The Person I Was Is No Longer Here

In 2015, I broke up with my fiancé, and a lot of people were left wondering what the hell happened. I think that it’s time for the truth to come out of hiding. So if you’re reading this, I hope you’re ready for the truth, because the truth is ready for you.

The person I once was is no longer here. I wish I could say that I changed myself for the better, but to be completely honest, I really can’t take the credit. The thanks belong to my ex. Our relationship, and our breakup, shaped me into the person I am today and I could not be more grateful that it happened.

Before we first met, I was a country girl living in a country town, senior year at school, wearing my denim shorts, small men’s t-shirt and my favourite pair of converse shoes. Make up was optional, bras were overrated, and I had nearly no self-confidence. I was a pushover with purpose.

He was a city boy that moved across states to a small town to study and live with his dad. He was stylish, funny, and very popular. It was 2010 and we met at a social event. I was sitting on my own, and he came and sat with me speaking with me for hours. He showed interest in me when no one else noticed I was there. We exchanged numbers and we just kept on talking from that night onwards.

He helped me pick my confidence up. He told me to take pride in my appearance so he bought me dresses and accessories and got rid of my daggy clothes I always wore. I got a lot of compliments, and I started to feel better about myself that people were noticing me and how I looked. We became the ‘happy couple’, always having a good time. I fell so desperately in love with him, but I was soon to learn that nobody is perfect.

After only 6 months of being an item, my family and I went overseas for a holiday. While we were overseas, I got a message, and it broke me. He had cheated. And not with a random on a drunken night out, but at a friend’s house with a girl who went to my school. She was fourteen years old. He was nineteen years old. Police were involved and he was very lucky that she decided not to press any charges. I didn’t even know what to do. I remember telling mum and just sobbing so hard that my heart felt like it was ripping to pieces inside of my chest. The worst part was that I had to go back to school and face that girl every single day.

After driving 8 hours in the car from the city airport back to home (fuel was so much cheaper than flights home to our small town), he came over half an hour after we arrived home. We met in a room with the door closed and we cried as we held each other. I forgave him, and we moved on. I loved him so much; I wasn’t going to just throw it away. I knew how bad he was hurting from what he did.

We had some rough moments after that, but we always pushed through it. It was like our mission to prove the odds wrong and make it, despite what we had gone through. People always told me “A tiger never changes its stripes, and cheaters never change.” But I refused to believe them.

As the years passed we did lots of fun things together. We were best friends. We moved in together, had our first pet, and went on numerous holidays out of state to visit his family. He made me feel good about myself. He bought me pretty bikinis and would tell me how good I looked in them, and our dinners always consisted of great food, great company, and a nice cold beer or wine.

‘The happy couple’ we were. What the hell happened?

He started a new job and had the greatest work mates. They were always so funny and sociable. I used to go in and talk to them all of the time. But things started to change a lot when they all went out drinking all of the time, sometimes even inviting their partners and friends, but never me. He always told me that no one else’s partners were coming, or that it was a work meeting at the pub, or that he was finally making friends and to stop getting in the way.

But the crazy within me took over.

We’d had so many issues in the past with him not only sleeping with someone else, but numerous times I found him talking to other girls online as well. These past events fuelled my crazy until it burned uncontrollably. I would check his Facebook to see when he was last active, I tried to find out if other partners had gone, I’d even call to see how his night was going when really it was just to see how drunk he was and question why the hell is he so smashed on a “work meeting” night. He was hiding things, and the hardest part about your partner lying to you, is knowing that they’re lying to you. There were so many things that I found out about and he denied them all. “You just don’t trust me all because I screwed up all of those years ago!” he’d say.

Things only escalated when his work colleagues were pretty much his only friends. They’d message each other all day on the work email chat, and then hang out for drinks afterwards. He started drinking a lot more, and I remember so many nights during the week undressing him and tucking him into bed because he got drunk at home and passed out.

But as I said, we had set out to prove everyone wrong and defy the odds, so we made it work. Or should I say I made it work? I was studying at university and was in my second year, while also working, driving him around everywhere as we only had one car, as well as doing everything at home since he was never there anymore. Everyday I cooked, cleaned, did the dishes, washing, packed him lunches, put his clothes away, ironed his uniforms, to name a few. I felt like a maid service because despite saying something, he never helped me. How could he when he was working 24/7 and out every time he had a free night? It got to a point where I’d pick him up from work, only for him to bring home paperwork and spend the entire night continuously working. He put his work emails on his personal phone and laptop, and it was all he ever talked about.

We went away and had a holiday to see his family in another state, and while we were away he asked me to marry him. I said yes! We had been together 4 years, so although it had been rough, especially at that time, I felt as though we could do it. I loved him and did everything I could to make it work, bending over backwards to keep him happy and in love with me. And what a better way to secure our future than to get married, right?

When we got home, he got promoted at work and his workload doubled. It became lonely nights at home waiting up so I could go pick him up, and getting up early in the mornings to spend that little time together we had. One night I picked him up from work at 3am, and he said, “Sorry, got caught working late tonight.” That is when I thought for the first time, “He doesn’t love me anymore.” And to this day, I’ll never truly know what he really meant when he said he was “working late”.

We went across state 6 months later to have an engagement party with his side of the family, and at this point he was overworked, overwhelmed, and ready to relax. I was so excited to have time to spend with each other. The night of the engagement party came around and we popped the champagne with the family to celebrate our engagement. As the night went on, he became more and more intoxicated. I tried to have some of his attention, or even just to hold his hand or give him a hug, but he seemed completely uninterested in me. I was so confused. Wasn’t this night to celebrate us? Why was he being so distant?

The end of the night approached and most of the family had left. I went over to give him a kiss, and he bumped me out of the way as he walked over to his friends. I was on the verge of falling apart. Ignore me the entire night, and then refuse a kiss and push me out of the way? I don’t think so. I went over to him and said I’d had enough. I told him I was going in the room for a while to get some space. As I started walking inside, I heard him yelling at me.

I got into the room and he had followed me in and closed the door. He was so drunk, so angry, and I was so terrified. I told him why I was upset. I took off my ring and held it up to him and said, “You gave me this because you said you loved me. Do you even still want this?” He snatched the ring out of my fingers and threw it across the room and slapped my face. I just froze and started crying. This wasn’t the man I was in love with.

He then grabbed me by my throat and held me against the wall. I couldn’t even move or scream. I was paralysed with fear. He then threw me onto the ground and began to kick me violently as hard as he could. My mind went into a panic and I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out, and fast. I tried to get out but he ran in front of the door so I couldn’t escape, and started coming towards me. Petrified, I grabbed him and threw him behind me and took a break for the door. After hearing the loud bang of him hitting the mirror on the wall, the door opened and people flooded in to see what was going on, and there was my fiancé, on the bed sobbing because I had hurt him.

One of my dear friends that were there came over to me and said, “What happened?” I just fell to pieces and I said, “He hit me! He hit me! Why did he do that? He hit me!” His family said it happens to everyone. They all said that couples are rough with each other sometimes. But they had no idea what had really happened, and they were upset that I had ruined the beautiful night they had organised. The only person that believed me was my one friend. He slept on the couch and allowed me to have his room, so I could be away from everyone, and the monster that was my fiancé.

The next day, I headed straight for the shower. I looked over myself in the mirror and I was covered in bruises. I broke down in tears. He came into the bathroom to bring me my clothes, and he saw my body. “What’s that from?” I couldn’t even respond. I remember seeing his face change as he began to realise what he had done. I did my best to cover the marks that he left on my body so that no one would see. I was so ashamed, and there was no way that I could even say anything. No one would listen anyway; they were all disappointed in me that I made a scene in the first place.

When we got back home, I said to him, “We need counselling.” We started seeing someone both individually and as a couple, but nothing helped. He didn’t understand what he had done, and it was as though he had no remorse for his actions. Whenever he would yell or slam something, I would flash back to that night, and I’d stop breathing and have a panic episode.

I remember in bed one night he kicked me out to the lounge room because I was having a panic attack and was being too loud. “Unlike you, I have work in the morning!” I felt so alone, so afraid, and I couldn’t tell anyone about what had happened. He was always the life of the party and so friendly and nice, so no one would ever believe me. The wedding was only a few months out too so I couldn’t just walk away.

My mental health spiralled out of control and in no time at all I found myself looking for a way out. I remember one night we had a fight, and I ran away and tried to jump in front of a car, but I just couldn’t bring myself to it. I remember another time I was alone and had the opportunity to overdose on prescription medication. I had a heap and was just going to take everything that was there. I took a few, and then broke down crying. I couldn’t do it. I remember thinking, “I’m not even strong enough to do this. I really am nothing.”

I reached a point of complete despair, and I decided that I needed to leave. If I didn’t get out, I was so scared that one day I would have the courage to do what I needed to do to escape from my reality. I called a friend and she came and picked me up with a few of my things, and I called it quits with my fiancé.

He was so broken that I was leaving him, and he sobbed at my feet while I gathered my things from the house. After we were living apart, we met up to have a talk about what went wrong. “I just want to start again. Can we go back to the beginning? No pressure, and we can just have little dates like we used to?” I still loved him so badly, so I agreed. We started meeting up, and before long I was back in his bed with his warm arms around me, and sweet words in my ear.

Things started to feel so much better. I felt like we really could make it through. He admitted to his wrongs, and made an effort to fix things. We were going great until one night he told me that he had a lot going on and needed to think about things. He said things were the same with us, he loved me, but he just had so much happening. I went to visit him to surprise him with his favourite take out, which is what I used to do when things were tough for him, only to find someone already there.

He had been sleeping with his brand new employee.

I was lost for words. I thought we were dating? I thought we were starting again? And his interpretation of that was to take a girl home to the bed that we had begun to share again?

I had nothing left to lose. I was already reduced to nothing. So I walked in the door and confronted him. He was telling her about how crazy I am. How I’m controlling and needy and psycho. Well, yes, I was. Because there’s only so many times a girl can be manipulated, lied to, cheated on and made to be a fool before she starts to lose her mind.

I remember being so furiously angry that I lost complete control. I yelled and I screamed and I cried and I fell to pieces in front of them both. I marched downstairs to get the rest of my belongings, only for him to follow me. He pushed me up against the wall and told me to get the hell out of his house, and as I tried to escape his force, he ripped my shirt trying to grab me back. I ran outside and called the police, and before long I was up at the emergency unit because I couldn’t breathe from a severe panic attack.

I had to face the truth. It was over between us. I was broken, bruised, hurt, and I felt completely alone. I had nothing.

After help and love from my family and a few good friends, I picked myself up and made a life for myself. I had my own apartment and worked three jobs to support myself. I travelled, made new friends, experienced new things, and before long I healed. For months, even after my ex had started a new relationship with his colleague, he kept messaging me, asking for me to come back to him. Saying that he’ll leave her in a heartbeat if I’d have him. And I realised that all those years ago, those people were right. Tigers really don’t change their stripes, and cheaters never change.

I learned so much about the relationship I was in and myself as a person after looking back at it all. I studied all of the mistakes and the things that I could have done, but I knew I couldn’t change it. I just knew that my next relationship was not going to be like this. I now knew my worth and what I deserved. While looking back upon the past, I started to notice all of the things that I was blinded to because of my love.

Like how he told me my favourite clothes made me look terrible so I had to dress better.

Like how he made me throw away things that I loved. Like how I couldn’t wear my favourite bikinis because apparently they didn’t make my boobs look big enough. Like how I wasn’t allowed to hang out with one of my best mates because I might get feelings for him and cheat. Like how the only nice things he did for me and bought for me were always to keep me quiet.

So, fast forward a few years, and here I am, living with the man of my dreams, and being treated like an absolute queen. We have so much respect for each other, so much trust, and we have a bond that to some seems so unrealistic. When we argue we always show each other so much love and respect, even though we don’t agree, and we let each other do the things we love without question. I wear whatever I want, do whatever I want to do, and he loves me nonetheless.

The person I was is no longer here. So, let me re-introduce myself to you all. I am a country girl living in a bus on a farm, wearing my denim shorts, small men’s t-shirt and my trusty farm boots. Make up is optional, bras are overrated, and I feel so confident in myself. My heart is full, my mind is open, and my body is beautiful, no matter what anyone else says.