'I'm from a family full of loved up couples... then there's me.'

If you want to support independent women's media, become a Mamamia subscriber. Get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts, articles, videos and our exercise app, MOVE.

This article was originally published in the substack Oh, Boy. It has been republished here with permission.

I come from a long line of lovers.

The kind of people who find that big, magic kind of love, stay close, and mean it.

My earliest memories of my maternal grandparents are of them slow dancing in their living room to You Are My Heart's Delight, and my sparkly-eyed Poppy Ron breaking into an adoring grin as he'd announce, "Here comes Miss World!" when my grandmother Joanie entered the room.

While less publicly affectionate, my paternal grandparents, Bess and Buster, were just as close. They'd raised my dad and his brother in Bulolo, Papua New Guinea, and later settled in Sydney, sharing a colourful life in their little paper house in the jungle. I remember them sharing happy hour and conversation on the deck most afternoons as the sun went down. Even as a young girl, I could see how deeply connected they were.

Watch: How to support someone going through a separation or divorce. Post continues below.

My own parents, Micky and Pammy, met at the beach as teenagers. Together, they surfed Bali pre-tourism, hitchhiked through apartheid-era South Africa, Kombi-roamed 1980s Europe, basked on rocks in Greece, and rode Greyhounds across the U.S. while pregnant with me.

To this day, they're still besotted and still travelling the world hand-in-hand. They have a big life and beautiful friendships, but they will forever be each other's favourite person and travel buddy.

My sister and her husband have built a life of shared rhythms and deep care. Nuclear, yes. And beautiful, a shining example to their girls.

And then there's me.

Separated, and co-parenting two beautiful boys with a man I once planned a lifetime with.

I promise, this isn't a sad story. It's just not the one I thought I'd ever be telling.

I used to imagine love would look like forever, like the authentic love stories I grew up around. One happy house, shared slow Sundays, world travels as a tight little tribe, and a long arc of certainty.

But love isn't always linear.

Simon and I met in London, my favourite city, while we were both living and travelling on working visas. He was the antithesis of my previous boyfriends and I loved his open heart, generous nature, and adventurous spirit. We'd tear around the city on bikes, eat in hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and spend hours wandering East London markets on weekends.

We travelled the world — France, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand — and eventually moved to Sydney, where I was working in magazines. We renovated a little Art Deco apartment in Bondi and, later, welcomed our first son, Sunny.

Life was beautiful.

Eventually, we moved to my hometown on the Gold Coast for a slower lifestyle and welcomed our second son, Ziggy London.

But despite our best efforts, our marriage didn't work. We had become different people. And the fracture couldn't be healed.

It became clear the boys would be better off in two happy homes than in one unhappy one. Coming from a long line of lovers, it mattered deeply to me that my sons saw a healthy version of love. And this — whatever we had become — wasn't it.

Nothing prepares you for that conversation. The one where you sit your children down and explain that the family they've always known is about to change. Fortunately, Si and I were aligned. We agreed to keep sharing the house for several months to ease the transition, letting the boys settle before one of us moved out.

It was still painful.

In the years that followed, we navigated our separation with — mostly — grace, but nothing truly prepares you for the ache of not seeing your children every day. Or for handing them over on Christmas Day, or waking up alone on Boxing Day in a holiday park surrounded by other families and their happy kids.

Yet, I chose growth. I chose softness and I worked hard to build something new with Simon, a friendship, a rhythm, a new kind of family.

Not traditional, but mine.

I pushed myself to explore new work opportunities and focused on raising my boys with care. I tried my very best to stay soft-hearted in a world that often wants us to harden. When I didn't have my boys, I was held by the ocean, by yoga, by my incredible girlfriends, by the unwavering love of my parents, sister and brother-in-law and by joy.

Some of the greatest loves of my life are the women I drink wine with, the ones who danced barefoot with me under the stars on my 40th birthday and helped heal my broken heart. My other great loves are those two handsome boys who call me Mum.

Listen to Mamamia Parenting Out Loud, Mamamia's podcast with what women are talking about this week. Post continues below.

Five years on, life looks different, but it is no less beautiful. Ours is a modern kind of family. Unconventional, yes. But full of love, effort, and presence.

Simon and I share birthday dinners. We stand on the sidelines of the boys' basketball and rugby games together. We watch them blow out candles and sing together, knowing that, even if we didn't stay together, we did something right. Sometimes, in all honesty, it still aches. I still grieve the love story I thought I was giving my kids.

But I'm proud of the life I've built, of the woman I've become, the home I've created — more on the Barefoot Bungalow later — and, importantly, the example Simon and I try to set as co-parents.

There's beauty in the in-between. And in doing life differently.

So, I've created Oh, Boy as the space where I'll reflect on this very real chapter.

To honour the softness of motherhood, the complexity of modern family and raising boys, the joy of travelling — with and without my sons — and the path I've forged, even when it wasn't the one I pictured.

This article was originally published in the Substack Oh, Boy. It has been republished here with permission.

Feature Image: Supplied.