WHY I LET MY EX MOVE BACK IN!

It’s not only grown-up teens boomeranging back into the empty nest, as Mel Bassett discovered

Tucked up in bed one dark night in February, I was scrolling through TikTok on my phone when a message suddenly pinged. ‘Hi, I have a favour – can I come and stay with you two for a bit? xx’

It was Davide, my ex-husband of 12 years. ‘Yeah sure,’ I casually replied. It didn’t strike me as odd so I didn’t think twice about it. We’re friends and he’s the father of our teenage son, Rudy, so we’ve been on speaking terms ever since we split.

When we separated all I asked of him was to be an incredible dad and he always has been. That said, we’ve never actually spent longer than a few hours together under my roof since going our separate ways.

SHOCK DISCOVERY

We broke up in December 2008 after four years of marriage when I discovered he had been cheating on me. That whole year was a horrific time. We tried to make things work for the sake of baby Rudy, who was only two, but it just wasn’t working.

There’s nothing worse than staying in a relationship and sleeping next to someone every night who doesn’t want to be there – or who is elsewhere. It was probably the loneliest time of my life.

Once we made the break and he moved out, I slept my first full night’s sleep in a year. I was incredibly hurt but I also felt a huge sense of relief. Then reality kicked in weeks later when I panicked about how I was going to make a happy life for us as a working single parent. I was terrified I wasn’t going to be able to support Rudy financially and pay the mortgage and bills. I hadn’t a clue how things were going to pan out.