The overriding result of war is mass destruction and loss of life. No matter who’s fighting or who is defending. Divorcing an abusive partner is tantamount to war. You don’t put yourself there, he does. That’s his game – if-I-can’t-have-you-and-have-things-my-way-I’ll-destroy-you-and-everything – mentality. But you find yourself having to fight to defend yourself, stay alive even and in so doing you can so very easily but unknowingly cause harm to yourself. You get so distracted by ‘the battle’ that you forget to take care of the fundamentals of rebuilding your life. You get so busy writing statements, filling in forms, attending court sessions, trying to find answers to legal questions (because you cannot afford solicitor bills) on the internet, that you forget to make that all-important new business phone call, or to write the next chapter of the booklet you’re doing for a client so now it will be next month before you can invoice them for it. Your earnings are nowhere near what they should be because your time is spent elsewhere. You go to bed at night exhausted but with little to show for it and you wonder – am I doing the right thing? Is there any way I can limit myself to how much I fight so that I don’t allow it to take up so much time? Or is now the right time for me to fight with everything I have – fight for my life almost – hoping and praying that when the battle is over I can apply myself to rebuilding my life then and do it more quickly and easily because it’s peace-time?

If I’d chosen the war, I could end it anytime I liked. But I did not. It has been thrust upon me by him. I feel I have no choice but to fight because he is hurling missile after missile in my direction – and some of them are aimed directly at the bits of my life I have rebuilt and if I do not deflect them or destroy them before they hit, they will destroy me – again! Then there is him. How much should I try and destroy him? Because if I do that he wont be able to fight me anymore. I have ammunition, plenty of it, which until now I was happy to sit on and keep for posterity but now I wonder if I should use it(?). My therapist says I am still being “too helpful” (not specifically about my ex-husband but in life in general) and when he said it, it really resonated, like a tiny Buddhist temple bell – tingggggggggggggggggggg……..But I am a peacemaker, a people-pleaser. That’s my natural instinct. Having to change that and adapt a warrior stance is hard for me but that’s what I am being ‘asked’ to do. That’s what this requires – and so, I’ll do it.

It has been 14 months since I left my abusive marriage.

I received a letter on Thursday (ironically, there was a postal strike and I receive a letter!!!!) from Lloyds Bank telling me I owe them £115,000 and they want me to pay up now or they will take action. Just like that!

Fact is, when I was in my abusive relationship, my abusive husband cajoled me into going into business with him and then proceeded to take control of everything, I signed a personal guarantee for a bank overdraft, which at the time was £35,000. Since I left my husband he has been hell bent on destroying everything and leaving me with a huge bill and it would appear that he is succeeding.

I have spent the past year recovering from the abuse, re-building the rubble my life had become and healing the emotional wounds. I have done well. I have, however, throughout that time, been expecting something like this. The bombshell. I have been worried when it was going to hit – and now it has and my solicitor can do little to help me – except charge me the earth to tell me something like “well, you could try X but I am not sure how successful you will be”, which, to be honest, is probably something I can work out for myself.

So, there are two things going on with me. Firstly, I dare not tell anyone (other than you amazing people) because the two people I have told have reacted in such a way as to make it worse for me. It goes something like this: me – “I got a letter from the bank saying I owe them £115,000.” Them – “Jeeeeeeesus!! That is a fuck of a lot of money!!! How the hell are you going to pay that!? You are gonna be spending the rest of your life paying that back!!!!”.

I don’t need to hear that right now. It’s like I could imagine it would be if I’d stepped on a landmine and had my legs blown off but couldn’t quite see and was confused cause I could still feel them and the medic goes “OH Jeeeeesus Christ!!! OH MY GOD!!!!” and I think to myself – this is bad, this is really bad when actually what I want someone to tell me right now is that it will be okay, that everything will be okay, that I will sort it somehow and that it is only money – a lot of money – but only money and all stuff like that. So, I haven’t told anyone so as not to inadvertantly stimulate them into projecting their own fears about money and my unfortunate situation on to me. I’d rather not hear it right now.

The second thing is that it is very clear to me the choices I have right now. On the one hand is the black hole of despair, depression, self-pity and victimhood. On the other is the brilliant white stairway out of hell into a new life of abundance and success made all the more sweet by my sheer determination to make good this shitty, hellish situation, to become one of those ‘Triumph-over-adversity’ success stories. That is the path I am choosing and believe me, it is a difficult one to follow. Much more difficult than curling up into the foetal position, sticking my thumb in my mouth and wallowing in misery for next ten years! Every minute is an effort to keep myself up, keep my energy up, keep my self-esteem high but I have to do it. The other option is equal to death and that really would be the ultimate victory for him. He wants me to die, except that he is too much of a wimp to kill me but to hear that I have killed myself because I could not cope anymore or manifested some fatal illness – oh yeah, he’d love that. My best revenge is to get out of this – alive and in better shape than when I went into it and that is just what I am going to do. I know not how, but that is just detail. What really counts is that I will.

There is a third thing, and it’s this: I realised today, as I was walking my dog and had an ‘epiphany’ moment that this is as bad as it is going to get. It cannot get any worse. He cannot do anymore to me than this. This is it! And that, actually, makes me feel a whole lot better because instead of worry about when that bombshell is going to hit – I can now get on with rebuilding after the hit in the safe knowledge that there are no-more bombshells to come – or if there are they are tiny in comparison.

Stay with me. There is brightness on the horizon. I am going to turn this story around!