# Game Over

An episode of [Everyone Has An Ex](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1502664617), 17 Mar 2026, 40 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/fe4043fe-7983-496d-8f85-b132005537f8/cd77db5b-7d61-49d9-93c7-b40c00518483/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d21b7a93-3a2f-4ae7-ac90-b13200553810

Relationships can be a lot like games — you win some, you lose some, and just when you think you know the rules, they change. There are highs, lows, and the occasional plot twist you don’t see coming. But the thing about games is when they’re over, you usually get a clean slate — a chance to reset and start again. But sometimes, just when it’s over… that’s when the real games begin. Email us: everyonehasanex@mintymedia.com.au Follow us: @everyonehasanex Have a story that you'd like to share? Email us or send us a voice message. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:10] Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mom with Me podcast, Muma Me
[0:14] Speaker 1: your acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters.
[0:17] Speaker 1: This podcast is recorded on Relationships can be a lot
[0:27] Speaker 1: like games. You win some, you lose some, and just
[0:30] Speaker 1: when you think you know the rules, they change. There
[0:33] Speaker 1: are highs, lows, and the occasional plot twist you don't
[0:36] Speaker 1: see coming.
[0:36] Speaker 2: I finish the appointment and check my phone and I
[0:39] Speaker 2: have a whole string of texts from him, basically saying,
[0:42] Speaker 2: I can't believe you do this to me. This is
[0:44] Speaker 2: the last straw. We're done. It was such a tiny
[0:47] Speaker 2: little tiff that we'd had, and we've been together for
[0:50] Speaker 2: nearly two years, and I was like, surely he's not
[0:52] Speaker 2: breaking up with me.
[0:54] Speaker 1: But the thing about games is when they're over, you
[0:56] Speaker 1: usually get a clean slate, a chance to reset and
[0:59] Speaker 1: start again. But sometimes just when you think it's over,
[1:03] Speaker 1: that's when the real games begin.
[1:05] Speaker 2: I have an email from the Healthcare Complaints Commission and
[1:08] Speaker 2: my stomach drops to think that someone has put in
[1:10] Speaker 2: a complaint about me. It was really frightening. I just
[1:13] Speaker 2: had no clue why on earth they would decide two
[1:18] Speaker 2: years after to have her go at my career.
[1:31] Speaker 1: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an ex
[1:33] Speaker 1: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
[1:36] Speaker 1: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
[1:40] Speaker 1: hearts of the very people who lived them. Remember being nineteen,
[1:44] Speaker 1: meeting someone, forming a friendship that develops into a crush
[1:48] Speaker 1: and then effortlessly into something more. Ah, those were the
[1:51] Speaker 1: days when everything felt simpler, lighter, and full of possibility.
[1:55] Speaker 1: And that's exactly how it began for Jade and Harry.
[1:58] Speaker 2: We met at church. We were part of a giant
[2:01] Speaker 2: friend group. I was really good friends with his sister,
[2:04] Speaker 2: and then I just met him in the group and
[2:06] Speaker 2: we kind of clicked and it went from there. We
[2:08] Speaker 2: naturally kind of just gravitated towards each other within those
[2:11] Speaker 2: groups on our little nights out. We were good at
[2:14] Speaker 2: catching up with other people, but we still just kind
[2:18] Speaker 2: of hung with each other. It was nice to see
[2:21] Speaker 2: that my friends within that group they all liked him
[2:24] Speaker 2: to We could do the same things together, so it
[2:27] Speaker 2: wasn't like we had separate hobbies or separate passions and
[2:30] Speaker 2: things like that. We had joint groups. So that was
[2:32] Speaker 2: really fun. There was a lot of people around and
[2:36] Speaker 2: he had eyes to me, and I think that was
[2:38] Speaker 2: really awesome. It was such a nice feeling to be
[2:41] Speaker 2: like this guy who I think is so cool. And
[2:45] Speaker 2: he lived on campus at UNI, so I thought he
[2:48] Speaker 2: was really cool and had his stuff together. He likes me,
[2:51] Speaker 2: and he was pretty direct about it. He said, I
[2:54] Speaker 2: want to take you on a date, I want to
[2:55] Speaker 2: do this, all this kind of stuff, and so all
[2:57] Speaker 2: of that attention and just directness was really nice. At
[3:03] Speaker 2: the time, we both were committed churchgoers, and so I
[3:06] Speaker 2: guess that was a nice commonality that built a bit
[3:08] Speaker 2: of a foundation in our relationship. Pretty early on, I thought, oh, yeah,
[3:13] Speaker 2: he's going to be my boyfriend, and things were serious.
[3:15] Speaker 1: And he pretty much nailed the dating stuff too.
[3:18] Speaker 2: He would do kind of the cheesy romantic stuff, which
[3:22] Speaker 2: at nineteen I thought was the best thing ever. You'd
[3:25] Speaker 2: get a love note, or you'd get a printed out
[3:27] Speaker 2: photo or his ten things I love about you things
[3:31] Speaker 2: like that. So all the cheesy stuff that nineteen year
[3:34] Speaker 2: old me wanted and thought was the dream in a
[3:36] Speaker 2: relationship he did. We did a lot of beach dates,
[3:40] Speaker 2: so we would go on like little hikes and have
[3:41] Speaker 2: like a picnic. I remember doing a sunrise picnic over
[3:44] Speaker 2: the beach and bringing all the snacks and card games
[3:49] Speaker 2: and things like that, which was really nice. I went
[3:52] Speaker 2: to India on a mission trip. I was over there
[3:54] Speaker 2: for like three weeks, and when I came back, it
[3:58] Speaker 2: was so nice. I had really missed him and I
[4:01] Speaker 2: had been saying how much I had been craving a
[4:04] Speaker 2: pizza the entire time I was in India, and so
[4:06] Speaker 2: he had brought pizza and then we went down to
[4:08] Speaker 2: the beach and ate it on the beach because I
[4:09] Speaker 2: hadn't been for a swim in weeks because I was
[4:11] Speaker 2: in India, and it was just kind of everything that
[4:14] Speaker 2: I'd said that I wanted. He had it all there
[4:16] Speaker 2: ready for me, and because I hadn't seen him in
[4:18] Speaker 2: a few weeks, I was really missing him. So that
[4:20] Speaker 2: was like a really precious time. I would go out
[4:24] Speaker 2: of my way, because we lived about forty five minutes
[4:27] Speaker 2: from each other. I would make the time. You know,
[4:29] Speaker 2: I might have finished UNI and I might have a
[4:31] Speaker 2: really long day, but I was like so excited I
[4:33] Speaker 2: wanted to spend my time with him. It was perfect.
[4:36] Speaker 2: He told me I was beautiful. He told me all
[4:38] Speaker 2: the things I wanted to hear, just.
[4:40] Speaker 1: When you thought this seemingly perfect relationship couldn't get any better.
[4:44] Speaker 2: We spent a lot of really nice time with each
[4:46] Speaker 2: other's family, which was really precious. I was really close
[4:48] Speaker 2: with his sister. He had a really really big family.
[4:52] Speaker 2: He was actually a triplet and he had twin brothers
[4:54] Speaker 2: as well, plus two older sisters. So hanging out with
[4:58] Speaker 2: his family, we'd do often beach trips together was really
[5:01] Speaker 2: really precious, and that was really nice. Memories. My family
[5:04] Speaker 2: right up front were like, yeah, he's great because he
[5:07] Speaker 2: showed a really really good face to my family. The
[5:09] Speaker 2: fact that his family loved me was so reassuring. The
[5:12] Speaker 2: fact that he introduced me to his family really early.
[5:15] Speaker 2: He had like these twin brothers that were really little.
[5:18] Speaker 2: They were like little babies, and he was so good
[5:20] Speaker 2: with them, and I went, oh, he's perfect. About two
[5:24] Speaker 2: months into the relationship, I remember going on a date night,
[5:27] Speaker 2: and I'm a perfectionist. I need everything to go to plan,
[5:29] Speaker 2: and so I had thought that I felt that I
[5:32] Speaker 2: loved him, and I knew that I was going to
[5:33] Speaker 2: say it at some point, and I had this big
[5:35] Speaker 2: plan in my head that Okay, on this really nice
[5:37] Speaker 2: date night, that we're going on, we're going to say it,
[5:40] Speaker 2: and then for some reason we got into a bit
[5:41] Speaker 2: of a tiff that night and it wasn't anything major,
[5:44] Speaker 2: but we were just a little bit annoyed at each
[5:46] Speaker 2: other and it didn't go perfectly to plan, and I
[5:48] Speaker 2: was so disappointed because in my head, that was when
[5:51] Speaker 2: we were going to say we loved each other. And
[5:53] Speaker 2: I ended up crying to him, and then he told
[5:55] Speaker 2: me he loved me. I thought I was dating to
[5:58] Speaker 2: marry right from the get go, so with my first boyfriend,
[6:00] Speaker 2: I thought, okay, maybe, but then that was definitely not it.
[6:04] Speaker 2: And then when I met Harry, I was like, Okay,
[6:06] Speaker 2: this is serious, Like this is my person, this is it.
[6:09] Speaker 2: I'm especially coming from a church world, a lot of
[6:12] Speaker 2: people get married really really young, and I didn't want that.
[6:15] Speaker 2: But that's kind of the understanding that I had of it,
[6:18] Speaker 2: because everyone else around me was in serious relationships and
[6:21] Speaker 2: was getting ready to like lock it down.
[6:23] Speaker 1: But like any relationship, they also had their little TIFFs.
[6:27] Speaker 2: It was such silly things. It wasn't anything of importance
[6:30] Speaker 2: that we would fight over. We wouldn't fight over life
[6:34] Speaker 2: decisions or values or things like that. It was just
[6:37] Speaker 2: disagreements where he would get frustrated with me or I
[6:40] Speaker 2: would get frustrated with him, and we couldn't work through
[6:42] Speaker 2: it because we were immature and young. We had come
[6:45] Speaker 2: from different churches and met at a common church, and
[6:50] Speaker 2: we definitely had a few different views, and so we
[6:53] Speaker 2: had a few fights about it. Nothing crazy, because I
[6:56] Speaker 2: thought that I was pretty open, so if he told
[6:59] Speaker 2: me something new, I was happy to believe it or
[7:01] Speaker 2: go along with it or question it. But sometimes, because
[7:04] Speaker 2: I can be a little bit stubborn, we did have
[7:06] Speaker 2: a few fights over it. Because he would never ever
[7:08] Speaker 2: change his mind. It was something that I really strongly
[7:11] Speaker 2: believed it would kind of turn into a fight because
[7:13] Speaker 2: he wouldn't change his mind. Ever, there was.
[7:16] Speaker 1: One thing that did eat away at Jade.
[7:18] Speaker 2: He didn't have a job. So when we first met,
[7:20] Speaker 2: we're nineteen and we're both in UNI. But by twenty
[7:23] Speaker 2: I had graduated UNI and started my full time career
[7:25] Speaker 2: and he was kind of still figuring things out, and
[7:27] Speaker 2: I was trying to be really gracious and go, that's okay.
[7:30] Speaker 2: I'm really fortunate to have known what I wanted to
[7:32] Speaker 2: do from a really young age. So not everyone is
[7:35] Speaker 2: in that same boat, so I was trying to give
[7:36] Speaker 2: him some grace in going figure out what you want
[7:38] Speaker 2: to do, restart, all that kind of stuff. He didn't
[7:41] Speaker 2: drive a car, and some of the behaviors that came
[7:44] Speaker 2: up were he was pretty self centered, and I am
[7:48] Speaker 2: quite a giving person, so I thought, it's totally fine.
[7:51] Speaker 2: This is what you do in a relationship. You give
[7:53] Speaker 2: and you sacrifice, but it wasn't necessarily two way. I
[7:56] Speaker 2: really liked that he was protective. I liked that he
[8:00] Speaker 2: cared about me so deeply and he was vocal about it,
[8:04] Speaker 2: and he was vocal about it to me and to
[8:07] Speaker 2: other people. And I really appreciated that. I'm an oldest child,
[8:11] Speaker 2: so I think you always take on the protector role yourself.
[8:14] Speaker 2: You're the care for other people, and having someone be
[8:16] Speaker 2: the care for me and the protector for me was
[8:18] Speaker 2: really nice because took the pressure off. It felt like, yeah,
[8:22] Speaker 2: I was really loved and looked after and cared for.
[8:25] Speaker 1: About a year into their relationship, Jade was still living
[8:27] Speaker 1: at home when she received some pretty big news.
[8:30] Speaker 2: I found out that my parents were going to have
[8:32] Speaker 2: to move up to the Gold Coast for work, and
[8:34] Speaker 2: so I was stuck with this decision going do I
[8:36] Speaker 2: move with them or do I move out of home?
[8:38] Speaker 2: Because I've just got this full time job, which is
[8:40] Speaker 2: really exciting, and so I made a decision that I
[8:43] Speaker 2: was going to move out of home when they left.
[8:45] Speaker 2: So they were moving in June or July of that year,
[8:48] Speaker 2: and I found out in January. So over the next
[8:49] Speaker 2: six months, my decision was to find a house. Really
[8:53] Speaker 2: cracked down into my full time job and see how
[8:56] Speaker 2: we go with that. With Harry, he was living at
[9:00] Speaker 2: home at the time, still figuring out his job. And
[9:02] Speaker 2: I remember one day I came home from work and
[9:05] Speaker 2: my mom pulled me aside and she said, I need
[9:07] Speaker 2: to talk to you. And I said to her, what's
[9:10] Speaker 2: going on? And she said, look, Harry called me. He's
[9:13] Speaker 2: had a fight with his dad. He's been kicked out
[9:14] Speaker 2: of home, and he called me to come and stay
[9:17] Speaker 2: at our house. So I had heard none of it.
[9:20] Speaker 2: I was at work the whole day and it was
[9:23] Speaker 2: only as I walked in the door that my mom
[9:25] Speaker 2: told me. So I had no clue that he had
[9:26] Speaker 2: had a fight with his dad. I had no clue
[9:28] Speaker 2: that he was kicked out of home, but he felt
[9:31] Speaker 2: comfortable enough to call my mom and ask for a
[9:33] Speaker 2: place to stay. And because of my parents' personalities, they
[9:37] Speaker 2: really saw this as a good thing. They want my
[9:39] Speaker 2: partner to feel comfortable with them, They want him to
[9:42] Speaker 2: be able to come to them with issues and concerns,
[9:45] Speaker 2: and so they thought this is great. Actually, it's a
[9:47] Speaker 2: good thing that he cares enough to come to us.
[9:50] Speaker 2: It was just a little bit of a shock. I
[9:52] Speaker 2: thought that if he had enough time to call my
[9:54] Speaker 2: mom and ask if he can stay with us, maybe
[9:56] Speaker 2: he would have had time to flick a message to
[9:58] Speaker 2: me to say that he was going to be staying
[9:59] Speaker 2: with me for a little bit, because he's in a
[10:01] Speaker 2: rock and a hard place at the time. Because I
[10:03] Speaker 2: loved him, I thought it was perfectly fine, and I
[10:05] Speaker 2: was glad that he felt comfortable with us, but still
[10:08] Speaker 2: would have been nice to heads up. And so he
[10:11] Speaker 2: came and he moved in with us, without really any
[10:15] Speaker 2: clarity around how long this would be, what the rules
[10:18] Speaker 2: of it were. My family are very religious, so it's
[10:22] Speaker 2: not like we were staying together. And I had always
[10:24] Speaker 2: said that I wouldn't move in with him until we
[10:25] Speaker 2: were engaged or married, so that wasn't really on the cards.
[10:29] Speaker 2: So there was a lot of ambiguity around what was
[10:32] Speaker 2: going on. But he started to live with.
[10:33] Speaker 1: Us and things were going really well.
[10:36] Speaker 2: I liked that we don't have to drive forty five
[10:39] Speaker 2: minutes to catch up with each other. We can just
[10:40] Speaker 2: hang out, you know, we can be in the TV
[10:43] Speaker 2: room at the same time and things like that. Because
[10:46] Speaker 2: he was a gamer and I absolutely am not a
[10:48] Speaker 2: gamer in the slightest. He would play his little games
[10:50] Speaker 2: sometimes and so that was a bit of space too.
[10:53] Speaker 2: I would go to the gym. We had different hobbies
[10:55] Speaker 2: things like that. But yet it actually didn't come with
[10:58] Speaker 2: the complications that you would expect from moving in with someone.
[11:01] Speaker 2: I guess because it was that step of distance. My
[11:04] Speaker 2: parents were still around, we're still He's more just rooming
[11:06] Speaker 2: with us rather than living together. It was great coming
[11:09] Speaker 2: home from work and just having him there so that
[11:11] Speaker 2: then we could hang out rather than organizing a date night.
[11:13] Speaker 2: And when I can see you, it's really good. And
[11:15] Speaker 2: just the fact that we could do those couply things
[11:18] Speaker 2: that I had like fantasized about, like come make dinner
[11:21] Speaker 2: with me and things like that, Like it was really
[11:23] Speaker 2: nice playboard games, watch the same TV shows together. We
[11:27] Speaker 2: had to pull at our house, go for late night
[11:28] Speaker 2: swims together. It was really really lovely. I went, perfect,
[11:32] Speaker 2: this is it, this is what it's meant to be.
[11:34] Speaker 2: This is how you do a serious relationship. You don't
[11:37] Speaker 2: do fancy dates. You just watch movies together and do
[11:40] Speaker 2: life together. We definitely thought the marriages where we were headed.
[11:43] Speaker 2: I can't remember if we had a timeline. I feel
[11:46] Speaker 2: like we'd spoken about potentially dating for three years before
[11:49] Speaker 2: we got engaged, because we saw so many people who
[11:52] Speaker 2: in the church got engaged within like a year of
[11:54] Speaker 2: dating each other, and we both agreed that we didn't
[11:56] Speaker 2: want that, but we both agreed that that's where we
[11:58] Speaker 2: were headed. We wanted to get married to each other,
[12:01] Speaker 2: and we wanted to do a lot of travel together
[12:03] Speaker 2: once we got married. So we were working towards that,
[12:06] Speaker 2: but we were still maybe like a year out. I
[12:09] Speaker 2: could work one hundred percent picture myself marrying him, and
[12:12] Speaker 2: while that picture was kind of interrupted with a few
[12:17] Speaker 2: concerns that I ignored and I definitely pushed down, I
[12:21] Speaker 2: could still picture it, and if I ignored all the
[12:25] Speaker 2: other concerns, it was exactly what I wanted. We still
[12:28] Speaker 2: fought pretty much the same amount as we did before.
[12:31] Speaker 2: It was all over silly things. He still was a
[12:33] Speaker 2: bit self centered, he still wasn't working a few of
[12:36] Speaker 2: those things, but I thought I loved him for.
[12:39] Speaker 1: The most part. It was domestic bliss. How he had
[12:42] Speaker 1: lived with Jade and her family for almost six months
[12:45] Speaker 1: when Jade's parents moved into state, so there were some
[12:48] Speaker 1: pretty big decisions to be made.
[12:50] Speaker 2: I was moving out, and the conversation came up of
[12:53] Speaker 2: what on earth are you going to do? At this point,
[12:55] Speaker 2: He's still not really talking with his family very much,
[12:57] Speaker 2: and my family's going to go in a minute, so
[12:59] Speaker 2: he can't live with them, And so he decided that
[13:02] Speaker 2: he was going to move with his grandparents in a
[13:05] Speaker 2: really small country town about six hours out of Sydney,
[13:08] Speaker 2: and so that's what happened. I moved up home, stayed
[13:10] Speaker 2: in Sydney full time working, my parents moved up to
[13:12] Speaker 2: the Gold Coast, and he moved six hours away was
[13:15] Speaker 2: more country town. That meant that in my first year
[13:18] Speaker 2: of full time work, living out of home for the
[13:20] Speaker 2: first time at age twenty one, and with my parents
[13:23] Speaker 2: moving away, I was also in a long distance relationship
[13:26] Speaker 2: for the first time, which was really tricky. He did
[13:29] Speaker 2: come and visit a few times. But even the times
[13:31] Speaker 2: when he would visit, it wasn't really lovely as I expected.
[13:35] Speaker 2: We thought it was complicated. I was really trying to
[13:39] Speaker 2: put the screws on to say, Hey, what's going on?
[13:42] Speaker 2: Are you getting a job? What are you doing? All
[13:43] Speaker 2: this kind of stuff, And we weren't the best at
[13:45] Speaker 2: communicating long distance. We'd have face times, we'd text, but
[13:49] Speaker 2: we would even fight over face times and things like that,
[13:52] Speaker 2: and as we were creeping up to almost the two
[13:54] Speaker 2: years of being together, it was really tough. So I'm
[13:58] Speaker 2: a FaceTime kind of person. So we'd have some face times,
[14:01] Speaker 2: often for a couple of hours, but conversation wasn't flowing.
[14:06] Speaker 2: And then we'd talk about some serious things, so I'd ask, Hey,
[14:09] Speaker 2: how we going with job applications, and then he'd get
[14:12] Speaker 2: annoyed at me, and then I would get upset, and
[14:14] Speaker 2: then he'd get annoyed that I was upset, and then
[14:17] Speaker 2: it just perpetuated into these awful little arguments. And the
[14:21] Speaker 2: only reason that we're on FaceTime is because we're living
[14:24] Speaker 2: apart and we supposedly love each other, and life is hard,
[14:28] Speaker 2: so when you're having a FaceTime that's supposed to reassure
[14:31] Speaker 2: you and make you feel better, and it turns into
[14:33] Speaker 2: this argument. It was just really awful. I had a
[14:37] Speaker 2: little bit of a higher expectation of him because he
[14:40] Speaker 2: had made the decision to move away and he didn't
[14:43] Speaker 2: have a job, so I expected him to drive and
[14:45] Speaker 2: visit me when he could, and when things were really
[14:49] Speaker 2: really rough, I really asked him, please come. We need
[14:53] Speaker 2: to catch up in person. We need to see each other.
[14:55] Speaker 2: You're not doing anything out at your grandparents' house, so
[14:59] Speaker 2: why don't you just come and be at my house
[15:01] Speaker 2: instead so we can spend some time together. And he
[15:04] Speaker 2: was pretty annoyed about that, so he did it in
[15:07] Speaker 2: the end, but begrudgingly, which was really tough. And I
[15:10] Speaker 2: just remember some of those nights when we would have arguments,
[15:13] Speaker 2: just crying, like because I just I wanted my person
[15:18] Speaker 2: and I thought that he was my person, but he
[15:19] Speaker 2: wasn't giving me anything that I needed, and it was
[15:22] Speaker 2: just making my already hard life even harder. He could
[15:27] Speaker 2: have gotten a job and rented his own place, but
[15:30] Speaker 2: he didn't. He could have gone back to his parents
[15:32] Speaker 2: and apologize and asked to stay with them, but he didn't.
[15:35] Speaker 2: He decided to move out with his grandparents because it
[15:38] Speaker 2: would be a free place to live, there wouldn't be
[15:40] Speaker 2: the pressure from his parents, and he could just kind
[15:43] Speaker 2: of do what he wanted. So the plan was that
[15:46] Speaker 2: he was going to live out there and potentially apply
[15:48] Speaker 2: to be in the police force or something. That was
[15:50] Speaker 2: his next career goal. But it really wasn't happening during
[15:55] Speaker 2: those six months that we were kind of apart. I
[15:57] Speaker 2: think maybe we saw each other three times.
[16:00] Speaker 1: Three times wasn't ideal. But with Christmas approaching, quality time
[16:04] Speaker 1: together was only a few short weeks away.
[16:07] Speaker 2: The plan was he was going to come spend most
[16:09] Speaker 2: of the month of December with me, and we're going
[16:11] Speaker 2: to do Christmas together. So he comes back to Sydney
[16:14] Speaker 2: in December, we spend a couple of days together, and
[16:18] Speaker 2: he does have a little bit of conversation with his
[16:20] Speaker 2: family while he's in Sydney, which is awesome. And during
[16:23] Speaker 2: that conversation they start to talk about potentially a trip
[16:26] Speaker 2: to America. So one of his sisters had married an American,
[16:31] Speaker 2: moved over to America and had a baby, and so
[16:33] Speaker 2: none of the family had met this baby. And because
[16:36] Speaker 2: Harry wasn't employed, he was kind of the perfect candidate
[16:39] Speaker 2: to be the family representative to go over and visit
[16:41] Speaker 2: the baby. And so as he started rekindling this relationship
[16:44] Speaker 2: with his family and having more communication with them, they said, Hey,
[16:48] Speaker 2: why not for Christmas as your Christmas present, why don't
[16:51] Speaker 2: we send you over to America. And he came back
[16:54] Speaker 2: to me told me about this. Obviously, I was a
[16:56] Speaker 2: little bit upset because we had these plans to spend
[16:58] Speaker 2: Christmas together. But I was like, absolutely, go, I think
[17:02] Speaker 2: that's a great thing that you can go visit your sister.
[17:04] Speaker 2: She's had a baby, she's gotten married, she really does
[17:06] Speaker 2: need the support. And so, as sad as it was,
[17:09] Speaker 2: we decided that that's what we're gonna do. He had
[17:12] Speaker 2: bought me a whole bunch of Christmas presents and left
[17:13] Speaker 2: all this stuff at my house and then I dropped
[17:15] Speaker 2: him at the airport.
[17:16] Speaker 1: Coincidentally, Harry also had a small network in America, connections
[17:20] Speaker 1: he'd built through online gaming friendships forged behind the scenes
[17:23] Speaker 1: that suddenly didn't feel so far away.
[17:26] Speaker 2: He played PC games a lot, and he had friends
[17:28] Speaker 2: on Discord, which I even spoke to. At times. I'd
[17:32] Speaker 2: put on his headset and have a chat with them
[17:34] Speaker 2: as a joke. I know that he would play games
[17:36] Speaker 2: quite late into the night because the people that he's
[17:39] Speaker 2: playing are in America. I know that they were real friends.
[17:42] Speaker 2: He spoke to me about them all the time.
[17:44] Speaker 1: So while it was hard to say goodbye, Jade was
[17:46] Speaker 1: excited for Harry to reunite with his family, to meet
[17:49] Speaker 1: his new niece, and to finally connect with his online
[17:52] Speaker 1: friends in the flesh. They'd be fine, wouldn't they.
[17:56] Speaker 2: So he goes to America. On the trip there and
[18:00] Speaker 2: on the layovers, we're texting a little bit. We still
[18:02] Speaker 2: have a fire overtext, which is just ridiculous. It was
[18:05] Speaker 2: such a I can't even remember what we fought over it,
[18:08] Speaker 2: but it was something so tiny, and he got an
[18:09] Speaker 2: anoyed at me, maybe for messaging too much or something
[18:12] Speaker 2: like that. And then he gets to America and his
[18:14] Speaker 2: plan is to spend a couple of days by himself,
[18:16] Speaker 2: doing a bit of solo travel, and then he'll catch
[18:18] Speaker 2: up with his sister. He's maybe been in America for
[18:21] Speaker 2: like two three days, and one day he asks me
[18:25] Speaker 2: to do him a favor, and I was at work,
[18:27] Speaker 2: and I think the favor was to convert some of
[18:30] Speaker 2: his cryptocurrency or something like that, and I was like, no,
[18:33] Speaker 2: I am at work. I'm busy. I don't do cryptocurrency,
[18:37] Speaker 2: and he's like, but I need help. I can't do
[18:38] Speaker 2: it when I'm overseas. I have to do it in Australia.
[18:41] Speaker 2: And I just texted him and said, I'm at work,
[18:43] Speaker 2: I can't do it right now. I'm really busy. I'm sorry.
[18:46] Speaker 2: We can chat after work if you're really stuck, but
[18:48] Speaker 2: surely you don't need me to do this right this
[18:49] Speaker 2: very second. I go into an appointment with a patient
[18:52] Speaker 2: and then I finish the appointment and check my phone
[18:55] Speaker 2: and I have a whole string of texts from him
[18:58] Speaker 2: basically saying I can't believe you do this to me.
[19:00] Speaker 2: This is the last straw. We're done. And I'm a
[19:04] Speaker 2: little bit gobsmacked because it was such a tiny little
[19:06] Speaker 2: tiff that we'd had, and we'd been together for nearly
[19:09] Speaker 2: two years, and I was like, surely he's not breaking
[19:11] Speaker 2: up with me. And I went to respond and I
[19:14] Speaker 2: was blocked, And so then I went to Instagram and
[19:18] Speaker 2: I was blocked on Instagram. I went to TikTok and
[19:21] Speaker 2: I was blocked on TikTok, and I checked and I
[19:24] Speaker 2: was blocked on Discord and I was like, wow, this
[19:26] Speaker 2: guy has gone to the nth degree to block me
[19:28] Speaker 2: on everything. We're in different countries. It's over. And I
[19:32] Speaker 2: was just gobsmacked at the time. I don't even think
[19:34] Speaker 2: I cried. I just was so shocked that he had
[19:38] Speaker 2: broken up with me over such a small thing and
[19:40] Speaker 2: had blocked me on everything, and so I just told
[19:44] Speaker 2: my friends what happened and was really in a state
[19:46] Speaker 2: of shock. I think I went out for dinner with
[19:48] Speaker 2: some friends that night, trying to distract myself, and then
[19:51] Speaker 2: reality started to hit. I guess that it was really over.
[19:55] Speaker 2: The next day, I got a message from his parents saying, hey,
[19:58] Speaker 2: how are you just wondering if you've heard from Harry,
[20:00] Speaker 2: because he's supposed to be catching up with his sister
[20:03] Speaker 2: today and we haven't heard from him. And I said, oh, actually, no,
[20:06] Speaker 2: he broke up with me, and so they didn't know
[20:09] Speaker 2: this either, and they were super apologetic and so sad
[20:12] Speaker 2: and so sorry. His sister came over a couple of
[20:15] Speaker 2: days later and we had this lovely girl's night and
[20:17] Speaker 2: I vented to them about what had happened. I decided
[20:20] Speaker 2: that I would pack up all of the Christmas presents
[20:22] Speaker 2: that he'd bought me. I think he had his Xbox
[20:24] Speaker 2: at my place, all of his belongings. I packed them
[20:27] Speaker 2: all up. I gave them back to his sister. But
[20:29] Speaker 2: before I did that, I took a photo of them,
[20:31] Speaker 2: and I emailed it to him because I thought, if
[20:33] Speaker 2: he's in another country and I'm blocked on every social media,
[20:37] Speaker 2: I need to get through to him somehow. So I
[20:38] Speaker 2: sent him an email that just said, Hey, I've given
[20:42] Speaker 2: all your stuff back to your sister. Your family is
[20:45] Speaker 2: a bit worried about you because you haven't caught up
[20:46] Speaker 2: with your other sister. I hope you're okay. Reach out
[20:49] Speaker 2: if you can. And that opened the lines of communication.
[20:53] Speaker 2: So he responded to that email a day later with
[20:56] Speaker 2: this really really long email, this essay saying, I am
[21:00] Speaker 2: so sorry. I got really scared. I'm in America. I
[21:04] Speaker 2: got COVID and so now I'm in lockdown. I don't
[21:07] Speaker 2: know what to do. It's really scary. I'm so sorry.
[21:10] Speaker 2: I shouldn't have broken up with you. I just got scared.
[21:13] Speaker 2: He kept saying that he was trying to figure out
[21:16] Speaker 2: some accommodation he couldn't stay with his sister because he
[21:18] Speaker 2: was sick and he didn't want to get the baby sick.
[21:20] Speaker 2: He needed to figure out how to get flights back
[21:22] Speaker 2: to Australia. He went so far to say that he
[21:26] Speaker 2: wants to come back to Australia because he desperately wants
[21:28] Speaker 2: to marry me, and so he's going to earn me back.
[21:31] Speaker 2: All this time, he still hasn't caught up with his sister.
[21:34] Speaker 2: I'm still not unblocked on everything. We're still emailing, but
[21:39] Speaker 2: the general vibe of conversation is him saying he's going
[21:42] Speaker 2: to get back he wants me back, and me saying, well,
[21:44] Speaker 2: you're going to have to earn it, because I don't
[21:46] Speaker 2: think that's good enough.
[21:47] Speaker 1: Three weeks of emails back and forth followed, and while
[21:50] Speaker 1: Harry was saying all the right things, his behavior was
[21:53] Speaker 1: still a little off.
[21:55] Speaker 2: I decided to check if I'm still blocked, because I
[21:58] Speaker 2: was like, surely at this point he's reconsidering. And I
[22:02] Speaker 2: was still blocked on Instagram. I was still blocked on Facebook.
[22:05] Speaker 2: And then I looked up his name on TikTok and
[22:08] Speaker 2: a TikTok came up of him and another girl. He
[22:11] Speaker 2: hadn't posted it, but he was tagged in it, and
[22:14] Speaker 2: it was just a really stupid TikTok trend. But at
[22:17] Speaker 2: the end of the video they kiss and my stomach dropped.
[22:21] Speaker 2: I was just like, Oh, my gosh, he has moved
[22:24] Speaker 2: on that quickly from a two year relationship. It was insane.
[22:28] Speaker 2: I decided to comment on the TikTok and I just
[22:31] Speaker 2: said run. He broke up with me two weeks ago.
[22:38] Speaker 2: The next day I received a DM from this girl
[22:40] Speaker 2: and she says, hey, can we talk And we end
[22:45] Speaker 2: up having a call, and on this call, she tells
[22:48] Speaker 2: me that he has actually been staying with her the
[22:52] Speaker 2: entire time. Harry had met this girl, Emma on Discord
[22:56] Speaker 2: nine months earlier. They used to play games together, PC
[23:00] Speaker 2: games together, and nine months earlier, Harry had told Emma
[23:05] Speaker 2: that he loved her, and that was the start of
[23:07] Speaker 2: their nine month long internet relationship. When his parents had
[23:12] Speaker 2: offered to fly him to America to see his sister,
[23:15] Speaker 2: Harry decided that he was going to see Emma instead,
[23:18] Speaker 2: and so he took the tickets with the intention to
[23:21] Speaker 2: never see his sister, flew directly to Emma. So even
[23:24] Speaker 2: when he was talking to me on the flight there,
[23:27] Speaker 2: he was actually talking to her because she was the
[23:28] Speaker 2: one who picked her up from the airport, and he
[23:30] Speaker 2: stayed with her the whole time, and they started their
[23:33] Speaker 2: real life relationship. It was unbelievable. I was so shocked
[23:38] Speaker 2: because even when Harry had first broke up with me
[23:41] Speaker 2: and I was chatting to my friends, one of my
[23:42] Speaker 2: friends said to me, oh, do you think he's cheating?
[23:44] Speaker 2: And I literally laughed in her face because I went
[23:46] Speaker 2: no way, like, absolutely not. There's no sign. He lived
[23:50] Speaker 2: with me for three months and my family I would
[23:53] Speaker 2: have known. He's not that kind of person. He keeps
[23:56] Speaker 2: emailing me saying he wants to marry me. There's no way.
[23:59] Speaker 2: He's had every opportunity when we nearly broke up multiple times,
[24:02] Speaker 2: he had every opportunity to take that and run if
[24:04] Speaker 2: he was seeing someone else, and he didn't. He begged
[24:07] Speaker 2: me back. He did all these things to be with me,
[24:09] Speaker 2: so I really didn't think that he would be cheating.
[24:11] Speaker 2: So when she told me, I just couldn't believe it.
[24:15] Speaker 2: I felt sick. It was awful. She ended up sending
[24:19] Speaker 2: me a lot of screenshots as proof, and it was
[24:21] Speaker 2: so interesting comparing because at the same time he was
[24:25] Speaker 2: telling two girls that he loved them, and two girls
[24:27] Speaker 2: that he wanted to be with them and was planning
[24:28] Speaker 2: a life with them. It's just psychopathic. I could not
[24:32] Speaker 2: believe that he could do that, and also to take
[24:35] Speaker 2: a free flight from his parents to see his sister
[24:38] Speaker 2: who needed family and support, and to go and see
[24:41] Speaker 2: his other girlfriend. It was just crazy.
[24:44] Speaker 1: So Jade broke the news to his family.
[24:47] Speaker 2: I said, hey, I don't know whether you've heard from him,
[24:49] Speaker 2: but I've just found out that he's okay, but he's
[24:52] Speaker 2: staying with this chick. He wasn't planning on seeing his sister.
[24:56] Speaker 2: I'm really sorry. His family was so beautiful about it.
[25:00] Speaker 2: They were so apologetic. I had a FaceTime with the
[25:04] Speaker 2: sisters as I was crying, and they were just really
[25:07] Speaker 2: kind and supportive. They were so apolyg jed it for
[25:10] Speaker 2: his actions, not that it's had anything to do with them,
[25:13] Speaker 2: And from that point onwards, his mum decided that they
[25:16] Speaker 2: were going to bring him back, so they were organizing
[25:19] Speaker 2: his flights, liaising with this girl and her family because
[25:23] Speaker 2: they weren't sure if her family was aware that he
[25:26] Speaker 2: was cheating on her With me. Kind of we were
[25:30] Speaker 2: both the other woman in this situation, and so they
[25:33] Speaker 2: were chatting with her and her family and organizing to
[25:35] Speaker 2: bring him back because they were so ashamed of what
[25:37] Speaker 2: he'd done and how he behaved and all that kind
[25:39] Speaker 2: of stuff. Me and this girl kind of bonded. We
[25:42] Speaker 2: both were like, I can't believe that this guy is
[25:44] Speaker 2: so awful. She told me that she didn't know about me,
[25:48] Speaker 2: that she just thought she was yet in a relationship
[25:50] Speaker 2: with him. She didn't realize there was someone on the side.
[25:53] Speaker 1: Harry moved back to Australia to his grandmother's house six
[25:57] Speaker 1: hours away, and Jade didn't hear a word from him. Meanwhile,
[26:00] Speaker 1: her bond with Emma only continued to grow until.
[26:05] Speaker 2: Emma blocks me and I find out from Harry's sister
[26:08] Speaker 2: that he sold his car and use the money to
[26:11] Speaker 2: buy one way ticket to America to be with her,
[26:14] Speaker 2: and I just couldn't believe it. I was like, Wow,
[26:18] Speaker 2: I can't believe a that she would be with him,
[26:20] Speaker 2: and b that after a month of knowing each other
[26:24] Speaker 2: in real life, he's willing to move countries for her,
[26:26] Speaker 2: when literally a few weeks ago he was telling me
[26:28] Speaker 2: that he wanted to marry me. So my brain always
[26:33] Speaker 2: goes a million miles an hour, and all it was
[26:35] Speaker 2: telling me was all of these awful things about how
[26:38] Speaker 2: he picked someone better, how he wasn't good enough, how
[26:41] Speaker 2: I should have known better, how I did this to myself,
[26:43] Speaker 2: all of these really awful negative thoughts that obviously are triggered.
[26:48] Speaker 2: I was depressed. I couldn't control these awful thoughts that
[26:51] Speaker 2: were going around in my head, and doing everyday lovely
[26:54] Speaker 2: things was just getting really hard because my brain was
[26:58] Speaker 2: just going a million miles an hour telling me all
[26:59] Speaker 2: these bad things and reminding me or making up stories
[27:02] Speaker 2: about what could be happening or what they could be
[27:05] Speaker 2: saying about me, or what this said about me, or
[27:07] Speaker 2: what my life would be now that this is over.
[27:10] Speaker 2: I didn't believe I could get any more. So it
[27:12] Speaker 2: was a lot of sleepless nights, struggling to get up
[27:16] Speaker 2: in the morning, really just dragging my feet through the
[27:19] Speaker 2: day and not being able to find the joy in life.
[27:22] Speaker 2: And so during that period, reaching out, going to see
[27:25] Speaker 2: a therapist and just getting over the stigma was so helpful.
[27:30] Speaker 1: Jad was doing all the work to get herself into
[27:32] Speaker 1: a better place, and it was working. Harry and Emma
[27:35] Speaker 1: were starting to become a distant memory, but that was
[27:38] Speaker 1: about to change.
[27:39] Speaker 2: My mom calls me and she says, hey, I need
[27:41] Speaker 2: to tell you something before you hear it through the
[27:43] Speaker 2: grape vine. She says that she's had a conversation with
[27:46] Speaker 2: Harry's mum and they found out some information that they
[27:49] Speaker 2: wanted to tell me, and that information was that Harry
[27:51] Speaker 2: and Emma got married. Emma was nineteen, Harry was twenty one.
[27:57] Speaker 2: They'd known each other in person for a month, that
[27:59] Speaker 2: had an online relationship for nine months. I was just
[28:03] Speaker 2: so gobsmacked, but it was so hilarious. I remember that
[28:06] Speaker 2: night texting my girlfriends and being like, we need to
[28:09] Speaker 2: go out, but this is the funniest thing that's ever
[28:11] Speaker 2: happened to me. This is now a joke. Let's go celebrate.
[28:14] Speaker 2: And so we went out. We had heaps of fun
[28:17] Speaker 2: coming out of it. I definitely worked on myself, so
[28:20] Speaker 2: all the normal things, working out, going to my therapist,
[28:23] Speaker 2: eating well, working like, doing my job well and investing
[28:26] Speaker 2: time into that. But then the other thing was I
[28:30] Speaker 2: started to date like properly, so I jumped on online
[28:33] Speaker 2: dating all that kind of stuff, and I just went
[28:35] Speaker 2: out with people just for the sake of it. I
[28:39] Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily looking for anything serious, but I wasn't opposed
[28:43] Speaker 2: to it, and I think that was actually something that
[28:45] Speaker 2: was really helpful in helping me move on and develop
[28:48] Speaker 2: that level of self confidence, because not only was I
[28:51] Speaker 2: working on myself and getting proud of myself on my own,
[28:53] Speaker 2: but also seeing that there is so many fish in
[28:55] Speaker 2: the sea and people want you, you just have to
[28:58] Speaker 2: put yourself out there. So it really helped for me
[29:00] Speaker 2: to take him off this pedestal of being the only
[29:02] Speaker 2: guy that will ever love me and going there are
[29:05] Speaker 2: so many other people that will love me. I actually
[29:08] Speaker 2: have the power to choose someone who is good enough.
[29:10] Speaker 1: For me, and she did. His name was Matt, so.
[29:13] Speaker 2: We did meet on hand. There was not necessarily huge
[29:16] Speaker 2: fireworks when I first met him. There was just a
[29:18] Speaker 2: sense of calm. When I went on our first date,
[29:22] Speaker 2: I was running super late, and he was really patient
[29:26] Speaker 2: and waited and it was just really natural, And I
[29:29] Speaker 2: think that's the thing that I have really appreciated. It
[29:32] Speaker 2: was just steady but nice. It's not like I wasn't
[29:35] Speaker 2: enjoying my time. I really enjoyed my time, but I
[29:37] Speaker 2: didn't feel pressure. I didn't feel anxious before date, I
[29:40] Speaker 2: was looking forward to it, but it just brought a
[29:42] Speaker 2: sense of peace and calm, which was really lovely. He's
[29:45] Speaker 2: like the nicest person ever, literally like my other half.
[29:50] Speaker 2: So my life goes on. I move on. I have
[29:54] Speaker 2: forgotten about Harry. And then one night in December, I'm
[29:57] Speaker 2: sitting at work scrolling my emails and I see an
[30:00] Speaker 2: email from Emma and Harry and it takes me a
[30:04] Speaker 2: minute to be like, who are these people? And then
[30:07] Speaker 2: it clicks and I'm like, oh my goodness, Harry my
[30:10] Speaker 2: and Emma his new wife. And so I get one
[30:12] Speaker 2: of my friends to read the email first because I'm like,
[30:14] Speaker 2: what on earth have they sent me? And she tells me,
[30:17] Speaker 2: don't read it. She goes, don't read it, it's ridiculous.
[30:21] Speaker 2: It's a load of full I obviously read it, and
[30:25] Speaker 2: so Harry had basically sent me this really long email
[30:29] Speaker 2: that said I never loved you, I was never attracted
[30:32] Speaker 2: to you. I only stayed with you because I was
[30:35] Speaker 2: using you. I was using your family. You're worthless and
[30:39] Speaker 2: now I'm really happily married. Emma's email, on the other hand,
[30:44] Speaker 2: was a lot of fun. She sent me an even
[30:47] Speaker 2: longer email and the whole gist of the email was
[30:49] Speaker 2: that she basically thought that I was still in love
[30:51] Speaker 2: with Harry, and she had proof. Her email starts out
[30:55] Speaker 2: with saying how worthless I am and what a terrible person.
[30:58] Speaker 2: And one of the things that she decides to mention
[31:00] Speaker 2: is my career, the fact that I work in healthcare.
[31:02] Speaker 2: And one of the things that she says in the email,
[31:05] Speaker 2: which is just so random, She's like, how can you
[31:07] Speaker 2: even call yourself a midwife? You take me here are
[31:10] Speaker 2: selfies in the bathroom. Do you know how dirty bathrooms are?
[31:13] Speaker 2: There are so many more gems on a phone than
[31:15] Speaker 2: a toilet, And it was just the most random, ridiculous thing.
[31:18] Speaker 2: Then she goes on to say her proof that I'm
[31:20] Speaker 2: still in love with Harry, and her proof had an
[31:23] Speaker 2: attached PDF file. And when I opened up this pdf file,
[31:27] Speaker 2: there was screenshots of so much. The first thing was
[31:31] Speaker 2: tagged photos on Facebook. So even though I wasn't friends
[31:35] Speaker 2: with him anymore, he was blocked. I deleted all our photos.
[31:37] Speaker 2: There was still some group photos that were tagged in together,
[31:40] Speaker 2: and she couldn't believe that I still had those on
[31:42] Speaker 2: my profile. The other thing is she had gone through
[31:45] Speaker 2: my Spotify so she found me on Spotify, went through
[31:48] Speaker 2: my whole Spotify and screenshotted lyrics of songs in my
[31:51] Speaker 2: playlists that obviously were like love songs or breakup songs,
[31:55] Speaker 2: and she said, look at the songs that you listen to.
[31:57] Speaker 2: This is proof that you're still in love with him.
[32:00] Speaker 2: She signed off by saying, well, you'll never have him.
[32:02] Speaker 2: We're married now and we're going to come to Australia
[32:04] Speaker 2: to get married for a second time. Good luck and
[32:07] Speaker 2: all the best.
[32:09] Speaker 1: I took those emails with a grain of salt. It
[32:11] Speaker 1: had been a years since she and Harry had broken up,
[32:13] Speaker 1: and their words said far more about them than they
[32:16] Speaker 1: did about her. Clearly they needed to unburden themselves. So
[32:19] Speaker 1: Jade didn't reply. She let the silence stand. That was
[32:22] Speaker 1: the end of it. Well so she thought, Because one
[32:25] Speaker 1: year later.
[32:26] Speaker 2: I'm sitting in the car at my current boyfriend's basketball
[32:29] Speaker 2: game and going through my emails yet again, and I
[32:32] Speaker 2: have an email from the Healthcare Complaints Commission and my
[32:35] Speaker 2: stomach drops because I really love my job. I'm really
[32:38] Speaker 2: proud of it, and to think that someone has put
[32:41] Speaker 2: in a complaint about me, it was really frightening, and
[32:43] Speaker 2: I open up the complaint and it's anonymous, but I
[32:46] Speaker 2: start to read it, and the complaint says, Jade is
[32:50] Speaker 2: such a terrible midwife. She takes mirror selfies in the bathroom.
[32:53] Speaker 2: Bathrooms are really unhygienic. How can she be a midwife?
[32:56] Speaker 2: And instantly I know, without a shadow of doubt, this
[33:00] Speaker 2: is Emma. Emma has put in a complaint to the
[33:04] Speaker 2: health Care Complaints Commission about me because it mirrors the
[33:07] Speaker 2: email that she sent me a year before. I was
[33:11] Speaker 2: really upset and I'm like, I can't believe that she's
[33:14] Speaker 2: doing this to me. What have I done to deserve this?
[33:17] Speaker 2: And so I reached out to the union. It was
[33:19] Speaker 2: about a four week process of putting in my response,
[33:22] Speaker 2: waiting for the Healthcare Complaints Commission to come back and
[33:25] Speaker 2: to state our case and things like that. And luckily
[33:27] Speaker 2: when we so, I actually had a screenshot of the email,
[33:30] Speaker 2: so I hadn't deleted it. I just never responded to it.
[33:33] Speaker 2: So when we put the email next to the complaint,
[33:35] Speaker 2: it was very clear to see. I just had no
[33:39] Speaker 2: clue why on earth they would decide two years after
[33:45] Speaker 2: to have a go at my career. I explained the
[33:47] Speaker 2: situation we have to get a lawyer, and so I
[33:50] Speaker 2: work with the lawyer and basically we fight this claim
[33:53] Speaker 2: as what's called the vexatious claim, which just proves that
[33:56] Speaker 2: this is someone who's just trying to have a go
[33:58] Speaker 2: at you to ruin your career, and it's not actually
[34:01] Speaker 2: an unsafe practice or something that needs to be investigated.
[34:04] Speaker 2: And of course it gets wiped and everything's fine. But
[34:08] Speaker 2: I could not believe it, and so so I hadn't
[34:11] Speaker 2: had any contact with Harry's family for that year. But
[34:14] Speaker 2: I do reach out to his mum and I go, hey,
[34:16] Speaker 2: this has just happened, and this is really serious. She's
[34:19] Speaker 2: tried to attack my career. I know that it's her
[34:22] Speaker 2: because it mirrors the email verbatim. It's been proved that
[34:26] Speaker 2: it's her, even though it's anonymous. Have you had any
[34:29] Speaker 2: contact do you know why this might be happening? Now?
[34:31] Speaker 2: A year later, and Harry's poor mom says that Harry
[34:35] Speaker 2: hasn't had any contact with her since he cheated on
[34:39] Speaker 2: me and got married to this girl, So he's completely
[34:41] Speaker 2: cut off his whole family, and so his poor mom
[34:44] Speaker 2: is really sad about it and goes, look, I'm really sorry.
[34:46] Speaker 2: I don't know why this is happening, but unfortunately he's
[34:49] Speaker 2: not a part of our family anymore either, by his choice.
[34:51] Speaker 1: It was a stressful situation, and even though Jade's name
[34:55] Speaker 1: was cleared of any wrongdoing at work, it had rocked
[34:57] Speaker 1: her pretty hard. Thankfully, Matt was there supporting her the
[35:00] Speaker 1: whole time.
[35:01] Speaker 2: He'd heard the story about my ex and all of
[35:05] Speaker 2: the craziness, so he was super supportive, but definitely was
[35:09] Speaker 2: pretty and going, let's make sure that there's nothing that
[35:12] Speaker 2: they can do to get to you. I mean, I
[35:14] Speaker 2: hadn't done anything wrong at work, so I was safe,
[35:16] Speaker 2: but it stills a little bit of a hit to
[35:18] Speaker 2: the ego and the confidence when that happens. So we
[35:20] Speaker 2: both made sure that all of our socials were on private,
[35:22] Speaker 2: which they were, and all that kind of stuff, and
[35:24] Speaker 2: he just supported me through it and made me able
[35:27] Speaker 2: to see the laughable side of it. So life moves on.
[35:31] Speaker 2: I just add it as yet another chapter in this
[35:34] Speaker 2: crazy story and I forget about it once we're finished
[35:37] Speaker 2: with the lawyer.
[35:38] Speaker 1: And then you guessed it.
[35:39] Speaker 2: One year later, I am on a holiday with my family.
[35:44] Speaker 2: We were talking about the fact that my boyfriend used
[35:47] Speaker 2: to make little DJ mixes back when he was in
[35:50] Speaker 2: UNI and post them on SoundCloud, and I was like, oh,
[35:52] Speaker 2: that's so funny. I wonder if they're still there, And
[35:55] Speaker 2: so he brings up his SoundCloud to see if the
[35:58] Speaker 2: mixers are still there, and SoundCloud gives you a little
[36:02] Speaker 2: bit of a breakdown of your top listeners and things
[36:04] Speaker 2: like that. And because he only mixed DJ things tracks
[36:08] Speaker 2: in Uni, he didn't think that he would have any listeners.
[36:11] Speaker 2: It's just a silly Uni thing. But he has a
[36:14] Speaker 2: number one top listener who listens to each of his
[36:18] Speaker 2: two tracks every single month for the last eight months.
[36:22] Speaker 2: And it's Emma. Emma has found my boyfriend on SoundCloud
[36:28] Speaker 2: and has for some reason decided to listen to every
[36:32] Speaker 2: single one of his things, his two uploads, every single
[36:36] Speaker 2: month for eight months. And at this where just like,
[36:40] Speaker 2: what the hell? How I don't understand what is your
[36:44] Speaker 2: motive behind this? How did you find him? How did
[36:47] Speaker 2: you find him on SoundCloud of all things? His username
[36:50] Speaker 2: wasn't even his proper name. I just was like, this
[36:53] Speaker 2: is crazy, it was insane. I had blocked and made
[36:57] Speaker 2: myself really private before I posted anything, just to protect
[37:00] Speaker 2: our safety. And so unless she has a burner account
[37:04] Speaker 2: that I wasn't aware of that she's talking me on
[37:08] Speaker 2: unless she has a burner account that she's stalking him on.
[37:11] Speaker 2: But how would she find him? I don't even get it.
[37:13] Speaker 2: He and I literally didn't even grow up in the
[37:15] Speaker 2: same place. I don't understand how she could have known
[37:19] Speaker 2: and we met on hinge. It's not like we met
[37:21] Speaker 2: at the same church or at the same workplace. But yeah,
[37:25] Speaker 2: and also, what do you gain from stalking someone's SoundCloud
[37:29] Speaker 2: and listening to their mixes twice a month every month?
[37:33] Speaker 2: It's just so random. So when he pulls it up
[37:36] Speaker 2: and sees Emma, he goes, hold on, I think I
[37:38] Speaker 2: know who that is. Is that your ex's wife? And
[37:41] Speaker 2: I was like, oh my gosh, it is. We're both gobsmacked.
[37:44] Speaker 2: And then in May of twenty twenty five, we pull
[37:47] Speaker 2: up the SoundCloud again, just curious to see if she's
[37:49] Speaker 2: still looking, and she is. She still has continued every
[37:52] Speaker 2: month to listen to the tracks twice from December until May,
[37:57] Speaker 2: and so at that point my boyfriend blocks her and goes,
[38:00] Speaker 2: that's it. We cannot do this anymore. And that was
[38:03] Speaker 2: the last that we heard from Harry or Emma.
[38:06] Speaker 1: And While Jade was relieved to finally be on her
[38:09] Speaker 1: own three years after the breakup, what she missed most,
[38:12] Speaker 1: the ache that never fully faded wasn't Harry, but the
[38:15] Speaker 1: family she'd lost with him.
[38:19] Speaker 2: I haven't had any conversation with Harry's family or anything
[38:22] Speaker 2: like that, so I'm not sure whether he's ever spoken
[38:25] Speaker 2: to them again since the breakup. And unfortunately, my friendship
[38:28] Speaker 2: with the sister did kind of deteriorate just because of
[38:31] Speaker 2: the distance that we had to make to protect myself
[38:34] Speaker 2: and my life and my current relationship and those kind
[38:36] Speaker 2: of things. But no bad blood. I ran into one
[38:39] Speaker 2: of his brothers at the beach and we didn't say
[38:41] Speaker 2: anything to each other, but Harry definitely wasn't there, so
[38:44] Speaker 2: I assume that he's just living life in America with
[38:48] Speaker 2: a girl who still wants to stalk his ex. It's
[38:51] Speaker 2: really sad when you lose other things when you end
[38:55] Speaker 2: a relationship, anyr relationship is obviously hard, regardless of whether
[38:58] Speaker 2: it was bad blood, nice blood, all that kind of stuff.
[39:01] Speaker 2: But that was one of the really hardest things, was
[39:04] Speaker 2: losing a family that was really kind to me and
[39:07] Speaker 2: was supportive, and some really good friends. But I think overall,
[39:13] Speaker 2: I have gained so much from this breakup. I've gained
[39:16] Speaker 2: a really funny story to tell when you've had a
[39:18] Speaker 2: few drinks. I've also gained an amazing therapist and a
[39:21] Speaker 2: good boyfriend, and emotional maturity and so much that I
[39:25] Speaker 2: would never have achieved if I didn't go through this trauma,
[39:28] Speaker 2: because I feel like sometimes you really need to be
[39:30] Speaker 2: broken down in order to be rebuilt, and this gave
[39:32] Speaker 2: me such a great opportunity. So while they're auscars and
[39:36] Speaker 2: things that I've lost along the way that are really sad,
[39:40] Speaker 2: there's also so much that I've gained that I just
[39:42] Speaker 2: have to be grateful for it. All.
[39:59] Speaker 1: Everyone has an ex It's a Minti Media production and
[40:02] Speaker 1: proudly part of the Mum and mea Network. This episode
[40:05] Speaker 1: was written and produced by Linda Scott, interview conducted by
[40:09] Speaker 1: Eilish Laney and narrated by me Georgia Love. If you
[40:12] Speaker 1: have a story you'd like to share, email podcast at
[40:15] Speaker 1: momamea dot com dot au. You can support the show
[40:18] Speaker 1: by following it in your favorite podcast app and leaving
[40:21] Speaker 1: us a five star review. We'll see you for the
[40:23] Speaker 1: next episode.

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