I met 'Blaze' (fake name for husband person and so appropriate given the topic) when I was 29 and he was 23 years old. Instant attraction, gut wrenching, 'this one is going to be trouble', head over heels, can't speak attraction. And was he attractive. HOT. Blue eyed, blond surfie and fit as. Chiseled facial features and always smelt delicious. He made me nervous just speaking over the phone. 

Together for 8 years and married for 3 of those, looking back now there were always red flags of deception, that he so cleverly manipulated and convinced me were not as they seemed. I was so blindly in love with this man, and so trusting. Too trusting.

We had always partied hard. I had been partying my way through my 20's, 30's and even half of my teenage years. Drugs and alcohol were pretty much a given on weekends. During the week we both worked hard, ate clean and looked after ourselves. It's true to say though, in the last year or so before our son was born that weekends began to stretch out from Thursday to Monday. Sick days became more frequent and our accessibility to drugs was instant.

When I fell pregnant in November 2010. I expected that when we became parents that would change. I had been pushing to extend our friend circle outside the drug scene. I wanted normal, less drugs, more social outings like dinner and BBQ's etc with like minded people.  Blaze didn't. He liked the party scene and the popularity of hosting house parties, his ego strokes. To put it bluntly, it's easy to look back now and realise that his values and morals actually never matched mine from the very beginning. If only I knew the what I know now.