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A timeline of Brendan and Alex Fevola's complicated but colourful relationship.

Brendan and Alex Fevola announced this week they were expecting a fourth child together. The little girl will join big sisters Mia, 18, Leni, 12 and Lulu, eight.

It’s a happy high for the pair who now seem settled after a more than 13-year relationship which has weathered a divorce, an affair, and a gambling addiction.

So let’s take a look at the relationship of the couple that was, for a time, the definition of on-again-off-again.

Sometime in the early 2000s

While we can’t pin down exactly when, sometime before 2005 Alex Cheatham and Brendan Fevola meet. At the time Brendan also meets Alex’s daughter Mia from a previous relationship.

October 7, 2005

The pair wed at St John’s Church in the south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Toorak. At the time 24-year-old Brendan was coming into his own as a key part of Carlton Football Club’s forward line. Mia, then five, officially became Brendan’s step-daughter.

July, 2006

The couple welcome daughter Leni into the world.

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Brendan and Alex at the Brownlow in September 2006. Image: Getty
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12 December 2006

News breaks the pair have separated after 14 months of marriage, as we hear rumours that Fevola had an affair with 19-year-old bikini model Lara Bingle (now Worthington). Bingle later claimed that, as a Sydneysider, she hadn't know Fevola was married in the initial stages of their five-week affair - until she heard a baby in the background during a phone conversation.

2007

Appearing to reconcile, the couple attend events like restaurant openings and the Melbourne Cup in the second half of the year.

May 2009

The separated, but not divorced, couple confirm that during a brief period of reconciliation they conceived their second biological child together.

December 2009

Alex gives birth to the couple's third child, Lulu. Earlier in the year, 32-year-old Alex released a table book of her photographs: Snapshot: A Portrait of Success.

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The couple at an event in Crown Casino in October 2008. Image: Getty.
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April 2010

After moving to Brisbane to be close to Brendan - where he signed with the Brisbane Lions and debuted in February - Alex moves back to Melbourne with her three girls to be closer to her family and compete on Dancing With The Stars.

2011

During an episode of Nine's AFL Footy Show in March 2011, Brendan admits that he made a suicide attempt after a fight with Alex shortly after Christmas while holidaying with their three girls. Days later on New Year's Eve he was involved in a scuffle with police, which saw him sacked from the Brisbane Lions. After this he checked himself into a rehabilitation centre to deal with his depression and alcohol-related issues.

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If you are experiencing crisis you can always call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

June 2012

After being booted from his stint on Dancing With The Stars Brendan credits the show with "turning his life around" in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. He reports he's back living in the family home with Alex and their girls.

October 2013

Brendan goes bankrupt after years of battling a serious gambling addiction. It's believed he earned about $6 million during his AFL career and a huge chunk of this was gambled away.

At some point in 2013 (or possibly late 2012) Brendan moves in with a friend in Yarrawonga, three hours north-east of Melbourne. In an interview with News Corp in 2016 he said the move was really good for him.

"It really changed me as a person living there for the past three years.

"Since I’ve been back in Melbourne, a few people have commented that I seem like a different person. If I didn’t move up there, I still could have been a dick. It was just really levelling."

March, 2014

In 2014 Alex files for divorce from Brendan, officially ending their on-again-off-again nine-year marriage. In March the couple publicly confirm they are divorcing.

February, 2016

While in the South African jungle filming I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here (which he later went on to win) Brendan announces that his ex-wife has taken him back. In a televised conversation, he told junglemate Paul Harragon that the couple now sit and talk - and for the first time he actually listens.

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"I used to be like, ‘Oh yeah yeah yeah’ but now I sit there and listen, and I’m like: ‘That’s amazing'. We never used to do that sh--."

July, 2016

On his Fox breakfast radio show, Brendan announced he had proposed to Alex, asking her to remarry him.

"Over my break, I gathered the kids around and a few friends and asked the ‘shnooksie’ to marry me again," he said.

"I was a bit nervous, I didn’t think she’d say yes ... but it was really beautiful with the kids there ... they were all going: Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii."

"I’ve got an ex wife who’s now my fiance, how confusing. She’s an amazing woman ... she has an amazing story, just amazing."

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April, 2018

Brendan celebrates his upcoming wedding with a bucks do in Bali. The 37-year-old posts a photo of himself in a pink vet and cowboy hat.

May, 2018

On the Fifi, Fev and Byron radio show, Alex and Brendan announce they're expecting their fourth child.

"We’re having another baby," Fev told the show.

"It all happened when we went to America over Easter – well, not that part, it was a little bit earlier than that – but Alex was feeling really sick over in America. I was like to her, come on, you’ll be right. She thought she was just jet lag.

"We have an 18-year-old, we have a 12-year-old and we have an eight-year-old. So, we’d shut up shop and I didn’t think it worked anymore; that it was all done and dusted."

Then when they arrived home Alex took a pregnancy test and told him the news.

"We got back on that Tuesday morning, I was sitting on the couch watching the basketball, and she had that look, as if I had done something wrong and I was like ‘oh no’. She showed me the stick and she said, ‘we’re having a baby’. I just couldn’t stop laughing."