In writing this I understand, and appreciate, that this can
happen to men as well; men in homosexual relationships and men in heterosexual
relationships; also to women in lesbian relationships.
There is no ‘boundary’ on what type of relationship or marriage
or family suffers from this, not even ‘rich or poor’. But it affects the whole
family, even children; even if they are not physically hurt they may still
retain ‘mental scars’.
I write this from my own experience – but hope that you may
see that ‘my story’ is not just mine and mine alone; it is a ‘story of many’.
I hate the term ‘domestic abuse’. The word ‘domestic’ makes
it seem somehow acceptable; almost ‘cosy’; ‘’you can beat your wife as long as
the cane is less than the thickness of your thumb’’; heard that?; the law NEVER
existed in the UK or in Europe.
Besides, there is so much more to ‘abuse’ in a relationship
than purely the physical. Mental abuse is just as bad; often the two go ‘hand
in hand’.
I HATE it when people say to me ‘’if my partner hit me just
once then I would leave them.’’ I hate
it because they have never suffered abuse; they do not understand how insidious
it is and how it ‘creeps up on you’ without you even knowing. Often, with
‘metal abuse’ one does not realise, no matter how clever one is, until after
the event; until a counsellor might make one see, after the relationship has
ended, that ‘abuse’ may have been happening on that score and lead to physical
harm later.
It is also a ‘tabloid trash newspaper’ myth that ONLY the less
bright or ONLY the lower-paid or ONLY the ‘coffee-coloured Mussie women’ suffer
abuse. There are some ‘social groups’ who do not report these things to the
police …… but hospitals, and so forth, KNOW about them…. to some degree. These
people are ‘the white middle classes with decent incomes’. With respect to
emotional and physical abuse, these people, ‘the white middle classes with
decent incomes’ can sometimes be the worst offenders; worse in that they are
not reported; worse in that it remains hidden under a faÏ‚ade of ‘domestic
bliss’. One always has to ‘keep up appearances’, you know; ‘What would the
neighbours think?’
My dear friend, God rest her soul, had a husband who earned
a quarter of a million, plus bonuses, a year. That is not ‘wealthy’, by today’s
standards, but is more than comfortable. Nice house; nice cars; teenage
children ‘well looked after’. Because, although I did not know it then, I was
in a similar ‘abusive’ relationship myself I did not see the ‘warning signs’
for her; I saw nothing until she showed me an almighty bruise on her abdomen –
which she only showed me because the black marks, completely all down one side
of her face, were all too visible. She broke up with her husband the next day;
but not completely. He came to stay with her, and slept with her in her bed,
for many months ‘for the sake of the children’. It was not for their sake;
children often understand, and readily accept, more than us ‘adults’ give them
credit for. He did it so that he would not lose his ‘mind control’ of her. He
did not ‘give up’ being ‘in her life’ even on the day of her funeral. I was at
the funeral; I saw it. She ‘broke up’ from him the day after her 40th birthday;
she died three days after her 46th birthday.
During those six years she HAD met another man. A man who
adored her simply for who she was; warts and all; emotional baggage and all. He
loved her; truly loved her; because that IS what love IS; accepting someone for
their real self and allowing them to BE their real self ; smiling about a
concert or film or book JUST BECAUSE the person you love enjoyed it, even if
you do not think it was that good yourself. She was not kind to him; she
shouted at him frequently; she smashed up their possessions; she ‘cheated’ on
him sexually (only once, but that can sometimes break a relationship). But he
understood what she had been through and stuck by her. They married, but less
than two years later she was dead; three days after her 46th birthday.
Her new husband had cajoled her to see their doctor. The doctor
could not find anything ‘obviously wrong’, probably because she was not honest
with him and also because he had not known her for very long. She was thus not
referred to a hospital, or clinic, until it was too late. She died within just
over 48 hours of being admitted to hospital as an emergency. She died of
bleeding ulcers, kidney failure and liver failure. She had been an alcoholic
for decades, but, like her emotional and physical abuse, she had managed to
hide it, even from those closest to her; friends, new husband, Mum, Dad,
siblings, teenage kids. She had started drinking, it seems, to try to cope with
the emotional abuse and control exerted upon her before any physical abuse had
started, let alone became apparent by bruising.
I can write all this now because her new husband died of
cancer a couple of years ago; and her family and (now adult) children have
overcome losing her, in their own ways. Even after all this time, I still miss
her; we used to talk every day, about pretty much everything…except what was
happening to her. That was her ‘deadly’ secret. It did not make the headlines in the tabloid
trash; nobody wants to know about a comfortably-off, middle-class, white woman
in suburbia who suffered decades of ‘mental torture’ and years of physical
damage; nobody wants to know that she could not cope and turned to alcohol to
numb her mental and physical pain. She died of long-term alcohol abuse, but she
may as well have been murdered.
My own story is not too dissimilar… but, thankfully, I have
not turned to ‘the easiest available tranquiliser’ and succumbed to alcohol
addiction (although I do smoke more cigarettes than I should!) One day I will
tell my tale in full, but even though it has been ten years, my ex-husband to
this day is still exerting a modicum of control over my life by refusing to
take my name off the joint-mortgage on what was our home, but is now his home. I
wish I could win the lottery, pay the darn mortgage off (even though the courts
gave the house to him) and be DONE with everything once and for all; finally
get rid of his control over me. But for now I have to put up with a tiny bit of
something that still hurts.
It hurts me because I am a very intelligent person, but
insidiously, over the years, bit by bit, he took control of my life; he almost
made me think I was going insane at one point. Then he wanted out because he
had met ‘somebody else’; I actually knew her; she was much younger; she was lively;
she was confident; she was ME when he first met me. She left him after a couple of years.
Apparently that was my fault, he said. How? The only way I know how is that
everything was always my fault when we were together. I was not only his
‘punching bag’ after a bad day at work, but his universal scapegoat as well.
And I went along with that because I had been made to think that he was always
right and that is what spouses did for their partners.
He actually did me a HUGE favour by breaking up our
marriage. Only from the ‘outside’ could I see what had killed the vivacious
young woman I used to be and what had reincarnated her into a shadowy wreck.
I do not know if I can ever completely share my whole life
with a partner or spouse again. I do have a wonderful ‘boyfriend’ of several
years and he truly loves me ‘JUST BECAUSE’. I’m reasonably confident now and
one day I will also learn to love my life again.
