Show Me The Money

everything was going really well. So I thought about it for a while, and then I turned forty one. I thought, Okay, it's time. So I started playing around with online dating, and not long after I turned forty one, I met Alex on Plenty of Fish. That was in January twenty seventeen. He struck a chord with me. So I was forty one. He was thirty nine. He'd been a bit over a year after a separation of his marriage. He wasn't yet divorced, but separated for quite some time. He'd spent that year,

probably not dating, but certainly having a good time. But his profile photo itself wasn't it. He certainly wasn't the usual type I would go for throughout my thirties when I had days, I'd very much gone for tradees and party boys. No one that was serious. And his profile was actually quite serious, and he talked about his work and how invested he was. But most importantly his profile spoke about, you know, how much he loved his children. So he had four children, one from essentially a one

night stand in his early twenties. She was sixteen, I think at the time, but then he had three children with his ex wife, and he spoke in his profile that his children and his family and friends met the world to him, and he was ready to meet someone and for them to be a part of that extended family. And for me, that was really attractive.

where he lived. So we had a lot to talk about in terms of bonding on the region. And then you know, we both lived in the eastern part of Melbourne, so we had a lot of similarities. There was a lot that we connected over. We chatted for three or four weeks. We found it really difficult to make a date to actually meet in person. We both had jobs that required a fair bit of interstate travel and so just aligning our calendars was a bit of a challenge, but we did a line and our first date was

actually in Queensland. We were both in Queensland for work at the same time, so it was the sort of a last minute date where we hadn't realized we were going to be in Queensland at the same time, and I remember I had my work clothes which were quite formal or I had a skirt and a white singlet and a pair of thongs. So I felt a bit uncomfortable and I warned him, like, I'm not going to look flash. I've really only got beach clothes and thongs.

But happy to meet for a drink. So we met for a drink, spoke a lot about his family, We spoke about our jobs. I was really excited about the beach house that I'd bought, so I was sharing plans about that, and it was lovely and one drink turned into two, which turned into three. Then I put a stop to that. I didn't want to get out of

control on the first date. But as he was going to the bar to order our third drinks, a couple from another table in the bar came and tapped me on the shoulder and they were giggling, and I said, Hi, who are you And they said, hi, u Bianka, we saw you having a drink with Alex and I said, yeah, I am. They said, oh, we're actually friends of his from work and he was really excited about this date. And we've been spying on you from the table over there.

It looks like it's going really well, we can see him smiling, would you like to join us for dinner? So his friends actually invited me for dinner and not him, but I said, oh, okay, well if he wants me to sure. He came back to the table and yeah, how to laugh, And it all came out that they'd been sort of spying on us, and we're really happy. So we progressed to dinner and had a lovely night, the four of us. They were all there for work, so he's work paid as well, which was a bonus.

So we had a lovely meal. I had a couple of chats with the female friend that was there, and she was lovely and I thought, gosh, he's just got lovely friends, and I've spoken so much much about his family. He was there for work. It sounded like he had a great job. Sort of ticked a lot of boxes really that I was looking for. After dinner, said goodbye to the friends, He walked me back to my hotel. We kissed and then said goodbye, and then just continued chatting on the phone, texting.

I will drive down the coast and you know, we can just have casual fish and chips on the beach, just chill, get to know each other better. And I thought, oh, how lovely. Like really went out of his way to accommodate the fact that I was really busy and I had, you know, all these things going on. So he came down that weekend on the Saturday afternoon and surprised me by turning up in painting clothes with a paint roller and a paint brush and essentially said, look, I'm here

to help. We painted and chatted for a couple of hours, went and had fish and chips on the beach. He met my dogs, which they're like my children. Yeah, I said, I never wanted children, but I love animals. So he was lovely with my dogs, and that sort of tick to box as well, just the turning up with painting clothes and a paint brush. He worked out what my buttons were, and straight away I was pretty hooked. From that point forward, we both took ourselves offline pretty much

immediately and were exclusive from that point. We were seeing each other probably three or four nights a week. We'd go out for dinners, drinks, the usual dates that you go on. He would stay at my house a couple of nights a week. I would stay at his. I mean, he was absolutely beautiful to me, and I just felt special. I felt loved. I think within three or four weeks of getting serious, he said that he was falling in love with me. He'd never felt like this, even when

he'd met his ex wife. He had dated in between, but he just felt like the minute he met me, I was the one. Almost every time I saw him, there'd be flowers. He had long stem red roses delivered to my work. He cooked a lot for me, which was lovely because I lived on my own and I really cooked, so having someone cook for me was a beautiful treat and it would always be something that I loved. So he just made a monumental effort to just make me feel really special.

year old, didn't visit. He didn't really have a relationship with her at that point, but the three youngest children, which at the time I think were three, four, and six, did come to stay every second weekend and a few nights in between, and the three of them were in secondhand not that there's anything wrong with secondhand, but they were in very cramped bunk beds, sharing one bedroom in a really small flat with a tiny little bathroom and

a tiny kitchen. I didn't judge that. He explained that his ex wife had cheated on him and kicked him out, and that she had stolen all of the money that they had in their bank account as a home deposit, and that kicked him out with nothing. And he'd explained that I've got nothing, she kept everything. I've had to stay on a friend's couch for six months to save

up enough to rent this flat. But I only plan on being here for a year while I get back on my feet, and then I'll buy or rent something nicer, upgrade my furniture. It's only temporary. And that all made sense. He was paying a lot of child support, obviously for three children, but also the eldest wasn't yet eighteen, so he was actually paying child support for four children. So I really understood that that would have been really difficult, and I guess any judgment I had made immediately went

out the window. I thought, this is awful that his ex wife and the mother of his children has left him in this position, and I felt such empathy for him. Probably only two months into our relationship, he hadn't met my friends and family, or maybe a couple of friends at this point, but certainly hadn't met my family. I'd mentioned that I was dating someone and I quite liked him, so they were happy for me and keen to meet him,

but I didn't want to rush things. But about two months in my grandmother passed away and I was very very close with my grandmother and had been nominated by the family as the one to do a eulogy, which I was very nervous about, and I guess needed support. He offered to come to the funeral, and I said, look, it's too much. You haven't met my family. I'll be crying. You know, it's going to be a really uncomfortable situation.

Much as I appreciate the offerer support, you don't need to come, I also don't want you to see me upsair and meet my family when we're upset. But the day came and I was up the front of the church giving my eulogy, and I saw him sneak in the back door and sit in the back row and just smile at me with encouragement, which I just thought was so beautiful. Like I'd said no, but I guess, deep down, you know, I probably did want him there,

and it was so beautiful that he showed up. He met my family very briefly, obviously not time for chit chat, paid his respects, and then left. It was absolutely lovely. So from there we just got closer and closer. He wanted me to meet the rest of his family, and I had met his three younger children, and they were just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. They were happy, they loved him.

He really did appear as a wonderful father. We had them every second weekend and yeah, the occasional night in between, and you know, we just did normal family activities. We sort of of course I wasn't their mum, but you know, it really felt like a happy little family and we'd do activities and bike rides and go to the park and you know, all those fun things that families do. And so for me, just having this part time family was perfect and exactly what I had been looking for.

So yeah, about three months in one of his sisters had a birthday and she lived in Regional Victoria, so we went away for the weekend we went out for dinner, had tepinyaki, you know, through the eggs, all that fun stuff. So it was a great way to meet. Then we went out to a bar in that town and things turned.

And all that happened is I was at the bar just ordering a couple of drinks, and a young guy probably in his twenties, like half my age, started chatting to me at the bar, just while waiting for drinks. Literally that was it. Got our beers or whatever, and okay, great, have a good night, and he then just started ignoring me. Literally for the rest of the night. I would try and dance with him on the dance floor and he'd turn his back and walk off. He just ignored me

for the rest of the night. I was left, you know, in this bar in a regional town, and the only people I knew where his family I'd met two hours before, and they said, oh, so sorry, we can see what's happened. It's not your fault. And I said, well, what's happened. I don't know why he's ignoring me. This is really awkward. We think he saw you talking to that guy at

the bar. I said, yeah, we were ordering drinks, just standing next to each other, and they said, Oh, he gets really jealous and can get a bit funny because his ex wife cheated on him. So you just kind of need to know that about him, that you basically can't talk to another guy in front of him because he's afraid that you're going to cheat on him. And much as it was horrible and I felt very uncomfortable and he pretty much ruined the weekend again, I guess

I understood. I thought, well, wow, if an ex had cheated on me and left me, and I get that, there's this jealousy streak. By the end of the night, I guess he had a couple more drinks and came around and he was sincerely apologetic. He said the same as his family, I'm so sorry my ex cheated on me. I have a fear that that's going to happen again. Just seeing you talking to someone else just caught me off guard and I shouldn't have reacted like that or

will never happen again. I'm so sorry, And we moved on and got over it.

by no means overly successful. I'm middle of the road corporate job. But a number of men that I had met were somewhat intimidated by that and a bit threatened, Whereas he seemed to really be proud of that and value that I was a strong, independent female. So I thought, Wow, this really works. We're both got great jobs, we're both strong, we're both kind. And then his children were just this added level of I guess beauty that he brought to the relationship. I loved watching him with them. We all

cuddled on the couch and watched Disney movies. I felt content and What had also happened in that sort of first eight months is I mentioned he didn't have a great relationship or almost no relationship with the sixteen year old, and he had explained to me that he'd always wanted one,

but he'd never been with the mother. It was a very short fling, early twenties, and he actually didn't even know she was pregnant until essentially the daughter was born, and he said he'd wanted a relationship with her, but that he's ex wife wouldn't allow it. She wouldn't allow a child that wasn't hers into their family, And he blamed his ex wife on the fact that he really hadn't seen his daughter for many years and had no relationship.

Now that I was around, they'd started talking on the phone and just connecting, and she'd started coming around a few times and having dinner, and they'd started forming a relationship. And he credited that to me, which just made me feel wonderful that I had helped bring this father and

daughter together. So when his fortieth birthday came around that year, we decided to go on a holiday to Bali together and invite the sixteen year old along so that he could spend time with her without the other three children there, and she was old enough to come along. Because it was his fortieth birthday, I paid for everything, including for his daughter, so that was obviously see a decent amount

of money. We mostly had a wonderful time. I spent a lot of money, that's for sure, because we wanted to have special dinners and just lovely nights out, and really wanted to treat his daughter. And again it was his fortieth so it was really special. We didn't fight, we didn't anything. It was just a wonderful time together. Came home and thought, wow, that was great. We might actually go to Bali every year. From that point on, we had so many weekends away. We went to Nelson

Bay and went hiking. We did a trip around Tasmania. We both still traveled a lot for work, probably at least one week a month, if not too We actually like juggled our work schedules so that we were interstate at the same time, in the same cities. It was like we were on perpetual holiday. We had the best of both worlds. Family, sometimes couples sometimes. By this point he'd met all my friends. They all thought he was wonderful.

I love going to concerts and gigs, and he joined into that crowd and came out with all my concert friends, and I think my friends actually really started to adore him when we decided to go to Pete Murray, which is not everyone's cup of tea, and he didn't like Pete Murray at all, but he said, no, no, you really like Oh come, And it was essentially all my girlfriends and him, like no one else's partner or husband had come, just him, and they were like, God, Alex

is so nice. I can't believe you got him to come to Pete Murray. We just had a wonderful time and I think my favorite date. And I can't remember how far in this is, but there's a band I love, a UK band called Star Sailor. Hardly anyone knows them, but I absolutely love them. They came to Melbourne and did an acoustic concert in Saint Kilda, and he surprised me with I think he must have copied over my iTunes account or something, because he learned all all of

their songs, like five albums worth of songs. Surprised me, took me to the concert. Honestly, it was the best concert I've ever been to just because I love them, and it was acoustic and it was intimate, and because he'd learned all the words, and we sung them and practiced on the way in in the car, and he just did so many thoughtful things. And again there was always flowers and cards. And I've never had someone tell me I love you like daily daily, just he was beautiful.

wanted to make it really welcoming for the kids. By this point, we'd been together about a year and a half and we were ready to move in together. I lived in a two bedroom unit, which was obviously not big enough. We decided that I would sell my unit. I guess my view was I currently own something, well, the bank owns it, but I don't want to go back to renting. So we discussed that I would sell my unit and that we would choose a house together that was suitable for us as a family when the

kids were there. He had no money to deposit, and the background there which had come out more and more over the last year and a half, as he said his wife cheated, she left him with nothing. What came out over that first eighteen months, bit by bit, was that she'd not only left him with nothing, but that she had a business and he, as her husband, was

on paper director of the business. He told me that she sold the business, pocketed the profit, but the rent on the business lease and all of the equipment and I guess everything, all the expenses that go with running for a business because he was director on paper. He said that he'd been getting legal bills and letters and threats that he owed over one hundred thousand dollars in debt for his ex wife's business, and that's why he didn't have any money for a deposit, and I believed him.

He would constantly show me text messages from his ex wife asking for money for very legitimate things. My geno. One of the kids has an extra school fees or a school camp or school excursion, and all these things that he would show me, No, I have to give my ex wife an extra thousand dollars this month. And I would hear them constantly arguing on the phone or see him having text arguments with her about the kids

and access and money. And it was horrible and frankly, the way he spoke to her, he was condescending, he swore, and was quite obscene in the way he spoke to her. He threatened her a lot, and it was quite revolting. But again I just thought, well, the way she's treated him, I understand it. She's a horrible person, and I actually sort of took his side. We agreed that I would

buy the house on my own. It would be in my name, and for that reason, we agreed to do a prenup that said the house was mine, and if one day we ever broke up, if he had contributed to the mortgage, he would get that back and a percent that the house had gone up, but he was never going to be in a position to contribute to the mortgage, so I felt pretty secure. So I sold my house. The house that I bought Eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

It's a huge family house, five bedrooms, three bathrooms, two loundrooms, like perfect for a family. We made sure there was a room for each of the three smaller kids. They got to choose the paint color and the decorations, and we, being I, bought new things and new furniture for them. We bought five bedrooms so that there was also a spare room. Now that he was getting closer with the eldest daughter, who by this point was probably eighteen, so

we made sure she had a room. And obviously that house costs a lot more than my two bedroom unit. I didn't want to have a huge mortgage. I actually also had an apartment in inner City Melbourne that I had once lived in, and that was sort of my financial security that I was going to keep forever. I was renting it out and it was partying for itself. But to make sure I didn't have a really big mortgage,

I sold that. So I sold my home. I sold my investment property to buy a house with a small mortgage, really for him and his family, but I wanted to the first six to nine months of living together was bliss.

do together. I think she probably thought he was contributing money to it, and they're not giving her money. She wouldn't have known that I had paid for everything and was actually paying for everything. Fighting about money because she was always asking him for more money again legitimately, and he would say, I can't afford it, and she thought it was coming to me. I'd given up my financial security, I'd invested in a house like I was in it. But it was worth it.

having a great time. On the Sunday afternoon, his car screeched into the driveway, screeched in abruptly, and the front door sort of burst open, and he staggered into the house and he was holding his chest, and honestly, his face was like lopsided and he was drooling out of one corner of his mouth, and he couldn't speak. He basically sort of staggered into the house and collapsed onto the lounge, grabbing his chest, and I didn't know what to do. I was like, what's going on, what's happened?

And he sort of managed a couple of words like ambulance, ambulance. Heart attack, heart attack, and one side of his body was like not moving, and I thought, oh my god, he's actually having a stroke. And at this point he was probably forty one. So I immediately called an ambulance and I said, I think my partner's having a stroke. I explained what was happening, and they said, okay, we're on our way. Can you tell us has he had

any illicit substances? I said, I don't know. He just came home and like, I don't know, and they said, can you find out? I said I can't. He can't don't speak. He literally can't speak. He's dribbling. I don't know, and I said, hang on, I'll quickly call his brother, Scott. I called Scott and I said the ambulance has asked if he's had anything. And he went silent for a moment and I thought, oh my god. And he goes, yeah, okay, he has see Okay, well tell me more. I'm on

the phone to the ambulance on the other line. You need to tell me what's going on. He said he had some coke. I went, mate, we've all been out on big nights. I know what people on coke look like, this is not coke and he goes, oh, no, he had a lot, and I go okay, but again, mate, the ambulance is coming. Tell me how much coke did he have? And he goes, look, I don't know how much, but more than he's ever had in his life. And I went, what, so he does this a lot? Oh? Oh?

He just didn't answer, and I just went, you know, I've got to go. Ambulance is here. So the ambulance turned up and I said to them, I don't know how much, but I can confirm that apparently he's had a lot of cocaine. And they looked at him and they said, he's not having a stroke. He's had so much cocaine that he's coming down so hard that his body can't cope and he needs to go to hospital.

that I'd never wanted to see anyone cross. He took an entire week off work to basically come down and recover, and he told work, friends, family, everyone, and got me to say the same that he was stressed at work and that he'd had a panic attack. I'd seen him drunk, and he'd certainly had big nights out drinking, but I'd never seen anything like this, so I didn't think this has been a problem. That moment, I went, this is revolting. You are not, as of right now, the person I

want to be with. But I was stuck. I had invested my house, I'd given up so much, probably without realizing that I think happens to all of us when we fall in love. You know, I probably had pulled away from some of my friends a little bit. I still saw them a lot, but not as much as I had been, and I felt trapped. I just and I thought, I can fix you. I can make this work. This was a one off. It's not going to happen again. I've just got to work with him on making sure it doesn't happen again.

I mean, this is someone who I thought was a wonderful father, and I just thought, you're just gross, disgusting. It kept happening. At least once a week he would go out, and I don't even mean on a Saturday night like sometimes Midek. He'd go out until four am. I really don't know how he was even getting up and functioning, because he was getting up and going to work after coming home at four am, and the next day. It was very up and down. Sometimes he would be

in an awful mood. He would not speak to me for days on end and say, my anxiety is playing up, and I just think, I mean, you just hung over. But whatever, I'll stay out of you.

that's impossible. He has no money. Coke is really expensive. There's no way he's doing that. I actually knew a lot of the time that he was drinking at our local pub. And I don't want to sound like a stalker, because I'm not. But sometimes i'd be worried because he'd text me at six pm I'm just having a quick drink after work, I'll be home by eight. I'd text him at eight, Hey are you on the way home?

Dinner's ready. He wouldn't reply by ten or eleven. I'd be really worried, and I'd literally just drive up to the local pub and there's his car in the car park. Now, this is just a local suburban pub. That's not the kind of place you'd be doing coke. I was very confident he wasn't doing that, and that he was just had a real problem with alcohol. Whilst sometimes he'd have a big night and be horrible to me, sometimes he would get up first thing in the morning, two chores

around the house, walk the dogs. He'd go out and buy me flowers and come back with a beautiful card and say, I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me. I had a bad day at work. I should have come home and spoken to you, or the love of my life. I won't do it again. And then we'd have a wonderful period of time. There was good with the bad. So I guess I was just putting up with the bad and thinking does the good makeup for it? I don't know, maybe it was sort

of a balance. I certainly wasn't happy, but I wasn't miserable enough to sell the house and completely go through a whole life upheaval again, because there were still good times in there.

Never saw her again. I didn't understand it because I had tried the best I could be to be wonderful to all three of the children and the eldest one for years now, and I didn't understand it, but I guess I believed him in that he said his ex wife that she hated me, she hated the kids having a relationship with me, and the eldest was old enough to be influenced by her. So he blamed his ex wife, me and the ex wife. So I guess I just accepted that, and I thought, Okay, maybe she does hate me,

but it's probably not anything I've done. I'm not a bad person. Never saw her again. We continued to have weekends away just the two of us and still kept seeing the other two children. He borrowed money a lot, and it increased. Before we lived together, never borrowed money, but once we started living together, and he was constantly showing me all these texts from his ex. You know, I need to pay five hundred bucks for this and that.

He constantly asked that, not insignificant, but not large amounts of money. Oh, I've had to give my ex five hundred bucks for whatever? Can I borrow three hundred bucks until payday?

inheritance of about eighty thousand dollars. And he said, because we know it's going to come in, I've still got all these debts from my ex wife's business. He told me that he also got a thirty thousand dollar bill from a private school that she had enrolled the kids in, and I knew they went to this school, of course, I'd picked them up from there. And he said that he'd never agreed for them to go to the private

school and pay their fees. That was her choice, but that she had forged his signature on the school enrollment and now the school was chasing him for thirty thousand dollars as well as all the other debts he was

still paying off. And he asked me, you know, I know you've got some secret savings, which I didn't, but he was confident I had some secret savings that I was hiding from him, which I don't know how that's possible when I sold everything to buy this house, and could he borrow eighty thousand dollars knowing that he'd pay me back when the inheritance came in. I said, no, you can't. I don't have it, and also if I did, I would pay it off the mortgage. I don't have

money to loan you. So we had a huge fight out over that. It was probably the biggest fight we'd had because he thought I had this money and I was holding out. But you know, eventually, after probably not speaking to me for a week or so, he calmed down. He apologized. He said, you know, I should never have asked,

and you've done a lot for me already. I just shouldn't have asked, and I'm so sorry, and I love you all the rest of it and etc. Towards the end of that year, the inheritance actually came in and he got a bit over eighty thousand dollars. I mean, I was so happy for him. He didn't use it to repay me anything I had loaned him. I should say he did put some money into my savings account every month to contribute to bills, groceries, etc. But I mean it wasn't even half of anything. It probably covered

the groceries and maybe health insurance like that's it. So he didn't pay me back for anything. He told me he paid off the school fees and some of the debt, but that he was still in debt. It still didn't touch the edges, and I believed him. You know, the good times and the bad times continued, but the bad times started increasing. He just did nothing. He really did nothing, really didn't contribute much, but every now and then still

had moments of kindness and love. At this point, the good probably wasn't outweighing the bad, but I was mid forties stuck. I thought, I don't want to be alone, and I just don't want to give up. And I still think I can fix him. I just need him to get help for his alcohol problem. He said he'd try and rein it in, and I think there are periods where he did try. He actually just couldn't do it. He genuinely was addicted to just going out and drinking,

and he couldn't do it. One Sunday night, he came home again, probably four am, and in the morning he didn't get out of bed. He had to go to work, And at about nine AM. I woke him up and said, hey, babe, it's nine am. I think you should be at work. Are you going to work? Do you want me to call them? Are you sick? And he said, NA, can't get out of bed, not going to work. I'll text my boss. I said, okay. Well, he didn't get out

of bed for six seven weeks. He told me, he told everyone work, etc. That he was having a serious bout of anxiety. He thought he was clinically depressed and he just couldn't get out of bed. I didn't speak to his work, but he told me his work was supportive and they said, well, okay, that's fine, go and

get some help. And I was so pleased with that because I'd been asking him to see someone about his drinking problem and he did agree, and he went and saw a counselor a handful of times, and it didn't really improve things. It got him back to work, but it didn't improve things. He's drinking and going out continued, and after a handful of sessions, he came home really angry and said, I'm never going back to that counselor. You know, she's an idiot. She doesn't know what she's

talking about. She said, I'm an alcoholic. I don't believe her. She's wrong, she doesn't know what she's talking about. I'm never going back. Said, well, you know I'm here to support you. I've stuck it out for this long. I can help you if you want to get help, because Alex, she's right, like, you're an alcoholic, and let's work on this together. Now. I'm not I'm never going back. My life's fine. I don't have a problem, and that was it.

But like then I have to get a job. But like, you've got to step up, and you need to stop spending money going out on alcohol, and like I need you to pay for the groceries, and he didn't. In fact, I kept paying for everything and dwindled my savings down to practically nothing. He actually that year even had to have an operation for something, and he said, oh, it's not covered by medicare. I'm like, hey, we've got private health because I pay for it. I know we do

now I've checked. It's not covered. So even though I had no job, I paid three thousand dollars for an operation because you needed it. Still, there was just more money loaning me, paying for everything, just dipping into my savings because he just kept say I'm paying my ex wife all this money constantly, and there was valid reasons, and I wasn't happy about it, but I didn't want the kids to miss out on him giving the money.

So I thought, well, if I don't pay for things, he's not going to pay for things for the kids. And I didn't want them to be stuck in the middle and get hurt. So I just kept paying for everything. About the same time as all this, I got up one day and walked to the dogs. His jacket was nearby. I threw his jacket on, and I found a tab ticket in his jacket. I'd never found one before. There'd never been any signs of gambling, So I mean, whatever,

one tab ticket for fifty bucks whatever. But you know, at the same time, I'd asked him to stop spending money. I didn't have a job. When I got home, I said Hey, what's this tab ticket? Like, I know it's only fifty bucks, but are you gambling? And he went crazy at me, how dare you? It's one ticket, it's fifty bucks. I would never gamble. I can't believe you'd accuse I'm like, I'm just asking I found a ticket.

He accused me of several affairs and this and that, and just deflected the gambling question and just absolutely made me the villain. I just thought, I cannot do this anymore. But I thought, let's give it one honestly, one more red hot crack. And I said to him, Okay, we know we're not in a good place. Your going out is out of control. You've been told you're an alcoholic. I need you to do something about it, or I can't put up with anymore. You're going to have to

move out. I said, let's go on a really nice holiday together. We will use the absolute last of my savings to go on a holiday, and then when we get back, I'll find a good job and we'll be good again. So reset, I spent my last like twenty thousand dollars for us to go and do three weeks in Cambodia. In Vietnam, and it was lovely and we

had a wonderful time. We really did reset. We had a packed that part of resetting is maybe overshare, but we were like, right, we have to have sex every single day at least once, because we never had a problem there. We did. We reseted, we bonded, we had a beautiful time, came back and honestly, within two days of returning, it's just like he switched. The going out just started immediately within two days of coming home, and it again was four or five nights a week.

Whilst there were some things he said that were frowned upon, I think for the most part he said the right things. You know, I want to make it work. And we will go home and do the exercises you've given us and talk about things we've never spoken about in detail, and talk about horrible things that may have happened in our lives or childhood, or wonderful things. And we did all that, and we do it. But then on the

days we weren't focusing on it, the partying continued. We had our six year anniversary and he surprised me with a night in a hotel in the city and we went to a five star restaurant. Of course, when the time to pay for the bill, he waited for me to get my credit card out, even though it was his surprise. But you know, dinner was about five hundred

dollars on my credit card with no job. But anyway, but then after dinner, we couldn't find a bar, you know, we wanted to go for a drink, and honestly it was cold. Anyway, we ended up just going back to the hotel and he was really angry because we hadn't been able to find a place to go out drinking and anniversary night, he literally just turned his back on me and went to sleep again. Ups and downs. Next

few months, the partying just continued, continued, continued. In May twenty twenty three, he went out one night, texted me at four am, I'm still out. I'm like, yeah, no kidding, Please state your brothers. I don't want you to come home. He came home about lunchtime the next day. I said, hey, look, we need to talk and he went, yep, I'm moving out. I went, okay, no, we need to talk about that. Yes because no, no, no decisions made. I'm moving out, no

discussion required. And I'm like, hang on, We've just professed our love in front of the counselor. We said we want to make it work. We've had a holiday this year. We had a wonderful type No we didn't, he says, no, we didn't. That was the shittest holiday of my life. I hated every moment of it, Like what really? You posted photos of us and professed your undying love for me every single day of our holiday on social for the world to see as you've done for the past

six and a half years. Every weekend we've gone away, every holiday we've had. You've been our social media editor. You're the one that's presented to the world how I'm the love of your life. And now you've just said you're moving out with no discussion. And he's like, yep, and literally didn't speak to me for the rest of the night. I didn't hear from him for three or four days. I drove to the local pub at four am. His car was there. I looked in the window of

the Pokey's. He was at a Pokey's machine with about six beers lined up by himself. It was very clear he had moved out. I didn't hear from him. He hadn't come home. He was gone, and I thought, you know what, I wanted you to move out anyway. I was no longer happy, I mean, unfortunate the way it happened that he just made the decision without discussion, but I was glad it had happened, and I thought, well, you've moved out. You no longer have the right to

walk in and out of my house. So I got the locks changed so as I was literally heading out the door to go and stay at a girlfriend's house for the night. He showed up and he tried to open the door. Obviously he couldn't get in. He knocked and I opened the door, and he's like, what's going on. I said, well, you've moved out. I haven't heard from you in five days. You said you were moving out, and you've clearly moved out, so you can't come and go as you please in my house. So I've changed locks.

I've packed all your belongings. They're all in suitcases. I don't know why I even bothered packing them for you, because I've paid for literally every piece of clothing in your wardrobe that you've accumulated over the last six and a half years. I should have kept it all, but you know I'm a nice person, so I've packed it all up for you. Here you go, I'll help you put it in the car. He pushed the door open grab you know, had his house keys in his hand,

so he threw them up my face. He pushed me out the way and he said, well, the TV's mine. You gave it to me as a birthday present. So he tried to rip the TV off the wall. I tried to stop him. He pushed me again. He didn't continue the physical after that, but I backed away and said, you know, get out. I think he realized he'd crossed the line. Obviously, he had become physically violent. So he started picking up his suitcases I'd packed and putting them in the car. I tried to help. He did then

push me again, don't you dare touch my things? And so I just backed away and just sat in the lounge room and let him put his things in the car. He came back screaming, where am I going to live? Said, I don't know where have you been living for the last five days? Go live there. Over the years, I just fell less and less in love with him. His

relationship with his children deteriorated. He said he loved his children, but I never knew why he wouldn't fight for his children when his ex wife was sort of reducing his access to them. I thought, you are just not the man I thought you were, the man I fell in love with. He was not that man. He was a completely different person. So I felt really mixed emotions. A I had wanted him to move out. I had threatened it many times, and I meant it, but at the

same time. I mean they were kind of empty threats. They were threats of saying, sort yourself out or move out, And deep down I hoped he'd sort himself out and get back to the person that I'd met, and that we would have a fresh start. So I think a little bit in me was still in love with the person i'd met, but I certainly wasn't in love with this person. I was angry at myself. I hadn't been brave enough to pull that cord a long time ago. I was angry he made the decision without discussion. I

was angry we'd been to counseling and he'd lied. I was also just so devastated. He was silent for a couple of weeks, and then a couple of weeks later he contacted me and said, I've made a mistake. I've been living on my brother's couch and also a friend from work's couch, and all my clothes are in my car, and I've had time to think, and I've made a mistake, and I don't think I'm ready to move back in. But let's talk about it, and can we at least

go for a coffee and walk the dog? And I missed the dog, and so we did and we went for a coffee and a brunch and we walked the dog and we talked about things and it was lovely, and we kissed and we held hands for the whole time, and it was lovely. And he was like, I think I've made a mistake, but I just need time to clear my head. I need to see if I can sort myself out. I sort of gave him his space. A couple of weeks later, he said, let's go out

for dinner, and we did. We went out for a romantic dinner and had a bottle of wine and he didn't overdrink and he actually paid for dinner, which was, you know, a first, and we had a lovely time. And it was a bit awkward because I didn't really even know what to talk about. But he let me know he'd finally decided to leave his job. He realized that that was part of his causing him to be anxious and to drink and was stressing him out, and

he said he'd applied for another job. He explained that it was actually quite a significant emotion and a pay cut, which I found really odd. I didn't understand it but he said, look, I just need to move on. My workplace is just no longer good for my mental health. Willing to take a demotion, It's okay, good on you. Yeah, And then I literally didn't hear from him for weeks,

weeks and weeks and weeks. Yet I'd see photos on social media if him out drinking with his brother constantly, in Sydney, in Adelaide, in Melbourne, all over the place.

You didn't. I've got all the mortgage statements, I've got all the bank statements. You're not owed anything. And in fact, I've loaned you tens of thousands of dollars and I've paid for everything. You probably owe me a lot of money. I wouldn't ask we're done, just walk away. You don't even have to pay me back. Just walk away, and he wouldn't. And then he sent me a foul email, firstly accusing me of cheating again, and I want my money, I demand this much, excell And I just thought, I

want none of this. And I just forwarded it to the lawyer that had actually written the prenup in the first place, and I said, I'm engaging your services. I'm not even responding. I don't want to deal with this. I was just furious at this point, and I thought, are you kidding? We both know, as does everyone quite frankly, I pay for everything. You contribute practically nothing, not even half of the bills. Like why would you do this to me after everything I've done for you? Like why

turn nasty? Just end it, just walk away. I was hurt, but I was more angry, like why would you do this to me? I've been nothing but kind, generous, thoughtful. I've been wonderful to your children. I've given you a home, you've moved out. I've let you take half my stuff. I've let you moved out with support. Now you want my money. So I just engage a lawyer and let them deal with it, and backwards and forwards between the lawyers. Over the next three to four weeks, quite a lot

more came out in him trying to claim money. His lawyer provided his bank statements for the last five years that we've been living in my house, and he did that to demonstrate that Alex had been putting some money in my account. But what also came out in those bank statements was the lawyer didn't redact anything. I now had every single transaction he'd made for five years, and what I found was a quarter of a million dollars of gambling. I thought he had anxiety. He didn't. That

was the result of a big gambling loss. The night before when he took seven weeks off work. It correlated with a big gambling loss. The nights when I thought he was drinking would correlate to one thousand dollars in a pokey machine. The nights when he was staying at his brother's house in the city correlated to three thousand dollars at Crown Casino, and so a quarter of a

million dollars gone. And it was a my money, but you know what it was because I'd paid for everything, because he said his money was going to his kids, and it wasn't going to his kids. During COVID when he wasn't able to go to the Pokeyes, there was usually three to four hundred dollars a day of betting

on online betting sites. So when I thought we were enjoying time together in lockdown, watching Netflix, bonding on the couch and of course chatting to friends on text and social media and WhatsApp, I was doing that, he was sitting next to me gambling, throwing hundreds of dollars away on online betting sites, all the meanwhile asking me for money. The loans that he said he was paying off the debts from his ex wife didn't exist. There was no debts,

there was no loans, There was just gambling. The school fees didn't exist, The payments to his ex wife didn't exist. What did exist was the inheritance. He was gambled away. Within a couple of months it was horrendous to sit there and discover I knew he was an alcoholic. I did not know, And in hindsight, I know I should have known that if you're staying at a local pub to four am, the only part of the pub that's

open is the pokies. And I just didn't connect. I just thought he was drinking beers with his brother, but the two of them were just gambling. And this is why his brother couldn't hold down a job. This is why his brother was being kicked out of houses and living on couches, and this is why Alex never had money, because he's a serious gambling at it. At that point, I realized, Wow, everything he said about his ex wife is probably not true. I knew she didn't leave him

in debt. I wondered if everything he had said about her was untrue. So I rang her. Obviously I had her number as the mother of the children, and I rang her and I said, you know, hey, it's Bianca, and you would have heard that Alex and I have broken up, she said, Yet I said, look, I don't want anything from you, and I'm ringing to sincerely apologize for having been really unpleasant to you. For all these years.

Alex had said a lot of things to me about you, and that you cheated on him and you left him in all this debt and all of the things about non access to the children. And she was so lovely. She said, do you know what I completely understand. I knew he would have been lying to you, and I knew that's why you essentially didn't like me. I could never tell you the truth because a I was scared if I told you the truth, he would come after

me and the children. I think he's really dangerous. And she said, I also didn't tell you because you wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth. And I said, well, you're right, but I'll believe you. Now. What's the truth? And she said, the truth is I didn't cheat. He did more than once. The truth is I didn't kick him out with no money. He stole all the money we had saved from my business. He gambled it all away. He left me broke and with nothing, and I had

to borrow money for baby formula. He left me with two toddlers and a baby, broke. And she said, he's been gambling for years, Bianca. He did it to the girlfriend before me. I found out later. She's like, you're not his first victor, you're his third, if not more. He's been a gambling addict since he was about seventeen.

He's just learned to hide it and manipulate it, and he just uses women for money and has learned to charm them and find the right buttons for them to fall in love with him until he gets what he wants. She said, don't worry, he's going to do it to the next one. And I said, well, hopefully no one else will fall for it. And she said he's already got a next one. What And she said, oh. He started bringing his new girlfriend to the kids' sports activities

in June. The finances and the gambling, etc. Made me angry, But then to find out he'd moved on, Well, essentially had been cheating because I thought we were still dating. I thought we were trying to make it work, when in fact he wasn't. He was trying to keep me sweet to get money. He actually had another girlfriend. I kept going through his bank statements. I'd found the quarter of a million gambling, but I guess that's all I'd really been looking for, So I went back through his

bank statements. Yeah, he'd been cheating, and not only cheating physically and emotionally, but he'd been giving her money. So I'd been paying for everything. I was out of a job, I was funding our holidays where we were still having sex daily, and he'd been sleeping with her on nights. He said he was at his brother's and he'd been giving her money. On our anniversary weekend, he transferred seven hundred dollars to her with the message just cause Valentine's Day.

I think I got flowers and she got like one thousand dollars. And then and I found these bank transfers. I started putting two and two together, like when it He started staying at his brothers and I scrolled through social media, and whilst they hadn't tagged each other, I worked out that there were functions that they were at together. So I pieced it together and he started cheating. When I lost my job, I was no longer useful to him.

He moved on and found his next victim. So I had to go to the doctor, get tests, etc. Everything was all clear, thankfully, but emotionally at this point to find out I had just been used for money and had been cheated on and lied to and manipulated and gas lighted and accused of cheating when the opposite was happening, and put up with being ignored in my own home for days, and treading on eggshells for days, wondering if he'd be in a good mood or a bad mood,

and just to have been through so that it wasn't that he left because I didn't love him. It was recognizing I'd just been played a fool for over six years of someone who just wanted money. I just broke down at the doctors. You know, I was there for physical tests, but they ended up referring me to a trauma counselor. I got diagnosed with depression, like basically post traumatic stress. I had to see a councilor quite a

number of times. I got put on antidepressants. All the while, the lawyers are still battling things out, and he's still trying to get money. My lawyer was also looking through his bank statements and found things that I hadn't found. And my lawyer and I got together and found that not only was he gambling, drinking, giving money to a girlfriend, etc. Blew his inheritance, blew a lot of money of mine, borrowed money off me, all evident in the bank statements.

Not only that, but he was getting cash deposits of up to ten thousand dollars a month at a time prior to telling me he was leaving his job, which now makes sense. He was had a very senior role at a commercial sort of kitchen equipment company. And what we pieced together is that he had been stealing equipment twenty thirty thousand dollar equipment from his work. They wouldn't notice.

They sell millions and millions of dollars a month, so they wouldn't notice a thirty thousand dollar piece of equipment missing from the warehouse. And he managed the infantry in the stock take. He was stealing from his work and selling for cash. He was getting up to ten thousand dollars a month cash, basically trading in stolen goods. February twenty two four, just this year, it all came to a head with the lawyers. He wouldn't walk away. We

ended up in a barrister session in separate rooms. I had to have a security guard because over the last few months, both myself and my neighbors had had to make several reports to the police of my house being stalked. So there'd been a number of instances where I guess unknown weird cars with unknown men were either in my driveway or parked out the front of my house taking photos. So I was at the point where I was a

bit scared. He wasn't owed money, that was legally clear, but I knew if I just didn't settle, I was in danger. So we went to a barrister session in separate rooms. I had someone there looking after me. He wasn't allowed to leave the room that he was in so that we didn't cross paths. The barrister recognized that I was afraid. The barrister, I guess as they do, sort of moved in between the two rooms and facilitated.

We both had lawyers there. The barrister was a female and essentially came back into my room after at least an hour with him and I'd been sitting there, and she said, Bianca, legally he's owed nothing. It's clear as day. You have a prenup. The bank statements verify that he's owed nothing, but he's had to declare, as had I your financial positions as of today, which by this point

was nine or ten months since we'd split up. But in that same nine months he had accrued over one hundred thousand dollars of debt, so he had obviously gone and gotten personal loans or whatever to fund his gambling addiction. And the barrister said to me, he literally has nothing to lose. He is unofficially bankrupt. He's in a six figure debt. He owns nothing, he doesn't even own a car. He has a lawyer that you don't pay up front, so he now has legal bills. He will not walk

away unless you pay. And I've just spent over an hour with him. He is unstable. He will go to any length to get money. I think, for the sake of what is in ten years time you look back at not a great deal of money to you. Forego your principles, forego the prenup. Pay him out, because I actually think if you don't, you are in physical danger. And I went. It pains me, it angers me. It's unfair, it's un just, it's not right. Fine, I will just

pay him to go away, and I did. He was now spending up to twenty thousand dollars a month gambling, so his life I mean, if it could get any worse, it had spiraled. It taken a lesser job with lesser money. He was presenting to the world like he was happy to be without me, and he was partying and life was great with his new girlfriend. But the reality is it's not. It's terrible. He's just actually spiraled and he's

a loser. Even the counselor that had met him said, wow, now that you've explained all of this, I have really a professional opinion. I was like, okay, what And she said, his textbook sociopath, he had a terrible childhood. According to him, he was abuse. She said, what that can lead to, and it sounds like it has leaded to is an adult that has no morals often turns to crime. Sociopaths very regularly turn to addiction, whether it be drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, whatever.

And she said, they actually just yet have no moral code. They lie, manipulate, use people to get whatever they want, and then once they can't get what they want anymore, they discard them. And she said, sociopaths genuinely don't feel love. They learn to mimic people, They learn to work out how to give people what they need and everyone will think they are kind and charming, but actually they feel nothing about anyone, and that's pretty much where we're at.

I feel like it actually just gives me validation that this was never me, and I look back and think, we're they're red flags, and you know what, in hindsight, there's always red flags. And as I talk to you today and read out these stories of him ghosting me and abusing me and accusing me of cheating and disrespecting me,

they should have been red flags at the time. Maybe, But honestly, I look back and I think, well, now that it's clear he is legitimately a sociopath, he was so clever at being charming and giving me what I needed when I needed it, and so manipulative that he'd just become really good at hiding the red flags. And in reality, I wasn't the first person he did this too, so he's had now thirty years to practice hiding the

person that he is. So you know, initially when I found all of this out, I felt hurt and cheated and a fool, and now I just think, no, I'm not a fool. He's just very, very good at manipulating people and hiding what he's really like from everyone, even those closest to him. I honestly think the only person in the world that probably knows the truth about him is his brother. The rest of his family think his ex wife was the problem. They would now think I

was the problem. Everyone believes him because he's had thirty years of practicing hiding what is really like. And I look back and I now realize, and his ex wife has told me the reason the eleven year old stopped seeing him is I don't know. She just got to the age where she started being through him and hearing the way he spoke to her mum, and then she started to realize he was lying well before I did, because she heard both sides, and so she turned on

him because she realized what he was like. Since we've broken up the youngest daughter who is now eleven, so then our sixteen thirteen eleven, the other daughter, has also worked him out. He doesn't want help, and he is choosing to lie to everyone about it. So I've felt

empathy and now I feel nothing. I have been through periods where I think, wow, addiction is a medical problem, and I have felt empathy and thought, you know, he couldn't help her addiction was and still is, you know, driving every decision he makes, and it's out of his control. So I have felt moments of that, and then I guess that's my heart and then my head clicks in and says, well, hang on. He was offered help for

his addiction, he turned it away. Addiction might have controlled some of his decisions around money, but addiction didn't make him lie, manipulate, cheat, abuse me, yell at me, ghost me, disrespect me. And I guess once I thought about it in a more considered fashion and took my heart out of it, the empathy disappeared, and I just thought, no, everything you have done is a choice. And I know that's not the case with everyone that suffers addiction, and

for many people addiction it's not a choice. It's a problem. And I know a lot of people want help and they can't get it. He doesn't want help, and he is choosing to lie to everyone about it. So I've felt empathy and now I feel nothing. You know, it's a lesson, like he's taught me lessons that I would never have learned otherwise, and I've probably come out of it. You know, I was always really independent and I've just come out of it more confident and more independent than

I ever was. Since he's left me, and I haven't been sitting at home waiting for him and miserable. I do know that someone has tipped off the police to his stolen goods activity, and I know that because they contacted me and asked me if I had knew of it, and I said no, I knew nothing about it. It had nothing to do with me. I've heard that he may have been audited by the ATO and they have

found some extra income that wasn't declared. So I'm assuming that it's going to have some repercussions for him, both financially and possibly criminally. I don't know the details. I don't know the outcome. I don't know what will happen, and I really don't care. He's made his bed and yeah, he can lie in it. I've joined a running club, I've upped my forty five game. I've just been overseas and done a CrossFit camp. I'm fitter than I've ever been.

I'm financially independent again. I'm doing really well in my career. I've reconnected with friends that I probably had neglected, and that's been really wonderful. I've reconnected with friends I actually hadn't even seen for ten years and just bonded over others that have been through similar So whilst it was horrible and regretful, I just take lessons out of it and have come out a lot stronger and a lot happier than I've ever been. And at this point, I

just want to stay that way. I want to be single, I want to be independent. I'm not looking to meet anyone, and not because I don't want to go through it again. I just am happy on my own. There's no burden, there's no ill will, there's just nothingness. There's just me. That's really all I care about. Me, my friends, my family, and just nothing to do with him.