Red Fucking Diesel

So there I was.

Four children of my own.

A stepson.

A fiancé.

A wedding being planned.

A daughter we'd nearly lost before she'd even been born.

A relationship that already had cracks in it.

And yet, I was still looking at the whole thing and thinking:

We can make this work.

Because that's what I did.

I tried.

I forgave.

I hoped.

And I kept thinking the difficult parts were just that.

Difficult parts.

Not warnings.

Not patterns.

Not signs of what was coming.

Then came the dentist.

The Woman at the Dentist

I needed dental treatment under sedation.

Because I was being sedated, I needed somebody there with me.

My future husband came.

And while I was literally unconscious getting dental work done?

He was sitting chatting to another woman.

Lovely.

Nothing says future husband material quite like using the time your fiancée is unconscious to have a wee conversation with another woman.

When I found out, I confronted him.

He apologised.

He said he'd delete her number.

And because I wanted to believe him?

I accepted it.

I wanted my family.

I wanted the wedding.

I wanted the life we'd talked about.

I wanted to believe the man I'd called a breath of fresh air was still that man.

So I believed the apology.

Or maybe I just really wanted to.

Life carried on.

Except the number hadn't actually been deleted.

Red Diesel

He'd changed her name in his phone.

To:

Red Diesel.

Honestly.

If you're trying to make something look innocent, disguising a woman's phone number as agricultural fuel is probably not the subtle masterstroke you think it is.

But at that point, I still didn't know the full story.

That came at his work Christmas night out.

The Christmas Night Out

I dropped him off.

The original plan was that I'd pick him up later.

Then the plan changed.

His dad was apparently getting him.

Fine.

I went home.

I've absolutely no idea what time he eventually came in that night.

But the next morning?

His stuff was scattered all over the living-room floor.

So, being me, I started picking it up.

His phone was there.

I picked it up and put it on charge.

And that's when I saw them.

Message after message.

From:

Red Diesel.

There were umpteen of them.

So I opened them.

And read them.

Messages about how handsome he was looking.

Messages about seeing him later.

At hers.

And suddenly the woman he'd supposedly deleted wasn't deleted at all.

She'd just been renamed.

My stomach dropped.

You know that feeling where your body seems to understand what you're seeing before your brain has even caught up?

That.

I didn't need somebody to explain it to me.

I could read.

And this time I wasn't going to let him wriggle out of it.

Tell Me the Truth or Leave

I woke him up.

And gave him a choice.

Tell me the truth.

Or:

Leave.

He left.

That was his answer.

After everything we'd built.

Our children.

His son.

Our daughter.

The engagement.

The wedding.

The family.

The man who'd told Mum after four months that he was going to marry me chose to walk out rather than tell me the truth.

That should have been it.

That should probably have been the moment where I thought:

Right. There's my answer.

And never looked back.

Instead?

A week later I let him come home.

I know.

Believe me.

I know.

But when you're actually inside a relationship, you don't see one incident sitting neatly on a page by itself.

You see everything around it too.

The kids together.

Family holidays.

Christmas mornings.

The baby you've had together.

The man who can still make you laugh.

The wedding you've already planned.

The version of him you keep hoping will come back.

And I was still hoping.

So he came back.

Again, I convinced myself we'd move forward.

And for a while?

We did.

Then My Gran Died

Around that time, I was learning to drive.

We were planning to move to his house.

Then my gran died.

We had the wake at her house before the burial the following day.

And even on a night like that?

I was late.

Why?

Because I was waiting for him to come home.

Again.

The usual piss.

There are moments you look back on years later and realise just how familiar waiting had become.

Waiting for him to come home.

Waiting for him to finish whatever he was doing.

Waiting for him to show up.

Waiting for us to become the relationship I thought we were supposed to be.

Eventually we moved.

Hamilton.

And at first?

It was great.

That's the part people sometimes don't understand.

Nothing is awful all the time.

If it was, maybe leaving would be much easier.

There are good days.

Good weeks.

Sometimes good months.

Enough good to make you question whether the bad was really that bad.

Enough to make you think:

Maybe things have finally changed.

And for a while, in Hamilton, I believed they had.

Then the Internet Went Down

His friend's nephew moved into the flat downstairs.

They were using our internet.

Which meant ours was constantly cutting in and out.

And I moaned about it.

Internet.

That's what started it.

Not cheating.

Not another woman.

Not some massive life crisis.

The fucking internet.

The sort of stupid domestic thing couples argue about every day.

Except our argument escalated.

I flung something.

He came over to me.

Grabbed me by the leg.

And punched me.

Then he took the car keys from me so I couldn't leave in the car.

My dad had to come and collect me.

So back to Dad's I went.

Again.

I stayed there for about a week or two.

Then?

I went home.

Again.

And if you're starting to wonder how many times I can type the word again in one life story...

Trust me.

We've barely started.

Then We Got Married

Yes.

After the woman at the dentist.

After Red Diesel.

After the messages.

After him leaving rather than telling me the truth.

After me taking him back.

After the punch.

After Dad having to collect me.

After me leaving again.

We got married.

I know how that sounds.

I do.

You can look at all those moments one after another and think:

Why the hell would you marry him?

But life doesn't happen as a finished story.

When you're living it, each incident gets surrounded by ordinary days.

School runs.

Dinner.

Kids.

Work.

Laughing.

Family things.

Good moments.

Apologies.

Promises.

You don't know yet which moments are going to become part of a pattern.

And I still loved him.

I still wanted our family.

I wanted the wedding.

I wanted the man who'd originally felt like a breath of fresh air.

So I walked down the aisle.

Pinocchio No Strings actually became my husband.

The Wedding Day

My wedding day wasn't exactly the magical day I'd imagined.

I spent most of it in the room with my daughter.

I hardly got the chance to speak to anyone.

My new husband hurt his ankle.

By the end of the night he could barely walk, never mind dance.

Then the next day?

He dropped me home and went to hospital.

Very glamorous newlywed life.

But we were married.

We'd done it.

After everything, we'd actually made it down the aisle.

Then we went on honeymoon.

With all the kids.

Because that's what our family looked like.

My children.

His son.

Our daughter.

One big blended family.

And then we came home.

Back to real life.

And not long afterwards?

Real life became difficult in a completely different way.

Because I started having panic attacks.

Bad ones.

Eventually I couldn't even leave the house.

And at first?

My husband didn't understand at all.

But surprisingly, this is one of the parts of our marriage where eventually he did something I still give him credit for.

Because when he finally realised just how serious it was...

he helped me.

Next: When I Couldn't Leave the House.