Apoday production.
We begin today by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we gather today and pay our respects to their elders past and present. We extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's here today.
Welcome to the Grow and Glow Podcast. I'm Ashy, I'm Kiara. This is a podcast where we learn, laugh, and level up together.
Let's go deep, let.
The emotions flow, and find the lessons to.
Grow and Glow. Nothing is off the table with Grow and Glow, and we're here to be your expander. Hello everybody, welcome back to Grow and Glow.
I'm so excited.
Oh my gosh episode. I'm so excited because I have my favorite person on Earth here today, my beautiful mom. Hello Mom, Slash Wendy, good morning. How are you feeling to be on here? Because I was just explaining to our producer and to Kiara that you're the complete opposite to me. You're very introvert, you don't like the camera, you don't like any attention on you. We're very pole opposite. So how you feel to be interviewed today?
I'm feeling pretty nervous, which I think is probably natural, but I'm excited at the same time. It's like, what we're going to talk about is something I haven't really talked in detail with you about before, so it's going to be good to sort of like maybe answer some questions that are there that we've just never got around to talking about.
Yeah, Like, I feel like the last couple of years our relationship has just gone from strength to strength, and you and I separately and within our relationship have just gone leaps and bounds and we've grown so much, and like even ask your how much I just speak so highly of you and how much you are doing the
work and just owning your stuff. You're my safe place, like even with stuff from my childhood that's been really hard that I'm sure is not easy for you to hear or you're like, fuck, I don't remember it being like that. But you never once gas like me, You never once say that didn't have and you never once like make me feel I don't know bad for anything. You're always just like fully hold that space to hear me in my experience, and that has been so healing
for me. And I know from experience with a lot of people that I know they don't have parents that do that. So first of all, I just want to like acknowledge that within you, and for you to come on here today and talk about my upbringing and our story together and some really fucking hard times that we've
been through. It's just so brave of you, and I'm so proud, and I know that so many people listening to this will one relate to it so much, but to also be like, oh, maybe I can heal some things in my life, and if they can get through that, then wow, look what I can get through.
Oh thank you. That's just so lovely to hear. Like you can't imagine as a mum, how good it is to have the sort of relationship that you and I have, And I think like it hasn't always been as close, but we've really built it. But my philosophy is massively these days that we are continuing to grow and evolve as humans and the only way to do that really is to look with compassion on ourselves as well as
those around us. So, yeah, I've not been coping with life lots of times a wrong road, but I try to look at it now and go I've learned from that experience and I'm a better person than I was, and I'll be a better person still going forward. The more I learn, And if you have that sort of attitude, then I think it's a lot easier to be kinder to yourself and others and develop better relationships.
Is she not the most You're amazing woman ever? Amazing? I really want to rewind it back to when you were a young mum. You had my older brother, Matt, and then eighteen months later you had me. Can you tell us a little bit about your life as a young mum with my father and how that dynamic was when I got really sick? Kind of in a nutshell that story.
It's quite a complicated story really because your father and I probably I think we met in September, got engaged in December, and were married in April.
Wow, you mum.
I was just turned twenty.
Wow.
A lot of it was to do with like the dynamics of my family before I got to that stage. Is my father really chose him as my husband? He pretty much put it out there to me, you need to marry this guy that you're dating because no one else is probably going to want you. And I knew pretty much that I wasn't in love with him, but I went along with what Dad wanted. The day of
the wedding, I wanted to call it off. I was like, woke up crying, like I just really don't want to do this, and my dad said, drink this and gave me a brandy, which I didn't drink, so that was significant. I had a glass of brandy, stopped crying and went on with it. But I knew, like I cut the honeymoon short because I knew that it was not right for me. And I went home to Mum and Dad's house and I said, an, this has just been a
terrible mistake. The rules back then were basically that you were a bad person if you slept together or lived together before you got married. I think if I'd lived with him for a week, I would not have gone through with that wedding.
Wow.
Yeah, but you know, unfortunately, I just played by the rules that I was told, So I've cut the honeymoon short. Came home and he wasn't a bad person, don't get me wrong, but he was very placid and I was very fiery, and I had no one to bounce against. We were okay as friends, but really missed match as a couple, and my dad said to me, turn around and go back to your husband. You've made your bed
and you have to lie on it. Wow. And then he also said, in a year's time, if you still don't want to go ahead with this marriage anymore, you can come back to me and then we'll talk about it. Well, a year later, I was just pregnant with Matt, so I decided that the universe had spoken, I was pregnant, that this marriage was meant to be, and I just carry on with it.
Yeah, so you had Matt.
So I had Matt, and I desperately wanted another child. I don't think Dean was very sold on parenting at all, but he went along with what I wanted, and I wanted to have a second child. I had trouble conceivings and I really didn't want to sleep with him, so I got fertility drugs to conceive you. So I only had to go there one time and to laugh about reading between the lines, Yeah, one.
Time it done. I'm sure someone that are listening just been like, yep, got what.
I wanted back to baby, and all through the pregnancy, I just I pretty much knew it was not going to survive. Yeah, and I left him when you were already sick. I think it was about six weeks old you started to get sick, and I left him when you were eight weeks old, so Matt wasn't quite too and you were eight weeks old, and I jumped on a plane with my two babies and went back to New Zealand and within twenty four hours you were in hospital and bleeding from the bow. So it was all
very dramatic. And at the stage, I'm twenty four.
And that call that you made to yeah, you were what I said.
You were in hospital for the best part of six months, like in and out and in and out, because salmonella was really having devastating effects on your system. That it was like they were concerned that your kidneys were going to break down, that sort of thing. And at one stage doctor said to me that they really were concerned
that you weren't going to make it. So I rang Dean and told him that there were concerns about that, and he said, well, yeah, just let me know if she dies and I'll see if I can come back for the funeral.
I don't know why I laugh, Am I laughing? I just it's actually like so hard to fathom as a parent have a dad, Like I don't know why am I giggling, but like, oh yeah, let me know if she passes, and I will see if I can pop over for the funeral of my daughter. Like what.
I mean? It is weird, But I've always sort of justified that he didn't have a bond with you, and he didn't have a bond with Matt either. Matt never once said dad or asked for him because he worked all the time, he was just never there, so there was no bond to break. It made it so easy for me as a single parent. I didn't have to share custody. He didn't care that I took you to a other countries.
Did even fight at all? Did he like he didn't want to?
Didn't He did the opposite. He wrote a letter to the judge saying that he was happy for me to have full custody.
Isn't that mind blowing?
Oh my gosh. And I was so grateful, honestly took away all the hassles in my life. I didn't have to balance anything. But the repercussions I think on the children later on, is that it's left both you and Matt feeling unwanted, Whereas I think it was a continuation for him of what he'd always done is tried to give me what I wanted, but not succeeding, and that was just one more on the list of not succeeding.
I think you've made up for those feelings of not being wanted and being abandoned. I think because our bond is so strong, you're enough for me. Like, obviously, as a young girl, that was really hard because I was like, why does my real dad not want me? And why is my stepdad fucking hate my guards? Like major daddy issues, right, But as I've grown up and done my own inner word and webso bonded now I feel like you are
more than enough. And I know some people don't even have either parents, so I feel so grateful for that. And then from there comes along my stepdad.
So I'd had a couple of years as a single mum and we were living in a rural situation, so obviously not meeting a lot of people. I mean, I was divorced at twenty five, with two small children in the house with me and really not a lot of adult company, so I was pretty lonely. I'd had one relationship that I ended because I just wasn't working for me,
and you really loved him, so that was hard. But when I met Andrew, it was at a primary school bar dance and some people up the road had invited me to go meet their friends and go to this bar dance which was raising money for the local primary school, and I really enjoyed it. It was adult company. He was there with his girlfriend at the time, and I just had a great time chatting to adults, you know,
enjoying the barn dance. Nice evening went home, and about three months later, these same friends that had hosted that evening came back to me and said, oh, our friend Andrew, he really wants your phone number. And I was like, oh, that's awesome, Like he looked like a nice guy as he'd broken up with his girlfriend. And they were like, yep, no, that's all over. But he's been wanting your number for three months and we haven't given it to him because we don't think he's good enough for you. And I
was like, Oh, that's really weird. But I can make up my own decisions about people. That's okay, give him my number and they were really insistent, now we don't really want to. And the end we agreed to go on a first date that involved this wife of this couple and her four kids and me and my two kids, and he would take the two of us out so I could see if I thought he was creepy or like they were not good enough.
Did I like Andrew? Straight up?
He saved in life that first date.
Oh that's right. In the water.
Part of the date was we all went for a walk at the beach. You stepped out and it must have been like a deep drop. Next minute, there's no ash anywhere. We're all looking at each other as adults, and he just leapt into the water and dragged you off the bottom. So like to me, it was instant hero.
True wow. That would have been a really big attraction of like this man.
Wow. On the same date, there was a woman who was parked somewhere and her car had a flat tire and he'd leaped out and gone and changed your tire for us. So I'm getting the whole hero opening the door for me, fussing over my kids, laughing with you, and I was like starved of affectionate, I think basically and that he just looked like the best thing ever.
You obviously started dating. When did things turn because it was quite quickly, wasn't it.
Yeah, it was again a fast relationship. So we were living together probably within about three months of meeting Wow, And we probably saw each other every night in that lead out.
And Matt and I enjoyed his company, did we as young kids.
He was really good with you. He was awesome, especially Matt, because you were just that little bit younger, so you know, Mummy's girl. But he took Matt, who was turning five, out on a motorbike on the farm and rides in a truck and out amongst the animals, and like, Matt
absolutely adored Umn. Within a week of living together, I can remember an incident that should have or did raise red flags, Like Matt was being a pain and he was in the bath and I think he was like splashing water at you, and you didn't want that hre just to bath you together when you were that little Andrew walked to the bathroom and grabbed him by the arm and smacked him across his button, and he had like really big hands, and this is a small kid,
and I just remember seeing this handprint on my child's butt. You know. It was a huge hand and it was just shocking. And I just turned around to him then and I said, if you ever lay a finger on one of my kids again, I'm out of here. You'll never see me again. And I was just so so upset about it.
Did he say sorry?
Yeah, he did say sorry, and he promised me it would never happen again. But the reality of it was it didn't happen again. I never saw him do it again. He made sure I wasn't watching.
He was good at that.
Yeah, So he was very good at taking situations like I promise you will never see me do that again.
Well I didn't manipulative.
Yeah, didn't mean it didn't happen.
That's right, because I don't know if I've told on the podcast. But when I was older, he would do things when you weren't around. Because that's the questions I've gotten when I've talked about my upbringing, is like, why did your mum allow that to happen. I'm like, she wasn't there, she was working. He would always do these things when she wasn't there. So then when Mum would come home and I would tell her He would then be like, don't you fucking lie to your mother? How disrespectful?
Go to your room, And then Mum, you're caught in the middle being like do I believe my grown ass husband or my teenage daughter? Like you know what I mean, Like who do I believe? And I looked so hard for you.
It was because I wanted to believe him. Before we left New Zealand, there were a lot of people we knew who had conversations with me, saying he is way too strict on those kids. You've got to get him to ease up on them, like they are going to end up painting him. He is so strict. And he convinced me that he was creating really good morals and ethics in you, and that they were just too slack with their children. So it was really good at playing
with my mind. Yes, right from the start, I mean, and at this stage I didn't know, but he was having an affair, and I'm sure the main reason we actually came to Australia was he needed to get out of town fast because it was going to be coming to my attention.
Out of us three kids, so there's Matt, my older brother Craig, my younger brother, so Andrew is Craig's father was Matt, and I obviously have a different dad out of the three of us. You've always said that I was his most triggering. Why do you think I triggered and bothered him the most?
Yeah, it always seemed like a love hate relationship between you and him. Either he was giggling and laughing with you, like secret jokes that the rest of us didn't know about, and you two were getting on really well, or then something would always happen and he would like in the blink of an eye, suddenly be saying to you, go to your room, like I've had enough of you. And it used to be like, I don't even understand what's going on here. One minute, it's all love and light
between you, and you're the best of friends. You too, like I felt like the outsider because you got on so well at times and then it just flip. But he did that with all of you. But for some reason, I think because you ask questions and you weren't as willing to take his word for things as the boys were.
Yeah, I think as a young girl, my intuition, I don't know, there was some sense of like unsafety and not certainty with him, and I did question a lot, and then as I got older, I think I argued back more than the two boys, even though I was scared. I was just like, no, you're right. Yeah.
The boys were definitely much more accepting, and even now they look back on those days and see a lot less conflict. They just don't tend to remember all the conflict.
I feel like I've bought it all to the surface so I can heel through it. I feel like the boys have kind of parked and suppressed it because it's like, that's my old life. Don't want to go there. Let's fast forward to when I'm sixteen and we're really not getting along. Like life at home for me and my experience was really hard. You were working, you would leave it, I don't know, five something in the morning, not get home till six at night, so I didn't really see
you much. Saw a lot more of him hated being home. And then we obviously had a massive blow up and he texted me and told me to pack my things and leave, and as a sixteen year old girl, I was like, holy fuck, what the fuck are we going to do? I was lucky I had a partner at that time, and I packed my things and I left because I was like, I don't want to be here anyway. I fucking hate him. So I was so scared, but I was also excited, like, oh my gosh, I'm free,
like I won't have to see him ever again. And he hadn't gone to you, asked you, consulted with you. So when I told you, you were just like, what, like, what's happened?
And when it was so shocking. I'd been the brid winner basically for a few years at that stage, so I wasn't spending much time. I was away, as you said, a lot. I never knew what I was going to come home to in terms of you and him, because you fought so much. I can just remember like she's gone, just boughting my eyes out, like no, seriously, And my instinct was, of course, I need to get my daughter back. I need to get in the car and go and
get here. But then I thought, well, I knew the family that you were staying with, and I knew that they were much more calm and stable, and yeah, they thought the world of you, And it was like, I have to come to the reality that my daughter is not happy here, and he's triggered here, and this was reverberating out on everybody, So what is actually best for my child? I came to the conclusion that it was just to not be there. I think I had this story in the back of my head that you know,
my daughter's sixteen. You know, the kids are growing up in a couple of years time, everybody, he's going to have flown the nest anyway, and then maybe he'll be calmer. You know. I was still invested enough in the marriage that thinking he'll calm down when he doesn't have to live with all the kids. But I really thought it was best for you to not be there. He didn't
want to have a bar of you ever again. But for me, it was just like, Okay, we're not under the same roof, but you know, nothing's going to change as far as our relationship.
What would you say in your marriage and life with him? What was the hardest moment for you?
The actual breakup was the hardest for me personally. There's so many disappointments, Like right from that first red flag, there was disappointment after disappointment, you know, the way he handled things, the way he behaved in situations like he was very explosive and so narcissistic that I didn't realize all the games that were being played with my head.
I was this corporate person going to work and playing that role, and then I was coming home and he was making me sleep outside with the dog because I snored too loud. I would literally sleep on the back deck with the dog at night and then get up and put my clothes on and go and be a
corporate boss. There was a time when because Matt had left home, he came home after drinking one night and he was trying to sneak into the house and he came up around the back deck and found me sleeping with the dog, and he just went inside and went absolutely ballistic at Andrew. He just completely lost his shit. I think the realization for me came when we'd split up, and I think it's really important thing that I learned was there's a saying that, and I'm saying it completely wrong.
But this is the gist of the story. If you rescue a lion from a trap, for example, and it's injured, don't expect it not to eat you when it's hungry, because it's still a lion. And that's the analogy that really got me to realize that Andrew's basically a snake and he was going to behave really badly and that's the character that he's got. This is my opinion, this is my truth. Whereas I was trying to live by the idea that you know, I would never do this
to him. So of course he's not really hitting my children, he's not really driving past them when it's raining. Of course he's not. I would never do that, So why would he do that? And that's the thinking that had got me stuck where I couldn't see him for what he really was.
How long were you in this marriage.
For Wendy seventeen years?
When did you first find out about the affairs as well? And was that what made you leave?
During that seventeen years, there'd been at least three times when people had either rung me in the middle of the night say do you know what your husband's doing? There'd been all these warning signs that he was having an affair, but he always managed to talk his way out of it.
He makes you feel crazy, hey, He'd be like, if you'd accuse it, that's disgusting. Is that what you're doing How could you even think of that?
Like, exactly what sort of person are you?
Like?
You are sick, you are mental? If you can think that about me, I just fear it even going there. I had friends who offered to pay for a private investigator if I'd let them do it, but I was like, now, what does that say about me that I don't trust him?
Looking out for you too?
By the same yeah, the last year he was like distant, depressed, and I spent that year trying to find ways that I could be a better wife so he would want to be around me. And then one day I was making his favorite meal for the barbecue, marinating some lamb. I can remember it. That was like doing a thing, and the phone rang and it was just like a landline back then. And answered the phone and this guy said, oh, my name's Mark. I think it's time we had a talk.
And I went, oh, okay, who are you Mark? And he said, oh, I'm I won't say a name her husband And I was like, okay, so who's she? And he said you can't tell me, you don't know. And I said, what are you talking about? And he said, well, right now, my wife and your husband are round house hunting.
Oh my gosh, how devastating.
And I was just like, you know, and then he started to tell me information that he couldn't possibly know unless this was true, and it was nice. It had been going for over a year that he knew of, so I don't know even it could have been longer than that. So yeah, I got off the phone, and then I rang his number and I said, the game's up. I just said a call from Mark. I don't think you should by the coming home?
And what did he say?
He was just like, ah, no, I'm going to be there soon. And at that stage I rang you. Yeah, I remember, and you and Steve came down to the house for me so that I wouldn't be on my own if he turned up. And Steve got a lopsmouth out there straight away, I started pecking his stuff into big rubbish bags, threw them out on the front lawn.
Is this the same day where he tried to grab the dog?
Yes, so it tried more than once.
Steve and I were there. I remember when he pulled up my nervous system.
How long had it been since you'd seen him?
I would have been years since i'd seen him, right.
Moum, I think it would have been here.
Yes, I was just so nervous, but I felt so protected because I had Steve, and even when I left home, I had left to go be with my boyfriend and his Family's always felt protected because I had Luke and he was really protective of me as well. So I never felt scared of Andrew again because I was like, I've got someone now. So Steve and I were there
and Andrew comes. He pulls in really fast, and he comes stamping up the stairs and goes into the room, grab some stuff and then tries to grab the labrador, which is like, no, you're not taking our family dog. And I remember Steve just grabbed his arm and said and Steve's like so cool and calm. He was like no, mate, and he tried to go him again, and Steve just like karate, chopped his arm, so he had to like leave. Then he went back into the bedroom, didn't he, mum
and lay down? This is yeah, this is so odd. So he went back into the bedroom, laid down, hopped under the doner and rolled over to go to sleep.
And it was the spear bedroom.
It was, so I was like, get out, mate, I'm gonna say what I did. I carry a little bit of shame, some like wow, you psycho, But then I'm also like, I was like eighteen nineteen at the time, Mum, and I was just all these years of abuse and trauma and sadness and fear. It all came out in this moment. I went and got a shoe and I went up to his face and I started yelling in his face and I said get out, get out, like get out, and Steve and Mum just stood back and
just allowed me to do my thing. He just laid there casually with a smirky, smart ass look on his face, and I grabbed the shoe, which was his shoe, and I whacked him in the head and I said get out. He didn't move, and I whacked him again, and he got up and he left. I just felt so like I've got my power back in this moment, which obviously isn't nice when you're hitting someone with the shoe, but it was the first time in my life that I was like, you can't hurt me, No, you can't hurt me.
And you know, in that moment, I almost like wanted him to so that you, Mum could see I know you believe me at this point, but I wanted you to see like who he really was. But I knew he wouldn't touch me when they were there, but I was like, get out and never come back.
So did He used to physically hurt you as well when he wasn't around.
Yeah, yeah, yep.
And he used to physically hurt me too. Liked he hurt us all but in that last year he would pretend that he was having bad dreams where he was chasing a rubber and had to punch the rubber, but he was punching.
Me instantly in the bed.
Yeah, so I'd wake up getting punched. I guess this is probably why the back dick didn't seem so bad, because if I was in the bead, he was going to punch me.
He did actually stop hitting me at one point. I remember, because Matt and I lived downstairs. There was two bedrooms right next to each other. Andrews chased me down the stairs sometimes if we were like in an argument and he'd come to whack me. Scary, so scary, and I sprinted downstairs and my older brother grabbed me by the shoulders and he was like, don't react, don't cry, don't say anything. Just let him hit you. He won't even
touch you again. Just do not react. So he smacked me, and I stood there and I didn't have any tears, I had no reaction. I just stood there and he did again, like four or five times, just whacked me on the ass, and Matt was there watching, and I just maintained eye contact with Matt and just did not react. And he never touched me again after that. So I don't know if that was a moment of just like.
A power thing, yeah, I can hurt her, and wanting to see you.
He wanted to see me crumble. But I was like, no, not anymore. And that was the best advice Matt ever gave me, because he never touched me again after that. So after all this happened, then things got really bad in the way of threats. And I think this is a really important conversation because you know, your whole life was obviously crumbling around. You'd found out about this affair, he'd moved out, but he then started threatening us. And
we're not just talking like little threats. We're talking like I'm going to come and burn the house down, like beware, basically, like I'm going to come and kill you, and you went to the police, and the police really didn't do much to protect you.
Right as soon as I found out about the affair, I kicked him out, and he still felt he had rights as far as the house, the family. I mean, we'd had this conversation. You're married for a long time. You have conversations about what happens if one of your cheats or whatever that had always been, you know, if one of us cheats, that person just needs to walk away.
They need to have no claim on anything. But for some reason when it actually happened, he was like, you know, no, I own this house too, and if I want to live in it still I will. Because his girlfriend is obviously still living with her husband at that stage and
they hadn't got a place on their own. So for about three or four months afterwards, there was this constant tussle of him wanting to move back into the house, me trying to understand what had happened, and there was a lot of history between them that was torturing me and trying to work my way through trying to understand how our kids fitted into all of this. Like you know, obviously Craig was still at school and this is his dad.
So I'm trying to navigate all of that. Andrew got more and more angry, and then he started with the threats, and it was just like, you know, I will burn the house down if you won't let me come back, and just be aware I've got access to your car. So I was just scared all the time, to the point where I worked in a building that had a lot of security and that was the only I felt safe that he couldn't get to me. But I was still scared that he'd get at my car in the carpet.
I remember driving home one day and somebody's car was backfiring, and I'm hunkering down in the seat because I seriously thought that he was out there with a gun trying to shoot me. He'd also like Pepper this with conversations with me, like, you know, you and I could still make a go of it. You and I could still get back together. And he suggested that the best way to do that would be for him and I to pack up and move to Tasmania and never have anything
to do with the kids again. It just be the two of us and I could go to work and he would just do fishing in that because he wasn't really interested in working anymore. Oh my, I can remember saying, you still don't get that my kids in my first priority. His response to that was, that is the problem.
I love that you've always made your kids your number one priority. That's beautiful because so many people being in a toxic relationship like that, they really can give everything to their partner and distance himself from their kids. So it's beautiful that you've always kept that as your number one priority.
Yeah, that's one day, is suggested, and the next day, he's going to kill me.
And you went to the police, and what did they say to you?
I got some texts from him one night saying that he was going to kill me. I went to the police station. We can't do anything until something happens.
Isn't that mind blowing? Like, oh, okay, when he kills you, then we'll step in and help. What kind of systems that to protect women in domestic abuse of relationships and situations?
Yeah, I think it's slightly better now, but it was devastating to be told that. And then the next week or so in Rabina, a woman and her child were killed by her X. That was like a real way cap call to me like this is really serious stuff. He might actually go through with it.
So you packed up and left.
Yeah. I changed my name, I changed my job, I changed the state I lived in, and I gave the keys to our house because we still had a mortgage on it to the bank. And I walked away.
Wow, what a strong woman to make that decision.
Up.
You, Matt and Craig all left And the only reason I didn't go is because I had Steve up here. But you guys all left to another state, another town, a quiet little town that you've never been to before, and started a whole new life.
Yeah, and we got the dog, yes dog. As soon as I left the Gold Coast, I had no contact. I've never spoken to him since.
Wow, I've seen him. I was working out at a gym. I'm trying to paint a picture here for you guys. So the gym was outdoors, and next to it was a glazier So Andrew it was a glass place that he worked at. I didn't know he worked there. And I was working out at this gym that had like a fence so you could see straight through to this glass company. And I'm training by myself. And there's this one man that's always been my life since I was a teenager. His name's Ryan, and I'm still friends with
them to this day. Him and Steve are still really close. But it was his gym, so I was training there and this ute pulls up and guess who gets out Andrew. And he comes to the fence and starts calling me all these names. You dirty, fucking slut, you motherfucker. You rode my life. I'm gonna get you out, like absolutely losing his marbles. My body went into freeze. I completely froze Ryan, who's this like six foot huge, musty tattoo like looks so scary.
Ryan.
He walks over and he goes, what the fuck's going on here? And I said to Ryan, he knew this. I said, that's my stepdad. Ryan gets out and bolts to go and get him. Andrew sprints, jumps in his car and leaves. And Ryan went into the glass place and made a complain or whatever, and apparently Andrew never went back. Good. Ryan scared him away.
Good.
In all of this, Mum, like there's been so many hard times or whatever, but me and you always talk about it that like we wouldn't change any of it. It's really made us learn so much about ourselves, about other people, about relationships, you know, even me and you have spoken about the moments that you know weren't our
proudest moments in this whole dynamic. And you've learned a lot about masculine and feminine energy in relationships, and you know how you were always in survival mode, and just has been so many cool lessons that we wouldn't be the people we are now if we didn't go through all that experience, Like, yes, we wouldn't we should upont our worst enemy. But we've definitely come out the other side, and it's really helped bring us closer, and I think
it's helped me be the parent I am today. And it's also helped me attract a partner that was the complete opposite to what I saw growing up. So that in itself has been an incredible gift. What has been your top couple of lessons you've learned throughout this journey.
I think probably one of the biggest ones is that we're not I'm not here to fix somebody else. Narcissists are very good at finding women who want to help them solve their problems and basically fix them, and that's not a healthy relationship. Has taken me to get to my third marriage. Before it was always vital flight or dramatic situations, and you don't have to live like that. The ideal partner is really somebody who wants for you to be happy, not for you to fix them.
What kind of advice would you give to your younger self? Looking back, I think.
My advice to myself was like, actually listen to what other people have to say and take it on board. I had people warning me right from the start, and I didn't heed the warning signs. I was too much of the story in my head that if I'm a good person, other people will be good people too, and it's just not true, unfortunately.
And what advice would you give to someone that's in a really toxic, abusive, unhappy relationship and they feel so stuck and they don't know how to get out, they're scared to get out, Like, what do you have any advice that you would give them if they're listening.
I think the truth is that there is always better to look forward to. So my life is nothing like what it was back then, and at the time I didn't want to let go of this relationship or the whole dynamic, because I was afraid that I was losing something. And in fact, when you let go of a relationship that's toxic, you gain. So it's just getting that story that's in your head that you've got things to lose. Take that story and give it a different perspective. But
what if I got to gain? And the things that you've got to gain aren't to do with material things, your house, that sort of thing that can all be replaced. I know that sounds easy to say, that sort of thing can come and go in your life. It's your own self respect, it's your own sense of being. You have to develop your own identity without that connection to someone else. That's unhealthy because that's just going to hold you back.
And it's not easy for you to pack up your life, pack up the boxes of the house, like change your name, get the two boys, get a new job, like drive to a new state, go to a little town that you've never been to before. Like obviously that was really scary, uncomfortable, but you did it, and you can do it, and so can others.
Right absolutely, And the truth of it was, at the end of that marriage, I did not know who I was because I'd spent so many years basically just trying to manage the peace, burying me and what he needed and wanted, and what I had to provide as a mother, and what I needed to give to work. There was no me left. So that was the big game for me, is that by changing my name, by changing where I live, by changing everything in my life, I got to reinvent myself.
That's cool, be brave, take that step. Do it for you because you need to be able to know who you are in life. People were saying to me, oh, this is awesome. He's out of your life. You can do all the things that you like to do. And I was like, seriously, I do not know what I like to do. I don't know anymore. It was like a new discovery. I started like cooking, doing recipes I really like to make, and just one by one gathering sort of like a tool belt of things that were
about what I liked. Now I do know who I am, I know what I like. It's such a bit of life, not in that toxic relationship.
We are so lucky in this generation of this is like the light of social media as we have like courses and YouTube and podcasts and coaches and TV shows and documentaries and all all these things that like teach you about relationships, about finding yourself, about boundaries, like about your own beliefs and values and morals and how important the first seven years of your life is like all
this stuff. Like you don't get talk growing up, especially in your generation, mum, like your age group, Like you didn't have access to all of this. So as you're going through all of this, you're literally navigating this as a young woman that just has no idea about any of this. You're totally winging it. There's no knowledge, there's no experience, there's no handbook, there's no even your parents are not there helping guide you because they didn't know,
not anyone to therapy. In those days, it wasn't a normal thing to be like I'm just going to go see my psychology. That's so normal now if I just regulated, I'm like a session with a coach and like all my friends are aligned do we chat about these deep conversations and we've got a support system, Like I can't imagine going through everything you've been through with no support, So hush, yeah.
I think there's massive pressures on you know, the young women of today that my generation didn't have. It. Kind of cats both ways. You know, the image that you get of how life is supposed to be is not something we had to deal with back in my day. I mean, normal was what you lived and you didn't really get to see how anyone else's life was true. So for me, the marriage I was in was a normal marriage as far as I was concerned, because I didn't see the examples of better ones.
Yeah, you didn't know. That's so true? Actually was. We compare so much on social media with like these highlight reels. We think you have a standard. It does fast forward to now though, Mom, Like, your life is obviously so different and you're so happy, Like you were single for quite a few years, and then you met your partner Bruce now on it was it on dating our pay.
We've been together for twelve years, married for three or four.
Yeah, when I tell you I've never seen a man worship the ground someone walks on, I'm not even kidding you. Like this man thinks the bee's knees of my mumm gonna be like having, you know, a moment where she's I don't know. We you're emotional, snappy, and she's like, he just still loves me. He just adores the shit out of you.
And it's so isn't it so exactly what you deserve.
Sometimes I'm just like, oh my gosh, that man is like obsessed with you, but in the most beautiful way. And we giggle because it's just like, I've never seen you be treated like an absolute queen, Like you could literally wear anything, do anything, say anything, you could have shit all over your face and he'd be like, Wendy, you're so beautiful.
I know, my ugly dancing he thinks is amazing. He really is the blast thing at the end of all of this for.
Me, and I freaking love that because it just gives anyone listening hopefully like we wanted to share this story because one I've spoken about it so much openly over the years, but too just to hopefully empower other women that they you know, there is choices, and I know it's not as easy as just like getting up and leaving. I realize domestic and abusive relationship and toxic relationships are not that black and white. There's so many layers to it. But I just hope that this can give some light.
And remember it's too late to reinvent yourself. I did it when I was forty five, like and I thought at that time, like you know, that was part of the grief for me, was like I'm so old, I could never have another life. Now this has just ruined my life. That was the mindset that I was in. But it's never too late. You can always move on to something better and build that for yourself.
And you've built an incredible life that you're loving so much. You go to Bali every year with your amazing daughter. You live on land, you have a veggie garden. You know, you're working back for us. You've got a great relationship with all of your children and your husband, and it's just so cool to see you at this second half of your life, just absolutely thriving, not just surviving through each day. And it's so cool to see.
And it's so cool to get to share it with you.
I love you so much.
Yeah, I love you.
Thank you so much for joining us. This has been incredible. It's so vulnerable and brave to share and open up, and I think so many women are going to get a lot out of this episode. It's really share your time.
Mum, thank you to both of you.
You're so welcome.