Everybody hopes to bump into their ex on a day when they are looking hot, groomed, sexy.
I was wearing a tracksuit and no make up when it happened to me.
I’d been drinking cheap train wine with a group of girlfriends as we travelled up North for a mini break. Giggling and laughing all the way, I had no idea that the man who broke my heart was sitting just two seats away the entire journey.
When he stood up to collect his bag from the overhead compartment, we locked eyes and the laughter in my group immediately ceased.
It felt like time stopped.
I first met my ex in the corner shop. He was in hi-vis gear, buying a lunchtime meal deal – and I was 20p short on my shopping.
‘I’ll get that for you,’ he said, in his lovely regional accent. ‘If I can get your number.’
It was cheesy and maybe some women would find it creepy. But he was gorgeous and I was so taken aback by a man chatting me up IRL instead of on some app, that I gave him my number and walked away grinning.
There were no games. He didn’t wait days to contact me; just a few hours to send me a message on WhatsApp.
Then the charm offensive began. And I mean, he was offensively charming.
He was new in town, a builder working on a site near me, it turned out. He didn’t know anything about London.
But after finding out I worked in the fashion industry, he scoured the internet researching stylish places to take someone on a first date. He sent me two options.
I was so flattered and impressed. Previous online dating encounters had left me choosing the venue, often at the last minute and secretly wishing the man would take the lead for once. I was just so tired of always being the organiser.
Giddy with excitement, I treated myself to a blow dry and a new dress for that first date.
Over dinner he told me he didn’t want to scare me off but he had felt an instant connection. He loved that I was, in his eyes, ‘posh’ and he was rugged, he loved my name and loved my dress sense.
Looking back, there were so many red flags, like the onslaught of compliments and the talk of the instant connection, but also the speed at which it all moved. Yet I was drawn to this salt of the earth man, a divorced father of one who adored his boy and had a secret, unfulfilled creative streak.
He claimed that his family had discouraged him from going to art school despite him winning an international arts prize as a teen. I can encourage him, I thought. I can be better than his parents and help him to flourish. We can be a team.
Then the charm offensive began. And I mean, he was offensively charming
In the weeks that followed, he surprised me with incredibly thoughtful gestures. One long day after work, I came home to find a pretty gift box with two dresses inside and a note: ‘Choose the one you like the most and meet me here (a bar in Soho) at 8pm.’
When I got there, he was waiting with cocktails to take me to a comedy show. He told me how beautiful I looked.
At the back of my mind I guess a small part of me was thinking: if it seems too good to be true, it is.
But I had been cynical all my life. I wanted to believe in the fairytale.
Within two months, he was living with me. He had told me about the grotty studio he was renting and how much he loved coming round to mine where it was quiet and he felt he could relax. It was ‘safer for his kid’ at mine – it happened by osmosis.
We were five months into our relationship when I started to feel taken for granted. He wasn’t offering to help with bills – it had never been discussed but I guess I expected of him what any decent human would do; offer to help, be grateful and show that through his actions.
He was accepting free childcare as if I was his nanny. His son started staying with us every other weekend. I adored him but did not agree on his dad’s parenting style. The child had never been read a bedtime story and if I stayed too long tucking him in and reading to him, his dad would get annoyed that I wasn’t spending time with him instead.
Increasingly he was going out – he never told me where – and I felt like my flat was a free ride. Plus, Instagram was taking off and he was always glued to his phone.
The more he was absent the more I worried. Instinct kicked in. I looked at who he was following on Instagram and it took me down a rabbit hole of glamour ‘models’.
One of them stood out. Her name rang a bell. He had dropped her into conversation a few times, saying her brother had given him some work. All her photos were of her in underwear.
Under her scantiest images, there he was with love eye emojis or comments about how stunning she was.
I screengrabbed and sent it all to him, saying it was inappropriate and hurtful. When he got home, he called me a paranoid idiot. He was just buttering her up so he kept getting work, he said. It was ‘for us’ and why would he put his comments on a public wall if there was anything to hide?
I asked him to move out, he refused. The whole thing stank. I felt sick.
And then I really was sick. So I took two pregnancy tests. They were positive.
Deep down I didn’t want his child but I did want to be a mother. I had started to lose my love for him and to realise he was a user. I had started to plan a break-up. But I had also seen how much he loved his son so I thought, at least he’ll be a good dad.
I made a decision to tell him, to keep the baby and to love it with all my heart. He found a pregnancy test in the bathroom bin and got mad about it then seemed to come around, and be happy.
He let me go alone for the first scan. He was ‘busy’.
The scan showed a black, half-empty sack on the computer screen. I had partially miscarried and needed an operation to ‘vacuum’ out the rest. I was numb. In shock.
I stayed overnight in the hospital and he visited. He was kind, he brought me my favourite food and his family even sent me a nice text message saying they were ‘here for me’. I felt a glimmer of hope. Perhaps it hadn’t broken ‘us’ and it was the start of a great comeback.
But the next day he begged me to look after his son. Something urgent had ‘come up’. My gut instinct said it was BS. And thoughtless.
A year later I saw he had posted photos of his wedding to the Instagram woman, declaring her ‘the love of my life’
As I walked around a playground still in pain from the op, I found myself surrounded by happy young mums and burst into tears. It was rock bottom.
I thought, how can a human be so cruel to someone they claim to love? And then I asked myself why I was putting up with it? I thought about everyone in my life who loved me and knew they would tell me I could do better. I deserved more.
I asked him to move out again. He refused. I shouted. Three weeks of silence and misery later, he was finally gone. I came home from work one day and he had left, leaving the place a mess. No note. It took me months to notice he had taken an expensive bottle of red wine from my kitchen with him.
I steered clear of his Instagram and blocked him everywhere but when – a year later – I finally couldn’t help myself, I saw he had posted photos of his wedding to the Instagram woman, declaring her ‘the love of my life’.
Then I went into a bit of a scrolling frenzy, putting the timeline together. It looked like he had been with her just five months into our relationship. While I was pregnant. They had spent his birthday together one day, then I had taken him out for dinner in the evening.
Days after my miscarriage, she had signed up to a new glamour modelling agency and posed with him for a photo, she in her underwear and him, clothed, with his eyes popping out like a cartoon character. It was all so sickening but also a great relief by then. I was so lucky not to be bound to this liar for life.
I always thought I would feel something if I ever saw him again. Hatred, boiling anger, wretched tears?
But when I saw him on the train, I felt nothing. I thought I would have some incredibly powerful one liner to put him in his place. Nothing.
In silence, he looked away, took his things and left the train. Alone.
Later I realised I felt pity. And that being caught off guard, tipsy and wearing a tracksuit didn’t matter because I was happy and laughing.
I had friends. I had a job and a life and I treated people with love and respect. He was the wretched one, not me.
I’m still single. Still hopeful. I don’t believe in the fairytale any more. I have my eyes wide open. I am looking for someone who is, above all else, kind.
I have not been able to have children since and that will always break my heart more than some horrible man.
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