The first few months with my boyfriend, were a bit of a whirlwind. We had insane ups and downs for a new couple. It started off so amazing, we were so inlove. Laughing constantly, enjoying every single second we had together, and with Dylan. It felt so surreal having a guy I fell inlove with, love me back just as much, AS WELL as my beautiful son. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

Then things started to plummet. A moodswing here, A lie here, and a lie there. I started realising little lies had been told from the get go, like telling me he and his recent ex had been split up like 6 months, as opposed to 2 it actually was, amongst other silly, little, unnecessary lies. So my back was up, but I was already in love.

Then 2 and a bit months in, on Boxing Day morning he showed me something on his phone, and I noticed below it there was a girls name. I snatched his phone. He had been messaging a girl from work on Christmas Eve, whilst I was with him and his family and friends. I went ape shit, my back was already up and now he’s messaging a girl behind my back? My heart sunk. I felt physically sick. I was so wrapped up and in love, and only had eyes for him. But here he was messaging other girls.

I asked him if it was just friends or anything more, he was absolutely adamant it was just friends. Then after probing and probing (which I had learnt to do with him because I realised his initial reaction would always be to lie) he came clean. He had slept with her 2 weeks before we got together. He was allowed a past, I get that. But I just kept thinking, “Why have you started messaging her? Am I not enough? Are you already bored?”. After a screaming row, with me absolutely fuming and devastated, crying and shouting, and him apologising profusely, but also shouting. I told him I couldn’t possibly be with him if he was sitting on the floor at his mum and dads, opposite me, messaging the girl he had slept with just before we met. How could I be ok with that? And now I’m gonna panic every time he’s at work wondering, “are they flirting”.

We argued the whole morning whilst getting ready to go to my aunties (Dylan was at my mums, he had stayed there Christmas night) he was saying he loved me and that he was sorry, and that he had fucked up. I was trying to be strong by putting my foot down and telling him that this was it, I’ll never trust him again so we are done. But deep down I didn’t want it to be over. I just wanted him to just want me. I wanted to be enough, why was I not enough? Why did he have to seek attention from this other girl. (And she had a stupid fucking name too. Sounded like a porn star name. Which pissed me off even more 😂 I know I shouldn’t be mad at her but I was. She knew he had a girlfriend and it upset me. Although I do know he is solely to blame)

I was so excited to take him to my aunties this Boxing Day, and he kept saying “I love you, let me come with you today. I promise this will never happen again. I’ll never ever lie to you again. I messed up, let me fix it. I love you”

I loved him and everything he was saying was all I wanted. So I agreed he could come. I was so unhappy, but I put on a brave face and we went off to my aunties for the day and played happy families. When deep down I wanted to burst into tears and cry to my family about this guy lying to me. Messaging people he had slept with, behind my back. This guy who’s making me feel shit. But I didn’t want them to dislike him. So I let him act like he was the dogs bollocks, laughing and joking with everyone, like the saint role he played so well.

I know this sounds like a bashing but this is just 1 bad incident out of lots of good ones. And I’m telling my truth. And this was significant and the real start of our issues to come.

I was a pain in the arse. I do not think I am an angel, and I certainly do not claim to be. I already had my own insecurities before all of this.

When we first got together I went on the pill. For the first 2 weeks I was PSYCHOTIC. Like he is actually a saint for staying through that, to be fair. I would lose it at literally anything. But one example that sticks out is one night in particular when he was due to come over. He started messaging me from his 10 minutes past the time he was meant to be at mine. I went ballistic. Told him he should have been at mine 10 minutes earlier, but was instead being slow about it and messaging. I told him not to bother coming and I blocked him from everything. This was about 21.10. By 23.00 I had calmed down and unblocked him and asked him to come and see me. Which he did.

The next day I started reading about mood swings, and all this stuff about my pill came up. I called him and told him I thought it was my pill that was making me insane. . Well more insane than usual, I should say .. 😂 and he was like “You didn’t realise that was it? I knew that but I didn’t want to piss you off by suggesting it”

I apologised for being a nightmare. Told him I would come off it, and we would figure something else out. He seemed relieved I was coming off it for the mood swing part, but we were both adamant about preventing pregnancy. The copper coil scared the crap out of me, and was the only option if I wanted something with no hormones, so we decided after a friend was doing this, to do fertility awareness.

So you track your periods, take your temperature each morning, but I wasn’t very good at remembering to take my temperature at the same time each morning. So I decided I would order ovulation sticks. This way I would do one of those every couple of days after my period ended, and once it started to show ovulation, we would use protection.

After the Boxing Day incident things were pretty much ok, although I couldn’t get out of my head that my ex messaged this girl, and I definitely brought it up a few time’s. Then this one day we both had been just constantly picking at eachother. Just clash after clash after clash. By the end of the day I told him to just “Fuck off”. He said “I’m not fucking around Ellie .. tell me we are done now and I’m not coming back”

“Ok then BYE” I said all sarcastic and stubborn. He left and I felt almost empowered in the heat of the moment. Then an hour went by and I’d calmed down and I realised we were both just being absolute plebs, and I wanted to make up and try and get our relationship back to what it was for the first couple of months, when were were goofy and in love and cute.

I called him and he just kept saying he had warned me that if I ended it now we were done, and he meant it. I was distraught. I begged him to come back, begging and pleading, but he had put his foot down. He had driven an hour or so away to a friends place. All night my brain was going into overdrive, I was messaging and sending audio messages telling him I loved him and I shouldn’t have ended it in the heat of the moment. And I was sorry and I just wanted to be with him. He would have none of this. He was done. The next morning I woke up to some absolutely horrible news which I won’t go into, and I was hysterical. I called him and told him and he didn’t care, I genuinely think he thought I was making it up to get him to come and comfort me. So I screenshot him the messages of this awful news. But he didn’t care. He told me he wasn’t coming to see me and that was it. I was devastated I had lost him and I was beside myself with his other news. I cried solidly all day. It was one of the worst days of my life. I just wanted him to forget the row we’d had and come over and let me cry in his arms about the other news I had received. But he was no way about to do that. We were split up for a week, most of the week would involve me messaging him begging him to meet me and see me and get back with me. But eventually he blocked me.

We somehow got talking again, I think I snapchatted him as it was the only place I wasn’t blocked. We got talking, and one thing we had agreed even this early on, is that whether we were together or not he would still see Dylan. I went over to see him like 5 days into the breakup on a Saturday, it was arranged .. I didn’t just turn up. We kissed and cuddled, we told eachother we loved eachother. But he still didn’t seem to want to be with me.

I was devastated, but it had now been nearly a week so I told myself to fix up, stop chasing him and to move on. The following Monday we had agreed to go to Nando’s so he could see Dylan. He put his hand on my hand on the table, and I pulled it away. I’d told myself I wasn’t going to fight for him anymore, so I didn’t. We had a laugh and everything but I was no longer chasing him. It was nice him for him and Dylan to still have contact and that’s what I wanted moving forward. We walked to his car after Nando’s and he asked for a hug, I said “if you want” .. to which he replied in a moody tone, “well not if you don’t want it”. And we got back in the car. He dropped me and Dylan home, and left. He was on nights that night. The next day, late afternoon I received a long message with everything I’d been wanting to hear for the past week. I won’t print it but it was everything and more, how much he loved me and Dylan. All the things he loved about me and how no one would compare.

I told him I loved him and we both promised to make this work, no looking back. I actually said “But no more lies” he replied “no more lies”

I said “Even if you do something and you’re like shit.. she’s gonna go mad. Just tell me… let me go mad. Then it’ll be over. The lies I can’t deal with”

He replied “I won’t do anything but yes okay”.

There are a million other messages back and forth but these are the ones that I really relied on. I know no one is ever exactly thrilled about being lied to, but I take being lied to so badly. Like, I’m certain it’s not quite normal how distraught I get when I’ve been lied to. I just want honesty. No matter what. He came over to see me before work that night, we chatted, I asked did he message any girls in the week apart, meet up with anyone, kiss anyone .. anything. I said it would hurt but we were apart and I just need to know to move forward. He was so adamant “No of course not. I wasn’t even thinking about other girls Elz, I’ve told you this” I told him I had been messaging a guy towards the end of the week, he was a nice guy, a friend of a friend, and he’d made me feel better. He said he appreciated me telling him and we would move on from it.

We went on a date night the following week once he was off nights. We had some in depth conversations to try and understand eachother a bit more, and we were moving in a great direction. The next day we were in town and Dave admitted he had looked in my phone when I was in the toilet in hive. He was very apologetic for doing so, but said he’d seen the messages with this guy were flirty and it hurt. I apologised for that, but said I had told him about messaging, he apologises again for looking through my phone and that was that.

The next 2 weeks were unreal, I felt like we had worked through the silly lies and blips and we were amazing. Whenever we were around eachother we were laughing and having fun, when we were apart we were messaging. And it was just amazing. Then one night we were at mine having a drink, and he went to the toilet and after a few drinks something got the better of me. It had been bothering me that he had gone through my phone even after I was honest about messaging someone, and I started worrying it was because he was guilty of something. I went to his messenger and was pleased to see no messages. However, at the time it had “recents” and the people you’d recently spoken to would come up under this list. 3 girls were there. I started shaking and shouting at him demanding to know why they were there? Was it when we were apart or together. For about half an hour he denied everything. Said it just meant they had been online recently, anything he could think of. I went on and on as I knew I would have to, then he came clean. He had messaged them all in the week we were apart. So why didn’t he tell me this when I told him about the guy? I was so upset. Lied to again. Everything came crumbling down around me. I felt so betrayed and heartbroken. He went home after a lot of rows. We didn’t see eachother the next day, then the following day we were going to see Drake. It was tense. I even sent him a meme with a caption. See below;

But still. I loved him. I spoke to one of the girls on the phone, she told me nothing had happened. They’d been on a night out with other people too and it was nothing at all like that. So I wanted to give him another chance. Maybe I should have given up then but I cannot tell you how much I loved this man. And when these stupid lies and rows weren’t happening. We were amazing. Same sense of humour, banter back and fourth, unreal chemistry, we were amazing. I just kept in my head that one day that would be us all of the time, and lies would stop. I’d built trust up and we would be amazing. So I stuck with him. And he stuck with me throughout the digs at him.

We plodded along, mostly happy but I was still angry deep down about the lies about the messaging. So I know I did throw digs at him here and there. But we were trying. We were also doing this fertility awareness thing I mentioned earlier, and one night we went out when it said I was ovulating, we got very drunk, came home and did the deed. But … the condom had split. This had never happened to either of us before. So the next day, off we went to get the morning after pill from boots. No baby for us, no thank you!

I took the pill the next day, and a week or so later I started spotting so I took this as my period. It lasted about 5 days but was just very light. We were in Liverpool at the time and I said to my ex “My period is really light”. But we both agreed .. at least it was a period and I wasn’t pregnant.

Around a week or so later we had a date day, which was amazing. We took Dylan to Dave’s to stay with his mum. We went go karting which was wicked, we had such a laugh. Then we went back to mine to get ready to go out, I did an ovulation test which was positive. We both had a little cheer “woooop not pregnant” 😂 then went out for dinner, and drinks. It was the best date day, and night. So many funny things happened that night, it was wicked. I loved every second. Then we got back to mine, drunk. And we were not careful. We went online to order the morning after pill. Then the next day I was reading the order form list which tells you how to take it and what to look out for. It mentioned if you have a light period after taking the pill, that must do another pregnancy test. I thought that was weird as I’d had such a light period, after the last one. But then I remembered I’d done an ovulation test. So I couldn’t be pregnant.

Then suddenly it dawned on me. “Oh my god, oh my god. There were a couple of pregnancy strips mixed in with the ovulation ones” I remembered and thought to myself. I ran to the drawer and saw a pregnancy strip packet, here is what they looked like;

They were all mixed up together, but we were rushing to go out and I didn’t even think about the pregnancy tests being in there. I just quickly did what I assumed was an ovulation. Got a positive, and carried on as normal. Now knowing this could well have been a pregnancy test I’d done, I panicked, grabbed a pregnancy one on purpose this time, and went off to the toilet. Dave was at work. I did the pregnancy test and it was positive. I was in shock, I burst into tears and started shaking. I emailed Dave asking him to call me, he called and he thought I was joking. I was not. I begged him to come and see me and he left work. We spoke for about an hour, both utterly in shock.

So at this point I’ve decided not to post the detailed blog about the start of my last relationship. It points out all of the bad stuff I went the through in the relationship, which leads my ex to believe it’s a bashing blog. But that really isn’t it. I don’t deny that there were times in our relationship where he was absolutely amazing, but for me writing is a form of therapy. At the point that I was writing that blog, I was getting out all of the negative things I knew I’d been through, but never acknowledged all at one time.

At the moment it isn’t the time to post it, but it is a huge part of my story, so when the dust has settled and we have both learnt to get along and co parent, I will share that part of my relationship.

It is relevant to the way my abandonment issues have impacted me, and relevant to why I’m going to therapy and trying to stop myself from repeating the same mistakes, in future relationships.

Myself and my ex are very up and down at this point but our ultimate goal is to get along, so we can co parent happily, and make it a calm and happy family dynamic for the boys. It should be easy because for the most part we do get along, we were like best friends as well as partners. We laughed a lot, we told eachother pretty much everything, big and little. Of course this also meant taking stuff out on eachother too. But we did have a lot of fun together, so it would be amazing to get that part back as friends, for us and our children. We are currently getting along. Fingers crossed this time it sticks.

So, the kids have just been picked up by their grandad, to go to my ex’s for the next couple of days. So I’ve made myself some cinnamon french toast, best batch I’ve made yet. And I lay here in bed listening to “Loving someone”, by “The 1975”. (I’ve liked them for years but I haven’t been able to stop listening to them for coming up to a year now, almost daily. It’s an issue 😂)

I was reflecting last night, on some of the crazy shit I’ve done in past relationships. And I thought, fuck it. It’s kind of funny to look back at now … also a little embarrassing, but I’m sure relatable to a lot of people. so I’m I’ve decided to share it. So, here are a few of my, “confessions of a crazy ex”.

I’ll go back to being 16 years old, and being in my first “serious” relationship. I had really started to go off him, so for 2 weeks or so I had barely let him kiss me, let alone anything else. But I guess I didn’t want to end it. So, I just stayed with him because it was easier.

One night he text my phone (probably some old cool Nokia, with a funky case and a polyphonic ring tone) He said he was just finishing work, and he was going to go to the gym for a bit, but his battery was dying so he’d text me later, or in the morning. I should have known then he was lying … the old Nokia phone battery lasts at least 2 weeks 😂 but to be honest, I think I was kind of relieved I didn’t have to see him or speak to him that night.

The next night he was on his way over when my phone rang … probably a polyphonic version of, “my humps” by “The Black eyed peas” or something like that …. here’s how the conversation went;

Me: Hello?

Girl: Is this Ellie?

Me. Yeah .. who’s this?

Girl: I fucked your boyfriend last night.

… silence …

Girl: Did you hear me? I fucked your boyfriend, he said he was at he gym and his battery was dying, but he was with me.

Me: Oh right. That’s nice, cheers love. Enjoy.

Girl: What?? I can describe him to you if you don’t believe me?

Me: No I believe you, have him. I don’t want him.

She proceeded to tell me about his shit tattoo, and other parts of his body. I told her again that I didn’t care, and “well done” and she could have him. Then I hung up.

She clearly wanted to have a row with me, or rub it in my face. A girl, it turned out, that I’d never even heard of or met, really wanted to hurt me? What is actually wrong with people?! She wanted me to get angry, she probably wanted me to get upset, and have a screaming match with her! But she didn’t get that.

Don’t get me wrong, it hurt like hell that he had cheated and lied, and I was so angry I was shaking when I hung up, but I knew deep down that the relationship was dead anyway, which I think now, is why I didn’t react to her.

A few minutes later and he came to the door. I opened it and confronted him. Then proceeded to lob a battery powered light that he’d leant me, at his head. It was the only thing of his I could find! I didn’t wanna throw my shit at him, he wasn’t worth it. He apologised profusely, I told him he was a dick and to fuck off. Slammed the door and went upstairs. He called a lot, he text a lot but I didn’t wanna hear it.

The next day I rocked up to school, late. I think it was actually first break, so like over 2 hours late. drinking Malibu and coke out of a water bottle and smoking a cigarette (I’m not entirely sure who I thought I was, to be honest) I walked over to his car, in front of everyone, and keyed it. I didn’t put much effort in, so it was bitty, but I’d attempted to key the word “scum”, in his shitty, rusty, old fiesta.

Deep down I was humiliated, I felt like people would be laughing at me because my boyfriend had cheated on me. (Isn’t it funny that we think and feel that way? We feel humiliated when someone lies to us, or cheats on us. When they should be the ones who are embarrassed. They are the lying, cheating, scumbags.) I think my reaction that day was me trying to roll up to school, acting cool AF. Trying to act like I wasn’t hurt at all, I was just an angry rebel .. honest!! But In reality, I probably looked like an even bigger dick. But, I really fucking enjoyed acting out that morning. I’ll tell you that for free.

He begged me back, wrote me letters, the lot. It turned out he had broken his own heart. Idiot.

After that I didn’t really have a relationship for a couple of years. I was out a lot, I had fun with friends and guys, but I didn’t really fall for anyone … or trust anyone, I guess. Eventually at 19, I would end up in my first relationship with someone of the same sex. We were friends a long time before anything happened. We were together a while, but I was never really happy. I tried to end it a couple of times, but she wouldn’t have it. I was staying up on the sofa until 4-5am until she went to work, because I never even wanted to sleep in the same bed as her. But I felt bad because she was a lovely person, I just didn’t want to be with her.

I started a new job and was enjoying not being around her as much, I know it sounds awful but I felt very trapped. We lived together, and I didn’t want to be with her. I’d hinted that it wasn’t working, on several occasions … but she would ignore it and tell me we were fine, and act like nothing had ever happened. It didn’t matter how I was feeling. She just wanted to plod along with me, so long as she was happy, who gave a fuck how I felt?

So guess who turned into the lying, cheating, scumbags I mentioned earlier? …. You guessed it. I had turned into the people I hated.

I cheated on her with someone that makes me fucking cringe to this day, but he was paying me attention, he even gave me money when I was skint to come out after work. Which was a double bonus, free night out, and didn’t have to go home to the person I didn’t want to be with. I started staying out late, at a friends bus he lived on in Faygate. One night I didn’t even come home, I remember my best mate getting the calls asking where I was in the morning. I wasn’t even with the guy, I was just with my friend, I didn’t want to go home! I treated her really badly, it was the cowards way out. I wanted her to end it .. seeing as she wouldn’t let me do it, well not easily anyway. I ended up kissing this guy at the bus one night. The next day, I told her we were over. She begged me to try and work on it with her, and this is when I said “there’s someone else” .. I saw her heart break there and then, and I couldn’t tell her the whole truth .. “have you kissed him or slept with him” she asked.

“No. But I feel it’s heading that way”. I felt awful, I HATE liars .. and now I was one. But I just couldn’t break her heart anymore than I already had. I realised later, I was using him to get out of the relationship … and also as a rebound. But I still couldn’t admit to her that I’d kissed him. I’m not proud of how I handled that break up, and I’m ashamed to say I broke up with a another ex in really similar circumstances after that. I’d like to think now that I’m a stronger person and wouldn’t go down that route again. Honesty really is the best policy, in the long run.

I have a confession about something I did even after this relationship, I actually think it’s worse than kissing someone else but I’ll let you be the judge of that. A few weeks after the split, I was now single and having lots of fun being out with friends. But had heard that she was still really down, a few weeks after the split. I had her Facebook password, so I took it upon myself to log onto her facebook, and friend requested her ex! 😱😱😱 I genuinely didn’t go on her Facebook to snoop, I didn’t look at anything, I was just trying to help her move on .. in a very bad way. I thought maybe she still had feelings for her ex and that they could reconnect. I know now that this is next level, interfering, craziness … and I had no right to do this. But I genuinely thought I was helping at the time. Idiotic, 21 year old me 🤦🏼‍♀️

I logged back on a couple of days later to see if it had worked, but needless to say …. it had not worked. Her ex was happy that she had reached out by requesting her on facebook, but my ex made it clear that she had no idea how it had happened and did not wish to speak to her. FAIL.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

To be continued ….