'He was everything I wanted IN A MAN'

Tracy Hall, 49, had fallen in love, but he wasn't who he claimed to be

- FRANCES LEATE, KATE GRAHAM

Sometimes in life, you look around you and realise you’re right where you should be in that moment. And waking up one morning in January 2017, I really felt like the woman who had it all.

After decades of hard work, I had a rewarding but demanding corporate career, supportive family and friends, a beautiful daughter, then six, and now a promising romance with a wonderful man who was caring, kind, funny and a great listener. When I’d first met Max, then 41, eight months earlier online dating, I’d been separated from my ex-husband for a year and I wasn’t really looking for anything serious. I was a career-minded, independent woman who had a good social life and, at age 40, I knew I didn't want any more children.

But I was open-minded and during those first tentative phone calls, Max opened up to me, describing how his parents had died in a plane crash when he was just six. I'd lost my dad at a young age too, and I recognised that vulnerability, lurking behind the strong persona. Max was a great catch, there was no doubt about that - goodlooking, athletic, a chief financial officer, with a plethora of fancy cars – but they never impressed me, and it was so much more than that with us. We just seemed to fit together so perfectly, he really was everything I wanted in a man. Even on our first face-to-face date, at an Asian restaurant in Sydney, Max’s kind side shone through when, exhausted from a long day, I struggled to stifle a yawn. ‘Let’s get you home,’ he said gently, ushering me into a taxi.