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Guest Character Profiles > Rhonda Del Rubio Rebekah Robertson

Rhonda Del Rubio 2004, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
Occupation: Lawyer, Counsellor

When Karl and Susan Kennedy’s long marriage was ending in divorce, they attended a mediation with meeting with their lawyers - Tim Collins for Susan, and Rhonda Del Rubio for Karl. As Tim and Rhonda argued over the division of assets, with Tim suggesting that Karl’s surgery had been undervalued by around 25%, Karl’s pregnant girlfriend Izzy Hoyland listened outside the door. When Karl mentioned that he used to pay Susan a wage on behalf of that surgery - and she reminded him that it was because she was at home raising their children - Tim said that he would be happy to take that into account, if Karl wanted to own up to tax avoidance. Rhonda then quickly changed the subject back to division of home furnishings. Both Karl and Susan agreed to the suggestion of Susan simply buying Karl out of the house, so that she could continue to live there, but Rhonda said that Tim’s valuation on the house was two years old. As the whole thing descended into an argument, Izzy then burst in, accusing Susan of just wanting to take Karl for every cent. When Susan then declared that the mediation just seemed to be a waste of everyone’s time, Karl suddenly agreed, got up and left, declaring that he would see Susan in court.

Seventeen years later, following a career change to counselling, Rhonda was working with Paul Robinson and his wife, Terese - another marriage that looked like it was about to end in divorce. Having agreed to attend counselling, Terese wasn’t even sure that she wanted to save the marriage, feeling that Paul’s lies and need to control people weren’t character traits that she could live with any longer. Paul suggested that Terese disliked those traits because, when push came to shove, she was exactly the same, and that’s why they were attracted to each other. Having heard enough, Terese got up and left. A few weeks later, with Paul lying about being seriously ill to win back Terese, she agreed to another counselling session. Rhonda was surprised to see them again, and said that they needed to try and get through this session without pointing blame at each other. As they spoke, Rhonda wondered if, despite her protests, Terese enjoyed being Paul’s moral compass, whilst Paul opened up about his mother’s death and how he’d always felt that he didn’t do enough to help his family after that. Though this session seemed to bring progress to the relationship, it wasn’t long before Paul’s health lies were revealed, putting paid to any chance of saving the marriage.

Within a couple of years, Terese had reunited with Paul, then divorced him and moved into a new relationship with Toadie Rebecchi. Though Terese and Toadie were happy together, their marriage had brought up difficult feelings for his teenaged daughter Nell. Having lost her mum, Sonya, to cancer a few years earlier, then briefly had another stepmother, Melanie, Nell was struggling with now having Terese in her life, wanting Melanie to come back instead. As her attempts to get Melanie back, and to sabotage her dad’s new marriage, ended in failure, Toadie realised just how much his daughter was suffering, and Terese suggested Rhonda as a counsellor. Rhonda spoke to Terese, Toadie and Nell separately, with Nell opening up about the day her mum had died on the beach. Nell explained that she’d just been building sandcastles, not realising that her mum was dying nearby and that she’d never get to speak to her again.

A few months later, Nell attended another of her regular sessions with Rhonda, but for the first time she asked if Melanie could come along. Melanie had recently returned to Erinsborough, following revelations that she'd been escaping drug charges in the UK, then had left town after wrongly believing that she'd accidentally killed Krista Sinclair. With Melanie trying to rebuild her life, she'd been recovering from a shoulder injury whilst staying with Karl and Susan, across the street from the Rebecchi family. Though Nell was delighted to have Melanie back in her life, Rhonda had made the teenager see that she needed to be honest about her feelings rather than keeping everything bottled up to protect other people's feelings. Nell then opened up to Melanie about how she had felt when her stepmother had simply disappeared without saying goodbye to her or Hugo. She explained that it had felt even worse than when Sonya had died, as at least she'd had no choice and had tried to say a final farewell to her children, whereas Mel had seemingly just abandoned her family. Mel explained that she'd believed her actions were protecting Toadie, Nell and Hugo from further heartache, but she now knew that she should have stayed and faced up to things. Nell then made Mel promise that she wouldn't disappear from her life like that again, and the two hugged. Rhonda then asked Nell to go and get Toadie, who was waiting outside in the car with Terese. As Rhonda explained how Nell had been feeling, Mel pointed out that it didn't help that Toadie was always painting her as the bad guy. Toadie said that he didn't feel like that about her, and that he understood that she'd been in a terrible situation, before becoming increasingly emotional as he admitted that he never thought that, after Sonya's death, he could love someone as much as he loved Mel.

A few months later, Terese and Toadie's marriage was hanging by a thread after he cheated on her with Melanie. With Toadie, Nell and Hugo spending some time in the USA, Terese had been growing closer to ex-husband Paul again, as he helped her to plan her new business, the retirement home Eirini Rising. When Terese then started having dreams about Paul, involving their vow renewal a couple of years earlier, when he'd walked out on her to cover up the fact that he'd helped Melanie to hide Krista Sinclair's death. Terese's dreams saw Paul confessing to her and her forgiving him and she was extremely worried by this development, deciding to book an appointment with Rhonda to try and work out what it all meant. Rhonda wondered if Terese was still in love with Paul, something she denied, and whether she would really have forgiven Paul if she'd known the truth at the time, something Terese was less sure about. Rhonda then told Terese that, if she wanted the dreams to stop, she needed to work out her unresolved feelings, but as the session came to an end, Terese was left rattled by a message from Toadie, saying that he and the kids would be returning from America the following day.

Some months later, Toadie had been struggling with his feelings, having received numerous reminders of ex-wives Dee, Sonya and Melanie. Rather than talking to Terese, he confided in friend and father figure Karl, bottling things up around his wife and having a huge outburst when Melanie told him about her theory that they were never meant to be. Seeing how much Toadie was struggling, Karl suggested that he should talk to someone, so he made an appointment with Rhonda. As Toadie explained what had been happening, and his reluctance to tell Terese until he fully understood his feelings, Rhonda asked him to close his eyes, forget all of the people and just express his feelings. When a visibly upset Toadie was unable to do this, Rhonda suggested that, having spoken extensively about Sonya and Melanie, perhaps they should now talk about his other ex-wives, Dee and Steph, and the unresolved feelings he had about those marriages.

The following week, Toadie returned for another session with Rhonda, explaining that he'd had a huge emotional outburst in front of Terese and other family and friends, as they all tried to help him find a future for Sonya's Nursery. Having explained everything to Terese about his state of mind, Toadie admitted that he wasn't ready when she suggested they have a joint counselling session. As he spoke to Rhonda that day, she pointed out that he had a pattern of behaviour during difficult times - cheating on Sonya with Andrea Somers, then cheating on Terese with Melanie, and also wondered if he'd really dealt with his feelings for Melanie before reuniting with Terese. With Rhonda clearly getting closer to the truth, Toadie turned down her offer of having another session that afternoon, but after another awkward encounter with Melanie, he changed his mind. When he returned to talk to Rhonda again, Toadie was shocked when Terese turned up. She was unaware that Toadie would be there and had come to arrange some solo counselling of her own, but when Toadie saw her, he assumed that she and Rhonda had set him up and angrily stormed out of the room.

On Christmas Eve, Rhonda met with another Ramsay Street resident, Holly Hoyland, who she'd been counselling for several weeks. Holly was suffering from PTSD after several incidents, including causing the death of a man named Heath, who had been terrorising her and her friends with a gun in the outback. Holly had pushed Heath into a river, where he'd been killed by a crocodile and, although the incident had been viewed as self-defence by the police, Holly was unaware that recent arrival Yasmine Shields was actually Heath's sister and was out to prove that Holly had been planning to kill him all along. Having failed to get the police to reopen the case, Yasmine had decided to find other ways to hurt Holly, breaking into Rhonda's office and taking photographs of her notes, looking for things to use against her.