You're listening to a Mother Me podcast, Muma Me, your acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters. This podcast is recorded on. This episode deals with discussion of depression and suicide. Listener, discretion is advised. We've all heard this saying, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. But isn't that a terrible way to look at life, because if you go into everything with negativity, you might miss the best thing that's out there waiting for you.
With my first marriage, because he was so absent emotionally and physically in that marriage that when I was with Luke, he was there all the time.
We did everything together.
He was so emotionally available, we were so connected that it made my fears of a found marriage go. I felt safe, I felt secure in this relationship. I didn't have any doubts. I was like, this is my one, this is the one that I was supposed to be with from the start.
But dear listener, the saying is a common saying for a reason. What if sometimes when your gut is telling you this may all just be too good, it is.
I remember just looking at him one day in the eye and I said, look, you need to just be honest with me. I can't keep healing or trying to heal and then getting another blow and finding out something Alice, you need to rip it off like a band aid.
I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an Ex. Come with me as we dive into a collection of unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the hearts of the very people who lived them. Madison's story is about a guy named Luke, but before we meet him, we need to delve a little into Madison's backstory. You see, she was married before Luke came along. As they say, everyone has an.
Ex I met my first husband in my early twenties, and about six months into that relationship I did for pregnant. We didn't plan on that pregnancy at all. I do have a history of Andrew metrosis, so that's why I guess the pregnancy. We armed an ard and then we thought, no, I really wanted to be a mum and this might be my only opportunity to have a baby, and I think we had the family pressure of getting married, so
we followed through with that. Shortly after we got married, we then did try for another baby, so we had two beautiful children, and we had a home together. Everything looked perfect, but it was quite a tumultuous marriage. He was a big party boy, he was never home. I felt like a single mum the whole time, and it kind of just ran its course. So in twenty eighteen we called it quits. In total, we were together for
ten years before we decided to split. Then the end, it just got too hard and I needed to make the break. I did feel heartbroken, more disappointed. I didn't want to let my parents down. I didn't want to let my children down. I didn't want to let just society down. Like that's a huge shame around a broken marriage,
especially being so young. I was the first of my family to ever go through a divorce, after first of all my friends to ever go through it, so it was difficult in that perspective, Like I knew it was a marriage that wasn't right and that love wasn't there, but it was a big hurdle to get over the shame of having a broken marriage.
I also put that off.
The table of ever getting married again, because the fear of ever going through another marriage breakdown was just too hard for me to even manage or cope with or even imagine that could be a possibility. So as much as I wanted it, the marriage part of it, I just I kind of blocked that out and thought I just wouldn't do that again.
But that certainly didn't mean she didn't want love again.
I'm a hopeless romantic love love. I had dated often on a little bit, but no one really got my attention. I didn't really have that sparkle, that connection, or I didn't really say future with anyone until I laid eyes on Luke. It was this instant connection like I had never felt before, and I was like, wow, this is what they describe in the movie. Is that feeling when you just know? And people used to say when you know,
you know, and I was like, whatever I did. I looked at him and I was like, oh my gosh, this guy's an absolute angel. So it was at my house. They say that don't come knocking on your door, but apparently they no. I was having a bit of a party at my house, just a few people around, and one of my friends had advised Luke to come over and he just randomly rocked up. I just saw him and I was like, Oh my god, who is this guy? And we started talking, and I didn't really think much
of it. But from there I just suddenly saw him everywhere at my local cafe, or turn of around and he's at the local Ida shop.
I'll turn around and he's there.
Just randomly, all the time, I'd see this guy, and sometimes I can be a bit woo woo, and I can be a bit like, oh, it's a sign. And I took that as a sign, and I was like, maybe this guy's meant to be in my life. He ended up finding me on Instagram and messaging me and saying, why don't you stop stalking me and just let me take you out for a date. And I was like okay. I was like, that's so cheeky, like charming, and I was like, okay, you win, Let's go on a date.
So we went on a date, and literally from that first date we were inseparable.
I thought he was the hardest thing I've ever seen.
He was like this bad boy image but had like a golden retriever personality. He looked like he'd be naughty, he looked like you'd driver Harley, but then he also had this beautiful soft interior. He had these big puppy eyes, and I just fell in love with He was really charming.
He got me. It felt like he just understood me.
If I would say I was having a bad endo flare up, he would drop a hot wadi ball at my door. I'd go out for dinner with my girlfriends and he'd bring up the restaurant and pay for my dinners. He would do all these beautiful things.
Randomly.
He'd call me at work and I'd like, oh gosh, we're just talking that. Me and my girlfriend we were saying how much we were craving cheeseburgers. Next minute, Uber Eats comes with cheeseburgers. He was just perfect. My first husband was so emotionally absent and was never available and was never there. So when I was getting this from a guy, I'd never had it and it was all I ever wanted before my first husband. So I just literally lapped it up. I was like, Wow, this is
all I ever wanted. He was a little bit younger than I was, about two years younger. He didn't have any children, he didn't have a relationship with his mother. I think that that is something that he when he saw me being that mum roll. When he was introduced to the girls. It was kind of like he did like that side of me. It was an attractive side that he enjoyed of me. He's used to say to me that he always envisioned himself with a person that had children. He never really wanted them or had an
earning for them. So he said, I never envisioned myself to have children of my own. I always thought I would have step children. So he was fine with the fact that I had two girls. I was really cautious about inviting anyone into my children's lives, so I would only see him when the girls were with their father, so that was every second weekend, but every second weekend we were joined at the hips. It was probably about five months into relationship when I thought, Okay, I see
a future of this guy. He's shown me great qualities, he's patient. I will introduce him to the girls. The break up wasn't great with my first husband, and I would get quite nasty and aggressive emails now and again, and I was telling Luke that I had another one, and Luke knew where my ex husband went to the gym. So Luke went to the gym when my ex husband would be there, knowing that he would be there at that time to confront him, and he said, look, I'm
with Madison now. If you write her any more emails, I'm going to be who you need to speak to. I have her back now, so you can basically piss off. And to me, I was like, oh my gosh, I've never had a man stand up for me or have my back like that, Like this guy's got me. This guy's protecting me like I've never been protected before. So that was another reason why I kind of was like, this guy is someone who I went in my life forever.
He's showing me all the traits that I want in a partner and that he would be someone that I would want to invite into their lives.
I just wanted that.
Picture perfect family, and especially for my girls. They didn't deserve to have a broken family, and I wanted to have that family unit for them. I wanted to go on family hall, I wanted to go to family barbecues. I wanted them to have that father figure at home for them, and it just wasn't the three of us. So yeah, I really did want to have a family again for them.
So the time came, Madison's girls were six and eight, and had never met a parent's partner before. She had no idea how it would go.
Kind of was a big do, to be honest.
So my mom and dad, who were quite involved in my life, they're huge in my children's lives as well,
so we were really tight family. It was a public holiday, and I remember we all had the day off and my sister and her husband her two children also came and we went to a Lama farm and we had this big picnic and we drove there and my youngest was actually cassick in the way there and we had to pull over and Luke ran across the road to the petrol station to go get her a bottle of water to go get her a bucket and some wet wives and was looking after her as I was by
the side of the road as well with her. But the way he just took control, pulled the car over, ran and got all this stuff for her, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is so sweet. Then we got to the Lama farm and I remember always thinking in my head that my youngest is probably going
to be the hardest one to crack. And there was a moment at the Lama farm we were all together, and Luke had to go back to the car to get something, and my youngest went, I'll go with you, and they started to walk off, and she grabbed his hand and they walked off together, hand in hand, and I remember just looking at my mom and we both had tears in our eyes. He would show up for them was unbelievable. He would turn up to their netball games,
cheering them. On some days during the school holidays, I'd have to go to work and he was like, don't worry, baby, I'll work from home today.
I've got the girls. You go to work.
Just little things. I remember it was my eldest tenth birthday. I said, do I want to do something special? And he was like, what do you want to do? And I went to work. When I got home, he had hand built a tpee bed around her bed, put fairy lights all in her room, made this sign happy Birthday, and this room was incredible. It was like a tent that he built while we were working at school. And she came home to this massive surprise that I even didn't have any idea about, and I just burst into
tears on my sword. I was like, oh my goodness, you spent all day and all your money to put together this beautiful surprise.
They just adored him.
He couldn't have been a better step parent to my children. The way I saw him with my girls and the way that they looked at him, it just made me fall in love with him so much. The love I had for him was just so much stronger, because you're not just going to take on me, but you're taking on two little ones like I come into the package deal and if someone can do that, then I just have so much respect for them. And he just treated them so beautifully. Even as a partner. I couldn't have
faulted him. He was so attentive, so beautiful. He would go over to my mom's house and just drop over coffee. Randomly. He would take my dad to the movies because he knew that my dad wanted to see Top Gun and no one wanted to go with him, so he'd be like, I'm going to take your dad to gold class and take him to the movies. He was just adored by my parents, my friends, my kids. He was perfect. You couldn't have written a better guy. He was picture perfect.
I had him on a pedestal. I couldn't have loved that man anymore if I tried.
The next step, of course, was to move in together.
It was only six months into our relationship and his lease was up and we were spending every night together.
Anyway.
I don't know who kind of brought up the idea, but it was mentioned that he would move in, so I agreed. But a week before he was supposed to movie and I pulled the pin. I just started to think, no, I don't want to get trapped again. I'd got a bit scared. I got coffee. I said no, actually, you can't move in. Two weeks later he just would be like, yeah, cool, okay, oh no, that's fine. If you don't like, if you're not ready, that's fine. And then two weeks I was like, no,
I'm ready. He's like, okay, I'm packing my stuff again. Moving in felt so normal, nothing changed. He was so easy to live with, The girls loved him. He was there all the time anyway, so really like it was just really no different, to be honest, but yeah, just seamlessly nothing went wrong at all. Everything was completely fine. He would sometimes see the school drop offs for me, sometimes the school pickups for me. Our little triangle of me and the two girls just turned into a square
so perfectly. It just worked so well. We never had disagreements on anything. We actually never fought. We never had disagreements. We were always laughing and carrying on and being goofy, and we'd go out to parties and people would be like, you guys, a couple goals like you two just get
along so well. He made the boring life tasks fun, like grocery shopping with him was fun, like walking the dogs was fun because we were so we're just best friends and we loved each other's company that it was never a boring moment.
Everything was fun.
We know what would usually come next. But Madison was staunch on the fact she didn't want to get married again.
It was October twenty twenty one and we were on a holiday in Queensland and he proposed to me. I was a little taken aback, and because I had this big fear of having a found marriage, I was like a little hesitant. But then I thought, no, this Ben is so perfect. There's absolutely no way I shouldn't be marrying this man. So of course I said yes. He knew my biggest fear was having another fouled marriage. That was quite vocal. I would always stay like, I'm so
scared of this happening again. I just don't think I could live through like another failed marriage. I'm not even forty. Imagine having another fouded marriage, the humiliation and the feeling of failure. I just wouldn't be able to cope with that again. He just alay reassured me. I just never really felt like there was going to be an issue there, our communication, our trust. I couldn't have faulted any of it. There was nothing lacking for me to ever second guess it.
We were so in love, like so in love that if he probably said, like, there's a chuffle down the rod, let's get married up, I would have been like, yeah, okay at that time because of just how persulted I was that it kind of took away that fear being with him, took away the fear of it failing, because he was so perfect that he didn't give me any reason to everything that that wasn't going to be forever. After behind that proposal, I felt safe. I felt secure
in this relationship. I didn't have any doubts. I was like, this is my one, this is the one that I was supposed to be with from the start, but just came later in life. So I had money from the sale of my first house from my first marriage, so I had quite a lump sum to put a deposit on a house. Came with nothing but a suitcase.
But I didn't care.
That honestly didn't mean anything to me. I just loved him so much. He could have been homeless for all I cared. I really didn't. So I wanted to have our family a house. I wanted to have that beautiful family unit. So I bought a house for us and put his name on it as well as mine. So we went through that process of buying a house, and in that time, a few months later was our wedding. He said vowels and gave my two children promise rings,
and that brocked me. So the vows basically were was to be there for the children for the rest of their lives, that he loved them, that he's always going to love their mum and them equally, and it was
just the most beautiful moment. The night before our wedding, we had an airbnb there where I would be getting ready the morning of the wedding, so we stayed there together the night before, just the two of us, and I remember he was just out on the chair because we were at the water and he just was on his phone all night and I was like, are you okay, and he's like, yeah, no, I'm just kind of processing everything.
And I kind of feel a bit sad that I don't have any family that will be attending the wedding tomorrow. And I said, okay, fair enough, and he's like, I'm just going to take some time. So I didn't press it. I'd just let him be and I just thought, Okay, he's just processing this is a huge moment for both of us tomorrow, and he doesn't have family coming or relatives.
He didn't have a good relationship with his mum. His mom was an alcoholic and was abusive, so he left her when he was twelve to go find his father who lived in Queensland. And his father was a drug user and addict, and he would steal money to feed himself. And I used to say to him all the time, I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of the person that you are. You could have ended up either in jail or doing the same things as what your
parents are and look at you. You're amazing. You've got a beautiful family that love you, you have your head screwed on. You're an amazing person. You have a career, you have goals and you go get them like you're incredible. You should be so proud of yourself. And I would telling him all the time how proud I was of him for getting through the life that he had gone through.
He did.
It was like a grandmar like figure to him. It was his mother's boyfriend's parents when he was growing up, so wasn't a biological relative who he still spoke to. But during our relationship, he told me that he cut her off because she disliked me because I was a single mom and I was taking advantage of him. So I got really hurt by that because I said, look, this is the last sort of relative that you have. I don't want you to cut her off because of me.
I can handle that. I didn't want to be responsible for you losing that person.
In your life.
So he did speak to her now and again, but it did really dwindle. I had a beautiful family and I thought, wow, my family will love you the way that you were meant to be loved. And we have enough love to go around for everyone, so comeing to our family. You don't need to worry about that anymore.
At the end of the day, they had each other. They were each other's family, and while they had already been for two years, now it was official.
The first year in marriage was strange.
He was working a lot, and he would say that he was working a lot for our family, so I didn't question it. I was like, Okay, that's beautiful, but we never really saw any of that value, any money or anything like that. He began to work his normal full time job, and then on the two days that he would have off, he would do cash work for his friends. So he was working seven days a week, so I barely saw him. He was at home at night. He had a job in sale, so he was always
on his phone. And I was going through a little bit of stress with my eldest daughter at school as well, so I was probably a little bit preoccupied with getting her sorted at school. So I think we both kind of were busy and we kind of drifted away a little bit. But I thought our roots are so connected, we're so in love, that this is just one of those marriage or bumps that you know you go through. And I used to say to him, things are really hard at the minute with like my eldest and all
the rest of it. But as long as I got you, I know that everything's okay. And I remember to say that to him all the time, and that would be my way of thinking.
I was like, Okay, I can get through this. I have Luke.
Luke and I are so solid and we can get through anything together, So this little bump will soon pass and we'll be fine. So a relationship at such never really had issues, Like we never fought or anything, but it was like kind of like the external factors of life that was just getting us kind of like down
a little bit. But we had each other all the time, and with the less time that we spent together, like I really didn't like not having him around all the time because I loved his company and whenever I was with him, I felt this instant boost of happiness.
He was like my of dopamine.
We still went on our little holidays away together. We were still doing our dinner nights and things like that. But yeah, I think life was just so busy. That's the thing. Like we still had this mental love for each other and still wanted to be with each other, take the dogs for walks, and our little things that we did together were still there, but we were just busy. Life was really busy. He was working away, and it
came up to our first anniversary. So we were saying, what should we do for this anniversary, like gift wise, let's do something different, something a bit weird. Let's do something a little bit that not everyone else would do. So we decided to get tattoos matching tattoos. It was half a heart. I had one, half he had the other. It had the restaurant name, the restaurant name where he proposed.
So we were getting these tattoos together. And the night before that he called me when he was away still and he was acting a little bit strange, and I just kind of didn't really think much of it. He was going out to have drinks with the boys they just knocked off from the job, and I was like, awesome, you've worked so hard, go have drinks or see you tomorrow, And that's what happened. He came home the next day we went to go get our tattoo study and was
acting super sheepish, really weird. He wouldn't look at me in the eye. He was just being odd, and I just put it down to the fact that he was hungover. He wasn't someone that often had a boy's night and would leave to go out with the boys. So I actually encouraged him to do that that night. I was like, go out with the boys, let your hair down. I just thought, you know, you're hungover, you're tired, you're probably
just feeling like shit today, and that's fine. So we went and got these tattoos done, and then the next day I had a girlfriend's fortieth so I went away on a girl's weekend with our girlfriends. The next morning, I was at a cafe with one of my best friends having breakfast. We were driving home from where we were at the fortieth and I got a DM message from a random girl and it was one of those hey girls, and you know that message isn't going to
follow through with anything good. And she's like just saying, you know your husband's got Tinder. Not one percent of me believed. I was like, oh my god, Babe.
I called him.
I was like, Babe, there's a fake Tinder profile of you. And I was like, this girl just messaged me saying that she was speaking to you on Tinder and you've got Tinder, and he just calmly and coolly, was like, I'm just gonna have a shower, call you back in a sec my pardon. So I sat there at this cafe which seemed like forever before he called me back, and he finally called me back and he goes, you, no, it was me, and I just remember.
I was just shell shock.
It's like the world was spinning and I was just standing there still, and I had to drive home for about forty five minutes to get home, and I remember I pulled over because the girls were at home and he was at work, and I called my mom and I just couldn't get the words out. I was hysterically crying to my mum and she's like, what is wrong? And I said Luke cheating on me and she was like no, and I was like, yeah, he's just submitted to it. And she came over and took the girls
back to her house. So I was there alone. When Luke got home from work. He basically was like, yeah, that was me, and I was like, are you kidding me? You have a Tinder account? Actually, his excuse was, oh, with the boys last night, they wanted to see if the old boy still had it because he worked with younger guys, so that was his excuse. He put it on the other guys kind of like as a joke. We did it, and I just looked at him. I
was like, how could you've ruin this? He used to say to me all the time, what we have is so perfect. No one else has what we have. He's like, I look at my mate's relationships with their wives and they don't have half of what we have. And I was like, then you've just gone and ruined it. You've got a Tinder account and ruined everything. And then that's when he kind of broke down and said, all I just feel so sad and I unappreciate. I needed someone to vent too, and I needed to talk to a
stranger about how I was feeling. I'm so but you don't get Tinder for a penpal.
I'm not that dumb.
I said, well, I need you to get out because you know how I feel about cheating because I have been cheated on in every relationship I've ever had, and he's known that, so I have this huge thing about cheating my first husband cheated on me every relationship I've ever had, and I used to always say, like, I feel like every male dangled the cart in front of will cheat. And he was like, no, You've got to stop thinking that way. So he did exactly what I feared he would do, and I told him that he
had to leave because I couldn't look at him. He's made me so disgusted and so angry that he could do this to not just me, but his stepchildren, my girls. And then he packed a bag and he went to his mate's house for a few weeks. The weeks that he was away, I didn't really hear much from him, which I found a little bit strange.
He kind of just went really cold towards me. Yeah, I felt abandoned.
I felt betrayed, and like, he's not even fighting for this. I kind of was expecting he would be at least groveling or apologetic or trying to speak to me and try and fight for this, but it was just radio silence. It just was a cold shoulder. I remember I reached out to him, going, do you want to talk about what's going on? And he goes, oh, I can give you ten minutes so it was like I was fighting for him even though he had done the betrayal to me.
He kind of just was brushing it off like it wasn't a big deal, like it wasn't an issue, like get over it. And the way he kind of just dismissed it and made my feelings feel irrelevant, I kind of thought, maybe I just need to shut up and let this go. I just wanted him home. Basically, I was just like, I just want you home. I just want my loke back. I just want that person that was my best friend, and my husband and the girls were where's Luke sort of thing, and I just didn't
want to break their hearts either. So it kind of got to a point where I was like, just come home. So it was three weeks after things were still tense because I still felt I felt icky. I've just felt yuck about the situation, and I really felt yuck about
his response to my finding out. I said to him, like, if you had done what you have done and then the way you then approached this and apologized and tried to make things better than things would be, okay, it's the way that you've just dismissed this and made my feelings feel irrelevant. So in that time, I thought I need to get away for a little while and just clean my head. So I went and stayed with a
girlfriend who lives about two hour drive away. Because I was so embarrassed and humiliated by his behavior, I didn't tell anyone. I didn't tell anyone that I worked with. I didn't tell any of my friends. I didn't tell my family. But I told my one girlfriend that lived two hours away. So I was like, I'm just going to go spend the weekend with her so I can have a real girl to girl talk about this and just event to one of my friends. And whilst I was at her house, she had more information for me.
So she sat me down and said that at their wedding, which was only about a year prior, Luke was tuning one of the girls at the wedding, and then after that was sliding into her DMS. And then that's when I found about his cheating spree. When he was away with his friends for those three weeks that he was out. After I found out about the Tinder, he would message my friends and acquaintances stuff like I had a sex dream about you last night. It was really graphic. Don't
tell anyone but Madison and I broke up. I've always thought that you were hot. Do you want to come around? So there'd be girls that he was just dming, telling them that he was thinking about them in the shower, or he would be talking to girls while we were out and saying I wish I was going home with you instead of Madison. Tonight, I just broke down. And I remember calling him when I was away and I said, I know about all these other girls, and his response
was just so cold. He was like, yeah, what I said? Sorry, what do you want me to do? I drove home sobbing, like unconsolably crying, and I don't even remember the drive, Like I don't even know how I made it home. But when I got home, instead of him being like I'm so sorry, or let's talk or anything, he was sitting there at the kitchen table just eating a steak and he just looked at me and went, hey.
Madison couldn't believe what was happening. Who was this man where he had a loving, supportive, trustworthy, caring husband gone.
He said to me, I was a pig in those couple of weeks, and what I did was piggory. His words were that, he said, I was just disgusting and I acted like a pig in those weeks. But there was never like an apology for it. It wasn't he'd be like, yeah, I'm sorry, but it was a hollow apology. It's like no depth to it. There was no understanding of the damage that he had done. It was just like, I've done what I've done. Get over it. So that's what she tried to do. Get over it.
If she wanted this marriage to work, she thought that was up to her.
I always thought like if I just loved him harder, if I was a better wife, if I was more present, then that would make him feel better in himself that he wouldn't need to be going to get this validation from other people. My life felt like it had just been torn apart. I felt like I was losing my best friend, my husband, my family, my kid's stepdad. The biggest fear that I thought about having this marriage breakdown was it felt like it was coming true, like my
marriage is breaking down. This is the one thing that I was so scared of. I can't do this to my children again. I can't do this to my family. And I ended up having such severe anxiety and panic attacks that I couldn't leave the house, I couldn't work anymore, I couldn't open my phone because every time I opened my phone, I felt like I was going to get another text from someone else that I just couldn't handle.
One more blow to.
The point where I didn't see any light out. There was just darkness. And I've never suffered from any depression in my life before, and I never quite understood it until I hit rock bottom and I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I just I woke up every morning feeling so empty and so lost. My pain in my heart was just so unbearable and overwhelming that I got to a point where it's like, I can't do this one more day. My parents had cotton on at this point. They knew what Luke had done,
and they knew that I was broken. My family are so they're so loving and forgiving. My dad even took Luke aside and he said, look, Luke, my daughter loves you, My kids love you. We love you like a son. Good people make mistakes. We can get through this as a family. Just tell us what you need from us. And we will be around you to get through this. But they knew that I was struggling really really badly. They knew that I had to stop going to work.
I would sleep the days away. I just hear rock bottom, I really did. And so the day that I decided I couldn't do it any longer, it was just this overwhelming guilt that I had let my kids down again, that they were going to have to go through something that I didn't ever want them to go through again. And I thought that they were all better off without me, because I felt like I was the one that was
destroying their lives because of my decisions. I think my parents had gotten on to me being suicidal, which I didn't know. I was flagged with a mental health team, which I didn't know about.
So the day that I decided that I.
Wasn't that I couldn't do it anymore, my phone just kepturing it and ringing and ringing, and it was Luke.
I didn't answer Luke's call.
Because I was just so angry and I was so determined that I just wanted this to stop.
So my dad.
Started calling me and calling and calling and calling, and I think that's when my brain went, what are you doing like your poor dad?
And I answered the phone in the fear of my dad's voice. I'll never forget it.
Who was just he was so scared he was going to lose me, and I was like, oh, I can't do this to them. I was taken away by ambulance, and stupidly, all I want was Luke beside me. So I remember sitting there in the hospital bed and there was a psychologist there and he was trying to talk to me about getting over what I'd just gone through, and he was really angry that Luke was there, and
I just was like, I just want that person. It's hard when the one person that's just drawing you as the one person that you want to comfort you, it's this weirdest feeling you. He was just my rock and my person, and whoever I would go to when things were great, I'd go to him.
When things weren't great, I'd go to him.
He just knew what to do and say to make things perfect again, and stupidly, that's all who I wanted at that time.
Luke sat with her and helped her feel strong again, and eventually they went back home together. Things had to change and they both agreed to work on the marriage and try to get back to where and who they were before.
I was trying anything to hold our marriage together. I was just whatever I could do to make things better between us. I'd often apologize for making him feel like he had to cheat because I obviously had failed him as a wife for him to feel like he needed to go elsewhere. I was doing anything I could to try and rebuild our relationship. I just wanted that old Luke back, like that look that I met and fell in love with would never have done this to me, Like just bring him back.
So it just kept trying to stay together.
He used to say that he just loved me too much, like that was his things like I just love you too much.
He wanted to stay together.
But also in the same breath he'd be like, I just think too much has happened.
And in that anger.
Stage where I'd find out who's cheating, I would say things like which I do regret, but in the heat of the moment, you say things. I remember saying, you don't deserve a family. If this is what you're going to do to us, you don't deserve us. And he held on to that and he was like, you told me I don't deserve a family, so why wouldn't I think we were done? And he used to say to me things like I can't forgive you for your reactions. So I just learned to be silent just to keep
going with it. So, yeah, we did try. It was bumpy, but I didn't want to give up. If I just loved him harder, if I was a better wife, if I was more present, then that would make him feel better in himself, that he wouldn't need to be going to get this validation from other people. For his birthday, after theater and we were better, we went away for
his birthday with the girls. I booked a holiday for us, and he was down in the pool with the girl swimming, and I went up to the bathroom and I said to him, I don't want you to have social media anymore, because that's your gateway to most of your cheating. And he said, no, that's fine, I don't want it anymore anyway. And I never checked his phone. I just always just trusted what he said. So I went up to the bathroom. In the room and I went to look at the
time on his phone, and he had Instagram notifications. I was like, that's strange because you don't have Instagram. So I opened it up, and the whole time that we were away in a holiday, he had been sexting a girl whilst lying in bed with me.
And this had been going on.
For months and months and months and months, to the point where I think they had a relationship. They were telling each other they loved each other, that they can't wait to see each other, that he loved her, she loved him. There was graphic images. I was a lot of it. I also found Snapchat and again the same stuff on Snapchat, just girls after girls after girls. Every girl had a different story about me, so they all
knew he was married. But there one was told that I was a psyclhoney sleeps with one I open at night. One was told that I was cheating on him. Another one was told I was in love with my first husband, so there were kind of always reasons for to validate him cheating on me. When I had his phone in my hand, he walked in the room and his face just dropped because he knew that I had found what
I was looking at. He kind of lunged at me and ripped the phone out of my hand, but in the process he ripped my fingernail out in one go. So yeah, we kind of rolled around on the floor while he was tackling me to get the phone out of my hand, and I had bruises and bumps all over me. That night was scary. That night was everything changed that night. It just went really really downhill. It's kind of like his mask had finally fallen off and he wasn't even going to pretend to be the old
Luke anymore. This was the real raw Luke, this ugly version was who he truly was.
So we had to go to.
The doctor for my finger, and obviously we lied and said I slammed it in the door. I just wasn't wanted to protect him. I didn't want anyone to know what was going on. I didn't want anyone to know that he had done this to me, so I just lied and everyone thought I slammed it in the door. And you'd think that's where the cheating would stop, but
it just kept going. Weeks would go by and I'd find out about another girl that he's sexting, and then another girl, and I think that once one person told me and people started to hear that I had known about a few they were like, oh, I'm not the first person to tell us, so now they felt more comfortable telling me more because she's already hurt. It's not like I'm breaking it to her for the first time.
I feel like everyone knew about it but me.
There was a point where we went to a barbecue, to one of my closest friends barbecues, and Luke was set beside me and he was messaging a girl that was at this barbecue, right under my nose, right in front of me, and I had no idea. It probably was another couple of months before I started to get myself on track again. I was seeing a psychologist. I was really trying to get back out there. My panic attacks were getting less. The tremors that I had was still there, but I was just trying to get my
life back on track for my kids. I really had to do it for them. We went to marriage counseling. He sat there in lied and I didn't correct him at all. It got to the third counseling session that we had and I had this major panic attack in the session and the session obviously ended, and the counselor that we had was so lovely, and he was really
concerned for my welfare. He called me the next day and said, Madison, like, this is probably outside of my scope and I probably shouldn't call you and do my personal opinion, but this man's I've been doing this for years and I can see narcissism and abuse when I see it, and I'm really.
Concerned for your welfare.
And that night Luke actually smashed a glass frame over
my head and broke his knuckles. We were kind of just having a disagreement and having an argument just about everything, and just about his behavior and his response to his behavior, and his lack of empathy and just not giving a shit about it, just being so cold, and it just got so heated, and he just got so angry and so enraged with his anger, and he just picked up a glass frame while we were fighting and just lost it and smashed it and it went flying over my head and my.
Poor little dog.
We went to the hospital and led and said that it was because he was boxing. But after that, I think that's when I kind of was like, I'm out. This is not okay. He doesn't give a shit about me. He's never going to change he's got no remorse for what he's done.
He doesn't care. There's no empathy for what he's.
Put me through, for my family, my girls, there's no accountability of what he's done. It's all excuses. So yeah, I just thought that's it, and I think he thought the same.
I think we were just exhausted.
My girls knew about some of the betrayal because they were getting to the point. My elders is nearly fifteen now, so they were getting to the point where they were They knew because he was just going missing for weeks, like when we were in our bad period, and they'd be like, where's Luke, And they saw me crying, and they saw me not getting out of bed, and they saw me not going to work. So they saw me at my darkest. And my eldest is smart, she caught on to what was going on. I mean, it's really
hard to have arguments. Although we kept it away from children, they kind of consents what's going on. My youngest in particular, was like, I don't want Luke to go, mom, Like I love him so much, can he stay? And my eldest was just quiet, And I remember Luke got up and went to go and get some dinner for us. And while he was away, I said to my eldest, how are you feeling, what are you thinking?
What's going on?
And she was like, Mom, if he does this one more time, he's out. So she had already been like this is enough. So I think when I got to that end point, I was like I kind of listened to her.
I kind of was like.
My pep talk with my eldest, kind of sunk in, and I was like, yeah, you know what, this is enough, this is bullshit. We don't need him. I'm a better person, I'm a happier person for my girls if he's not here. He's destroying me bit by bit every day. And he got to the point where he almost robbed my children of their mum. So then I woke up and had a wake up corner. You know what, I'm not going to let that man do that to my kids. And that was a point where I was like, I'm done.
There wasn't really a sit down conversation about it, but I think we both were just done at our wits end, and it wasn't spoken, but I guess he knew and I knew, and he just packed a bag and he went stayed with friends again. He was kind of like toying back and forth with messages about seeing the dogs and things like that, and he would write messages going, I still love you. So it was kind of like he was still trying to make me believe that there might be hope. So it was like this tuggle wall
between my head and my heart. So one day I'd be really strong, like, no, I'm not ever going to go back there, and then the next day my heart would be like I miss him so much. So as his back and forth, he came over one day and we had an argument and then he said to me, I'm done. He's like, I can't, Like we're done. He said, too much has happened. And I was like, what have
you done? And he just wouldn't it's me. And then he drove off that day and that night he had blocked me, my number, my email or social media accounts. He blocked my parents, my daughter's phone numbers were blocked, my friends were blocked. He completely erased himself from our lives.
I knew I was blocked, but I was just hoping that one day he would unblock me and I would send him a photo of either him and one of the girls, or him and I or the family and us, and I would write like about the memory of that day, and I would say, whenever you're ready, your girls are waiting for you to come home. And it got to a month of me doing that every single day, and I was like, you're just hurting yourself. His disrespect, his silence, his blocking, is enough closure for you to get out,
Like what are you waiting for? Like this man doesn't love you. And I never saw him again and heard from him again. The only time I ever heard anything was from the lawyers. I was ghosted by my husband. Didn't hear from him at all, but I had no way of contacting him either until I had a lawyer's letter in my emailse from a lawyer that he had engaged with, and that was to get money from the house that I bought. Because his name was on the house title, he had every right to sell the house
or sell and split the profits. I was absolutely gutted, like another punch in the guts, like you have just destroyed me. You've watched my mental health go down the drain. We've gone through all this trauma.
I've found out multiple.
Cheating you've now left and ghosted me, and now you're like one final punch, I'm gonna rip the house that you and the girls live in from you. What have I done to you for you to hate me this much?
This was three months after Madison had last seen or heard from him, not a word to her and all the girls. The way she saw it, she had two options. She could fight, show evidence that it was her money alone that had purchased the house, that he didn't have any custody rights over the kids and this was their home, or she could just give him what he asked for and let this all be over.
I just didn't have the energy to fight, So it is what it is. He didn't get half, thank god, but yeah, he did get money that he shouldn't have. I just felt completely comment. I was just like, I've just been done so hard. Why marry me? Like, do this to me, Don't do this to my children, Don't do this to my family. They didn't deserve not that I deserved it, but my poorness and children did nothing but love you.
On Father's Day. They would give him Father's Day presents.
They would go out to the shops and buy him things, say they they adored him.
They didn't deserve this. I just felt so rocked.
I was like, my biggest fear is my reality Again, I am not even forty yet and I am going to have two divorces under my belt. So I didn't hear anything. I didn't even know where it was living. I've heard that he's in a different state with one of the girlfriends that he had during our relationship. So that day that he up and left was a year ago and I still haven't ever heard a word from him,
not a peep. I'm still blocked on everything. Not one message to the girls, nothing for their birthdays, anything like that.
He's just completely vanished. What is interesting is though his grandma like figure that he mentioned disliked me because I was a single mother, has reached out to me, sent me a text message saying that she wanted to talk to me and that she felt really saddened by what I had gone through, which I'm not quite sure how she knew, but it was a text message, and I just at this point don't trust anyone, and I was like, I don't know who's behind this text message. It could
be Luke, I don't know. So I never responded and then months later, just recently, she called me and she said to me, Madison, I'm so sorry that you've gone through what you've gone through. I hear that you've gone through hell with Luke. I'm so sorry that I couldn't have been there for you and the girls. No one should go through what he has done to you, and
I'm wishing you all the love in the world. So from someone who apparently hated me and I'd never met to reach out that many times to a complete stranger to make sure they're okay, it makes me wonder exactly what he has done to his family and to the people that did love him. His sister's also reached out to me, his biological sister, to apologize for what I had gone through as well. So there's huge question marks around what I was told at the start of our relationship.
It was validation, but it also sadness that this person is so damaged that he's doing this to so many people. But then I also thought, oh gosh, what beautiful people there in the world that his grandmother and his sister, who had never met me and didn't know me from a Bara Syrup, had reached out to see that we are okay, so sad the fact that he's this evil, but grateful that there's beautiful people in the Welsh. The Luke that I met is a character. It's not who
he actually is. It was an act. So the Luke that I had at the end was the real Luke. So getting the Luke that I met is just a fictional character. It's like I got catfished.
I don't know.
If it's the family that freaked him out, because he's never been brought up in a tight knit family. I always said to him, I feel like you're a lone wolf. You need to be on your own, and you know, family to me means everything. Family bond and having my mom and dad and my sister and my children and everyone around means so much to me. We're always having family barbecues and dinners, and he's never had that. He
never got brought up with that. So I don't know if it just got too much that he just couldn't handle being around people all the time. I'm not sure. I don't know why. After the marriage, I don't know if it's because it was so final. It turns out that apparently he was cheating on me before. The whole marriage anyway, So I don't know what his benefit was to get married. When we first were together, everyone kept telling him how amazing he was to take on a
single mom and two children. So I feel like he got gassed up a lot by people going, Oh, you're so amazing for doing this and whatever. And I don't know if that just gave him this ego boost all the time and gave him the validation that he was needing. And I was giving him all that as well, telling him how proud of him I was, and he was getting all the validation and the ego boost that he did.
And I think once you get married and all that kind of like fades away into normality and you start going to normal life, people stopped telling him how amazing it was to taking me on, I guess, And I guess with our busy lives and how we kind of just got really caught up in our work and things like that, I probably stopped telling him how much I admired him as well, So I think he doesn't needed to get validation from external sources, and that's why it
was happening. Why I found out all of a sudden, I don't know. I don't know if it was the universe trying to be like, let's just throw it all at you at once, because I feel like if you
just get told a few things, you'll probably stay. I don't know and which I did, so I don't know, but like I said, I think that once one person kind of knew that I found out about a few them, they were kind of like floodgates opened, and then everyone was like, oh, well, she kind of knows about some now we might as well tell her what we know. Like to this day, I still find out things. I ran into a girl the other day and she said, oh,
do you remember when you're at this certain bar? And I said yeah, and she's like, we ran into you and Luke and I was like, yeah, you know I remember. She goes, yeah, you went to the toilet and he told me he wanted to take me home to me. It still hurts, but I'm also like I'm not even
surprised anymore, or like I'm just like another one. It's not like the hurt when I found out about the first Tinder account and all the rest of that that I'm kind of numb to it now, Like it just makes me more angry that I trusted him than I got so conned into loving someone so hard and putting them on a pedestal when there was zero respect or love there given from him to me.
I'm still healing.
I will never be the same person again, and that's okay. I worry that my trusting people has gone my second guess everything that people tell me now, I'm like, are you telling me the truth? But maybe that was for the best because I think I was way too forgiving and way too naive. Maybe I just thought people had good intentions and everyone was telling the truth. And now I kind of I don't have that side of me anymore. I'm stronger though, I'm more assertive. I'll just stand up
for myself now, which is good. I ended up getting back into work and starting my own business at that time, so I just really concentrated on that. I have absolutely beautiful friends, Like, my friends are amazing. I went on a holiday to Bali with one of my girlfriends and have their time of my life. My friends have just kind of made me see that I'm okay, Like I am a good person. I don't need that person in my life. I'm back to myself again. I'm happy. I'm laughing.
I'm just still just doing one day at a time, and I've done a lot of healing.
Classes, a lot of energy work.
I really love my pilates, so it's just about me and my girls. My youngest I do feel like she has a bit of abandonment issues, which breaks my heart. Her and I have gotten so much closer. We were already so close, but if we could get any closer, we have. My eldest is kind of at that fifteen year old stage where she's kind of too cool and
hangs out with her friends a lot. But the three of us are just so tight and they mean the world to me, so I'll do anything to make sure that their happiness is at the top, and they're my priority no matter what. I think they were more worried about me than themselves, so.
They were really worried about how I was.
My youngest slept with me every night and she would pat me to sleep, So I think we just had each other. We just the three of us just really rallied around and we had each other. And I would much take the relationship that I have with my daughters over trying to rekindle anything with him. I've been through a lot, and I've gotten through it, so I mean, I'm proud of where I am today. I could have
ended it, and I'm so glad I didn't. My girls need me and I need them, and I'm just still on that healing process and that journey and that's okay, and I don't know how long that will take, but I'm committed to being a better person and being stronger from this.
I still love love. I'm a sucker for.
Love, but it, honestly, in the same breath makes me feel ill. Like I've watched movies and I watch shows like I cried my eyes out the other day watching love on the spatrum. I'm like, oh, and I'm like, I'm such a sucker for love. But I just feel like the one thing that I love so much and want in my life is the one thing that I fear the most, and it's the one thing that can hurt me the most. So I don't know if I'll ever be ready for a relationship.
I don't know.
I don't know what the future brings. It's not even in my vision right now. I don't need that happy ever after marriage anymore because I'm already happy. You're gonna live happily ever after with my two girls.
Everyone Has An Eggs it's a Minty Media production and proudly part of the Mama A Network. It's written and narrated by me Georgia Love and produced by Linda Scott. If you like what you've heard, support the podcast by hitting subscribe, writing a review, and leaving us five stars.
You can also follow us on Instagram at Everyone has an X. And if you have a story you'd like to share, you can contact us at Everyone Has an X at mintimedia dot com dot you, or submissions at momamya dot com dot you with the word submission in the subject field. And while you're waiting for the next episode, why not check out my other podcast, Not Another Crime Podcast, where I discuss with my co host, comedian Sammy Peterson,
the true crimes we find them most fascinating. Search Not Another Crime Podcast on your favorite podcast app.