TURNING HEARTBREAK INTO AN EMPOWERING ONLINE COMMUNITY
Dromara mum Danielle Isobella’s second baby was just four weeks old when her husband said he didn’t love her anymore and her world shattered before her. But with support from her friends and her church, she’s put her life back on track – and became a TikTok sensation!
Mandi Millar reports
There’s never a good time to find yourself a single mum of two babies under one.
But when your youngest is barely four weeks and you’re still getting over the C-section that delivered him ranks up there with the worst.
That, however, was the nightmare facing Co Down mum Danielle Isobella (27) just over a year ago.
“It was like a fever dream. My husband just said he didn’t love me anymore,” admits Danielle, mum to little Evie (2) and Johnny (13 months).
But from the ashes of despair this remarkable Dromara woman is reinventing her family’s future – and going viral in the process.
“It’s actually hard to believe I’ve come so far so fast for my ex had been my whole life from I met him at university in England,” continues Daneille.
“He’d been my rock when my mum died just six months into our relationship and when I left university in my second year and returned to Northern Ireland to be close to family he came too.”
The relationship blossomed and four years later the couple married with hopes to start their own family.
“But I found it difficult to conceive and then carry a pregnancy,” says Danielle.
“I’d two miscarriages and when I did get pregnant I was very ill, ending up with a ruptured kidney and needing surgery. Again my partner was so supportive – he was a good husband at the time and is a good daddy which is why what happened was such a 180.
“In a way I could accept it more if there’d been a third party but there wasn’t. I can’t tell you the hours I’ve spent trying to figure it out…”
The couple’s joy, however, was then only cemented when, barely four weeks after Evie was born two red lines on a pregnancy test showed Johnny was on the way too!
“It was a shock but we were delighted. There was anxiety though as I’d been so unwell with Evie,” says Danielle. But Johnny’s pregnancy was textbook.
“Once he was here I still thought everything in the marriage was fine. Yes we were both shattered with a 10-month old and a new baby who wasn’t a sleeper! But we were a happy family – I thought.
“However, on New Year’s Eve in December 2023, when Johnny was just two weeks old, I remember a terrible sense of dread coming over me.
“I asked my ex if he’d ever felt that that and he said he did.
“I was then up at 4am violently ill for absolutely no reason I can think of unless it was some sixth sense in my subconscious, for my ex has since told me that he’d already made plans by that stage.”
Even when the crisis broke in mid January 2024, Danielle still didn’t realise what was happening.
“My ex had been home late from work a few nights and I was exhausted,” she recalls.
“But there was no big row or anything. I just remember asking him if he even wanted to be in this marriage at all. He said he didn’t.
“Still it didn’t register and I actually went for a milkshake with my friend to get a break for an hour. It was only when I came back I realised he was deadly serious.
“I didn’t know at the time but in fact he’d already spoken to his work about a transfer back to England. However, we talked backwards and forwards the whole night.
“By morning he’d decided to stay but when I asked him how I could be sure he wouldn’t do this again he admitted that I couldn’t.”
Danielle and her husband parted that afternoon, her whole future evaporating in under 24 hours.
It would be her family, friends and faith which would get her through the next few weeks, including a hospital admission for little Johnny just two weeks later.
The women in Danielle’s church even formed a WhatsApp group to ensure someone called every day so she’d have an hour to herself to wash bottles or make the dinner.
“But it was sheer chaos and initially I was in denial. With two babies though falling apart wasn’t an option and after a couple of months, when I accepted my ex wasn’t coming back, I actually realised I wouldn’t have wanted to go back into that relationship anyway,” says Danielle whose life is now on a trajectory she could never have imagined.
“I’d followed some TikTok accounts and so I decided to start my own – och, silly things like filming myself tidying the chaos of a house with two babies who might as well be twins.
“It was more a way to motivate me to do housework at all but it took off because so many single mums identified with it!
“I’d aimed to get to 10,000 followers but now I’m sitting at over 23,000!
“A couple of my videos have even gone viral, including one showing me and Johnny’s dad at Build-a-Bear for his first birthday – he tries to get back here from England once a month. I think followers liked seeing that despite everything we can still co-parent to put the kids first.”
Danielle’s also used her social media skills to help a couple of friends with their online marketing and enjoyed it so much she’s now studying for a degree in business management with marketing at the Open University.
“These kids rely on me not just emotionally but financially. I want to do everything two parent families do for I don’t want them losing out,” says Danielle, though she still struggles to make sense of everything.
“It boggles me to this day. Initially I was bitter but not now. I know now I’d never have done with my life what I have if this hadn’t happened. I actually fear more for what I would’ve been had it not happened. I’d never have grown as person or experienced what I’m experiencing
“I now accept it is what it is; it’s for the best and I wish my ex well.”
* Catch up with Danielle and the kids at .tiktok.com/@danielle.isobella
