I Thought My Boyfriend's Involvement With His Ex Was Innocent ...Until She Said I Was Trash And The Cause Of Her Death
Whether or not you've been following it, here's the origin story of my messy relationship saga — when I learned the hard way not everyone has a healthy relationship with the people they once dated.
By Sarah Swinwood
This is the third installment of a series about two of my boyfriend’s exes who have been going to great lengths to hurt me and potentially get him back, including faking a death (Part One) and posting disgusting fake reviews on my LinkedIn page (Part Two).
I knew they existed. Primarily Sadie. Ricky had told me about her and their arrangement in July. They were exes who stayed in touch, and that didn’t bother me …at first.
I myself am close to my last two exes. Jaden (I was with him for five years) and, most recently, Nathan (we dated for almost three years when I left Montreal for graduate school in New York). Even though our long-distance attempt didn’t work, when I moved apartments two years after returning to NYC, it was Nathan who drove over with his truck — from Montreal! — to help me move.
In our 40s, remaining close made sense. We’d lived and helped each other through so much, and we’d always cherished our bond, even if we were no longer together. We’d help each other out, especially if neither of us had seriously moved on with someone else. There was an unspoken knowing that if we did end up in something serious, we’d have to step further into the periphery of each other’s lives, but that time had not yet come. Our close bond wasn’t a threat to anyone else, so we were free to maintain it until such a day came. We knew it would be rude or destabilizing to someone new to try and justify and maintain such a level of closeness.
All this is to say that when Ricky explained his view of the Sadie situation to me, this is what I related it to. I’m in my 40s, Ricky is in his 50s, and we both have a past. I imagined Sadie to be like Nathan was in my life. Someone he’d been through a lot with. That they’d helped each other through things, so it’s natural that they’d remain close. (Even him staying with her a few days a week didn’t seem so crazy to me at the time.) I thought I’d meet her at some point since she was a part of his life.
My group of girlfriends is close. We are the types who support, admire, and compliment other women. I’m good friends with my best friend’s ex-husband. Our friend group, in general, is peppered with exes who are still around as friends. We’re older, we’re artists.
The creative community in Montreal is tight-knit; we rely on each other to secure opportunities. When any of us move to a bigger city like New York, Barcelona or Paris, we reach back to lift the others up. Being comfortable with exes or friends not everyone is friends with is woven into our tapestry. Improving personal craft and self-development is primary. What others are doing is further down the scale. It’s a group of people who intend on succeeding, who help each other to do so with respect for the fabric of our community.
Ricky would take Sadie’s call sometimes when we were out for dinner or walking down the street. Seeing her name pop up on his screen at first seemed like seeing Nathan’s name pop up on mine. The stakes were low between Ricky and me at that point, and we were not each other’s usual type. I wasn’t in a rush to know what it was going to be - it was a mutual curiosity we were pursuing.
Then he brought me up North to his country house, and a new element was added to our relationship. This was an enchanted land. It reminded me of growing up in Canada, where the Indian River passed through our yard into a waterfall beside the house.
Ricky was giving me access to aspects of myself that lived inside me but weren’t given full expression in the big city. I could see all of the stars at night, just like when I was growing up. It awakened memories of dormant pieces of my creative potential, the kind that is nurtured when I’m in nature. Then, there were the pictures of his father, which reminded me very much of my own father. Something in the piercing blue eyes, the unique style of dress he’d crafted that was all his own. The Indigenous paintings and eagle feathers. The Buddhas on the mantle.
“Look at this,” Sadie texted Ricky one day, seemingly out of nowhere. “She’s posting pictures of your dad’s stuff.”
Then his other ex, Veronica (she and Sadie stayed friends and have worked together to tarnish me) texted him in November. Veronica sent Ricky a screenshot of a photo I’d posted on my Instagram, which was of a brass dish that I carried with me everywhere. It is filled with little crystals and rocks I’ve collected over the years, with a blue glass evil eye in the middle. Veronica had made the same mistake. This was My Stuff, not Ricky’s dad’s.
I can see why she got it twisted. A lot of our artifacts and heirlooms look similar. They were aligned. The presence of Spirit. The Creator had brought us together— for what purpose exactly, I was not yet sure.
Once, Sadie called Ricky when we were in the truck, and I heard her yelling at him. That was the first inkling that not only did she not know I existed, she appeared to have her hooks in him… and was not going to let him go. He didn’t agree with me, but I wondered what it alluded to.
“She’s more like a sister and was super helpful with my mom before she passed away a year ago. We weren’t together then, either, but she’s helped me through a lot,” Ricky said.
“Ok, but she’s not your sister. There was a time when you were more than just friends, and it’s possible she still thinks of you like that. A lot of marriages are sexless,” I replied.
Neither of us wanted that type of marriage, but it didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
The weekend before Labour Day, Ricky and his friend helped me move from my first-floor, brownstone garden apartment into a temporary, one-room sublet in New York. When they told me they were leaving me behind to go pick up Sadie and her daughter to go to a family reunion at the country house up North, I burst into tears.
“We’d planned this a long time ago, so her daughter could see my family,” Ricky said. “It’s the last time I’ll leave you behind like this. When I get back, I’ll come scoop you up, and we’ll do something fun, just the two of us.”