This is a true story. A couple of the names have been changed slightly but its completely true. And I guess that's why I've wrote this as I'm still slightly confused as to how I never realised about myself till mid thirties and how things changed so much so fast. I would be keen to know if other woman have went through anything similar in there lives I think.
I suppose I should really start with why I'm even here. If someone would have told me a year ago that this would be the place I would be arriving in my life I would have thought they were stark raving mad. Ok here goes story of the most amazing, scary, terrifying, nervous, exciting, confusing, exhilarating 12 months of my life.
The logical place to start is with myself. I'm Louise. 12 months ago I was a 36 year old woman who, and I'm being honest here, was as happy as I thought most women could be. I had been married to a lovely guy for 12 years and we have 2 fantastic kids, a son 8 and a daughter 10.
We live in west central Scotland on the outskirts of Glasgow. We both work hard and a few years ago we bought a chain of 5 hair and make up salons. We have spent the last 5 years making them a success, which has obviously been hard with the pandemic. Over the years we have brought in lots of staff and they have been such a success that I don't really have to be there that often and the shops basically run themselves. That has allowed me to spend more time with the kids and have the flexibility to not require childminding etc etc.
With regards to me, I suppose I would admit that I'm not a stunner but I've always been pretty happy with my appearance and never been that short of attention or admirers. I'm a little short ass at 5'1, pretty slim (although could always lose a pound or 2), size 10/12, 34b and brown straight hair to my shoulders that is pretty thin and makes it hard to do anything with really.
I met my husband when I was 19. Gary is a good looking guy and never short of a joke. He just kinda wafts though life and gets on with everyone. He works really hard and we got to a point in our life where we had a lovely home, great business and a holiday house in Marbella that we would hop over to 2/3 times a year (until the pandemic hit).
Our families get on great but they are both extremely conservative and marriage and kids was kind of a prerequisite of life. I did what everyone expected of me, Wife/mother, and just got on with life, that for all I knew of myself I was enjoying.........
And then along came Natalie!
If its at all possible to imagine the biggest thunderbolt from the blue then that was Natalie.
We had been advertising for a trainee for one of the shops for a few weeks and my Husband had been interviewing people and it had been going on for a while and then one night as we were getting ready for bed he told me that he had picked one. A girl called Natalie and she would be starting the following day. I didn't really give it much thought, got into bed and started looking through my Instagram.
The following day my plans were fairly simple. I was going to take the kids to school, do some errands in town (bank etc), meet a friend of mine for a coffee at 11am, and then I was planning to pop into the shop that the new trainee had started and introduce myself.
The morning had went fine, everything I had planned to do had went fine and I left my friend as we left costa coffee and headed to the shop. When I walked inside I had almost forgot why I was popping in and I got chatting to Sam, the girl that basically runs the day to day stuff in that shop. We chatted for about 10/15 mins about loads of stuff and I was almost about to turn around and leave when Sam reminded me to say hi to the new member of staff. I turned around and I couldn't believe what was in front of me.
Here was this 21 year old blonde goddess. All legs, boobs and blonde wavy hair half way down her back. Short skirt, knee high boots and a cleavage you could ski down. She was so pretty it actually hurt and her smile and colour of her skin were just breathtaking. I instantly hated her!!
I know that might sound mad but I just became the green eyed monster. Looking back I'm not sure if my jealousy was me being envious of the way she looked, did I wish I looked like her??? I'm not sure. Was I jealous because I might have thought my husband had only gave her the job because of what she looked like, again I'm just not sure. But one things for sure I hated her!!
She just oozed confidence. She knew exactly how gorgeous she was and she knew the effect she had on people. We spoke very briefly, probably only 30 seconds in total. I seriously couldn't get any words out. I was her boss but I felt like a little school girl. I was so nervous speaking to her that I almost ran out of the door.
Yeah I pretty much ran out of the door, got in the car and was seething. The main emotion at that point was anger. I was basically thinking in my mind that my husband had been a huge pervert!
How could he employ her, it was obviously because of what she looked like wasn't it!
So I text him "WTF, we needed someone from jobseekers not the playboy fucking mansion"