Driving Me Crazy

0:10Speaker 1:You're listening to a Mother Mea podcast. Muma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters.

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0:26Speaker 1:Freedom. There's nothing quite like it. That's probably why George Michael, for Eh Williams, and John Batiste all have songs about it. But today we're talking about freedom in a relationship that glorious feeling, especially at the beginning of a new romance, when everything feels light, electric and full of possibility.

0:45Speaker 2:I had finally met somebody that was way beyond my energy levels, and he was like a real revel without a cause, you know, just seemed really alive and passionate and interested and interesting, had lots to say, loved engaging in conversation. He would be very flattering about what I'd done, and he's like, you know, you seem like you really live your life, like you really do so much and you get to live your life. And he was very flattering of that, and I also felt the same about him.

1:18Speaker 1:But what George Michael didn't get into was that freedom can easily be taken for granted, and like everything, there's no guarantee it will last forever. If for when that sense of freedom starts to slip away in a relationship, the consequences don't always just hunt you. They can start a ripple, affecting everything and everyone around you.

1:37Speaker 2:I was no longer traveling. I was now stuck in the house with him, and when I would go travel, he would ghost me. There was a court ordered psych evaluation that ended up sort of saying that he prescribed him antipsychotics because he really was loose. He was super wild. But you know what I originally loved about him was now turning into something that was really toxic about him.

2:15Speaker 1:I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an ex Come with me as we dive into a collection of unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the hearts of the very people who lived them. Meet June, a bona fide boss lady who had built her own events business, but at age thirty two, found herself standing at a bit of a crossroads.

2:36Speaker 2:I had been single for quite a long time, but my previous relationship had really really burnt me. And the reason why is because I've been running my own business for the last ten years and I chose my business over the relationship, and that really stung. And you know, I said to myself that the next time I have the opportunity to make that decision, I would choose the relationship, not the business. I'd been single for a really long time, and I was at this point where I was really desperate to pair up with somebody. I really wanted a relationship, and I was putting myself out there and I just wasn't finding the one.

3:19Speaker 1:And then a blast from the past did the old DM slide.

3:22Speaker 2:I knew Zach from before, maybe when I was in my young twenties. We had circulated in the same group of people, and he was always somebody that had really captured my I and imagination. He was incredibly handsome at this stage now at thirty two, where I have really had my feelers out to see who was out there, and I spent plenty of time on social media and I do a lot of content making, and he was starting to repeat himself in my DMS, and I really had written him off as somebody that I wanted to communicate with. But over time I think that we were having pleasant conversations and I was like, oh, you know, where are you? What are you doing now? I just put on an event and I was looking for another location to put the event on, and you know, I look for rural locations, and so I was curious as to where he was because it seemed like he was on a cattle farm. And I was, okay, great, like, where are you? Like, what are the roads like up there?

4:31Speaker 2:And so I guess, you know, if I was honest with myself, it was probably under the guise of wanting to see him and see what he was up to. But so I traveled up to where he was, and at the time, I was very transient. I could live in my van, so I was on the road a lot. So I sort of took myself up there and met up with him, and from that moment, I was just like, wow, the same. I was so captivated, just like I was at the beginning when I knew him all those years ago.

5:04Speaker 2:He was such a huge personality. And I also had this I love of big, dramatic people, like I loved big characters and interesting people, and he absolutely was that. When I when I first saw him again.

5:20Speaker 1:The attraction was there, and from that very moment they reconnected. There truly was just something about Zach. He was high energy, fun, gorgeous and a little adventurous and June was totally into it.

5:33Speaker 2:He was very fast paced, very like walks over there and he gets something done, tinker's with something over here, and then he walks over there. And the way that he drove, He's had such characteristic cars, and he loved old cars and used to because you know, he lived on a cattle farm and there was plenty of space out there, lots of room. So you know, we would rally drive the car down to the tip where we would unload all the rubbish to the tip, and would I get to drive the rally car back to the house and you know, the floor had eroded out of this car, and like all of these really exciting things that we would do. And we'd go far driving out the back of the property and on motorbikes. And he had just this immense energy, always for activities and stuff to do. And I really share that. And I've always interacted with people that didn't have as much energy as I did. And I had finally met somebody that was way beyond my energy levels. I thought, wow, this is a powerful man because of just how much energy he had.

6:37Speaker 2:And he was like a real rebel without a cause, you know, just seemed really alive and passionate and interested and interesting, had lots to say, loved engaging in conversation. He had followed me on Instagram through all of these years, so he knew a lot about my life, and so you know, he would ask lots of questions and he would be very flattering about what I'd done, and he's like, you know, you seem like you really really live your life, like you really do so much and you get to live your life. And it was very flattering of that.

7:11Speaker 2:And I also felt the same about him. I was like, wow, you you totally you're a tornado around here. So it was real, like a real strong connection for me.

7:22Speaker 1:Now they hadn't crossed into romance just yet, but the signs were unmistakable. Things were definitely heading that way. So for June, that made leaving incredibly difficult.

7:32Speaker 2:I would stay for longer and longer, and I would use the opportunities to continue to suss out the area for this next event. And he lived by himself there, so I just kept on staying. I felt really welcome, you know, like we were doing tasks around the farm. I was learning all these new skills, and I felt welcome. So I just kept on staying longer and longer periods, and occasionally I would go home, but I just kept on coming back. I was staying in the spare room for quite a while, and he didn't have his sheets on his bed, like he was always in his room whatever.

8:11Speaker 2:I was in this spare room, and I think it would probably take maybe six weeks of me really spending time together. Then suddenly one day's like, oh, my my sheets are in the wash. Can I can I come into your room? And like He's like, no funny business, I just need to be in here logistically, And I was like, yeah, that's fine. And he cuddled me and put his arm around me, and I said to myself, I was like, this is the best moment of my life. Like it felt like like my whole body, all my senses just came alive. I barely slept a wink. I just felt like, this is the man I'm getting married.

8:51Speaker 2:It felt so good. It was a natural progression. He would say these little things, you know, he'd sort of say them over his shoulder or looking the other way, and I would think that I heard something and I'd be like what, and he it's a nothing, you know, and but what I would hear is like I've been waiting so long for this, you know, and those little, small little remarks, and I was like, what'd you say? And he would sort of just brush it off as if he didn't say anything. And you know, he you know, when obviously started sharing a bed, and he'd say things like hold me, hold me, like he was very loving.

9:35Speaker 2:The first couple of months were very courty, like we were still courting and there was so much to do, and still even though we knew each other from another time, there was still so much to learn about each other, so it was slow moving. At the start. It was very cute, very cute, very teenagey sort of star will she won't won't she? Like? Will he won't he? Like? My perspective of it was that he was quite shy, very endearing, and it also kept you on your toes, so you were like, is this going somewhere? Yea, is it not? Like and he would say these small little things, so I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a sign that he also feels the same way about me, you know, So it was this really fun. I was very nervous, like it wasn't I didn't feel very comfortable in the dynamic, but that's what kept me. I was was like, is this something like, it seems like he really cares about me.

10:32Speaker 2:He did all these little things, like, you know'd make sure i'd have slippers on if I was having to do some work, and he would come and get all these different drinks for me. And so I'm like, all these things just showed me that he was caring for me. So yeah, it was really nice time. Over time, eventually we were in this really sparks flying era of We just were obsessed with each other and I felt like he felt the same. And I think one day he had his family around and he introduced me as his girlfriend, and that was kind of the first All his family were like, oo, did you hear that? And so that's when I first felt like that was an official we are together. And all in all, it probably took maybe two months, which is a long time, but I was very much waiting for him to make these decisions.

11:30Speaker 1:After that decision was made, it was full steam ahead.

11:33Speaker 2:Or I just never went back home. I moved my business. I rented out an office in the town that was close by, and I had moved everything up, so I was fully committed pretty quickly. But again at the time, I was very transient person, so I didn't mean too much for me to relocate to rural New South Wales. It didn't really mean too much. I was already very loose and floating, so and I was still traveling quite a bit. I would leave for weeks on end just with business and come back and it just became my base organically. I think that we just became a meshed quite quickly. And he would say things like one day we could put a house on top of the hill, because the farm was his parents farm, so you know, the parents would come up and I was, you know, hanging out with them and getting to know them too, and he's like, one day we could put a house on the top of the hill. And so he would say things that would be we're building a dream life together, like you're here for good. This is us now, like let's let's figure out where we're going with this sort of thing. So it was really just spoken word between us.

12:51Speaker 2:There was no set point in time. But you know, you'd also say things if we went out with his folks down somewhere and we'd go past this cute little church. He'd say things like this is where we'll get married one day, and just these little things that kind of led you to the that we're united, we're working towards something.

13:14Speaker 1:Life felt almost perfect, smooth, full, exactly as she'd once imagined. And yet there was one small persistent detail that kept tugging at June's attention.

13:25Speaker 2:I always witnessed him drinking a lot of beer, but he seemed very casual about it. You know, there was lots of half empty beers around, like he wouldn't so it didn't seem like a big problem because well, he wasn't drinking the whole beer a lot of the time. And at the beginning, you know, maybe we would go forward driving and he'd have a hip flask of something and we'd both share it, and so it was this sort of shared thing. And I, prior to getting into this relationship, I actually hadn't I'd stop drinking for about three years prior, but I didn't want there to be a huge divide, so I ended up started to drink with him, and it was fun, you know, we were having fun with it. It didn't seem like a problem.

14:04Speaker 2:It seemed like something that was a shared thing and we'd have fun together. I love to do a lot of outdoor activities. I love going hiking and biking and running and going to see things and climbing mountains. And I quickly realized that he was very avoidant of those activities, and what we would tend to do was go to the pub, or if we were going out to dinner, would go out for drinks and dinner. And there was this real repetitive thing. And even though I enjoy going out for dinner, it wasn't really something that was super in my That wasn't a list of things that I tended to do. So I was going out for dinner and drinks pretty much all the time because that's what he would do. You know. I could see that his family was very centered around alcohol as part of their family culture. His family drank a lot, He drank a lot.

14:57Speaker 2:I was like, Okay, I mean, it's still just within that's his life style. Doesn't mean that he can't bring it down, and we can. People can find themselves drinking too much, you know, we can sort of reel it back in and we can find a way through that. So I wasn't totally concerned.

15:13Speaker 1:But that was about to change when one year into the relationship something happened that caused more than just concern.

15:20Speaker 2:He got caught drink driving high range, and so he lost his license. I would say for about eight months, I was just his driver, like I didn't have time to really do anything else. He was so demanding to be driven around everywhere. We lived in a very isolated environment. You know, he lives on a farm, so farms do need a lot of equipment, and a lot of trips to the hardware, a lot of trips to the agriculture stores, and a lot of trips to town. It just suddenly became my full time job, and I at that stage was driving well over probably fourteen hundred kilometers a week just driving him around. We would get caught in these kind of arguments where I was like, can we just quickly go down, We'll just do it this morning because I've got work to do this afternoon, and he would just not have any respect for my time and blow through the whole day. And I'd get home and I just was getting so frustrated. Even to get to our small town, which only had a few amenities, was about thirty five minutes in If you really put the foot down, and he would spend two hours just running around doing absolutely nothing and buying things that he really didn't need,

16:49Speaker 2:and then we would spend forty five minutes going back. But you know, if we had to go down to a bigger city that had more things, which we have to do a lot, it would take an hour to get there or an hour and a half, depending which one we choose. So it's an all day thing. This isn't just popping down to the shops. This is if I had to take him to town, it takes all day. And if he was in town, he runs away. It's really hard to get him back in the car. It's not just like, let's just go in to town for a quick I need to pick up a couple of things for dinner, and then get back in the car and go home. He would get to town and he would disappear. He just would disappear. He would just I wouldn't know where he went. Maybe he would go down to the mechanic shop and then he'd come back, and then he'd be in the bar, and then he'd go down up to the post office and then go to the pub down the road, and I was just like I can't see him, and I'd see him in the distance, sort of crossing the road. And he was always very fast paced, so always walking so far ahead of you and you're sort of having to jog to keep up.

17:54Speaker 2:So I'd sort of be jogging around town trying to cop Okay, let's go after this. We'd really need to get home. I'd got to do all these things or whatever, and he just wouldn't care, would not care about anything that I had to do. He would say, I never get to come into town, you know, I have to do all these things. And I was like, we've been in town every day this week. We are doing this every day, Like, you don't never get to come into town. I'm always taking you into town. So every day was running around after him, and we wouldn't often leave in the morning and would not get home until dark. The driving and the lack of caring about the time I was spending driving him was starting to make things difficult, and the more I put in some like no, I can't drive you today, I have to go to work, would amount to a huge blow up.

18:45Speaker 1:It was a challenge. They were navigating together, and June showed up with steady support. Despite it, all their love held firm. They shared a farm full of animals they adored. June was embracing the rhythms of farm life, and together they'd found an easy flow at home. But with all this added time spent there, June began to notice something else. Zach was drinking more, a lot more.

19:08Speaker 2:His only way to get alcohol was through me. At his worse, he would drink over a case of beer a day, and at his best it would still be probably at least three six packs. It got to the point halfway through that year that I actually stopped. I said, I'm not going to be buying you alcohol anymore. Don't ask, I'm not going to be doing it. And it was a flat no. It was a never, never, not going to You have to find your own way to do that, because I am against what this is. I'm against it, and you need to stop drinking alcohol.

19:45Speaker 1:Despite June putting her foot down, Zack eventually found other people and other ways to get more alcohol. And then it happened again, a second dui. This time the consequences were far more severe, bringing with them a wave of hard truths neither of them could ignore.

20:02Speaker 2:He was court ordered. He was never allowed to enter into a licensed premises, so he wasn't able to go to a pub anymore. He also was meant to be subjected to random breathalyze the tests because he wasn't meant to be drinking at all. Can't buy it, can't enter into a premises. If the police decided that they wanted to come over and breathalyze him, they could, and he would be in trouble if he had alcohol. I was like, okay, no, this no drinking thing will be good because it means that he's forced to really address the problem. And I felt really uncomfortable buying him anything, and so pretty quickly I said, look, no, I'm not doing it. You're going to have to find another way. And so the ways became very creative. It just didn't It didn't stop him at all. There was a court ordered psych evaluation that ended up sort of saying that he prescribed him antipsychotics because he really was loose. He was super wild. But you know, what I originally loved about him was now turning into something that was really toxic about him. But he didn't want to take those medications. He was reckless and by this stage, I knew he was really mentally unstable.

21:20Speaker 2:So I was dedicated to providing, like, let's get the man some help. Like he was always saying things like no one ever helps me. I just I need help, and he would really lean into the like yeah, I'm unwell, and so I'm like, okay, well let's do something about it then, like let's seek some help, and you know he would agree.

21:43Speaker 1:But dear listener, as we know, there's often a gap between what people say and what they actually do. Zach never got the help he promised, and nothing really changed. June became, in effect his full time driver, something that began to take a toll on her ability to run her business and on their finances as well. Still, one revealing insight began to surface, something that hinted as to why he may be behaving this way.

22:08Speaker 2:You know, he would openly say I'm jealous, and I would I'd be able to say to him, I was like, is it because you're jealous? Like you don't want to want me to go and do these Like I stopped traveling. I was no longer traveling. I was now stuck in the house with him, and when I would go travel, he would ghost me, like there was no communication while I was traveling. And this happened straight from the get go, And so each time I was staring down the barrel of like having to go somewhere. If I was going away for a couple of weeks, I'd get so anxious because he would stop talking to me, and I knew he stopped talking to me. And if I was going away for work and I was like brainstorming ideas that I would do while I was over there, he was always really negative about the ideas, which then led to a lot of insecurity. I'd stopped all this sort of decision making was that I didn't want to feel those feelings, so I just would like not go, Okay, I'm not going to go, like I don't want to, or like he would have this kind of crisis where leading up to it where I'm like I felt like I couldn't go.

23:14Speaker 2:And eventually these yeah just kept me pulling more and more into myself and losing a lot of the freedoms I had. And why I think he would do it is because you know, alcoholism is devastating. It is a jail cell. He didn't have a car to get him anywhere. He also couldn't go anywhere for more than a couple of hours because he would have these needs. So he was in a living jail. And I think anybody that is living like that that feels totally trapped. It's really hard to watch somebody who does have such freedom to go and do all these things and to do whatever they want and to be happy and not locked up like he is. I could see that it would be hard, and with just how unwell he was, it led to him wanting to take it away. But over time, his behaviors eroded my confidence to do anything and my brain capacity, so I just lost a lot of it. Very motivated and I'm very I'm a problem solver, and I was dedicated to finding out why he was doing these things.

24:32Speaker 2:And I you know, halfway through the second year, I was really starting to seek help. I started going to the doctors to say, like, I'm really not feeling good, and I let them help me with a mental health plan. And I started going to alan on where it's like family members and loved ones of alcoholics, kind of like the sister side of AA. And so I started to learn a lot about it, and that really empowered me to remove myself from the emotional tether like me being the one trying to control his ups and downs. That was me starting to process not being in charge of that and having more freedom to walk away from the house.

25:20Speaker 2:I got a job in town, so I started working for the local council because I didn't have the brain capacity to work on my own business. But I really needed money and I wasn't going to sink myself into the sand pit that he was in. So I went and I applied for just a little job just to see me through. And that job was really great because it got me out of the house every day.

25:43Speaker 1:This new sense of freedom and the space between them seemed to help. Beneath it all, their relationships still rested on a strong foundation, and they were both determined to find their way through what they knew was a deeply difficult patch.

25:55Speaker 2:I continued to try and work on the plight of getting him to stop drinking, and he wanted to. He wanted to, He knew all this. He was very open and honest, and we would have these great conversations that felt like break trees all the time. So I was still very dedicated to trying to make it work. I just kept on telling myself that this was just a bad patch. He just needs love and support. But once we get through this, the bones are good. You know. We do share so much together and we have so much in common, and if he could get help for his drinking, everything would be fine.

26:35Speaker 1:Another part of these good conversations was planning to start a family. It was something June desperately wanted to do with or without Zach.

26:44Speaker 2:I had always said to him that this is something that I want for my future. You know, if you don't want to have a family or a child, that's so fine. You just need to know that that is something. And he really refused to avoid the conversation for a good year and a half. I would say to him, like, it's so fine that you don't, but I at this stage, I am now going to look for a sperm donor, which really set him and he, you know, another six months would go by, and you know, I started teeing up people in my life that would potentially be sperm donors.

27:20Speaker 2:And I was going down this avenue and he said that I wouldn't be with you if you had a child. That's the end of the relationship. And I said that is so fine. You know, I know this about me, that this is something that I want to do before the time is over, that I can do it. That's so fine. But what kept on happening is that he would go be He's like, no, no, I want a family with you. And I'm like, okay, great, let's have a family. Then we'll figure it out. Like we're always working on this road, so like, let's just figure it out.

27:49Speaker 2:Let's figure out how we're going to do that. And then he would backtrack and he's like no, and I was like, okay, that's also fine. But he would do this back and forth and I think I was so in whiplash about doing it. And then he would agree and I said, okay, well then let's do it. Stop throwing me around, and let's do it. So I was by this stage baby hungry and feverish for it. And so we started trying for a child. We ended up falling pregnant after about six maybe eight months of trying.

28:27Speaker 2:He sort of wrapped me up in his arms and he said, oh my god, I'm going to be a father. And he loves children, and I think he you know, what he liked about them is the innocence and just how pure they were, and he sees such light in them. And I always thought that he will be a good dad. So he was really excited and we were both really excited. But I had a horrendous first trimester. I was severely unwell, and at first he was really great at caring for me, and so there was a lot of joy and a lot of hope. And even though I was really really sick, he was being very caring. He was a good cook, and he you know, he'd put all your washing on, and you know, you do all these things. So you know, he had such great characteristics as well, and they really shined in those first couple of months. So things were really looking great.

29:22Speaker 1:Until they weren't. It started with what may seem like the smallest of things.

29:28Speaker 2:I was so unwell that I was like, can you please, just like this, take me for a walk. And I was just so desperate for someone to take me for a walk. Because he was still very much housebound and really entrenched in the house. He still didn't have a license, still was deep in his drinking. He's escalated drinking, and he was still very much house bound. He started to have an extreme anxiety about even leaving the house. It had gotten to that point, so he found it really hard to just go for a walk with me. And he would always say, I'm just so busy, I'm so busy, which is not He's not busy doing anything, you know, he's not really doing anything on the farm. He's not doing anything, but he is busy in his head. So what sort of started turning the pregnancy south was that I was like, I was just desperate for someone to spend time with me, to go for a walk. I really want to be out in nature. Please, can we just do this together? And he just couldn't, And I was getting more and more stressed about that. You know, if that's fine. He was putting the heated blanket on for me at night and making me a cup of

30:33Speaker 2:tea and freshly squeezing the grapefruit and things like that, But what I was asking for directly is like, can you please go for a walk? And he couldn't, And I was getting more and more distressed about that because that's what I really really needed.

30:50Speaker 1:Which then transitions into the biggest of things.

30:53Speaker 2:He started talking to his ex girlfriend Jess. He had always talked about her through our relationship, and I'd always been like, it's you know, it sounds like you guys have got some unfinished business. Why don't you like talk to her or something, reach out Because you talk about her all the time and hearing about her all the time, That relationship for him ended up in a restraining order. She was much younger than him, and his account was that she was a very explosive person too, and she was crazy. I started looking at his computers and looking at his phone when he was away from his phone, which is very rarely because his phone was attached to him like glue. But I did find a way into his computer and all his messages were on his computer, so I saw the extent of their relationship, which was a sexual relationship. There was them reminiscing about all the sex that they used to have, and he would be coaxing her to sort of send nudes and you know, upskirts of herself and things like that. I also found text messages from other girls on there that made it clear that he was also on Tinder and talking to

32:16Speaker 2:lots and lots of different women and treating them terribly. After everything we'd already been through, seeing these messages I felt like my whole body just ran cold, and I just felt incredibly numb. And seeing that was just the most horrendous feeling after it everything already that we'd gone through. There was one particular girl who was being really nice to him, and then he would say something like you look like a fat bitch, and it would just be like sorry. Like it was just this very open, just a way for him to hurt people because he was so hurt, Like he just hurt people, hurt people, and it was just the way to be mean to people because he just felt so crab about himself. And then there was you know, other women that he was just trying to get nudes out. Like he would he'd be like, send me a picture of this, send me a picture of this, and they would, so he had this collection of porn imagery of these poor women. It was cruel.

33:34Speaker 2:I knew he had issues, but I never thought that he could be this cruel.

33:44Speaker 1:It was time for real action. The drinking, the cheating, the blow ups, the strain on his mental health, something had to give. So Zach made a big decision. He went to rehab in Bali.

33:56Speaker 2:I was in tears when he was leaving not because I was sad for him to go, but it was because this the last few years had just been so had ecsmic. I was so exhausted, and I just was in tears, and he just gave me this hug and with the most normal voice, as if none of this has ever happened. He'd just say that this is Everything's going to be okay, and he left. I was seven months pregnant when he went to Bali, and he never made it to the intake. He just decided I didn't want to do it anymore, and then spent two months partying in Bali, and during that time that he was out of the house, I left for good. So it was a very strange clothes to the relationship. It just died away. It was so bizarre. He had to push me unbelievably hard to make me be the one that walks away. I was pretty disappointed, but by that stage thoroughly focused on the pre ignancy. He never came to any appointments. This was my first child. I really did it alone, never had anybody coming to any appointments. I had never had anybody coming to the hospital. Obviously, he couldn't still drive me anywhere. So I was always taking

35:23Speaker 2:myself everywhere. It was a very lonely pregnancy, but I was so joyed the midwives had clocked, as they do, that I was in an unsafe environment and I was really cared for. I was given a support worker, and I had a lot of support during it, and that really helped me untwine, like unwind myself from the grips of what was going on. And also him being out of the house and not talking to me at all. I couldn't contact him at all. He wouldn't respond or communicate or anything like that gave a lot more like breathing space for me to figure out where I was going to go, what I was going to do. And by this stage I had removed all my belongings from the house anywhere because my belongings really annoyed him. So a lot of my stuff was down at my parents, which was three and a half hours away, so it really didn't take too much to leave the house. We really didn't speak to each other again for months. I attempted to communicate through a few different ways about the pregnancy, like this is what's happening. You know. There was some complications there. It was a high risk pregnancy, so I was trying to communicate that with him and his mom,

36:39Speaker 2:but you know, they really weren't interested at all, So I just carried on with what I was doing. It was an incredibly difficult time, and I found it excruciating to be at work. I was incapable of working. My mental health was really bad. But what wasn't bad was the breathing space that I had from him, and everything else just felt so much more manageable without him in my life. I wasn't sure he was even going to be at the It really was the last week of my pregnancy that I heard anything from him, and unfortunately he was there at the book. He looked horrendous. He'd put on lots of weight, he looked shocking because he'd spent a few months partying and eating and just not doing anything, and so he looked horrendous. When I was in hospital about to give birth, and he wasn't in the room even when she was born, he kept on leaving the room and I was on the phone to other people, and so it was just me and my mom in the room, which was nice, which I am really grateful for now because the first person she saw was my mum, and that was the first connection she got when she was born. I definitely felt that the

38:00Speaker 2:spell had been broken, and you know, with her cord cutting, my cord got cut too, and I no longer had any for any drama that he wanted to dish out. I no longer had any need for his love, for his acceptance. When we did reconnect after my daughter was born, a big component of the narrative for him is like, you left me, You took her away from me, You left me, And I was like, no, we split up and I went home to my parents. Where'd you think I was going to go? And he came to visit a couple of times and did a couple of things.

38:41Speaker 2:But in the end, what I kind of knew would happen is that he just took himself away. You know, I used to I'd take her up there a couple of times to try to encourage a connection, but there just really wasn't any that I could see happening. And even though we were in the house, he wasn't he was out working, or his father was up. He was out working with him and really didn't engage with us us much and I'd sort of encourage him to maybe try and put it asleep or like do things that he wanted to build a connection with them, but just don't think that he has it in him. And eventually he made up some drama about like one of our dogs, and by that stage I'd really disconnected from any of his drama. That if he was really upset and unraveling and trying to cause something, it didn't really phase me anymore.

39:44Speaker 2:And I knew a few tactics now, and I had my peace to try to maintain for my daughter. And so you know, even though he was trying to upset me and try to continue the dynamic, I really didn't have anything to offer him anymore. And after that one last blow up about something really silly, I just haven't heard from him again. And that was a year and a half ago. I've heard along the lines that he has told people that he's not allowed to see her, which is not the case at all, but that's something that keeps his looks intact. I've took her away and he's not allowed to see her, but that's not the case at all. He just doesn't have the mental capacity for it. And it's the best thing for our daughter.

40:39Speaker 2:As well. You know, she's now at an age where she definitely understands a lot, and if there was this presence that was a chaotic presence in her life that would sort of tap in but mostly be absent and then come in, tap in and out, it would be extremely detrimental. So I'm very thankful for him in a lot of ways, and I you know, if we do communicate, I'll be telling him that that I was thankful for the decision. And I have no ill feelings towards him, to be honest, I mostly feel a lot of sadness that he's living that life because he has a lot of opportunity, and I am a very peaceful person. I do not want to engage in any arguments. I'd be more than happy for us to like find a way that fits within his abilities to be in her life.

41:31Speaker 2:I'd love that for her. And yeah, I'm hoping that one day he does want to be in her life and come in a really genuine way that knows his limitations in that we can work within it, because it's a real blessing.

41:47Speaker 1:June was determined to be the best mother she could, and to do that, she knew she had to do the work on herself.

41:54Speaker 2:I sought quite a lot of help after it. I was extremely fragile, there was a lot of mistrust in people. There was heaps of residual impact, like emotional impact from it, even though I had severed my ties and I really didn't feel any thing towards him. Coming back to life took a long long time, and I sought helped through a women's refuge sort of service, and they really helped me understand the cycle of abuse, and they helped me educate myself as to why this happened, how common this is, that it wasn't my fault that these things happen, and you can recognize it when it's happening better now, and they really helped me. And I've also have such a strong interest in social services and helping drug and alcohol affected families and people, and so I have gone even though I have tried to recoup my business, it's very difficult being a single parent to have the time to do that. So whilst I'm not given up on rebuilding it, I am also doing some study at night doing drug and alcohol support work. So it has changed my trajectory quite a lot, and I'm really excited to dive in with like lived experience to help people that I listened

43:19Speaker 2:to AA podcasts, I'm still going to alan on. I still am drawn to their experiences and I like reading about it. I love listening to podcasts about addiction. I love reading books about addiction because it all just puts things in perspective and place for me of what I experienced and that it sort of sets in concrete that it really wasn't my fault. And as for Zack, the last year, is not had a working car, so he has gone back to that sort of same routine where he can't get off the farm and relying on other people.

43:57Speaker 2:But I think he from the sounds of it, he's burnt quite a lot of bridges around him. He's an incredibly resilient person. Can't live a life like that without some level of strength to continue on. Because to wake up every day feeling as bad as he does takes a lot of strength. So no doubt he will power on and continue. I hope that he finds some level of function, that he can find some level of peace, and that maybe one day the catalyst comes that needs to come that will change his mindset, and that he does want to participate in, you know, like her life.

44:38Speaker 2:I'm sure she would one day love to meet him, and I hope that she gets to. I don't have any interest in any relationships. Certainly. My priority is to get the parenting right for my daughter. I really don't feel like I have capacity to be the best parent and also get to know somebody. So not to say that in another five ten years that will open up for me, but I'm so obsessed with wanting to be the best for her and to spend any waking moment we can together, and I really have no desire to have anybody else in my life like that. I do have quite a few brothers, so I love spending time with them and their families and connecting my daughter with all this positive masculine energies I can because you know, obviously I worry about her having some father issues when she's older. So what my priority is is bringing beautiful men into her life. So unless there is some person that is really something spectacular, it's not something that I have any drive to do right now. I'm still with my family. They also have a cattle farm, and we just live very close to nature and we get to spend so much time together, and she's wonderful. She looks

46:07Speaker 2:so much like him, and she has such a vibrant energy, and I often think that she will be the best thing that comes out of him, because if she is going to be like him, that'd be wonderful. But I'm hoping that I can help guide her with any anything that she struggles with that potentially he needed help with when he was younger. I really miss the community where we were. I think about it every day. One of the saddest things is that I can't go back there.

46:41Speaker 2:I am really connected to that community and I really miss it a lot. And maybe one day, maybe one day, I will get to go back and pick up where we left off because I really connected to the people and the place. But yeah, I'm about three and a half hours away in a very beautiful part of Australia. We do lots of swimming and there's lots of rivers and rainforest and nature. It's just a very women's centric place as well. It's honors children, so it was just the most perfect soft pillow of a place to come and land. There's just been a lot of support, plenty of single moms, just really beautiful place.

47:37Speaker 1:Everyone has an Eggs's a Minti Media production and proudly part of the Mum and mea Network. This interview was conducted and the episode narrated by me Georgia Love and written and produced by Linda Scott. If you have a story you'd like to share, email podcast at momamea dot com dot au. You can support us by following the show in your favorite podcast app and leaving us a five star review. We'll see you for the next episode.