Like so many soon-to-be newlyweds, Laura was hoping for a happy-ever-after. Her ex-husband bought a house in trendy North Melbourne, and it made sense to get married and have babies. However, Laura, being the brilliant non-conformist that she is, wanted to get pregnant first, and elope second. 

Craving a quieter life, Laura and her family moved to the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, and found a beachside home for a quieter life. However, it wasn’t long after the big move that Laura felt the early signs of disconnect from her husband and believed he had stopped loving her. 

After battling mental health anxiety and Post-Natal Depression, her confidence and courage were at an all-time low. Convinced that her marriage was on the rocks, Laura analysed everything. Her paranoia was at an all-time-high, and she believed that her husband was in the grips of an affair. 

One day, Laura blurted out to her ex-husband, “If your not having a good wank session, or sex with me, then where are you getting your pleasure from?” 

As a child, Laura had always felt abandoned, and believed she was not worthy of love… any kind of love. 

Her mission was to find his secrets, from searching his credit card transactions, to grilling him when he returned and yet, she discovered nothing. However, that didn’t bring back the connection. No amount of marriage counselling or relationship homework was going to repair their marriage. 

Like most relationships in deep trouble, usually the breaking point comes from the most trivial of annoyances. In Laura’s case, it was a wet towel left on the bathroom floor that triggered ‘the end’. 

For the first time in their marriage, her husband said, “I don’t want to be with you”, and he meant it, and Laura wanted it too.

This was the moment she knew that their marriage was over, and she needed to find a way of living, and loving herself, alone.

For years Laura felt ugly, undesirable, and unloved. After attempting to cohabit after their separation for the sake of the children, it was becoming unbearable for them both. 

With little to no choice in the rental markets, Laura found help with Orange Door, a free service for adults, children and young people who are in need of shelter. 

As a child, Laura wasn’t allowed to cry, and it was looking at her suppressed anger after he split, that her lightbulb moment happened. “I have never believed or backed myself”, Laura says. 

In this candid, raw, and insanely inspirational chat, Laura exposes how staying in a marriage for children rarely works, if ever. 

“Now, my children get the best of their dad, and of me. I am rewriting my negative self-talk. I don’t want to fuck up my children. So explore happiness, if you can”.

To listen to this candid conversation, head over to the The Divorce and Separation podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with Laura Mazza, Melbourne mummy blogger, xingle mum. MH Social worker. ADHDer, advice columnist for Kidspot, and self-confessed ‘Queen of the Overshare’.