As the gold Chrysler slowly pulled up outside the magnificent Scottish wedding venue, I took a deep breath in anticipation.
I heard the crunch of the gravel underfoot before the smartly dressed driver opened my door.
‘Is there anyone to walk you down the aisle?’ he questioned, looking over his shoulder puzzled as I straightened my veil.
There wasn’t.
It’s not that I didn’t have anyone. My parents were there. My loyal stepdad was already seated alongside my mum in the front pew.
My three sisters had come from various distant locations to support me, and even my closest friend had traveled all the way from New Zealand to witness my wedding.
But I wanted to walk in alone, because the marriage was a sham and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
My new husband-to-be was a rebound relationship. A few years younger, he was a rough around the edges tradie with a twinkle in his baby-blue eyes.
Our author posed for these happy wedding photos despite knowing her marriage was doomed
Charming, spontaneous and fun.
I was a newly divorced and single mother-of-one and in all honesty I was a bit embarrassed by my situation.
Most of my friends and workmates were just starting married life and mine was already over.
There was no drama or scandalous affair; my first husband and I had just grown apart and knew we were better off as friends.
I have ADHD too – undiagnosed at the time – so getting bored fast and jumping into new things was my modus operandi.
Jobs, moving countries and men often felt like a revolving door.
And so there I was, about a year later, walking down the aisle again with the first man to sweep me off my feet.
And that he did. A dozen red roses were sent to my office on a regular basis. He’d pick me up from work in his truck with a picnic and champagne.
‘My soon-to-be husband was someone I got involved with on the rebound, and our relationship was never meant to go beyond a casual fling,’ admits the author, who is shown dancing on her wedding day.
Within weeks, he started introducing me as his girlfriend and would boast about me proudly to strangers. He behaved as if he had struck gold and I was the center of his universe.
And it felt great… until it didn’t.
Looking back now, I realise I was being love-bombed. The ‘only having eyes for me’ soon turned into only spending time with him.
He didn’t like my friends; he thought they were rude. He didn’t like my workmates and said they looked down on him.
He didn’t like it when I wore makeup or dressed up.
‘You’re a natural beauty, you don’t need that,’ he would say.
He didn’t like me co-parenting well with my ex and thought it wrong that I was still close to my former in-laws.
I was always apologising for things I had done, when really I hadn’t done anything wrong. They were all manufactured dramas he used to punish and control me.
The thing is, I’d moved to Australia alone just a few years prior, so with most of my friends cut off and all of my family living on the other side of the world in the UK, no one really noticed what was happening to me.
I was isolated.
It was only when the whirlwind wedding came around a year later and I was reunited with my loved ones that it all came crashing down.
My mum immediately noticed something was wrong. She was suspicious the moment she saw my fiancé and I together. She held an intervention and begged me to leave.
‘I will pay him to never come back,’ she declared. She worked at a supermarket and was certainly not flush with cash.
Steve, my closest friend, agreed. He even offered to come with me and we could just run away for a while.
They knew how much the wedding had cost me, and all the people who had travelled thousands of kilometres to make it. Still, they all told me to forget it, forget my fiancé and put myself first.
I was miserable and a shadow of my former sassy self and they could see it.
But, I guess, like most women who came before me in this situation, I was scared.Â
Scared of the judgment of calling off a wedding at the eleventh hour. Ashamed of already being divorced once before. Scared of what people would think. Terrified of starting again. And so, so embarrassed I hadn’t seen it coming.
I had aunts, uncles and school friends all making their way to the wedding. Hotels had been booked and outfits purchased.
There were going to be bagpipes welcoming people onto the grounds.
Not to mention my financial situation. I earned more than him, but was set to be left with a lot less. His history with an ex had been sketchy, and looking back now that was a red flag.
But I was smitten and soon paying off her debts that were somehow in his name, as well as loans and fines.
None of them were his fault of course. His ex, he’d told me, was crazy too.
It was a mess and having only just come to the realisation I needed to get out, I knew I couldn’t do it on the spot. The wedding had to go ahead, and I would deal with the break-up afterwards.
And so, I walked myself down the aisle. I posed for photos and smiled politely through the speeches.
Sure, at the back of my mind I thought maybe it could still work out. Once we were home, and months out from our planned honeymoon, we went to counselling.
But as I sobbed through each session, I knew in my heart it was over.
At first, I looked into getting an annulment, but it’s actually a tricky process and so I filed for divorce instead. Ironically, the process began when I should have been on my honeymoon.
The law in Australia requires you to be separated for a year before you can apply, but the kind marriage therapist wrote a supporting letter explaining the situation and the judge granted it immediately.
I’m on to husband number three now. Yeah, that ADHD again.
A lot of women with the disorder admit to making similar spontaneous decisions which they later regretted – marriage, engagements, breaking up, quitting jobs, moving overseas.
Luckily for me, when I dove head first into my third marriage it was with Mr Right.
These days, I’m more aware of my ADHD, not to mention a little older and a lot wiser.
And I’m pleased to report I’m blissfully happy with four children and the white picket fence lifestyle I’d always dreamed of.
As for my second husband, he skipped the country not long after the divorce and I haven’t heard from him since.
