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The relationship Guy, an elusive rare breed in this day and age.

The guy who loves being someone's person, who wants and enjoys the simplicity and comfort of being with a partner, no questioning if he likes you, no wondering how long you should wait to text, no drama.

Do things like go to the markets on the weekend and go into the beach.

And I had a couple of dogs, being able to take them to the park and kind of just do things.

That were adult.

I felt happy, and I also felt secure.

I just felt like it was easy.

And once you're at this level of comfort, it's all smooth sailing.

Here's the relationship guy, after all, commitment and stability is his whole thing.

I got this scream saying Sarah, and I ran down to her office and the look that she had on her face was just this look of someone who just felt super sorry for me, And I was like, what is it?

And she just said, I'm so sorry, I'm Georgia.

Love and this is everyone has an eggs 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 Sarah at thirty two.

She was living a great life.

She had a few relationships, a couple of job changes, had moved to a new city, and was really finding her feet.

I was actually a bit of a transformative period of my life.

I was early thirties.

I had just been kicking some career goals, buying into the business that I worked for, just bought my first property, had my dogs, great group of friends, and one thing that was missing was having someone.

To share it with.

I was a bit past the partying days and the days of meeting the boy at the pub, and I did turn to online dating.

And that's where she met Jeff.

He was probably not someone I necessarily would have swiped on five years earlier, but he didn't have the typical fish photos and things on his profile.

He was a teacher and he played sport, and you know, he kind of seemed to do things that I liked to do in his profile.

So it did catch my attention for different reasons of just the kind of physical appearance.

And that's what I was looking for was something a bit more long term rather than just you know, someone that you go on a couple of dates with and he looks like hot candy.

Yeah, And the conversation was just quite free flowing.

On my bio at the time.

It was someone who likes to eat my food, play with my dogs, and make me laugh.

And he said I can tickle those three boxes.

First face to face was probably a week afterwards, so I think we started to talking on the Sunday, and then the following Sunday he asked if I would like to go on a date.

Just said we're something casual and he would pick me up.

He picked me up and we went down to watch the sunset.

He made a picnic cheese board and got a bottle of wine and we sat there and watched the sunset and talked and got to know each other.

Then he dropped me home, gave me a kiss good night, and I kind of put it up there as one of those perfect first dates, you know, knocking on the door and then coming and opening car door, taking it down there, me not having to worry about anything.

Also, I guess in terms of when we were talking there was actually free following conversation.

It wasn't trying to you know, you don't know someone, but he took points of what we had talked about the week before and kind of made it into conversations so that we we had comedy interest and it wasn't just that awkward first date.

So for me, I thought that, you know, that's it was a bit more, you know, a bit more substance to it.

Substance was exactly what Sarah at this stage of her life, especially having just come out of a pretty recent big heartbreak.

I did have a partner up here for a couple of years, and you know, we lived together and I thought that we would be going on to get married and have kids.

And we broke up quite suddenly, and he said he'd fallen out of love, and you can't change fit someone's mind on that, unfortunately.

So after that all happened, that's when some other things I really put my mind to with in terms of work and buying my first property and whatnot.

So I you know, going, okay, well I'm going to get those things done.

And it was probably you know, a year or so after that.

Definitely, you know, had a bit of dating in between, but nothing of any substance.

So I kind of got myself to the point where I was feeling really good, and then I could attract something good as well, just at that stage of your life where you're a bit over mucking around and you know, you don't know if you're deciding to have kids or not deciding to have kids, but those things you're looking for probably more of a future partner than than just of mate for a.

While, and the the very first day, Jeff seemed like just that kind of guy.

As soon as he dropped me home, we were talking more again.

He asked if he could cook me dinner on the Tuesday at his house.

He owned a property about ten minutes from my house.

His was a bit of a different situation.

He did have housemtes, but it was an elevated house, so he had the downstairs and he had housemates upstairs, so we still had privacy.

So yeah, I went out to his again.

He listened to what we talked about, and he cooked me a steak and we had a steak and a bottle of wine.

I ended up staying there that night, and you know, we just got along and talked and it was just like we almost to a degree fell into a relationship before it even started.

So the next I guess month after that, it was we were doing things with friends, and we essentially were a couple basically straight away, so spending three or four nights a week together.

But also I think it could have been six or seven, but I was trying to maintain independence and you know, not getting into something too quickly.

But it was quite easy to kind of fall into that bubble.

It made sense from Jeff's side too.

He was very much the relationship guy.

He had a partner from high school, ten year relationship and they had only separated about a year before.

She obviously lived there with him, and so there was a couple of photos of them still up in the wall, and I did ask him and I went, I actually had a look at it, and he goes, yeah, we're still friendly, and he's like, I do need to take them down.

The second bedroom had some boxes and stuff in it, and he said that he was planning on the main school holidays to take that stuff back down south to her, And I thought, you know, what a green flag that he can actually still have a positive relationship with his ex in the fact that you know, he's willing to take her stuff to her and they don't have this.

I hate my ex partner situation, so I thought it was showing maturity, because ten years of your life with someone is a long time to turn around and hate them.

So in the past I have had some people cheat on me before, and normally I have that kind of bit of a jealousy streak to me.

But this didn't even need to worry because he was open and upfront about the whole thing.

So I was actually quite calmed by it, and I thought it was quite mature.

I didn't know too much about her.

I'd seen photos from her.

I know that they used to work together, so that was the only really bit of information.

He never bagged her out, so I never really went into it.

I appreciated the fact he didn't talk down about her, but the only things I knew was really basic facts.

Another green flag he didn't use social media.

He was a teacher and he was sick of students trying to get onto social media and whatnot, and it was just a waste of his time that he could be spending with friends or doing other things.

So he used to have it and then he deactivated it.

He did have an Instagram that didn't have any photos from like the last five years, and he actually did follow me on his Instagram, but there was nothing on his so you know, it was like basically a page that was defunct.

But yeah, again, I was like, oh, look there's someone that doesn't, you know, need to post selfies every day or tell me everything that they're doing.

Again, even with messages and things like that.

I'm very busy at my job and I don't have the time to be texting all day and he was the same.

So it was kind of mature in that sense that you were not sitting around holding your breath.

When you could talk, you could talk, and when you couldn't, you knew someone would get back to you.

The P word is strong, but Sarah really felt this guy and their first few months together, we're pretty close to perfect.

So well Bliss, I was thinking, I don't understand how everything can be so easy.

I really was waiting for something to happen, but it just wasn't.

And every time that we were getting closer and like it just seemed like it was going to go further on.

He wanted me to you know, I met his assistant principal.

He said his family was coming up and they wanted to meet me, and then he dropped the love bomb.

We were lying in bed one night and we were just talking and he goes, you know, I know this is early, but I've absolutely fallen head over heels in love with you.

And although I promised myself I wouldn't say that for a very long time, I reciprocated.

I felt good.

It was one of those things where I was like, Oh, what's going to go wrong?

But then I reminded myself that you don't have to think of the worst things every time, and you can just go with it.

And I remember talking to friends with it and they're like, oh, this is awesome.

You deserve this.

Most of my friends at the time were all in quite healthy long term relationships as well, so although he didn't hang out with them all the time because he did play sport on the weekend, so a lot of the time when we were doing social things, he would only just pop in at the end because he was at the clubrooms and things like that, which to me was fine because I like my girls, so it doesn't need to fit, you know, a couple things in my life, so that didn't worry me whatsoever.

We were and played tennis and stuff with his friends.

I went to the races with his colleagues and whatnot.

So yeah, we definitely integrated into the friends as quickly as possible.

Would go do things like go to the markets on the weekend and go into the beach.

And he loved my dogs, and that was something that was really important to me, you know, being able to take them to the park and kind of just do things that were adult.

I guess I felt happy, and I also felt secure.

I just felt like it was easy.

I didn't have to try or put anything on.

It was just, you know, you could be yourself.

You could be in your tracks with no makeup on, and everything was good.

So it was just nice to feel comfortable without having to kind of go through that bit of the dating stage where you're just really trying to impress everyone.

We'd be spending i'd say four or five nights together a week at the beginning, and yeah, look was kind of between.

I liked him to come to my house mainly because I had the puppies there, but there would be some nights that I would go out there when he wanted to cook, so it would be a rain like around four nights a week, which to me, I needed some time to do other things as well.

And he used to hop up and go for a run every morning at five, so if I didn't want to wake up at five, he could stay at home.

The relationship went on like this for around seven months, Sarah and Jeff integrating into each other's lives more and more and growing happier by the day.

The first time they were going to spend more than a couple of nights apart was when the summer holidays rolled around and Jeff was doing a big drive down south to where he used to live with his family and his ex girlfriend.

He was going to be gone for a couple of weeks because the drive takes quite some time, and then he needed to catch up with everyone, and then he was going to come back up, so that was fine.

He even said to me, did you want to come?

But I had work commitments, which I know he knew that I had, and so you know, it was a no go and do thing, and I was when you're back, So that two weeks was normal.

We spoke on the phone every day.

Again, we didn't text all that much, but we never did, so that was just normal.

I would have a good morning message from him and a call at night, just in between his plans.

He was the one that was down doing family stuff, so I left that be.

I did know the day that he was going to see his ex, and he did tell me that, and I didn't hear from him much that day, but I kind of resonated on the fact that, you know, might have been a bit of an emotive day, and I'd hear from him when he could.

I did hear from him that night, and if thick near text and said I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Then he was due to come back home, so he had a few days of travel, and when he was getting close, it was falling on a weekend, which was great because I was like, Okay, well, I'll get to see you that night.

Then I got closer to getting there and he said that he had someone on the side of the road that had just had a car accident and that they flipped over their car and he was going to have to put them in his car and get them back.

I was like worried for him, and obviously worry for whoever this was, but it was like, yeah, do what you need to do.

He told me, go and catch up with your friends and i'll let you know how I'm traveling later.

But it's been a big day and I might just.

Go to bed.

I was really disappointed because it was like, well, we don't need to do anything.

I'll just come over.

He'd normally be keen to see me, so it was unusual and it felt like a bit of a sting.

But I spoke to friends about it at the time, and whilst pouring me margaritas, said, don't worry about it, he's just tired.

You wouldn't even have a good time anyway.

Just seemed tomorrow, and so that's what happened.

I went and spent the night with the girls.

He told me when he got home, and then he said he would come over in the morning and bring me breakfast.

The next morning, he came over to my house with breakfast from the markets and we sat and had a chat.

He was a bit stand offish, it wasn't his usual self, but didn't really have too much to say.

He said his troop was fine.

I didn't pry about him seeing his ex girlfriend.

I thought he can do that in time, and we had breakfast, took the dogs for a walk, and then he said that he needed to go and get some school work done because school went back the next day and he needed to make sure everything was done from terms of lesson plans and school clothes and things like that.

So he went back Horome and I said that we would catch up the next night.

So Monday night comes around after school and he come over.

I was cooking up dinner in the kitchen and again he was just sitting on the couch and he was just really somber, and I turned around and said to him, what's wrong.

He was like, oh, I do need to talk to you about something.

My heart kind of stopped for a second, and I went into a bit of a what's going on?

Because I could feel it the day before, but he left the situation before it was pressed any further.

So, and even when he come in, I could just feel the energy switch like it was gone from electric to quite stand offish, so it didn't take a mind rate, and I said, well, I knew what something's going on, Like, tell me what's going on?

Anyway, he sat there for about five minutes of literally not saying a word, and I was like, just come out with it, and then he kind of started welling up with tears and then said, I went to see my ex girlfriend and when I went into the property, she was there and she had a baby, and she said it was mine.

I don't know what I said, actually, I kind of lost a little bit of a train of thought in that moment and just said, you know, what do you mean?

And he goes, it's not it's not mine, but she's saying it is, and now I'm going to have to.

Deal with it.

He said that she was going to be coming up and she needed assistance with the baby, and she was going to be coming up just to till they sorted things out.

And he also said that she was going to be staying in the property in the second room there, so just until they kind of knew how things were going to unfold.

I was scattered, and I was also protective, so I was angry for him because he was in tears and he's saying it's not his to me.

I couldn't work it out how it could be his, because I'd been seeing him for a certain amount of time and the numbers didn't number, so I was just trying to figure it out.

And he told me that the baby looked like it was like three months, and so it just wasn't really making too much sense to me.

But at the time, I just like, Okay, well we need to tackle this, and with my friends kind of known as the person that you go to to solve a problem and get things done.

And so then I kind of turned from being shocked and sad about how it made me feel, too, let's fix this for you.

My appetite went.

I'm pretty sure I checked that dinner in the bin and told him to go home and get some rest.

And I just needed a bit of time to think and plan, and so did he.

In one conversation, Sarah's world had flipped on its head.

She had no idea what to think or what to do, but she realized if it felt this big for her, imagine what it was doing to Jet.

Looking at him, he felt scared and overwhelmed.

And also he was this good guy, right, so of course he was going to let someone in with a baby that he spent ten years with being his kid or not, he was going to do the right thing until he knew.

And so I thought, it's actually probably best.

It's all there.

I didn't want him going back down homeither like I would rather him deal with it here where we could kind of try to work through it together.

But also I felt like I've become like an instant stepmom to a child that I didn't know, didn't know existed, and you know, not necessarily kind of wanted to be a part of.

But it's not what I signed up for.

But obviously by this time I loved the man, so I was also going to be a team player.

The next day I kind of debunked it with a colleague of mine.

Shinelly fell to the floor and goes, Okay, well, there is situations where people will stitch people up like this, and we need to get him into someone for a lawyer.

He wants a paternity test.

Let's get that underway.

Thankfully, she's a local and had connections to push him up the list in terms of getting into appointments and things like that, and by the end of that week we had an appointment with a lawyer, and so he was going to go to the appointment.

I wanted him to do that by himself because it was something for him, but I did lend him the money to do that and get the paternity test because he was paying for things like strollers and diapers.

She arrived on that Wednesday on a flight hold up.

She what so he told me that she was going to be coming back up to where we lived, and that not only was she going to be coming up with the baby, but she was going to be coming in a couple of days.

So everything was about to change.

Things had escalated fast from her boyfriend going to spend a couple of weeks with his family and just dropping a box of belongings off to his ex girlfriend.

All of a sudden, the ex girlfriend was there in Sarah's town, living at her boyfriend's house with a baby.

But Jeff knew the baby wasn't his, and he reassured Sarah he would get it all sorted out, starting with the paternity test.

He had the appointment.

He come back from the appointment and come over to my house that night and said that it all went really well.

He had a a letter drafted for the ex girlfriend asking for the paternity test and he was going to give that to her at the property, So he was going to go home that night and do that.

So I just said, yep, you need to continue hanging out there as much as possible.

At the moment whilst you don't.

Know what's going on.

If this is your child, you need to be providing as well.

So you know, as far as kind of staying over here with me, it's off the cards for a little bit until we find out the answers.

We didn't really go into semantics, to be honest, because he just said it's not mine.

The numbers don't number.

The baby was three months old, he'd been with me for the period of time before that, and they hadn't been together for over a year, so it just couldn't have worked, and so I just didn't press that.

I thought, we just need to get over this hurdle first and then we can deal with the other things afterwards.

So apparently that night they had a huge barney with regards to the paternity test, but she did agree to do it, and it would have been i would say, a couple of weeks until it come back.

He was turning up with bunches of flowers every couple of days and he would bring over dinner, and in the time we did spend together, it was very affectionate.

I was probably the one pulling away a little bit more, but what girl doesn't like to get flowers and told that they loved So I was very pragmatic about it, but at the same time still wanted to be kind of there for him.

So I was pulling back the emotion a little bit from him, but he was probably more overly emotional towards me.

And then the test results came back.

He did give me a call.

He didn't actually even come and tell me a person.

He gave me a call to say that the baby was his and we needed to talk.

It was a mix of emotions.

I think that I was so positive that it wasn't that.

When I found out that it was, it was kind of like, Okay, well, this is the new reality.

And there was also a part of me that goes, okay, well, we're only seven months into this.

What direction do I want to go?

Do I want to change I guess the direction of our whole existence?

Or am I going to stick by this person that I think is a great partner and curve off the main path and do it a different way?

So I think I was more just confused, and it was such a crazy story.

It was not something I was really sharing openly with a lot of people, because it was just something that it's not general chitchat when you're having a glass of wine that your partner has a baby that you didn't know about.

I was pushing down the fact, you know, potentially it's cheated as well, but yeah, that was not the priority at the time.

It was kind of figuring out what to do at the next moment.

That night, I actually said I wanted some space, and he said I needed to have a think about what I wanted to do.

The ex girlfriend was going to stay at the property until she sorted out another place to live or he could find another place to live, but she was going to stay in the town.

He also wanted that.

He turned quite quickly into that kind of wanting to be a doting father and wanted to be involved, which I could never want to take away from him anyway.

If it's his child, of course you're going to want to do that.

So and I did appreciate that he was helping with the I guess the family load as well, because you know, it can be quite taxing for one person to do that by themselves, and you know, there are situations where people can co parent brilliantly, So I was hoping that that could be one of those and down the track, potentially we could all be civil and do it the modern family way.

I had a bit of time to process, I guess, and I did speak to a couple of friends, very close friends, about it, and decided that I would stick it out.

And I told him that, and he just, you know, essentially reassured me that nothing would change.

It would be different, but we would figure it out, and once he was able to get into either his own place or get her another place, whichever way it would work, then things could go back to a little bit more normal.

I was kind of a bit more forward thinking about how differently this changes, even things like finances and whatnot as well.

We're gone from I lent him money for that kind of stuff, but you know, when does it change to you're not going on holidays anymore or things like that.

It was a whole new reality.

There was one night he come and stayed at my house and then I woke up with a note saying, I've had to take baby to hospital.

I'll give you a call soon, and I just like, he didn't wake me up to do that, but he just left.

But obviously my first thought when I'm waking up is baby okay?

So yeah, it was just things like that.

But even when he did stay over again, he would come over and we would go to sleep, but then he would hop up at like one or two o'clock in the morning and go home home because he said that, you know, he was going to take a feed time or whatnot.

So he was kind of trying to balance being at my house but also being at home.

So and I understood that because you know, if the ex girlfriend has just turned up with a baby and he's going and spending time at another girl's house, it wouldn't be hard for her just after giving birth.

So I didn't have a problem with him spending more time at his house.

And I certainly wasn't going to be going there and flaunting it in her face.

So at the time, it was what it was.

I decided to stick it out because of how I felt at the time, and I just thought, you know, life, unfortunately isn't you know your your linear family anymore, And if this is the way that we're going to have a child, then great, I don't have to get pregnant.

It wasn't the ideal situation, but we could make it work.

So they pushed forward.

Jeff was prioritizing the baby as much as he could, while giving Sarah space and time to come to terms with it, but very much being there for her too, And after about three weeks, they decided it was time for her to meet the tiny little human who was now going to be in her life too.

He actually called me in the morning and said, did you want to go to the market and I said, yeah, yeah, I'll meet you there, and then he said, I'm going to bring baby down.

I'll just walk him down there and you can meet him.

I was nervous.

It was a public place, so it was weird.

But then I can't really tell you how many times I've held a baby.

It's not many, so you know, to then hold one that is my partner's baby, he definitely had his eyes and I was like, how did you not know this was your child?

But you know, I didn't bring that up.

Once it started crying, I put it in the prem and he walked home and I went home and that was enough for that day.

So there was a few more times that we went down to the beach one night and had his first little splash in the water.

But there was a few times, but I certainly wasn't an active part of this child's life.

It was just a couple of meat and greets.

It was all a massive us meant.

But Sarah was as supportive as she could be because she knew a new life was the most important thing to prioritize.

The question she had for Jeff Goodwait.

When I first met the baby, I thought, it's very big for a newborn.

I've seen obviously photos, and I've had a few friends that have had children, but this baby was quite chubby and you know, had a bit of weight in him when I held him.

So the three months I was like, oh, this is a big kid for three months, but you know, I'm not a baby expert, so I just didn't say anything further.

I was just like, oh, these things grow quite quickly nowadays, and left it at that.

We've been together for around seven months.

He said the baby was about three months old, and I guess, you know, I kind of thought, well, it was either out of the dates of us being together or very close to the start of dating, and I just didn't push the question too much more.

He had enough stresses going on on the other side, and I just wanted to kind of just be there and be supportive.

I had obviously, as I said, mentioned this to a couple of girlfriends, one of them being a work colleague of mine, Emily, and she just couldn't put it all together and she was really worried about me.

It was starting to, I guess, have a bit of an effect on my work, not in my performance, but just in the attitude in terms of I was just I was stressed out about other things, and she's just like, it just doesn't seem like this is a lot, and are you sure that you want this?

And what do we know about her?

Like, how was she doing?

What is going on?

And so then we sat in her office and she goes, what do you know about this girl?

And I said, basically what I told you before, that her name is Kathy.

They were high school sweethearts, they went to the same school and they worked together.

I said to her, also, he doesn't have social media, so you won't find anything.

And she goes, okay, And then I went back down to my office and started doing some stuff.

What have been about ten minutes, got this screen saying Sarah.

I ran down to her office and the look that she had on her face was just this look of someone who just felt super sorry for me.

And I was like, what is it, and she just said, I'm so sorry.

She turned around a computer screen.

There was a photo of a girl and a guy, a pregnant girl and a guy, and it was him.

He was holding the paternity shoot.

And then I.

Looked at her name and they had the same last name.

It was her Facebook and that was her profile picture.

It was the eternity shoot.

She did have it on quite private, but you could see what her profile pictures were back in the day, and there was their wedding photos.

There was also a photo of them with the pregnancy thing.

And they actually did IVF for this baby.

So not only did he lie about an ex girlfriend, lie about them being broken up, he lied about a child, and he lied that he actually paid money to have this child.

And he lied to me and paid me pay for a paternity test, and very much knew about it.

It was actually such a mix of emotions.

I was laughing and crying and I was so angry.

I was raging.

I went home and saw my girlfriend at lunchtime.

I had a friend staying with me.

She was up on holidays, and I went and poured myself a glass of wine and we sat and She's just like, this can't be happening, and I was like, this is happening.

I wanted to scream, cry, But also I felt really betrayed, and that is what hurt.

It was the feeling of betrayal and even the fact that I just trusted someone so much and it was such latant lies.

It was not white lives.

This was black and white.

You were married, you had a child.

It was a bit of an emotive day, that's for sure.

So much of me wanted to hold out and actually confront him in person, but then so much a part of me never wanted to see this person ever again in my life.

So I took a photo of these things, I obviously hopped on her thing on my phone, screenshot at it and sent it to him and I said, I know everything.

How dare you?

And never talked to me again, And that was in my rage part.

Anyway, I sat there and it was about twenty minutes later.

I didn't think he'd get it for a while because, as I said, we didn't text during the day.

He was a teacher.

But I'm sure when he got a message with a photo like that, he would have probably walked out of the classroom anyway.

So we text back and he goes, you don't deserve this.

I'm so sorry.

I was sorting it all out, but this must be too much for you.

I'll leave you alone now.

That even made me more enraged, if anything, because he didn't even have an explanation for me.

He just wanted to walk away from it, being like, oh, okay, I've been caught see later, And so that made me mad.

I went from sad to mad.

And what do we do when we're mad, We get even.

I messaged her, Hi, Kathy, you probably don't know me, but my name is Sarah and I have been dating your husband for the last seven months.

I only found out about you being his ex girlfriend and the situation going on with the baby recently, and I.

Was told that this child was not his.

I have now found your Facebook profile today and confirmed everything is a lie.

And I just want you to be known what's going on on this side, because you did not deserve this man that can treat both of us like this.

And it was only minutes before she wrote back, and she wrote back, I knew it.

I knew he was cheating on me.

I knew something was going on.

He's been withdrawn with me.

I found an earring in our bed and he gas lip me to the fact that he said that I planted it in there to try and make him look like he was a cheater.

They were not separated.

They were one hundred percent sleeping in the same bed and still sleeping together at the time that we were together.

And the reason that she was down south is because she had some complications with her birth, being an IVF baby, and was spending time with family for the first six months getting adjusted to life, And so she'd actually been down there for a longer than that.

She spent a year almost down there, and he had been going down there more times than what I knew.

So they were very much still together.

They might not have been having the best part of their life, but they were married and they were back living together.

Sarah's worst fears were realized in one message.

Well not even her worst fears, really.

She hadn't even considered any of this.

She was in shock, She was confused, and she was incredibly hurt.

What the hell would Jeff have to say when he found out she knew all this time he'd been hiding a.

Family He messaged me being like, of course you had to tell her if I can't have you, and now you've made me lose her too.

I was like, how dare you You haven't even explained anything to me as to what's going on.

Of course, I'm going to go and tell this person you have been lying blatantly to me and you have taken no responsibility.

At least.

I'm going to let someone else know that they don't have to go through this because you are a liar.

It's just crazy to me that he thought that he could get away with it.

There was nothing too much after that in terms of in text message form.

I kind of just stopped, but he did can't turn up at my house.

I think it was the next day, and I didn't want to see him.

He was knocking on the door.

I told him to go away.

Then the next day he left flowers and food at my door some pat tie and sent me a text message saying I left your favorite food.

I hope you're eating.

I wouldn't be eating because he'd broken my heart.

It was so bloody narcissistic, and I walked it straight out to the bin and put the flowers in the bin as well.

I actually text the wife and sent her a photo and said, I hope he doesn't bring you home flowers too, just to keep her in the loop.

She had to make her own decision about the relationship, but I also didn't want her falling back into a bubble where his love bombing her again and being like that was a mistake I made.

I'm so sorry.

I never wanted to make her feel even worse than what it was.

But I was also happy to give her information.

But I also didn't want to be screenshotting conversations in things like that because I just didn't think, you know, we were in two separate relationships and we both didn't know about each other.

So I didn't want her to see, you know, I love you and things like that.

So I just kind of kept it very matter of fact and said, you know, if you need assistance or something like, you can let me know.

I believe that she was then looking for another property and whatnot, and she was going to move out of that home.

Then I started doing more digging, and the house that he said was his, I did a title search and it was their.

The lies were just so many that you couldn't even stop unraveling them once they come out.

The hardest thing for me was, you know, I hung out with his friends and his work colleagues.

I don't know if he was feeding them lies that they had separated as well, because obviously she was done south at the time, so I don't know what the story was there, but I certainly know, particularly the housemates knew that she was staying there because they all lived in the same house.

And you know, when I actually did see them maybe a month later at the pub, they looked at me and went to stay hi, and I was like, don't you dare, don't talk to me.

I just can't condone anyone that can go along with their friends and not pull them up on that.

They saw that I was in love with this guy, and they didn't give me any warning.

Like it's yeah, it was horrible.

I was sad, but I was also just there's nothing I could do to change the situation.

It was a shitty situation, and there was no coming back from it.

It wasn't like there's My emotions turned off to him almost immediately because trust was a big thing for me, and you know, once you break that, it's pretty hard to come back from.

But this is like on the extra scale of breaking a trust, so the feelings were done.

It was more so I kind of kept replaying over and over in my head.

How could I'd not have seen more signs if I've looked back so many times and tried to see whether or not there was anything that I missed and any red flags.

But I really can't see anything that I would have picked up that would have been any different.

He was just able to get away with it and lie so easily without any need for concern.

He really didn't give away any science when baby wasn't here.

But I guess in terms of when you think about it looking back, once baby was here, you know, taking off in the middle of the night and walking outside for phone calls and things like that, I guess could be.

But I also knew she was there, So it wasn't a huge red flag to me because I, in my head was told the full situation of what was going on at the time.

So yeah, I really couldn't have really picked anything up differently.

It was just I should have stalked her earlier.

As traumatic and huge a betrayal as this had been.

Sarah was empathetic towards Kathy.

It was a much bigger betrayal of her, and she was the one really left in the thick of it.

So Sarah put aside her own hurt and backed away, not her circus, not her monkeys.

Realistically, I was hurting, but I was actually hurting more for Kathy than I was for myself because I was only seven months in, but she was ten and she had a baby with this person that that's not a good guy.

There was a couple of occasions where he tried to leave me food and things like that.

I just ended up fizzling out the conversation.

I just wouldn't get back to him if he texted me.

I just said, you know, you're going to have to leave me a lot like it's done.

And he did respect that.

That's the only thing he respected from me, But he did respect that, and then quite the same with Kathy.

She probably asked a few more questions over the coming weeks because he had been lying to her.

It got really actually to the point where I was a bit draining on me as well, because I was trying to move on and I didn't want to keep going back into it.

And I think she kind of got that and tape it off on that as well.

We didn't really have the end of relationship conversation at all.

It was so black and white.

There was nothing really he could say to change my mind about anything.

The blatant lies were there and any facts that I needed.

I was kind of getting off Kathy, and even the language that was used, being like, I can't believe you're talking to her now, I'm going to lose both of you really showed his true colors.

But that was not someone that I wanted to talk to ever again.

I just rallied around with my friends who we just talked about that crazy story and got back on with my life.

I took some time out from dating, obviously, and you know, kind of just focused on myself.

I still had everything else in my life was good, and that was, you know, something adding to it.

But once it wasn't adding to it, then okay, see you later, because there was nothing I wanted to do to change this one.

But it definitely took me some time.

I actually do think he did love me, that's the thing.

I think that he did truly care about me, and I don't know, in a strange way, if he really did think that he could have sorted this out and just separated from her, and then we continue one.

I don't know because I'm not inside his mind, but I think in his head that he was going to go through a separation with her and start a life with me, and I would just never know the numbers in terms of the overlap timeframes and things like that.

But you know, when it didn't work like that, because you know, it all blew up in his face.

So she thought that'd be it.

She had no reason to ever speak to nor hear from either of them again until only nine months later.

I got a message of her.

We weren't friends on Facebook or anything, so it comes up in your message requests.

She just said, oh, hey, I hope you're well.

Just touching base with you.

Jeffrey has moved on to another girl.

Turns out he's engaged.

He's engaged to another girl who apparently he has started dating at the same time.

I just wrote back to her and I said, oh, I hope you're getting everything sorted and getting yourself and your baby set up, and best of luck to you.

Escaped something pretty horrific.

And then she mentioned that they were selling the house and that she would be, you know, going home to her family and it was a complete separation and they split.

I wasn't surprised.

I actually wasn't surprised after it, I said, you know, like the facts about everything in this were just so unreal that stick on an engagement like that's just another bit to the story, really, isn't it.

Like it didn't actually shock me.

I laughed, I think at the time, and just goes, yeah, look, that would be Jeffrey.

I don't know it to be true.

I haven't actually looked, but apparently he is now married.

He's now moved into state, thankfully, and I don't know his relationship with his child, but I don't think it's a super positive one.

He's just ran away from his problems again.

But Sarah hasn't done that.

In fact, she's thrived.

She had dodged a massive bullet, and she credits that to putting her on the path to exactly where she's meant to be.

Well, it definitely took me a while.

I sat out for a little bit and just made sure that I was going to be I guess, strong enough to go through another situation, but also really that that situation is like one in a million, So it couldn't be as bad as that one, but you know, I definitely had a lack of trust for people and and always probably looked for, you know, the worst case scenario rather than just kind of going with the flow, which is what I had done in the past.

I didn't have.

I always used to be of the mantra that if you don't have any reason to not be trusted, like, the trust is given until it's broken.

So that definitely changed to the it's guilty to proven innocent rather than innocent to proven guilty.

And that was not the best way to look at things, but it was just protecting myself.

So it would have been about nine months or so later, maybe closer to a year, but it was a little while and I hopped back on Tinder and thought I would give it another shot.

And it was within that first evening that I was on there.

I swiped on a beautiful person called Dan and we started talking back and forth, and yeah, it was just we lived in ourtown, but he was doing some remote work and after a few nights of talking, he said, oh, I'll give you a call if you like, and we ended up sitting on the phone and chatting for a couple of hours and it was just free flowing conversation.

It's like we knew each other.

For years, and we actually because we weren't face to face and we were talking, I actually told him the story right then.

I know, you never saw talked about yex on a first date, but it wasn't even a first date.

We were just talking and getting to know each other.

And I guess I really said like a bit of a foundation that he really and he was so understanding of me being very difficult to trust and let people in and was respectful of that and really probably held my hand a little bit like in terms of you know, now, you know, you get to you worry about other people and other things, but I never had a reason to worry with him.

Once we were together, that was it.

There was no one else.

It's an open phone policy.

It's everything that I needed he gave me.

And yeah, I'm very, very lucky to have him.

We've been together coming up to two years now, just bought a property together and have a nice little life with our three little puppies.

I can see myself getting old with this one.

And there's just no drama in our life, which I love.

I never want to have to deal with, you know, secret wives and children ever again.

Everyone has an Eggs is a Minti Media production and proudly part of the Mum and mea network.

This episode is written and narrated by me Georgia Love and produced by Linda Scott.

If you have a story you'd like to share, email podcast at momameia dot com dot au.

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We'll see you for the next episode.