0:05

A question for you, dear listeners. Can

0:08

men and women just be friends?

0:11

It's a debate as old as time, and

0:13

in any new relationship, a male best

0:15

friend can be a bit of a bone of contention.

0:18

Well, that was exactly the case for Emily and

0:20

Ben when it came to Emily's best mate,

0:24

Chris. He wasn't jealous

0:27

about me, like, you know, if I

0:29

went out or, you know, if I wanted to wear

0:31

something that was a bit risque. He

0:34

didn't care about that. It was just

0:36

purely the

0:38

mention of Chris's name. You

0:40

know, we went to a wedding once, and one

0:43

of my friends had come up to me and said, oh, you

0:45

know, how's Chris? You know, we

0:47

haven't seen him in ages. And I just

0:50

wanted to die. Like, I just wanted to curl up in a ball

0:52

at that moment and be like, don't mention his

0:54

name.

0:55

But isn't the main argument for men and

0:57

women being friends that if they wanted

1:00

to be together, they would be? Ben

1:02

had nothing to worry about.

1:04

Emily and Chris were just besties. Emily

1:06

loved Ben, and she would never lie to him. Would

1:10

she? Curiosity got the better of me. I

1:12

missed him. I wanted to hear what's going on in your

1:14

life. What are you doing? Where have you

1:16

been? So I messaged

1:19

him on Instagram,

1:21

and then we just started chatting again. We

1:24

would just have our little secret chats.

1:35

I'm Georgia Love, and this is Everyone

1:37

Has an Ex. Come with me as we dive

1:39

into a collection of unconventional

1:41

stories about relationships through

1:44

the eyes and the hearts of the very people

1:46

who lived them.

1:48

Emily is a dental nurse, so we can't

1:50

show you her face. But we can

1:53

tell you that in 2017, this

1:55

24-year-old girl from the Gold Coast was

1:57

offered the job opportunity of a lifetime.

1:59

for her and her best friend to go

2:02

and work in the famous backpacker haven of

2:04

Eili Beach. Being a small town,

2:07

you know, there wasn't many trained dental assistants

2:09

there and they were just on the verge of

2:12

closing down because they had no staff. So

2:14

our role was to go up there and

2:16

train some young girls into being

2:19

able to run the practice.

2:21

We said yes to it just because

2:24

we had nothing really going on here. We

2:27

had our in-between jobs working

2:30

in dental and I

2:32

at the time was sort of not

2:35

sure if I wanted to stay on the Gold Coast. I've got

2:37

family back in New Zealand so I was going through

2:39

a bit of a transitional period where I

2:41

really wanted some change in my life. It

2:43

was just getting old the whole

2:47

going out on the weekends, you know, coming

2:49

home, being hung over the next day, going to work.

2:51

It was just Groundhog Day basically.

2:55

So yeah, I was looking for a change and

2:58

then this opportunity came up and, you know,

3:00

to go with your best friend as well, it's like

3:02

amazing. Let's go do this.

3:04

So off they went. They packed

3:06

their bags and headed off to paradise for

3:09

six weeks of fun. Oh, and

3:11

some work, of course. And it didn't take

3:13

long for Emily to be sure this had been the

3:15

right decision because it was day one

3:18

when she met Ben.

3:20

So, yeah, we got up there and everything was fine

3:22

and we were sort of getting introduced

3:25

to the practice and who

3:27

we were going to be training. I had no

3:29

idea who I was going to be working with. And then

3:31

he walked in the door and I remember

3:34

I was talking to one of the staff at

3:36

the time and I just lost my words.

3:38

Like I just completely gone.

3:43

And he sort of just popped his head in the room and

3:45

said, oh, you know, hello, my name is Ben. I'm

3:48

the dentist that you're going to be working with. And I

3:50

was just completely tongue tired. Like, oh,

3:53

and then. Yeah.

3:56

So when he left, I was just saying

3:58

to the to the staff member, I said. Oh my

4:00

God, who is that? And

4:02

she said, that's the dentist. And I was like, the one

4:04

I have to work with, like I can't work with him. Like

4:07

what am I, I can't focus, I can't

4:09

think. Uh oh. I

4:11

remember it like, you know, when people say, oh do

4:14

you believe in love at first sight? He

4:17

was just so handsome. I

4:20

think that was the first thing that got me was he was

4:22

just drop dead gorgeous. He had

4:25

these big muscles

4:27

and he was dressed like in a, like

4:29

a suit without a jacket, you know. Like he's just

4:32

really well dressed and really

4:35

approachable, I guess, just had a really nice energy.

4:38

And I was just obsessed at

4:41

that point. I was like, I have to have this man.

4:43

I don't care what it takes, I'm gonna

4:45

have him.

4:46

Emily was in shock. She was

4:48

a girl who knew what she wanted and

4:50

when she wanted something, she went for

4:52

it. So yeah, we worked together really

4:55

closely. Obviously I was his dental assistant

4:57

and so we were just shoved in a

4:59

room for eight hours a day, pretty much sitting

5:01

in each other's laps, working together.

5:04

And I remember

5:06

we had this painting on the

5:08

wall, it was a photo of a jetty. And

5:11

I used to say to the patients all the time, oh

5:14

do you know if this is taken in a, is

5:16

this a local photo? Like is this somewhere

5:19

in Eley Beach? And people say, oh

5:21

I don't know, why are you asking me that? And

5:24

I used to say, oh because when

5:26

Ben finally gets the courage to

5:28

ask me out, that's where he's gonna take me on

5:31

my first date. I was just constantly

5:34

on this guy like, come on, let's

5:36

go out, let's go for a drink, let's get some dinner.

5:38

But Ben was the consummate professional.

5:41

He'd have a laugh at Emily's cheeky floatations

5:43

but he said it was dangerous to mix

5:45

work with play. It was better they didn't

5:48

hang out outside of work. One day

5:50

I'd just come back from Bali,

5:52

I went on a holiday with my sister to Bali and

5:54

I'd just come back and I had Bali Bali,

5:56

I was sick as a dog and

5:59

everyone.

5:59

was going out. And

6:03

they said, oh, we're going to just go to Ben's house and make him

6:05

come out because he never comes out. He's just,

6:07

you know, gym, healthy eating work, fishing.

6:10

That's all he does. So as soon

6:12

as I heard like, what, you're going to just

6:14

like go to his house and make him come out, I'm putting

6:16

on the makeup, I'm wiping the sweat

6:19

off me, like, I've

6:21

got to be there. No one had even called

6:23

him to say, we're coming over to get you. So he

6:26

was at home cooking dinner, getting

6:28

ready to, you know, watch the footy and turn

6:30

it in for the night. And then he's got all of us

6:32

banging on his door saying, you're coming out, like, get

6:34

ready. We're not taking no for an answer. You're

6:36

coming out. So he

6:39

did. And it was just a lot of tension,

6:43

like, good tension, you

6:45

know, he could, he very

6:47

clearly knew I was very

6:49

interested in him. But I

6:51

was starting to get the feeling like, you know,

6:53

he's more interested than what he's been letting

6:56

on and getting him outside of a work

6:59

environment. He definitely

7:01

started to relax a bit more. And we're

7:04

just like little kids that are bloody blue light

7:06

disco chasing around, like chasing

7:08

each other around, getting drink, and

7:10

then, you know, progressed onto the dance floor.

7:12

And I smoke

7:15

cigarettes, and he doesn't. And I

7:18

knew, okay, yeah, I think he's a bit more

7:20

interested because he would keep following

7:22

me into the smokers area just to

7:25

have chats and sit down and, you know,

7:27

whatever, even though he doesn't smoke. So,

7:29

yeah, it was just a

7:31

lot of sort of cat and mouse, I think

7:33

chasing each other around. And then eventually, everyone

7:36

was walking home. And he just

7:38

said, Do you want to come back to my house? And

7:41

I was like, already halfway

7:43

down the street. Like, come on,

7:45

hurry up. Catch up. Catch

7:48

up. I coincidentally was

7:50

only living just around the corner. So the

7:52

next morning, I went home, packed a bag,

7:55

went straight back to his house, and

7:57

basically just moved in. I never left. much

8:00

from that night onwards we were just completely

8:02

inseparable, did everything together, we

8:05

would you know at work on

8:08

our lunch breaks we would race home just

8:10

to you know have a go

8:12

at each other and then go back to work with messy hair

8:15

and hadn't eaten but you know whatever

8:17

we just couldn't keep our hands off each other it was just

8:20

yeah like amazing. We

8:22

were pretty full on at the start there

8:25

wasn't really any talks of a relationship

8:27

because at that stage I was still planning to

8:29

come back

8:29

to the Gold Coast you know in a

8:32

month's time and so yeah

8:34

we were sort of getting to

8:36

the end of our time together so I just

8:38

called my mum and said can you

8:41

sort out my unit I'm not coming home I'm going

8:44

to stay up here.

8:45

And just like that. It

8:48

just sort of all happened on its own

8:50

it wasn't really any

8:52

of us pushing for something to happen

8:54

it was just all unfolding so naturally and

8:56

I think that's why it was so

8:58

different for me because

9:01

yeah I just never experienced a relationship

9:03

like that where everything was just we

9:05

were both on the same path we both wanted the same

9:08

things and it wasn't even something that really

9:10

needed to be vocalised you could just tell by the

9:12

way we were with each other

9:14

very quickly was like oh my god

9:17

I love you you like I'm just so

9:19

smitten with you.

9:21

He took a lot longer so he

9:23

was very hated you

9:26

know holding hands in public or kissing in public

9:29

he was very paranoid that

9:31

you know patients might see us

9:34

and it's unprofessional and but

9:36

I was like I know you love

9:38

me I know you love me if

9:41

you won't admit it to yourself. He

9:43

was so funny and

9:45

like not trying to be funny he

9:47

was just had me in stitches all the time

9:50

like at the start every

9:52

day we were just laughing we

9:54

were going on adventures we got a little

9:57

tinny and he would take me out in the

9:59

tinny and

9:59

and teach me how to fish and yeah,

10:03

he was just

10:04

perfect. He was really hesitant

10:07

to introduce me to his family because

10:09

his family wanted him to

10:13

be with a lawyer or a doctor

10:15

or, you know, and a lot of his friends were

10:18

with people who were really academic

10:20

and successful and then

10:23

here comes along this little grubby

10:25

dental assistant who, you know.

10:28

So yeah, I think it was at

10:30

first he was a little bit like, oh, how

10:33

do I

10:33

tell people like this

10:35

is who I've picked. But

10:38

eventually when he did start introducing

10:40

me to his friends and stuff, you know,

10:42

we always hit it off straight away and got along

10:45

really well and that sort of eased.

10:48

I think, yeah, he did start to sort of become

10:51

a bit more proud of the person

10:53

he'd picked, yeah. I think

10:55

the one thing that really sort of bonded

10:59

us was both of our love

11:01

of teeth. Where does that sound?

11:03

He loves his job. He loves being

11:05

a dentist and

11:08

I love dentistry. I'm obsessed with dentistry.

11:11

So we would get home and we

11:13

would read, you know, dental

11:15

textbooks or we'd go online

11:18

and look at the dental forums where people

11:20

are sort of, oh, what do you think is going on with this case? And

11:22

we would, it was like a game show to us. I'd give

11:24

my answer, he'd give his answer and then we'd look to see

11:27

who was right. So we really bonded,

11:29

I think, over sharing that

11:32

same drive. I

11:34

think that's something, you know, that

11:37

is really important in relationships is to

11:39

share some goals and share dreams and really

11:41

help each other get there. And

11:44

I think we both really did that for each other.

11:49

After two and a half years together, Emily

11:51

and Ben made the next step in their relationship.

11:54

No, they didn't get engaged or fall pregnant,

11:57

but they did do something that was just as big

11:59

a commitment. they started a business

12:02

together.

12:03

We both knew we wanted to open a practice

12:05

one day. He,

12:07

you know, knows dental side of things, I know admin side of things,

12:11

so we would sit down and we'd talk about, if

12:13

we had a practice, we would do it like this and

12:15

we'd have this, and then that sort

12:18

of just developed into, well, let's

12:20

do it, like, let's open a practice. You

12:22

know, Elie Beach was very small. It

12:25

was already overpopulated with dentists

12:28

for the amount of people that were living there. So

12:30

we decided to move to Brisbane and

12:34

just start the planning process because we knew

12:36

it wasn't going to happen in six months.

12:39

You know, it was going to take a good amount of planning.

12:43

So we moved to Brisbane together

12:45

and he got a job. I got a

12:47

job somewhere else. And we just started

12:50

slowly planning our life.

12:52

I was really happy

12:54

in that time of my life. It

12:56

was stressful, you know, we were leaving

12:58

work, we were leaving the place we had met.

13:03

Even though I have friends and family on the Gold Coast, we

13:05

moved to Redcliffe, so it was still a fair way

13:08

from everyone. So we were still

13:10

quite isolated, but we

13:13

were happy. You know, we had each other, we

13:15

had the cat,

13:17

and that's all we really wanted. We were just

13:19

getting on with life, and

13:21

every now and then we'd go to the Redcliffe

13:24

RSL and watch

13:26

the oldies, and yeah, it was

13:28

nice.

13:30

It was nice when it

13:32

was, but there was one

13:34

niggling issue in their relationship that

13:36

they, well, been, just couldn't

13:39

seem to get past.

13:40

So Chris is

13:42

a friend of mine who I've known since we

13:44

were kids. We worked at Maccas

13:47

together. We've been on overseas

13:49

holidays together. We've always

13:51

been a part of each other's lives and

13:54

maintained a friendship. We have

13:56

had romantic relationships.

13:59

relationship with each other in the past, but

14:03

usually if he's seeing someone or if I'm seeing

14:05

someone, we're both very respectful of that and we

14:07

don't want to cause issues for each other. So

14:13

when we were still living

14:15

in Ealy Beach, I had come

14:17

back to the Gold Coast to surprise one of my

14:19

girlfriends for her birthday. And

14:23

while I was away,

14:25

Ben had gone through my

14:27

laptop and I didn't have passcodes

14:30

or passwords or anything on any of my

14:32

stuff because I had nothing to hide. But

14:35

he'd gone through my messages

14:38

on Facebook and he'd gone

14:40

quite a way back

14:43

and he'd found a message between me

14:45

and Chris where Chris

14:47

was basically asking, you know, what are you doing?

14:50

Are you coming back from Ealy Beach? I said, you're only going to be gone for

14:53

six weeks and you're not back. And

14:55

I had said to Chris, oh, yeah, I'm

14:57

not going to come back. I've decided to stay up here now.

15:01

And Chris said, well, have you met someone?

15:03

Is that why? And I said, yeah, I have actually. I've

15:06

met this amazing guy and I'm going to

15:08

just stick it out and see what happens. And

15:12

Chris had just said, oh, well,

15:15

you know, I feel a bit gutted

15:18

because you told me you were going to be gone for six weeks

15:20

and now you're not coming back. Like

15:23

I didn't think that you would just up and leave

15:25

like that. And I sort

15:27

of said to Chris, you know,

15:29

we've had this sort of off

15:32

and on sort of thing for quite

15:34

some time. I think at that point had been, you

15:37

know, 12 years or

15:39

something. And I said, we've

15:41

never really had this discussion. We've never had a conversation

15:44

about us. But

15:46

yeah, it's just a bit too late now. I've

15:49

sort of met someone and that doesn't

15:51

really change anything between us. Like we'll always

15:53

be there for each other.

15:55

And that was it. That was the whole conversation.

15:58

But something about that. conversation

16:00

really, really destroyed

16:03

Ben. He

16:05

sort of just saw it as, you

16:08

know, something's there. So you've got unfinished

16:10

business with this person. And

16:13

as much as I said to him, like, don't worry about it,

16:15

you know, it's fine. He'll have a girlfriend in two

16:17

months and it'll be all fine, you know. But

16:21

he just, he never got over that. And that was,

16:23

that was a horrible night.

16:25

So I was on the Gold Coast with my girlfriends. My phone

16:28

is blowing up with Ben just

16:30

saying, you know, what the fuck?

16:32

What's going on? And he

16:34

wouldn't tell me

16:35

what it was he'd read. He just said, you know,

16:38

you've got something you need to tell me. You've got something you need

16:40

to come clean about. And I'm just

16:42

thinking, I don't know what you're talking about. Like,

16:45

why don't you tell me and then we can discuss

16:47

it. And, you know, he just,

16:50

he didn't want to borrow it. I'd found that my

16:52

laptop, he had just completely snapped

16:55

in half. My

16:57

clothes had been ripped out of

16:59

the cupboards, there were holes in

17:01

the wall. He'd just had a complete

17:04

fit. It was the first time he'd ever

17:06

reacted like that to anything.

17:08

But from that night on, it

17:10

wasn't the last.

17:12

At the start, I would have described

17:14

Ben as passionate. But

17:17

yeah, I started to notice that,

17:20

yeah, there was anger, you know, if

17:22

something wasn't going right,

17:24

how he looked was very important

17:26

to him. So if he specifically

17:28

his hair, if his hair wasn't

17:30

done right, he would have a

17:33

proper fit and he'd

17:35

hear him start

17:37

sort of ranting and raving and with

17:39

just swear words. There wouldn't be anything else other

17:41

than just dropping swear words. And

17:44

then I would know,

17:46

it's starting. And

17:49

so yeah, little things that had nothing to do with me at all,

17:52

but it would blow up into this huge thing

17:54

and then that anger would get redirected and

17:56

yeah, then it

17:57

would be on.

18:01

There was one time he was in the room

18:04

trying to do his hair and I could hear him ranting

18:06

and raving and I was just walking

18:08

down the hallway to go to the bathroom and just

18:11

my footsteps walking down the

18:13

hallway, he came

18:15

running out of the room and was like,

18:18

fuck off, get the fuck out of here, I

18:20

don't want you in here. And I was

18:22

like, Ben, I'm not coming

18:24

in there, I'm just going to the bathroom. But

18:27

I think that fight went on for days.

18:30

When he would get angry,

18:31

it would last for days

18:33

and he would give me the

18:35

silent treatment or slam doors

18:38

or just be really horrible

18:40

to be around until eventually whatever

18:43

it was that started the fight would always

18:45

end with me being like,

18:46

I'm sorry, can we move on? Fied

18:49

a dollar for every time I'd said, can

18:51

we move on from this? It

18:54

just became so normal

18:57

in our relationship that you were just walking

18:59

around on eggshells.

19:01

If the fight sort of started

19:05

to develop, it would go back to the whole

19:07

Chris thing, you know, he would throw in

19:09

there like, oh, well, you know, go back to Chris

19:11

or go back to the Gold Coast. And yeah,

19:16

it was always something that was

19:19

on the back of his mind. And if there was

19:21

an instance where that could get brought

19:23

up again, it would.

19:26

He wasn't jealous

19:28

about me, like, you know, if I went

19:31

out or, you know, if I wanted to wear something

19:34

that was a bit risque, he didn't care

19:36

about that. It was just purely

19:39

the

19:40

mention of Chris's name, you

19:42

know, we went to a wedding once and one

19:44

of my friends had come up to me and said, Oh, you

19:46

know, how's Chris? You know, we haven't

19:49

seen him in ages. And I just

19:51

wanted to die. Like, I just wanted to curl up in a ball

19:53

at that moment and be like, don't mention his

19:56

name. Like, we're having a really good day. And that's all

19:58

it's going to take for this day to go.

19:59

downhill is just the mention of his

20:02

name. It wasn't like we were talking

20:04

every day, but at the beginning, every now

20:06

and then, I would touch him with Chris, you know, how's the family

20:08

going? What's going on with your life? He

20:10

was traveling around the world at the time, so it's like,

20:12

where are you now? So just keeping

20:15

in touch with each other and making sure,

20:17

you know, our lives are going all right. And

20:21

then

20:23

Ben had said to me, I

20:26

just don't. So as the

20:28

fighting about this was progressing, Ben

20:30

had turned around and said, I don't want you

20:32

to have a relationship with him at all. I just

20:35

want you to cut this person out of your life. And

20:39

at first, I was like, yeah, whatever,

20:42

whatever it's going to take for this relationship to get back on

20:44

track, I'll do it.

20:45

So I had sort of spoken to Chris

20:48

about the situation and told him,

20:50

you know, Ben is really, has

20:53

this unhealthy

20:54

obsession of

20:56

thinking me and you are doing something.

21:01

And you know, I don't know if we can be friends

21:03

anymore. I don't know if we can keep in touch. And

21:05

Chris was really supportive. He was like, look, I

21:07

understand. I understand where you're coming from. You

21:10

know, you've got to do what's right for you. I'll

21:13

always be here for you. I'll always pick up the phone if you need.

21:16

So yeah, for a good probably

21:19

six months, I didn't speak to Chris. I'd

21:22

spoken to my sister about it. And my sister was,

21:25

you know, just throwing out red flags

21:27

everywhere. She's like, no, he's one of your

21:29

best friends. He doesn't have the right

21:31

to dictate who you can and can't

21:33

have in your life. If you want him

21:35

to be in your life, you decide like,

21:38

how would you feel if

21:40

you found out tomorrow Chris had

21:43

died in a plane crash and you hadn't

21:45

spoken to him because of

21:47

Ben? And yeah, it

21:49

made me sick. It made me sick thinking, oh my

21:51

God, if something happened to him and, you

21:53

know, I just cut him out of my life. Curiosity

21:55

got better of me. I missed him. I wanted

21:58

to hear what's going on in your life. What are you doing? Where

22:00

have you been?" So

22:03

I messaged him on

22:05

Instagram

22:06

and then we just started chatting again. We

22:09

would just have our little secret chats

22:11

and there was nothing

22:13

sexual involved in these chats.

22:16

It was purely just catching up with a friend. But

22:19

I would always delete these messages because

22:22

I just knew, if he knew that I'm talking

22:24

to him, like it's

22:26

going to be World War III in this house. So I

22:28

would always delete the messages

22:32

and always carry a guilt that I

22:34

knew I was lying about something, I knew I was keeping

22:36

a secret and I didn't like it.

22:39

Emily felt guilty but she wasn't actually

22:42

doing anything wrong. Plus she

22:44

was living in a new place so it was nice

22:46

having some familiarity from home and things

22:49

were stressful running a new business with your partner,

22:52

like really stressful.

22:55

It was a lot of

22:57

work. So at the

22:59

beginning it was just myself and

23:01

Ben and we were trying

23:03

to run the practice for as long as we could,

23:06

just the two of us, before we started

23:08

hiring staff and we just wanted

23:10

to try and get the practice in a place where it was standing

23:13

on its own two feet. And

23:16

for that to happen,

23:18

I worked for the first two years

23:20

without taking a wage so I wasn't on

23:23

the books,

23:24

so I had no

23:26

money and I'd

23:29

done the grocery shopping and as I was at the checkout I

23:31

was like, I actually don't have any money to pay

23:33

for this. And my sister asked me, what

23:36

do you mean? You own a dental

23:38

practice, like it's really successful,

23:40

how do you not have any money? And

23:43

so this was the first time my family were

23:45

finding out, yeah, I

23:47

didn't have an income, if

23:50

I needed money I would have to ask Ben for money

23:52

and it was like, well

23:54

what happened to the last hundred dollars I gave

23:56

you? It's quite often gone on groceries

23:59

or putting petrol in the house.

23:59

the car. So

24:02

yeah, I was very financially controlled

24:06

with what I could and couldn't do. And it all

24:09

sort of came to a head when we

24:12

wanted to buy a house. But I said to him,

24:14

I want to be on the

24:16

mortgage as

24:17

well. I want to own this house with you. And that was

24:19

sort of – he

24:24

didn't like that. He was

24:26

like, why can't it just be my name? Why do

24:28

you have to have your name on it as well? So that

24:31

started a whole – it was just

24:33

fight on top of fight on top of fight.

24:35

And it was becoming this

24:38

trifle of issues that we just

24:40

couldn't get

24:43

past. And I was constantly

24:45

trying to gain

24:48

some of that control back. And yeah,

24:51

I think I'd let it go

24:53

for so long that now all of a sudden when you're trying

24:55

to take that control back, it's – he's

24:58

seeing it as resistance. Why are you resisting

25:00

everything that I want to do? Why are you making everything so

25:02

difficult? So in the end,

25:06

my sister and I ended up doing like

25:10

an audit of my accounts

25:13

to see exactly how much money I had

25:16

received in the last 12 months from

25:19

Ben and working

25:21

and stuff. So because Ben, he

25:23

would say, oh no, I gave you money for this and I gave you money

25:26

for this. And so we went back

25:28

and we looked at exactly how much had been transferred

25:30

to me over that year and then what I

25:32

had spent the money on. So it took

25:35

us a good whole night, a couple

25:37

wattles of wine. But I think we figured

25:40

out that over

25:42

the space of a year, I'd

25:44

been transferred, I think it was like

25:47

seven grand or something. And

25:50

of that seven grand, a lot

25:52

of it went straight back into groceries,

25:56

yeah, petrol.

26:00

He paid the rent when we were renting

26:02

but I

26:03

bought everything else. So yeah,

26:06

of all that money, it was like... So at

26:09

that point when we sort of presented him with that information,

26:11

he didn't

26:12

have a leg to stand on. He couldn't argue it anymore.

26:15

So we

26:17

went to the accountant and we said, this is the situation.

26:19

We want to buy this house. As

26:22

far as the tax department's concerned, I haven't

26:24

worked for the last two years.

26:26

Fix it. Make it work. We

26:29

did. Things weren't good.

26:32

But she loved him and they had a business and

26:34

now a house together. She didn't feel

26:36

trapped as such, just unsure

26:39

how she'd ended up here.

26:40

In the beginning, I was just

26:42

so

26:44

like on cloud nine that I

26:46

don't think I noticed any of these red flags, to

26:48

be honest with you. I just sort of brushed it off. And

26:51

then when I did start to sort

26:54

of feel unsettled with some of the things that were

26:56

going on, it was sort

27:00

of tricky to try and bring things up

27:03

because he would get very defensive very

27:05

quickly. So I had to be really tactful

27:07

about how I would try and address my

27:10

concerns with him. And a

27:12

lot of the time it would just turn into him

27:14

icing me out. So it would

27:16

blow up. We'd have a fight. The

27:19

animals would be scrambling to hide under beds

27:21

and stuff. There would be things getting

27:23

thrown around the house and then silent

27:26

treatment that would sometimes go on for days

27:29

until eventually it was just like, I

27:31

just don't want to put up with

27:33

this anymore. I don't want to deal with it. Can we

27:35

just move on from it? Whatever it is you want,

27:38

let's just do it that way. We'll do it your way. So

27:41

it just became easier for me to

27:45

go along with what he wanted to do because

27:47

when he was happy,

27:49

everything was amazing. Everything was perfect.

27:52

Our relationship was perfect.

27:56

But those moments were starting to become few

27:58

and far between. It was getting harder.

27:59

harder and harder to keep him happy. And

28:02

every time they fought, that one topic

28:05

just kept coming up. It

28:08

just got to a point where Ben

28:10

was constantly accusing

28:12

me of doing something. If

28:15

I remember, there was one day at work I had a really bad

28:17

cold, and I had

28:20

a really phlegmy cough. And

28:22

I needed to cough. I was like, oh, god, I can feel a

28:24

coughing fit. And I didn't want to just be

28:27

sitting on reception coughing up a lung.

28:29

So we have a compressor

28:31

and suction room, which is soundproof, so

28:34

that when you've got patients and

28:36

they can't hear this compressor going. So

28:38

I'd gone into the compressor room, shut

28:40

the door, and just coughed up

28:42

my guards. It was like, oh, that's

28:44

a relief.

28:45

But as soon as I opened the door,

28:48

Ben was standing right there. And I'm like, oh,

28:50

what are you doing? And he was like, what are you

28:52

doing? So I just had to cough. I

28:54

had a really bad cough. I didn't want the patients to hear it. And

28:57

he was like, you were in there talking

28:59

to him, weren't you? And I was like, what

29:02

are you talking about? I've just been in there dying.

29:06

I've got water coming out of my eyes from how

29:08

hard I've been coughing. No, I wasn't

29:10

in there talking to him. So literally, anything

29:13

I was doing, he was constantly watching

29:16

me. And why are you doing that?

29:18

Or who's that for? Or who are you on the phone to? Who

29:20

are you texting? Just constant.

29:23

It started to really wear me down.

29:26

And a lot of the time, when we would fight

29:28

some of the nastiest things that you just you couldn't

29:31

say about anyone. He would say,

29:33

oh, you're so fat. You'll

29:37

never find anyone that loves you. Good

29:40

luck if you ever leave me. No one's ever going to want

29:42

you. You're disgusting. Your

29:44

friends aren't even around anymore. Your friends don't

29:47

want to have anything

29:48

to do with you. Just really horrible

29:51

personal attacks.

29:54

And I think it was because when you're with someone,

29:56

you share your insecurities with them. And

30:00

one of mine, lots

30:02

of women I assume is you wait. And

30:06

another one of mine was that I never

30:09

went to uni. I always wanted to be a dentist,

30:11

but I never thought I'd be smart enough to go to uni

30:13

and do dentistry. So that was

30:16

one he used to throw at me a lot as well, is that you're

30:18

so dumb. You're so dumb. You'd

30:20

never make it through uni. No one

30:22

would ever want you. After

30:26

years of hearing stuff

30:28

like that and having you properly

30:30

destroyed and your house destroyed and being

30:33

financially cut

30:36

off, you start

30:38

to feel very alone. And

30:40

you don't want to

30:41

talk to people about it because you don't want to be that

30:44

girl who, every time

30:46

you see her name come up on your phone, you go, oh,

30:48

God, I don't have the patience to deal with this. I

30:50

can't be bothered. I've got my own shit going on. And

30:53

I was turning into that girl where it

30:55

was just constant. There was always

30:57

something going on. The amount of

30:59

phone calls my sister

31:02

would get where I was in tears saying, I

31:04

can't do this anymore. I need to

31:06

get out. And she'd say, go stay at a hotel.

31:09

I don't have any money. I've got nowhere to go. Like,

31:11

I've got no friends up here. I've got nowhere to go. I've

31:13

got no money. I'm stuck. I

31:16

have to stay.

31:17

Through it all, Rose, one person she felt

31:19

she could truly confide in, who wouldn't

31:22

judge her, get sick of the drama, or make

31:24

her feel bad.

31:25

You guessed it, Chris. So

31:29

even though I had said, yeah,

31:32

look, I won't have anything to do with him because

31:34

it was just easy. It was just an easy way

31:36

to end

31:38

this fight. And if he thinks that I've got

31:40

nothing to do with him, then we won't fight

31:42

about it anymore. That was the

31:45

reasoning that I had in my head.

31:47

But yeah, I would still talk to Chris. And

31:51

I wouldn't go into the nitty-gritties

31:54

of what was going on in the relationship

31:56

with myself and Ben. But

31:59

I would tell Chris.

31:59

I'm not happy,

32:03

he's really angry all the time, he's

32:05

done a few things. And

32:08

Chris would always say really nice

32:10

things. He'd say, you

32:12

don't deserve that, you're a good person,

32:15

why don't you talk to your sister about

32:20

it, why don't you talk to your family about it, or why don't you get

32:22

away for a little bit. He was just really, really

32:24

supportive of

32:26

everything that was going on at that

32:28

time.

32:30

And

32:31

yeah, I guess he was giving me something that

32:33

I wasn't getting from Ben. He was giving

32:35

me love and support. And

32:38

when Ben would be saying things like

32:40

you're dumb and you're fat and you're ugly, Chris would

32:43

be saying you're smart and you're

32:45

strong and you're beautiful. And

32:47

those were the things that

32:50

I really needed to hear

32:52

at the time.

32:53

So yeah, the

32:57

chatter between me and Chris

32:59

started to become something that

33:02

I really needed in my life. And

33:04

so for more reason, I couldn't cut

33:06

him out of my life because I was getting support

33:09

and strength from him that I wasn't getting from Ben.

33:13

She knew she was playing with fire. So

33:15

in an effort to make sure all her friendship eggs

33:17

weren't just in his basket, she

33:19

organised a trip back down to the Gold Coast for some

33:22

much needed time with her old girlfriends. Now

33:24

I'd always ask Ben to come along on

33:27

these trips with me because I

33:30

had obviously made a huge effort to

33:32

try and get

33:35

in his circle. And his circle was

33:37

all very academic. There was just

33:39

insanely smart people. They were specialists.

33:42

They were dentists. They were

33:44

not people I would normally hang

33:46

out with. But I always

33:48

made a huge effort to try and keep up with

33:51

their conversations. So

33:53

I wanted him to do the same with my friends. I wanted him to

33:55

have a relationship with my friends and

33:58

he just wasn't interested.

34:00

So I'd

34:01

come to the Gold Coast to

34:03

see my girlfriends and on this

34:05

particular trip, Chris had

34:08

returned from his trip around the

34:10

world and said, you know, we want to

34:12

catch up and I can tell you all about it,

34:14

we can trade stories and blah, blah, blah. So

34:18

I thought, yeah, I'm dying

34:20

to see him. I'm dying to hear all about it. It

34:22

would have been about four or five

34:25

years since I'd seen Chris. So

34:27

yeah, it'd been a while and I was really, really

34:29

excited to see him. At the same

34:32

time, I felt really nervous

34:34

because I knew I was doing something wrong. But

34:39

I just didn't care. You know, I just I wanted

34:41

to go and see him.

34:42

So yeah, we caught up and it was

34:44

lovely and we had a good chat, we

34:46

had a few drinks and then

34:49

yeah, I did the worst thing you

34:51

could do to your partner and I slept with Chris.

34:57

Spending time with Chris, I think because we do

34:59

have that very long history

35:02

of

35:03

friendship, but

35:05

also friends with benefits on the side. It

35:09

sort of just organically happened.

35:12

We were we'd

35:14

gone back to his house and we were just having drinks

35:16

and he was telling me all

35:18

about his stories and where he'd been

35:21

and all the crazy stuff he'd done. And yeah,

35:25

it just went from, you know, shuffling a little bit

35:27

closer together on the couch and a little bit

35:29

closer and then arm around

35:31

the back and it just happened.

35:38

I remember afterwards

35:41

laying in bed and thinking,

35:43

what have you done? What have you done?

35:46

Like he has accused

35:48

you of doing this for so long

35:50

and you've always been able to turn around and say, you're

35:53

crazy, you need to stop coming up with this

35:55

shit. And now you've

35:58

done it. You've actually gone.

35:59

and you've done exactly what he

36:02

has accused you of doing. But

36:05

I was laying in bed and I, although

36:09

I felt bad and guilty, I

36:11

also felt, I

36:13

don't know how to explain it, I

36:15

felt

36:17

like loved. I felt like

36:19

I had just spent a

36:21

night with someone who actually cared

36:24

and wanted to hear about my life. And,

36:27

you know, we had this beautiful

36:29

night together, we shared this

36:31

beautiful moment together and...

36:35

Yeah, so it was a bit of a mixed bag

36:37

of emotions. The next morning I

36:39

left and I went back to my hotel

36:41

and, yeah, just tried to process

36:45

what have I just done and now what am

36:47

I going to do? Am I going to go home and tell

36:49

Ben? And, you know,

36:51

I know how that conversation

36:54

is going to go. Or do I just

36:56

sweep it under the rug and never

36:58

admit

36:59

to what I'd done? It

37:01

was a difficult thing

37:05

to reconcile with because a part

37:08

of me wanted to protect myself and

37:10

not say anything because

37:12

at

37:13

this point I was scared of Ben.

37:16

I wasn't scared of him in a physical

37:18

way that, oh, you know, he's going to

37:20

come at me. But I was scared

37:22

of the influence he

37:25

had on my life. You know, we were

37:27

tied up in a business together, we had a house

37:29

together, we have a cat, we have a dog, our whole lives

37:31

are together. And he

37:34

is just so capable of

37:36

making my life shit. Even

37:39

if we stayed in everything

37:41

we were doing together, just his temperament

37:44

and his behaviour and everything,

37:48

he definitely knew where my buttons were

37:50

and how to push them and how

37:53

to get what he wanted out of me.

37:55

Either way I went, whether I told him or

37:57

whether I didn't tell him, it was...

37:59

wasn't going to be good for me, I wasn't going to be happy, and

38:02

I wasn't going to get

38:03

any sort of result that I would

38:06

have wanted. It was, yeah,

38:09

trying to figure out the lesser of two evils, I guess. It

38:12

was a near impossible decision to make,

38:15

but her life was totally mixed up with

38:17

Ben. She could lose everything.

38:21

I decided not to tell him, because

38:25

it was just going to be

38:27

just a mess, and I

38:30

thought if I could just keep this

38:32

from him and we could just get back

38:34

on track, we, you know, I

38:36

know that that's something I'm never going to do

38:39

again because I felt awful about

38:41

it. It tortured me. Yeah,

38:43

there was an element of, like,

38:46

not wanting to hurt him. I loved

38:48

him.

38:49

So, yeah, things were

38:53

rocky, but we were trying. We were

38:56

trying to figure things out, and

38:58

we would have good days, we would have bad days,

39:01

and it got to a point where

39:04

we needed help. We couldn't

39:06

figure this out on our own.

39:07

So we decided to see a couple's

39:10

therapist. And

39:13

yeah, that was interesting. So

39:16

we went to Couples Therapy. We

39:19

started off where the therapist

39:22

would interview us separately, and

39:25

then we would go in together. So he would hear my

39:27

side, he would hear Ben's side, and

39:29

then we'd go in and do it together. So

39:33

we did that, and I, you

39:35

know, told the therapist

39:38

everything except the

39:41

interaction between me and Chris because

39:44

the therapist had said, anything you tell me,

39:46

I am going to, I'm going

39:48

to talk about. So if there's anything that you're not ready

39:50

to talk about, don't tell me because I will lay everything

39:52

on the table. So I hadn't told the

39:54

therapist about that. But I had

39:57

told the therapist that I... do

40:00

believe that I've played a

40:02

huge role in this because I've lied

40:04

to him. I've told him that I have nothing

40:06

to do with this person. I've told him that we

40:09

don't talk anymore and that's

40:11

a lie. We have been so,

40:14

and I'm willing to talk about that.

40:16

So when we had gone into

40:19

the session,

40:22

the therapist was

40:25

asking me, what have you done? What

40:27

do you have to tell Ben? And I had said, I have lied

40:29

to you and I understand

40:33

that the trust

40:40

between us is not great

40:42

anymore because of that. And I want

40:44

to fix that. I want to be open and honest with

40:46

you. And the

40:49

therapist had said to Ben, what

40:51

have you done? And Ben just said,

40:53

well, I haven't done anything. I only

40:56

react to her and

40:58

the therapist said, well, what about the

41:01

holes in the wall? What about all the broken

41:04

things around the house? And

41:06

Ben said, well, I wouldn't have done that

41:08

if she hadn't have lied to me. The

41:11

only thing I've done is reacted

41:13

to things that she's done. The

41:17

therapist actually sent me an email after

41:19

one of our sessions saying, look, I don't

41:22

normally do this, but I feel compelled

41:24

to reach

41:26

out. You're not going to get the result

41:28

you want with Ben. He

41:31

doesn't want to admit his role

41:34

in this as well. He's never going

41:36

to admit that there's things he's done that

41:38

have led you guys to where you are. So

41:40

short of you taking blame for everything.

41:42

I don't know what

41:45

you want to do, but I think you really need to think about is

41:47

this a relationship you want to be in?

41:50

It

41:50

was hard because, you know,

41:52

even with all of this going on with with

41:55

all of the hurt that was

41:57

getting thrown around, I think.

41:59

I still loved him. I still wanted it

42:02

to work. And I knew that

42:04

he felt the same. He's not an awful

42:07

person. He's actually a really lovely

42:09

person. But we just

42:12

brought out the absolute worst in each

42:14

other. So even when

42:16

I had my friends and my family

42:19

and my therapist telling me, you

42:21

need to get away from this. This was a really

42:23

bad toxic relationship. All

42:26

I wanted to do was go

42:28

home and get into my bed

42:29

with him and cuddle and watch

42:32

TV. You know, that's

42:35

all I wanted despite

42:37

everything. So it was hard

42:39

to sort of get it into my head that

42:42

you need to get out. You need to get out of this.

42:46

But eventually she did.

42:49

COVID had happened. So we were trapped

42:51

in a house together. We also had one

42:54

of his friends who had visited

42:56

us from Sydney at the time and then got locked out

42:58

of New South Wales. So he was now

43:00

living with us. And

43:03

yeah, it was just...

43:07

It was becoming

43:09

too hard for me to just keep making

43:11

excuses and thinking things were going to get

43:13

better. So

43:15

Ben, who wasn't

43:18

a huge drinker, had just

43:21

found this scene. He'd gone

43:23

out with this guy that was staying with us

43:26

and they'd met these people and just

43:28

completely fell headfirst

43:31

into this scene drinking

43:33

and staying out all night. And it

43:35

just wasn't

43:36

anything I had any interest in whatsoever.

43:40

But sort of liked that the two

43:42

of them would get out of the house and give me my own space.

43:45

So I was like, whatever, you two go off and maybe

43:47

I'll see you tomorrow. Maybe I'll see you next week. Who knows?

43:51

But, yeah, he started

43:53

bringing these people around to the house

43:56

and it was

43:58

making me very uncomfortable. There

44:00

was one occasion where he'd just bought these

44:03

strangers back to the house and I was actually

44:05

in the shower at the time. And this

44:07

guy just walked into the bathroom,

44:10

opens the shower door and holds

44:12

his hand out to shake my hand and say, hi, I'm

44:14

such and such. And I'm grabbing

44:16

for the towel. I'm like, who are you? How

44:19

have you gotten into my house? And it turns out

44:21

it was, you know, this guy that Ben had

44:23

bought home. Yeah. And it was very, very

44:25

creepy. And I tried to tell Ben,

44:28

I want this guy out of the house. I want these

44:30

people to go home. I'm very uncomfortable.

44:33

And Ben was just on another planet. Like

44:35

you couldn't talk to him. It started

44:37

to get to a point where it was like, I didn't even want to be in the house

44:40

with him anymore. I didn't want to be around

44:42

these people. Yeah. So

44:45

it blew up one day. We had a huge

44:47

fight and I said, I can't do this anymore.

44:50

I packed everything in. I could

44:52

fit into my car and

44:55

started driving back to the Gold Coast. I'm

44:57

very lucky that I have this amazing

45:00

friend. And she

45:03

had said, I'm getting on a flight. I'm flying

45:05

up there right now. I'm not going to let you drive back

45:07

by yourself. So she'd flown

45:10

up

45:11

and came and got

45:13

me. And we spent a good week,

45:15

week and a half making our way back, which

45:18

I'm so thankful for because I

45:20

just know if it weren't for her, I

45:22

would have ended up turning around and going back

45:24

and probably still going

45:28

through this drama.

45:29

I was a mess. I was

45:32

not eating. I didn't want to get out of bed.

45:35

I didn't want to talk to anyone. And

45:37

she would just come and shove food in

45:39

my mouth and say, you need to eat. You haven't eaten anything.

45:41

And come on, waking

45:43

me up at four o'clock in the morning to go for walks, to

45:46

watch the sunrise and just doing

45:49

things to try and keep me busy and get me

45:51

back on track. Part

45:53

of my healing process was

45:57

to run away.

45:59

I just needed

46:02

change and silence.

46:07

I just needed time to

46:09

be by myself and as

46:11

you can imagine after a breakup, especially

46:13

one that your friends and your family don't want you

46:16

to go back into, which was a high probability

46:19

at the time. Everyone

46:21

just bum rushes you basically and

46:24

won't give you a second to yourself. So I

46:26

had actually applied for a job working

46:29

in the remote Aboriginal communities in

46:31

Northern Territory doing oral health.

46:35

So I got a job there. So I spent

46:37

the next two years just in

46:40

the middle of nowhere, all different communities

46:42

around Arnhem Land and Central

46:45

Australia, TV islands, amazing,

46:48

amazing places. And

46:52

one of the interesting things I found was most

46:54

people were out there because most of the

46:56

workers, the healthcare workers were there because

46:59

they had also gone through something really traumatic.

47:03

So yeah, I noticed a

47:05

theme that everyone here is running

47:07

away from something and trying to figure something

47:10

out and also

47:12

trying to give back. So I think,

47:14

yeah, it was sort of, I had so

47:16

much healing to do. It

47:19

took me quite a long time to

47:21

forgive myself because

47:24

I really did was, I

47:26

was dirty on myself.

47:28

It's like there's two people inside of me

47:30

and they bicker all the time about this, like still

47:33

to this day,

47:34

one is saying, you know, you stuffed

47:36

up, you did the wrong thing, you ruined it.

47:39

And the other person is like, no,

47:42

you know, he was awful to you. He

47:45

did horrible things. He was just as bad.

47:48

He made you feel shit about yourself. He

47:52

made sure you had nothing, you were

47:54

completely alone. So I

47:56

still have days where I don't know what

47:59

side of the fence I sit on.

47:59

I still have days where I beat myself up

48:02

and think, you know, what

48:04

have you done to this person that you

48:07

love, that you supposedly love? How

48:09

could you do something

48:11

that awful to someone? But

48:13

I hate the idea that,

48:16

you know, when someone gaslights someone,

48:20

when he would say, I know you've done something with him,

48:22

I know that there's something more that you're not telling me.

48:24

And I would say to him, no, you

48:26

know, you're acting crazy. I've told

48:29

you everything. There's nothing more to it. You just

48:31

need to stop thinking about it. And

48:34

I feel a little bit sick when

48:36

I think about that because I've

48:38

made someone

48:40

question themselves. I've

48:42

made him, you know, maybe there were times

48:44

where he thought, am I crazy? Am

48:46

I coming up with all this stuff? No, he

48:48

was right. You know, at the start, he wasn't.

48:52

But at the end, yeah, he was

48:54

right. He was right on the money. He should have trusted

48:56

his gut. And I

48:58

hate the fact that I've been someone that

49:01

has potentially made

49:04

someone question themselves or had, you

49:07

know, any ongoing effects with

49:09

trust in his new relationships

49:12

or trusting himself.

49:14

Yeah, that doesn't sit well with me.

49:18

For the most part, yeah,

49:22

I have reconciled

49:24

everything that happened. I have forgiven

49:26

myself. Definitely

49:28

going away for those two years and working

49:31

in communities where you see other people

49:34

who are

49:36

really struggling. It really makes you put your

49:38

life in order and go, oh my God, what are

49:40

you whinging about? You know, you've got kids

49:42

out here with no families. You've

49:44

got, you know, women that are

49:46

going through assaults

49:49

and going through all these things. I'm

49:51

over here crying about some Instagram

49:54

feud between your

49:56

ex. So it does make you put

49:58

things into perspective.

49:59

Emily and Ben did keep in

50:02

touch for a while after the split.

50:04

She admits it was hard to let go. Ben spent

50:06

months begging her to come back and try to

50:08

make her work.

50:10

But she was done.

50:11

She signed over her share of the dental practice

50:14

and he repaid her the money she'd put into their mortgage

50:16

and kept the house too. She just didn't

50:19

want to fight anymore. Recently

50:21

she's learned Ben has found love again,

50:24

with another dental assistant they'd

50:26

both worked with.

50:27

And Chris?

50:29

Since the breakup, when

50:32

I left,

50:34

I had called Chris and said, look, this is

50:36

the situation. I was

50:38

just, you know, inconsolable. And

50:41

it was actually Chris was the only person in my

50:44

life who said, Emily,

50:46

do you want to be with him? And I said,

50:48

of course I want to be with him. And he said, well, then

50:51

you need to do what whatever it takes

50:53

to make it work. If that means going back and telling

50:55

him, tell him if that means

50:57

going back and him saying we can't be

50:59

friends anymore, like, you know,

51:02

we can't be friends anymore. If you love

51:04

him and you want to be with him, then you have to make it work.

51:08

So he was the only one that was really in

51:10

support of Ben at

51:13

that time. Yeah.

51:16

So when I came back to the Gold

51:18

Coast, we, you know,

51:21

pretty much immediately started hanging out and

51:25

Chris hadn't known the

51:27

intricate details of everything.

51:30

He just knew we would fight about him. So

51:33

as he started to learn about, you

51:36

know, all the things that Ben had

51:39

done, how he would react

51:41

in his his violent streak or anger,

51:46

that's when Chris was sort of like, you

51:48

can't go back. You can't, I didn't

51:50

know, I didn't know that that's what you

51:52

were dealing with and you can't go back there.

51:54

You know, you need to stay put. So he

51:57

has been a massive

51:59

support for me, you

52:02

know, sitting up with me to

52:05

all hours of the morning listening to me

52:07

vent and whinge and cry

52:09

and, you know, saying,

52:12

come on, I've had enough. Let's go get a massage. Let's

52:14

go get some lunch or I bought some

52:16

steaks. I'm going to cook them for you. So he's been

52:19

just such a good friend.

52:21

I know, I know, dear listeners, I'm thinking

52:24

it too. But Emily's adamant

52:26

they're happy as just friends. Chris

52:28

and I have had this conversation

52:30

recently, actually, about,

52:33

because we've known each other now, now

52:36

it's going on 20 years we've

52:38

been in each other's lives. And

52:41

I think that as much

52:43

as I love him and adore

52:46

him and, you know, we say that to each other

52:48

all the time, I love you.

52:51

I think he would be an awful boyfriend

52:54

for me. As a mate, like,

52:56

I don't care, do what you want, go spend

52:58

time with whoever. If I don't hear from you in three or four

53:00

days, it's fine, whatever. But

53:03

if I was to be his girlfriend,

53:06

you know, I have expectations. And I think we've

53:09

just had this relationship for so long, it

53:12

would really be a big

53:14

change to the dynamics and

53:16

the relationship we have now, one

53:18

that I don't think he would be able to keep

53:20

up with. So I think

53:23

I don't ever want to lose this

53:25

person from my life. He will be at my wedding,

53:27

you know, cheersing

53:29

with everyone. If

53:32

we ever tried to

53:34

have something and it didn't work

53:37

and it turned into us hating each other, like,

53:39

it would just, that would be a

53:41

huge loss for me. So I'm

53:43

really happy with just keeping it where

53:45

it is and, yeah,

53:48

not blurring that line.

53:49

She hasn't met anyone else yet, but she's okay

53:52

with that because she's learned a lot about

53:54

herself and what she really wants.

53:57

Looking back on my

54:00

time with Ben, I

54:04

definitely walked away knowing

54:06

what love should be because

54:09

even though we had this tumultuous,

54:12

toxic, love-hate

54:15

relationship, the love

54:17

that was there was amazing

54:20

and I really think that comes down

54:22

to two people wanting

54:25

to walk on the same path together. So

54:28

it's really sort of upped

54:31

my standards of when I do start

54:33

dating again, that's going to be a very important

54:35

thing

54:36

for me is that do we share the same

54:38

interest, do we want the same things and

54:41

are we going to be supportive of each other to

54:44

reach those goals.

54:48

I love that he showed me that.

54:52

He

54:54

taught me about when we

54:56

started the practice and stuff, it was a lot of work, it was

54:58

hard work but

55:01

it was so rewarding

55:03

to see the practice flourish.

55:07

All the staff that I had, I specifically

55:10

didn't want people with dental background, I wanted girls

55:12

who didn't know what they were doing with their life

55:15

and I wanted to train them and

55:17

we paid for them to go through their nursing

55:20

certificates. So it's

55:22

really taught me about working hard

55:24

and trying to build something for yourself

55:26

and help others along the way to

55:28

do the same. I

55:30

think that was a really positive

55:34

thing that I was able to take from that relationship.

55:37

Looking back, I would

55:40

just never ever want anyone

55:43

to go through the hurt. Ben

55:46

didn't even know, still doesn't know,

55:50

but I think deep down he

55:52

did know and it's

55:54

horrible to know that you've

55:57

inflicted that pain on someone, especially someone you

55:59

care about.

55:59

So it's certainly not something that

56:02

I ever want to do again.

56:04

It's not something I'm proud of, even admitting

56:06

it to people, admitting that, you know, I'm a

56:09

cheater. And, you know, people say, oh, once a cheater, always

56:12

a cheater. It's not necessarily the case.

56:14

You know, it's, it's, it's more

56:16

complicated. It's not as simple as, oh,

56:19

you just went out and you just hooked up with someone and,

56:21

you know, you didn't care. There's

56:23

so, so much complexity to

56:25

why and how. And

56:29

it's

56:29

certainly not a situation that I ever want

56:32

to find myself in ever again. I

56:34

do get lonely, but I

56:37

am at uni now. So one

56:40

thing then didn't get right is, yeah,

56:42

I did go back to uni. So

56:44

I'm studying my Bachelor of Nursing.

56:47

So that's full time. I also

56:49

work full time. So

56:52

just between those two things and

56:55

still seeing my girlfriends and stuff, I really

56:57

just don't have time for a relationship.

56:59

And I'm really happy with that as well.

57:02

I'm happy with just doing

57:04

me for a little while.

57:23

Everyone Has an Ex is a Minty Media production.

57:26

It's written and narrated by me, Georgia

57:29

Love, produced by Linda Scott and

57:31

edited by Matt Sofo. If you

57:33

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