We’re going to the chapel and we’re going to get…eloped!

It has been a wee while since my last blog post, and in classic Maggie style, boy, do I have a life update.

Now if the title of the post or the cover image isn’t obvious enough — SURPRISE! I’m married!

For those who want to know the background story (I know I’m nosy and personally love the nitty gritty details) I met my husband on Hinge many moons ago, back at the end of 2022. I was on a break from boys after on-and-off dating for a year after my separation (swiping and small talk can be so incredibly exhausting). But of course, it was during this break, where I decided to “just” check what fish were still in the sea, that I stumbled across my now husband’s profile and decided to strike up a conversation.

Why I love my Kindle & why you will too: From a former hardcopy book lover

It has almost been 3 months since I was first united with my Kindle, and I cannot believe it took me THIS long to give eBooks a go.

I have always been fond of reading — there was one summer in highschool where my English teacher asked us to read a book during the two week break and I managed to read 6 #bookworm but when I became a mum my reading pace went from the already dismal one book a year #adultlife to zero books in 5yrs #mumlife. In an attempt to find myself post-separation, I started 2022 with the goal to read one book a month.

Parent Like You’re Divorced: How We Should Co-Parent & Share The Mental Load

Ok. Hear me out.

What if we parented like we were divorced?

The thing that caused resentment towards my ex to build was the fact that ALL the parenting plus the management of the household fell to me. There was no discussion about this, it just happened.

We went from living separately, him managing his own place — paying rent, cleaning — to him moving in with me and me having to ask him to help vacuum, put the dirty cups in the sink or god-forbid, put a load of laundry on (“But you hang the washing better than I do.”). This was definitely the first hurdle I fell down on, and I know many other women do too. Somehow we become the manager of the house who knows when the toilet paper is running low or when the bills are due. The mental load falls to us.

And this mental load quadruples when you fall pregnant — yes, even before baby is born.

How I’m healing after being in a relationship with a narcissist.

It has been 11 months to the day since I walked out of my home and marriage, and boy, has it been a year (let’s just round up and call it a year).

After I made the decision to choose my own happiness and walk away from my marriage the emotional rollercoaster I went on was exactly as I expected. There were days I doubted my decision, wondering whether I made a mistake and should’ve stayed. Then there were days I knew with conviction I made the right choice for both my kids and I.

What I didn’t expect was the PTSD fall out that would come as I waded back into the dating pool.

That was when I decided my happiness was more important than my perceived selfishness: The tipping point that made me walk away from my marriage.

Walking away from any relationship is hard — how can it not be when you’ve invested all this time and emotion into another human being only to leave it all behind.

But walking away from a marriage, from the father of your children, and “break up” the family unit is harder than anything I’ve ever had to do.