick.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It was kind of like, oh, well, that's what just
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: happens at this age, because everyone's like, we don't have
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: any time to waste, We've got to get going, so
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I'll just roll with it. So much had happened. So
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: he's living with me already. I'm helping him do his
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: divorce and line through the government portal to divorce his
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: ex wife, who's calling me every day. Was coming up
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: to Christmas and I hadn't met his children yet, but
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: we were doing toy shopping together for his boys and
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Christmas wrapping, and he was like, you're going to be
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the best step mom. I'm so excited for I was,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you know, already planning things. Oh, take them to Muay
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Thai training, I'll do this, do that. So excited to
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: be stepmom. So excited.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: But of course there was always the niggling question about
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: why Daniel would behave and speak to her the way
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: he did. Time after time. She didn't go digging per se,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: but she decided to keep her ears a little more open.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: He had started doing this very odd thing where I
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: would go to bed around ten pm and he would
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: stay on our unit balcony and I could see him
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: from the bed and he would just stand out there
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: on his phone so intensely, and I would lay in
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: bed and think, what the heck is he doing. I
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: started to hear notifications from his phone that I didn't
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: recognize the sound for. And on that Friday it went
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: off and I said, what app is that? I don't
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: know that noise? And he said, oh, it's just a
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: car one, okay. And then the more I started hearing it,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the more I was like, so I was sitting well
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: with me for some bizarre reason. It's just all very like,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: it's very odd. And then he started to pick the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: fights with me and leave for the whole night, you know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: multiple times a week at the stage, and he was
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: drinking and taking drugs very heavily. That definitely ramped up.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: This was a six month smart At the time, though,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I was saying, oh, it's because his ex wife and
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: he's not seeing his kids as much, and that's a
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: hard transition and really being empathetic and understanding. One morning,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I woke up for work and he was asleep next
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: to me, and I heard the weird notification noise that
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I previously had never heard. When I was in an
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: abusive relationship in my early twenties, I sware to myself
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: after that relationship, I would never check a partner's phone
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: ever again. If it's even up for questioning, that's my
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: answer there, and I never had up until this point.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I looked at him sleeping, and I looked at his
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: phone charging on the floor, and it was like this,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it's so hard to explain. It was really like that
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: gut feeling that go check his phone. It was like
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: someone was telling me, go check his phone, and I
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: were looking at him. No no, no, no, no no no
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: no no no. When I had breakfast got ready for work,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and I kept hearing this strange notification noise and I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: kept having that feeling, and it was so intense. I
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: kept going in there and going no, no, no, I
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: can't do it. I can't do it. I promised myself,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: you yars ago, I wouldn't. And then eventually I was
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: like you know what, There's one thing I know, it's
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: always trust your intuition. And I walked in there he
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: was sound asleep, snoring. I picked up his phone and
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: there was just photos of a man holding my partner's
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: coop in notifications from Grinder. It was like my eyes
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: started to go cloudy and I was holding his phone
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: looking at it, and I started shaking. I remember the
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: screen shaking, and I'm looking at it frantically swiping through,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: going through this app. So I'm trying to navigate how
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to use this app while trying to also confirm to
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: myself that it actually is Grinder. I remember trying to
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: find like an about or settings option because I didn't
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: believe it was Grinder in a weird way, because my
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: brain just I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: then I felt sick and they're lightheaded again, and then
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: sick again, and I was just shaking. It was horrible.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: It felt like a really I know everyone says it,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: but really an outer body experience. I think for about
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: a good five minutes, my brain couldn't even process that
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I was shaking. Is this real? Am I still asleep?
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I can't what trying to frantically go through his whole
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Grinder account, which he had sent photos on multiple conversations
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: about hey I'm here, Hey, here's the address, I'll be
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: there in twenty five and some really really really descriptive conversations.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: And I've always prided myself on being a very strong,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: independent woman, but this fucking humbled me. I'll tell you
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: that much. And just how long it had gone on for.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: And I started noticing the days and the times, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: it was all the times that I would be asleep,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and there was nights that he had come to bed
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: with me, I'd fall asleep. Then he snuck out. He
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: told a lot of people on there, I have to
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: be discreet because I'm married, wife's at home. So he's
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: very aware of what he's doing, like he is kind
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of confirming that it's wrong before he does it, I guess,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: but then still goes and does it. So there was
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: probably about seven months of conversations with people he had
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: matched with on Grinder, and pretty much every second of
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: those conversations were he would start talking with someone and
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: then it would eventuate to a plan. They would send
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: an address and then you'd see the conversation. He would
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: say ten minutes away, I'm here is the door here?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Heaps of that, But within that, something that was really
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: really prevalent was these they're called puff and play parties,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: basically these big mess orgies, but there was probably about
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: up to fifteen of those where he had clearly attended.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I think the most heartbreaking thing about it all was
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: it doesn't make you feel great if your partner would
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: go and do that then be at home with you
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: when you're sleeping. And I remember just standing there, going
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what to do, and I remember
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: having the thought is it really the worst thing though?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And thinking, oh, well, you know, I'm getting older, and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: really trying to rationalize it. The next way my brain
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: went was, this is definitely harder for him than it
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: is for me, because, as we know, coming out is
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: a really hard thing, particularly if you've kind of earned
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: this reputation around your local area for being the big
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: marcho guy who's covered in tattoos and speaks to jail.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Then ever scared of me, and I just felt heartbroken
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: for him, And then it was how do you bring
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: this up with someone? So I got all the evidence
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I needed on my phone, took photos of everything, and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I went into where he was asleep, and I sat
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: on the bed next to him, and I just kind
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: of like stroked his head and like rubbed his hair
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: a bit, and he kind of softly started to wake up,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and I said, hey, babe, I think we need to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: have a chat about something. And as soon as I
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: said that, he looked on the floor, so his phone
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: was gone, and he was out of that bed in
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: about two seconds flat. He knew straight away as soon
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: as I said, he knew the panic. And then he
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: quickly ran to the bathroom and started having a shower.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And as he was in the shower the fact that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: he had done that and ran to the shower and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: dismissed me. I was so upset. My brain was not functioning.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I was shaking. I didn't know what to do. When
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: he got out of the shower, he opened the door
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and I just grabbed his hands and I just said, Daniel,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I fucking love you so much. I know this is
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: harder for you than it is for me. Yeah, just know,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: regardless of fucking anything, I can be your best friend,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: your girlfriend, whatever, but I'm here to support you through
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: this because I really want to acknowledge how much worse
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: this is for you than me, and I was trying
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: to make him feel comfortable enough to sit down and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: talk to me. He just kept denying everything. And when
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the photos and I was showing him photos, I was
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: saying to him, if you still want to stay together,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: but you want to sleep with men in your own time,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I'm fine with that, babe, I love you, and he
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: was just so beyond defensive. That's when he started to
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: really kick off and just exploded. He physically assaulted me
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: and left. Then for the next month, I didn't tell
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a soul out of respect to him, and during that
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: time I was trying to reach out to him and say,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: you will need to come and talk to me face
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to face, and for weeks my messages to him were
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: so supportive and still so welcoming, understanding kind. I was
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: saying to him, don't worry, I haven't told anyone. We
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: can get through this together. I don't care. At the
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: end of this, I'm your best friend and that's it.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And he would just write the most horrible messages back
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: to me and just go fuck off. You're a fucking
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: crazy You can't you don't even know what you're talking about,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and just her abuse at me. For the next few weeks,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I was just saying, you owe me an apology. You've
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: been living with me rent free for the past six months,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You've put me through all of this, and I'm still
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: being supportive of you. The least you owe me a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: face to face apology, just respect, human to human. And
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the messages back were just horrible. No man will ever
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: like you outside of the fact that you can get
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: your tits out really really horrible things. So I got
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: to the stage where my friends started to ask why
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: we weren't together where's he been? Because I still at
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: this stage had not told a soul for a month,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and that was firstly out of respect for him, but
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: also shame and embarrassment after trying to get him to
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: meet with me face to face to have just a
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: simple conversation. After about four weeks, we were at a friends,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a mutual friend's house, and I just lost it. I
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: just I was holding so much shame within myself and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: holding that type of information in The only people I
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: told were my dogs and I live alone. It was
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: killing me, It was really really killing me, and I
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: just got up and told everyone and dropped a big
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: ass truth bomb. His closest Duh boys. They looked like
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: they had seen the most scariest ghost of their entire life.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I wish I could have taken a photo of their faces.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: They almost went like anime face. But then a few
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: seconds after that, no, nah nah, now you're talking shit,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: and all these guys that were our mutual friends, keep
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: in mind, just started telling me, Tessa, you're talking shit.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: You're a spinner. You're crazy. They always say extra pers
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: are crazy. But then everyone else there was just it
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: was almost a bit of a silence, and everyone just
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: being what do we do. Some of the people that
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: were there were friends that I had been friends with
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and really good friends with since I was in year
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: seven in high school. People I had grown up with
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: knew me really, really really well, and the fact that
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: they were questioning my honesty was heartbreaking.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And then came the real kicker, the last thing Tessa
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: expected to hear four weeks after finding out Daniel had
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: been cheating on her with men.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: After that moment, everyone kind of scattered, and you know,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: think the night went on, and this really young guy
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: came up to me. And I'd not met this guy before.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: He would have been about twenty and he just said, oh,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you're Tessa Daniel's X. So crazy now that he's dayed
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in that really young chick. And I just said, so what.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: And the look on this guy's face, he just went,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: you didn't know, and I just said, no, tell me
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: fucking everything right now. This poor boy, his face was
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: like translucent white, and he said, oh, as of last week,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: which was Valentine's Day, this girl that everyone knows from
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the area, who is nineteen, was posting all these beautiful
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: stories of all these gifts she got for Valentine's Day,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and it was my ex partner who was tagged. I vomited.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I was in my friend's backyard with this young guy
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: who doesn't realize he's just led a massive cat out
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: of the bag and he's freaking out and I was
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: just there go because by this point, my self worth,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: my everything was minus a hundred. And that was just
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: the real cherry on the top. I think.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: So she gave up once and for all in trying
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: to get any answers or sense from this man. She
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: tried being kind, empathetic, asking for face to face meetings
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: to be able to talk, to understand, and to get
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: herself some closure, but she was done.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: A couple of weeks after that, a very very couple
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: of rough few weeks May I add I hung out
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: with a friend who worked with him doing carpentry, and
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: he was saying that Daniel was actually on the job
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: site for those few days, laughing at the fact I
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: was still asking him to come and talk to me
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: about everything that had just happened, and he was already
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: shacked up with this nineteen year old girl. I think
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: because it was around that time I was already starting
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: to get that female complex about my age and time
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: running out and you know, not looking how used to
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: and it really really really bucked me up. And then, yeah,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: probably about three or four weeks after that, my best
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: friend of fifteen years fired me from her best made
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Judy because I was too mentally unstable. And then that
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: was the end of it, Like that was I don't
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: know how I'm alive. The stuff with my partner had happened,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: then this stuff with you know, my best friend. I
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: felt so abandoned. And because I don't have a good
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: relationship with my family, my friends become my family. I
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: honestly don't think I've ever been that sad in my
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: entire life. I went a week without showering, and it
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: got to the point where I actually called the mental
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: health access line for myself, just deep depression mess. I
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: just really felt like every trauma about abandonment or not
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: being good enough for any of that stuff, it had
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: all just been solidified within this tiny little humans will
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: just lie to you, even if they say they love you,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: they don't care. It just solidified all of it. And honestly,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I don't even remember that period too well. It's all
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: very blurry, but I think the week after that, I
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: just decided I'm moving. I felt like my body couldn't
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: handle how to stress and how sad and heavy and
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: depressed I was, and I fight or flight, I guess,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: and I had chose to flight to another town. I
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: quit my job, everything, and I moved myself, knowing how
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: it was crazy. For months, I couldn't talk about it
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: even a few words without bursting into tears. But then,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: obviously as a social worker, I started doing some research
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: around kind of therapies that would be good to deal
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: with this kind of trauma, and you know, if there
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: was any frameworks out there, just having a squiz, and
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: then I just discovered a women's health clinic that is
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: all government funded, that had a counseling service within the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: women's clinic that was specifically for straight women whose partners
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: have sex with men. I got a counselor from there,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and she was fucking awesome. I remember the first session
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: with her and she was telling me how common it was,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and I was just bulling because there was this period
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: where I felt like I was in the pits of hell.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: No one could really help me, and I felt like
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: it was literally all just me. But when she started
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: to talk to me specifically, she would say things like Tessa,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I said, here with women who are sixty and have
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: four kids and six properties with a man and they
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: find out he's been gay his whole life. I really
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: started to feel like there was no one in the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: entire world that this had happened to. And I found
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: a service that this was for and from the first
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: session with my counselor, I was crying, but it was
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: happy tears because she made me feel so seen and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: assured me that this is so common. It's very eye opening,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to be honest, but just knowing that this happens to
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: other people, and I remember the warm feeling. It gave
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: my heart because I'd been so emotionally ruined by it
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: and it's such a shameful thing because you don't even
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: want to tell people. But then the more I started
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: telling people about it, the more I started hearing oh, yeah,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: that happened to me too, which was really interesting. Being
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: a social worker, I worked alongside an occupational therapist and
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I went off the cough comment about it to her
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and she said, oh, that happened to me in my
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: early thirties. Two was horrible. I was like, what tell me?
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And I was just like, holy crap. So then I
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: started getting really curious, got onto Facebook and I started
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: finding support groups and I actually made a support group
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: in Australia, which is cool. But there's so many support groups,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and the stuff you read on there is you really
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: start to realize how common it is. As for Daniel,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: still to this day, he hasn't reached out to me,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: He hasn't contacted me, nothing to say, hey, look, I
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: want to acknowledge what happened and you know, just kind
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: of have a conversation with me about it. It's really
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: sad because I do believe there is a good person
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: in there. It has just been dulled down by so
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: many like demons, self hatred, shame, typical male things. I
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: guess I hope he goes to therapy hates of it,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: and I hope that he just realizes that it's okay
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: to let people in. And I think a lot of
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: his stuff was a lot of self hatred that he
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: hated himself, but he covered it in this you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: fake ego and big marcho man persona. And I would
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: just like him to feel more connected to himself rather
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: than connected to just his ego. That's yeah, Like I
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: don't I don't wish any ill against him now. I
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: just yeah, I hope he gets what he needs. He
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: still has two beautiful young boys that he needs to raise.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: What I did, still trying to be supportive of him.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't change it for the world because I can
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: sleep well at night knowing that. I think a really
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: big part of the healing was trying to focus on
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the fact he is a really unwell person and I'm
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: never going to get any closure out of it. The
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: only thing I can take as a benefit from it
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: is lessons. The biggest one was probably don't mix love
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: and chemistry. Don't put them in the same basket because
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: they're both completely different and just how manipulate even scary
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: people can be. I think was a really really big
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: eye opener and just if something is wrong, and it's
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: wrong because I knew this before I checked his phone.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I had a weird gut feeling about it, and I
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: just let it go. Kept trying to tell myself, no, no, no,
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: it's fine, it's fine because I wanted I was thirty,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I wanted to have the husband and the kids, and
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: but no more of that. It's yeah, just a really
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: big reminder that you end up worse off if you
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: ignore it. I honestly think that it was a lesson
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: of kind of the universe, challenging my kindness and compassion
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: and will you still be kind and compassionate after this
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and nonjudgmental? And I think it was a really good
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: lesson and reminder to continue being like that. Because my
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: thing is as long as I can go to bed
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: every night knowing every action I took that day alignce
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: with my moral compass as closely as possible, then I
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: sleep good. Everyone else, that's their shit.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Everyone has an X. It's a MINTI Media production and
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: proudly part of the Muma Mea Network. This episode is
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: written and narrated by me Georgia Love and produced by
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Linda Scott. If you have a story you'd like to share,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: email podcast at momamea dot com dot au. You can
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: support us by following the show in your favorite podcast
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  Speaker 2: app and leaving a five star review