1,825 ‘I love You’s

2,920 Kisses

2,573 Cuddles

126 ‘Marry me’s

57,592 WhatsApp Messages

365 Mornings waking up with warmth in my heart

Today marks exactly 1 year since I met my soul mate – a day that would change my life forever and I still remember it like yesterday.

Outwardly I appeared to all intents and purposes to be a confidently bubbly girl who knew what she was doing and what she wanted in life…except when it came to love.

I’d had 3 relationships in the same year – ALL of which were an absolute disaster, and I used to be ashamed to admit this but I’m not anymore, I was the ‘other’ woman in all of them.

Oh, I had a love life alright, but certainly not one I was proud of.  In fact, you could probably have called it a lust life, because real love was completely lacking, and real love was something I actually had no concept of at all.  In every one of those relationships, I’d fought to be loved.  Yep, you heard that right – ‘fought to be loved’.  I was anything but in a healthy relationship and no matter what I tried nothing seemed to be working.

I was overcome with shame and my heart broken and crushed. Bloody hell, I came from a good Christian middle class upbringing – I. Was. Not. A. Slut.

And for crying out loud, I’d friggin’ escaped a cult 2 years prior, one where I’d never gotten any attention from men and now that I was, this was how it was working out? This isn’t what’s supposed to happen!

Where are the fairy tales? Where are the getting to spend special events with the man of my dreams? Where are the 47 years happily married?

Everyone had seemed so promising at the outset, all offering something more than the person before, giving me experiences that filled me with hope and put stars in my eyes – trips to other countries, support for my modelling, practical help around the house (something that had never willingly been provided by the men in my family).

I looked great, has lost weight, was modelling (every mans dream to be with a model isn’t it?!), was liquid, didn’t smoke, drink or even want to start a family, I had a gorgeous property and yet none of this seemed to be worth a dime.

How was I ticking so many boxes but getting it all wrong?

Lying in bed, with tears trickling down my cheeks and filling my ears (Don’t you hate it when they do that? That’s like the – I am proper depressed moment and the grey cloud over you instantly darkens to a foreboding black.), looking up at the exposed wooden beams above my head and thinking – I could end all this right now and the only thing that I care about any more is who is going to look after my chickens.

Thankfully I succumbed to sleep, and the morning brought a new thought – ok damn this stupid relationship stuff, I refuse to have another relationship for 8-12 months because I had a new PLAN.

Firstly, I drew a line in the sand and decided there were too many similarities in my past relationships that I wasn’t prepared to repeat again – given I was the common denominator, right?! I now knew the things I was doing wrong – time to change that. By having 3 relationships in quick succession, I could easily compare them while they were still fresh in my mind.  Yes, they were all a*holes but who was the one accepting the a*holes into her life?!

Secondly, I decided I was going to get my head to work for me, in future (no more of that suicide talky stuff ok brain?!) and I was going to learn everything I needed to know to do this the right way.  I had no problem applying logical approaches to everything else in life but for some reason I’d been winging it when it came to finding true love.

Jump ahead 5 months (and oh so many of those silly Facebook game things that predict your future – new boyfriend, love of your life, a marriage proposal next year, etc – yeah right!!) and not only am I in an exquisite relationship, one for which I barely had words it was so cliché-able, but yes, I am also engaged – and on what better day than the 29th February (definitely the right year for a leap year!). I was deliriously happy, and I knew that this time was right in a way that I’d never felt before – and it was the reason I was happy to scupper my plans of 8-12 months of singledom and move ahead at the speed I did.  The rest is history…..

So, it’s over to you and YOUR story now!

Whether your next step is to get out of a sh!tty relationship, heal from one or find true love, you can speed all of that up when you take the time to get honest with yourself and what is not serving you any longer.

What are you tolerating that you really shouldn’t be? There’s a good chance you are telling yourself a story around why you should tolerate it rather than being brutally honest with yourself. You know that if you’d admit it to yourself then you’d have to take action that scares you.

This month it’s Christmas – is your relationship status the way you want it to be for every Christmas you can see off into the future? Because if you don’t take action and change things up a gear, you are going to repeat that awfully painful cycle just like I did.

I am super clear now that every girl legend deserves her Disney style romance, her knight in shining armor, and her dreams.

If any of this sounds like and it’s time for you to change how Christmas 2021 and thereafter looks, head over to the Girl Legends Love Life Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/girl.legends