Married At First Sight Australia contestant Coco Stedman. Photo / Instagram
Married At First Sight Australia contestant Coco Stedman. Photo / Instagram
OPINION:
Let's be honest, everyone has someone in their past who was "the one that got away". The person you let slip between your fingers. Perhaps you had a big ridiculous fight, screamed at them, "It's over!!" and then got super annoyed when they took it seriously and hightailed it out of there.
The reason I bring this up, is because on my podcast this week my guest was Married At First Sight Australia contestant Coco Stedman. She was discussing her divorce, that was finalised right before she went on the show, and her subsequent regret afterwards.
You see, it wasn't until she had a horrible time on the show that she realised she had actually let a really good guy get away.
Yep, it wasn't until she had got remarried on national TV that she had an 'ahh haa' moment and discovered that she was actually still in love with her ex-husband.
And side note: was that some giant tea she just spilt on my podcast. Yes … yes it was!
Now listen, there's not many of us who can say we realised our ex was actually a pretty big knight in shining armour after a divorce, but I certainly can relate to wishing I had stuck it out longer with an ex.
To this day I still think whimsically about the guy who I let get away when I was 27 years old. I often sigh to myself and think, "Whhhhhy??"
He was that perfect mixture of sweet, caring, attentive, yet not afraid to put me in my place if I was being a bit cheeky with his feelings. Yep, the perfect balance of sweet yet firm. I guess you could go so far as calling him the original Roy Kent (any Ted Lasso fans in the house??).
The problem was, he was quite a bit older than me. And at 27 years old, I just wanted to party and do my own thing. Those days were long behind him, and I remember him insisting we leave the Melbourne Cup before the afterparty had even begun, and I was like, "Nope, we gotta break up."
Now that I am older and much wiser … well … wiser in the sense that I have discovered that I do not have the capacity to do both day drinks and night drinks … I now regret letting that wondrous boyfriend go.
Jana Hocking shares some advice on the 'one that got away'.
I would like nothing more than to frock up, go watch some horses run a couple of hot laps and then head home for pizza and a back rub. Yep, bliss!
Sadly he has moved on and I am still stuck here dipping my toes in the single pond. So rest assured Coco, you're not the only one to think, "Bugger, why did I break up with the perfect guy?"
The good news is, it's a nice reminder that there are guys out there that are capable of loving us in just the right way. We just have to make sure we're not being too hasty when we kick them to the kerb.
Coco brought up a good point when she said, we shouldn't be just focusing on guys who treat us well when life is going dandy. We should be focusing on the guys who still like us on our bad days.
The days we don't want to get out of bed. Or are having a PMS-induced breakdown. If the bloke fetches you a hot water bottle, feeds you chocolate and tells you you're pretty while you're having a meltdown, well, hey! That bloke is marriage material!
So in the spirit of being bold, because life is short and all that jazz, if there's a special someone you can think of right now, who perhaps was the one that got away … why not send them a text?
Or if you want to be EXTRA bold, pick up the phone and call them! Reignite that fire baby! Actually, perhaps stalk them on the socials first and make sure they are not married with kids. Lordy, no one needs that kinda drama in their life.
• Jana Hocking is a podcaster and collector of kind-of-boyfriends
