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!

I haven’t blogged here for a while. Been going through another phase in my healing, I guess. Job to know really as everything is sooooo up in the air and chaotic right now. It’s hard to make any sense of any of it. I know I shouldn’t but I do keep asking myself those questions: why me? what have I done to deserve this? Is this my punishment for another life? Is it because I am gullible and stupid? and that question of all questions – why is everyone else’s life so cushy and they seem to have it so together whilst I can’t seem to even work out the basics and end up getting abused?

I’m also trying to fix it all. I keep going over and over what has happened and what is happening now and trying to come up with a solution but I can’t because there isn’t one. I know I have to just leave it to run its course but I’m scared of missing something, of looking back in another twelve months and thinking oh I wish I had done so and so then.

The facts are: we had our first divorce hearing on Monday and things didn’t go his way so he’s turned really nasty. His business is being wound up and the Official Receiver wants to investigate everything. They cannot find him as he’s gone into hiding and wont co-operate so they have come after me – yet another of his messes I am left to clean up. He is being made personally bankrupt so a couple of the creditors are coming after me for their money (I signed personal guarantees a couple of years ago whilst my husband made all sorts of threats if I didn’t). They don’t give a stuff about our personal circumstances they just want their money. I could end up £65,000 in debt. I already owe £20,000, which is money I have had to borrow to pay my solicitor’s bills – to get this far with no solution in sight! Meanwhile, all this hanging over me, I have him being his usual mean, destructive, vindictive self. All I want to do is get away from him but it seems now I am just as close as I was twelve months ago. Twelve months! I thought I would be rid of him and have my life back by now. Seems like I will never get it back. It will take another six months at least to sort out the official receiver thing, who knows how long the divorce will now be as he seems adamant that he will not agree on anything and not sign anything. Who also knows what will happen with these loans? Anyone know how to get out of a personal guarantee? I know signing a contract under duress makes the contract unenforceable but how can I prove that?

To top it all, I don’t seem to be meeting anyone new either. I so want something light-hearted in my life, a nice little dalliance with someone fun. Nothing heavy, just some – lightness in this dim, dark, chaos. I do not have delusions of grandeur but I do feel, with all the suffering, like I am serving an apprenticeship to be the next Jesus!

I’ve had a bad week. I fell off the wagon in terms of drinking, comfort-eating and not exercising – but that came after the ‘bad-ness’ started (it was my reaction to it) and (yeah, I know!) made me feel worse, and thus, added to the bad. My ex (as ever) is leading me (and everyone else) a merry dance, making promises which I know he has no intention of keeping but we have to go along with it because that’s what the court will want to see – that we have given him the benefit of the doubt (apparently, that’s what my solicitor tells me). He’s been turning up at her office, harassing the reception staff, demanding to see her and sending her disparaging and untrue emails about me, saying things like: “…….TW will not have told you this but she has issues and it was these issues of hers that she denies having that caused all the problems in our marriage. I am saddened the marriage has ended but I have come to terms with the fact that (as the District Judge said when I attended court on the 1st) I must accept it now………..” NO SHIT SHERLOCK! So, because the District Judge says it’s over, it’s over, but when I said it’s over – well – that doesn’t count!

I, for my part, have been doing so well: adhering to the court schedule, doing my bit, being dignified, getting on with my life now and moving on, not reacting to his ‘crazy-making’ and basically getting over it – except this week. It just got to me. He promised me that if I left him he’d pursue me the rest of my life and he’d make sure there was no money left – and guess what? That is exactly where we are now. He has come good on his promises and it just seems so unfair to me that he should be ‘getting away with it’. I am having to get into debt to pay the solicitors bills because the way it works in this country is that you cannot just get divorced you have to have a final judgement order and to do that you have to either co-operate with each other or go the legal route. He (you can imagine) is not co-operating, neither does he have legal counsel which makes it even harder. By the time we get to the final hearing it will have cost me the best part of £20,000, which I am having to borrow because my savings ran out after £5,000. Also, there will be no financial settlement. He’s made sure of that as he is about to be made bankrupt. The thing is, if I don’t pay the legal bills, I could be vulnerable to him making a claim off me: I’m working, he’s not. I have money, he doesn’t! It’s so unfair. Oh, I know, that’s me keeping myself stuck in my victim mode – yeah! I get it okay! But sometimes it is hard to keep it going – especially when faced with such an enemy.

But you know what the worst of it is? Let me tell you, it’s not the money. It’s this: coming to the realisation that the past five years of my life – five years of hellish imprisonment – have been for nothing! That’s a real bitch of a realisation I am struggling to come to terms with right now. I did think, a year ago when I left my abusive husband, that one day I would make some sense of it and perhaps write a book about it specifically to help others in my situation. I started. I collected up all my material: journal entries, blog entries, diaries, over 350 abusive emails from him (and my replies – not to all but to a dozen or so none of which was abusive) and I wrote a chronology that charts how it all started (the abuse), how it escalated, how I felt about it, how others responded, how I escaped and so on. I even began to write sections but although it was cathartic it really wasn’t delivering what I wanted it to. It’s like it failed to talk to or make sense to anyone but me. It was like it was my bitch that no-one else would find interesting. I even sent an outline to a publishing agent and they wrote back and said they weren’t interested. But I kept on, writing and writing. See, that’s what I do – I’m a writer. Some people do Judo or Yoga or play sports, I write. That’s my therapy. But I was trying to make it mean something – the past five years of my life I mean – and in order to do that it would have to be something that others would want to read and that they would benefit from and I’m not there yet. What’s more, loads of people have told me not to write it because they are afraid he will sue me. Well, I know about libel (I’ve studied media law as part of my job) so I know enough to write a factual piece that cannot be disputed but still their negativity has done enough to put me off and now I am down and despondent because the whole thing, the whole five years, all that material is meaningless. It means nothing. It amounts to nothing.

Victim, victim, victim – yeah, yeah, yeah! I know. But this is my blog. This is where I vent. I’m just having a bad week, that’s all.

Here’s another one – it’s the comment about sandwich fillings that cracks me up:

Why are you hell bent on destroying our marriage?  Why? I am focusing on doing it better and being better and you are thinking of the next bad episode.  Why? You are a moody, bad tempered, brooding, ill mannered person and yet I am still offering you my love and support.  Every time I have spoken to you today, you have ben ill tempered and moody.  I was scared to come home at lunchtime because I could feel the tension on the phone but I came anyway and guess what – you got moody with me, despite my consideration in buying different sandwich fillings. Now, about my driving.  I have asked, pleaded and begged you over the last two years to stop talking about it but you cannot because you are hell bent on causing argument and destruction.  STOP talking about it, STOP confronting me about it and STOP telling me how to park.  I DON’T NEED IT. Thanks for ruining things again. I will celebrate my birthday on my own – I don’t want that ruining too. Can I just explain at this point that the man had a conviction for drink driving, two convictions for dangerous driving and numerous penalties on his licence. I hated getting the car with him but he insisted on driving everywhere. I used to close my eyes and pray!!

I am going through the emails I kept which my husband sent me, daily, during our brief but traumatic marriage. There is one day in particular 21st July 2007 in which I received thirty two emails in one afternoon, all hateful, bitter and vitriolic. Don’t ask me why I am doing it, it just feels like the right time and I need to cleanse myself of the pain and attachment. It’s working, some of them (which at the time caused me the most heartache) have actually made me chuckle. Here’s one:

I noticed this morning that I don’t have a supply of clean work shirts in the wardrobe.

No change there, then.

Thanks, wife.

I’ve noticed something about myself and that is that I tend to come from scarcity when it comes to things of value such as money and love. I tend to ‘make do’ with whatever is available because I think that is all there is. I manifest this at work too. I take on too much all at once, volunteer for things that I really do not have time for and then allow other people’s priorities to overtake my own and make them more important than mine. I get ‘talked into’ things easily and say that I will do something even if I have never done it before and I know it will be difficult. I understand from what I have read that this is a typical characteristic of someone prone to being abused.

Take my business, for example, I have a set of terms and conditions which I give out to new clients most of whom don’t even bother to read them – let alone sign them! I don’t make a fuss, fearing that if I did perhaps they will take their business elsewhere and I will never get another client in my life and I will lose my house and…………………………….down I go on that ‘thought spiral’. 

The result of this is that many people in my life treat me badly. Because they are basically rude, selfish and ignorant and I don’t ‘check’ them for being so. I have always allowed them to get away with it. My clients, for example, never thank me for what I do for them – which often goes way beyond what I am being paid for. I always go the extra mile and I guess you could say that they do reward me by paying my bills and keeping on giving me business. But, you know, sometimes that’s just not enough. Sometimes, just sometimes, a kind word would mean so much. If I make a mistake or do something wrong you can bet your life they are extremely vocal but do something good, exceed their expectations and………….silence! 

I know I shouldn’t be complaining – that I should be feeling very lucky to have business in this ‘downturn’. I hardly ever complain to friends and acquaintances but when I do often the reaction typically is to shut up moaning, be thankful and enjoy spending the money!! But just recently I have begun to see that that is just one way to look at it. There are other ways. For example, would those people think it sensible to fill my life, and business hours, working for customers who are basically costing me money by keeping me busy doing work that is less profitable when I could be looking for work that is much more profitable? I believe there are customers out there who would respect my terms and conditions and indeed would see me as more professional for having them, be agreeable to adhering to them and thus making for a much smoothing ride towards a productive professional relationship whereby they get exactly what they want in the shortest time possible and as cost-effectively as possible and I get a proper, detailed and specific briefing to work to so that I don’t have to keep re-drafting everything because they cannot make up their minds what they want!! I think that is a sensible option – don’t you! 

It’s all about respect, being assertive and changing my responses to events from the past. That’s what one friend (one of the more supportive ones) said to me. She suggested I do an ‘assertiveness’ training course – but one that is business focussed (rather than personal development-led). She said this might help me to not be scared to assert my rights as a supplier and have my terms and conditions adhered to. She said that it would probably take a bit of getting used to for the clients I have so far, who have got used to the casual, ad-hoc way of working that I have allowed but that I must not worry if they cannot hack it and decide to go elsewhere because I would, in effect, be making room for more and better clients who would treat me more professionally – and better. 

I see it all the time. I see it in my personal life, how I pick up tiny crumbs of friendship, affection, attention and love because that is all there is and I might not get anymore. Well, there’s a sea-change a-commin! I’ve taken the first step: becoming aware of how much I give up and give in (actually, the first step was leaving my abusive partner!!). Now I am ready to take the next one. I want to manifest great things – great work, respectful and appreciative clients, great relationships, a full social life and………………….so much! Not sure how I will do it, but that doesn’t matter as I have taken the first step.

Check out Sam Vaknin (you can get there via melove54, top of the page – link to YouTube video – or go to YouTube), self-proclaimed narcissist. Jees! That’s my husband! Well, not literally – I was not married to Sam Vaknin but the characteristics of him and my abusive ex are identical: the portrayal of grandiosity beyond reality, need to come across as perfect, constant tetchiness about the immediate environment, focus on self – yikes! Painful to watch. Then we get to see his poor wife! OMG! That’s me! Having to always look up to him, make him the focus, do his deeds, pretend like you have a say in the matter when the reality is you don’t!

It got me thinking about my relationship and how difficult it was for me, when I began to realise I was trapped in an abusive relationship, to garner support from anyone within our circle of friends, acquaintances and family. The problem was, because he was so accomplished at putting on this play, this facade, creating a great self-image, no-one saw or experienced him as I did. What they saw was what he wanted them to see: this brave, courageous and charming persona – so when I started to complain, the response I got was less than supportive. Most of them tried to make out that there was something wrong with me – there must be; that I was complaining about this ‘great’ man whom I was “lucky” to be with (yes, believe me, some people even said that to me!!). I understand now that there is a vast difference between narcissism and self-confidence. Here’s my take on it: 

• Narcissism is all about self. Self-confidence is inclusive. 
• Narcissism is about being better than………..Self-confidence is about being as good as you can possibly be and/or as good as everyone else.
• Narcissists want recognition and attention. Self-confident people want to do what they love and do it well.
• Narcissism is about entitlement. Self-confidence is about celebrating achievement.
• Narcissism is about projecting a false image. Self-confidence is about taking pride in what I know, what I have learned/studied and what I know I am good at.
• Narcissists lie. Self-confident people are goal-oriented and want to win but make no false promises. 
• Narcissists repress their emotions/feelings. Self-confident people possess freedom of expression.
• Narcissists are manipulative. Self-confident people are persuasive.
• Narcissists are motivated by power and control. Self-confident people are motivated by achievement.
• Narcissists are obsessed about appearance. Self-confident people care more about their abilities.
• Narcissists care little for human values. Self-confident people value being human.
• Narcissists value material possessions. Self-confident people value experience.
• Narcissists value notoriety. Self-confident people value dignity. 

 

I want to talk about forgiveness, again. But I’ll do that in a later post. Reason I mention it is that it is relevant to what happened to me this morning and what this post is about and it is also relevant to what is going on with me in general. I am reading this great book (which a very good friend lent me after it screamed at me out of 600 other books on her well-stocked shelves): Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping. It states on the back cover: this book will change your life – yeah right! They all say that don’t they! Wow! Hey – I’m only halfway through, and sceptical as I was, believe me – it’s true. More about that later. Back to today and what happened this morning:

Well, I took the dog for a walk as usual, through a field of sheep – so I kept him on the leash (as I do) until we reached the other side and went safely through the gate. Fine. On the way back, he was a few yards in front of me (nothing unusual in that) and I was day-dreaming and I didn’t notice that some of the little sheep had gotten through a hole in the hedge and were in the field the dog and I were in. Well, he sees them and starts giving chase (because that’s what dogs do). There was no aggression, he just thought they were to play with. Most of them squeezed back through the hole except one and he jumps up at it and brings it to the floor (no teeth just 100lb of Labrador was enough to floor it). Hearing the ‘ruckus’ brings me out of my day-dream and I shout at him to “COME” and he comes straight away and I put him on the lead. The sheep stays on the floor where it fell. Oh jesus! He’s killed it! I moved closer but didn’t want to go up to it with him on the lead for fear of scaring it even more (if it was still alive). I could see that it’s eyes were open and it was breathing but no other movement. There were no teeth marks, no blood. He hadn’t actually attacked it, just played rough like he does with other dogs.

I felt terrible, guilty, panicked, sad, 1) because I love animals – all animals and I hate it when they get injured – especially when I feel responsible and 2) Especially as I had not been paying attention and had been day-dreaming. I was convinced the sheep was dying. It looked in a bad way. I started having a chaotic conversation with myself in my head. What should I do? One option was to leave it there in the hope it would be okay and pretend like nothing happened but I couldn’t do that. It felt like a bad thing. The other option was to run across the field to the farmer’s house and tell him what had happened. From where I was, I could see his wife in the garden hanging up washing. She was too far away to have seen what happened but she was close enough to do something about it. I started to run towards her. Then the thought in my head said but what if the farmer reports you? They might insist the dog is put down!! What if it gets round the village that the new girl, with the golden Labrador, let it kill one of farmer x’s sheep?! But I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t let the animal die in pain – just couldn’t. I just had to trust that what I was doing would work out okay.

I got to where the wife was, out of breath and hot. I started to tell her what had happened. It came out in a muddled mess of pieces of the story: my dog………. jumped on the sheep…………… lying down in a bad way……………….I’ll run home and get my car…………….take it to the vets.

To my surprise she didn’t look too concerned, except that she made me feel even worse when she said oh yes, those are my pet lambs. Oh jesus! Make me feel really bad!! I then said, I’ll take him home (meaning the dog) and I’ll come back. Okay, she said and then added nonchalantly actually, I’ve got to go out now for about 20 minutes but I’ll be back later. Blimey, I thought. She’s not bothered.

Then I set off to run home, feeling like the shittiest person on the planet, the same as I felt the time I ran over someone’s dog that was not on a lead and had followed its owner across the road but at the last minute turned back and came straight under my car. And the time a couple of years ago when I was walking the dog into town next to the main road to get him used to the traffic noise (he was a puppy then) and as I approached a level crossing a little boy who was standing next to me just decided to run out in front of the traffic. He was hit by a car, thrown ten feet in the air and landed on his head. I was convinced he was dead but miraculously he survived. The fact that it happened right in front of me made me feel somehow responsible. Maybe it was because I came and stood next to him with the dog and got him over excited. Anyway, I blamed myself. Or the time when I was a kid and got blamed for hiding a knife in a gym mat at school (which I did not do) or pushing Rosemary Fluker over in the yard (which I also didn’t do). Or the many millions of times I felt responsible for my father’s depression and alcoholism. I was right there again this morning, like a child again – being blamed. All this was going on in my head as I was running home. But at the same time, something else was going on. Another voice, much older, more grown up. This one was saying now you have an opportunity here to do the right thing but at the same time don’t allow yourself to be undermined or blamed or taken advantage of or treated unfairly. Offer to pay any vets fees or (God forbid) reimburse them for the lamb if that is the outcome but don’t allow them to treat you like a second-class citizen who is irresponsible and did it on purpose. Remember, the sheep had strayed out of its field and the farmer had not made necessary repairs to his fence to contain his animals. So, s/he is just as responsible.

I got the dog inside the house. He was quite shaken up, could sense my tension and was upset but couldn’t really understand what he had done. I was gentle but decided the lamb was more in need than the dog right now. I ran back to the field and could see that the farmer’s son was at the gate where the incident took place. It looked like he was pacing up and down on the other side of the hedge. This does not look good I told myself. Please god, please, I kept praying. Please let the lamb be okay. As I approached, he looked across at me and instead of being angry (as I’d expected) he was actually quite pleasant. Where did you say it was when you last saw it? He enquired. Just down there I said pointing to an empty patch of brown earth in a gap in the crop. It was lying there, I said, half dead. It looked in a bad way. Well it’s not there now, he said. Must have got up and walked away because all the lambs are there. I’ve counted. There are fourteen and that’s how many we had yesterday. My heart sang. I could feel the relief like it was a healing robe being placed over my head and pulled down over the rest of me. Thank you God. Thank you God for answering my prayers. I said how sorry I was, that if there were any repercussions I would happily pay any vets bills but I also, very gently, pointed out the hole in the fence which he promised to repair.

As I walked back toward home I really felt like something marvellously healing had occurred. It felt like the whole event had happened on purpose, that each ‘being’ (human and animal) had played a willing (but unconscious) part in the whole process of me getting to heal the wounds of my past in terms of feeling that anything bad that happens is my fault. It really felt like I had handled this differently. I had faced up to what had happened and had not run away from my responsibilities (which would have been so easy) and yet I had also done it in a grown-up, responsible way. It felt good – feels good. I shall hold on to this forever.

It was most especially healing at this time because of what went on in my abusive marriage whereby my partner always made out that everything that went wrong and every bad mood he was in was my fault. No matter what I did, I got the blame. He would take a course of action based on a poor decision, I would gently point out that I did not agree with his course of action (like invoicing clients for work we had not actually done) and he would retort by saying he was doing it in the best interests of the business, trying to get us out of financial difficulties, that I NEVER supported him and I was putting him under INTENSE pressure because of that. So, I would shut up and go along with it. Then, when it all went wrong and blew up in our faces he would blame me for that saying it was the way I dealt with clients and allowed them to take advantage that was at fault and it was my fault we were in dept. I had four years of this and after four years I guess it becomes engrained. Today has been a great opportunity for me to change the energy around that forever. I bless the poor lamb for what it put itself through to enable me to do this. And my dog for being willing to play his part. And myself, of course, for acknowledging what was happening and dealing with it.

Today, I want to write about what it’s like to be the victim in an abusive relationship being accused of being a perpetrator of violence against one’s own perpetrator, about the guilty feelings and how that, in itself, silences any idea of complaining – to the authorities – to anyone! It has taken me a while to come to terms with my own violence in my abusive relationship but over time (being out of the situation) I have developed a healthy understanding and I feel ready to disclose without fear of accusation or retribution.

The guilt I felt about the anger and violence I discharged on my husband during our three-year marriage was a major cause of concern for me. I felt guilty for a long time and he knew it. He knew just how to make me react like a scared puppy whose owner arrives home to a littered house. The dog hasn’t done anything wrong (wasn’t his fault he was left too long) but because it can smell the irritation on its owner and interpret the angry facial expression, it adopts a guilty stance. That was me; every time he spat: “but you hit me too” I adopted that guilty puppy stance – because he was right – I had! But what I was too traumatised to acknowledge (and he wouldn’t admit) was the difference between the reason I did it and the reason he did it, which made the accusation of me being a perpetrator completely wrong and unjustified.

My husband claims I have attacked him numerous times during our marriage; that I subjected him to extreme violence and aggression, that I beat him, threw things at him, yelled and screamed abuse at him and so on. I have given him cause to make those accusations, but I have never attacked him.

He has subjected me to a sustained campaign of abuse, intimidation, manipulation, bullying, violence, aggression and so on. The first time I reported him to the Police, the officer asked me “have you hit him?” to which I replied “yes” because I had. He said that as far as the Police were concerned it would be very difficult, in that case, to ‘prove’ any crime against me by my husband because it would be his word against mine. He predicted a counter claim.

Firstly, please bear in mind that by this stage I had endured dozens of attacks, violence, bullying (and all the other aforementioned) from my husband before I even went to the Police in the first place. I do not say that to justify my actions but to paint a true picture of the situation. Also, whereas I hit my husband with open hands (and I am not a fighter nor trained in any form of combat, martial arts or self-defence), my husband used a weapon against me, a walking stick mostly. Does that make me any less guilty than him? Well, yes, I believe it does – and here’s why:

I didn’t ‘attack’ my husband as he claims. I did not use violence against him in a premeditated, intentionally harmful manner. I, either, used violence to defend myself against his violence towards me or in response to his intimidation, bullying, anger, manipulation etc., etc. There is a huge difference and it’s what makes one person the perpetrator and the other the victim, in my view. My husband’s actions (whatever motivation lay behind them) were designed to ‘do me in’, belittle me, undermine me, hurt me, control me, manipulate me, and so on. My actions were intended to stop the situation, stop him doing all those things to me, end the violence, stop the abuse. It was never about doing those things to him. I can honestly say, hand-on-heart, that I never attacked him with the sole intention of hurting him or harming him in any way. Therefore, I believe, I have never attacked him – full stop! I have got angry and yelled and screamed in the hope that it would show him that he could not treat me that way and shut him up but I have never actually set out to ‘do him in’ – even when it could have been called justifiable ‘revenge’. Even now, going through the divorce and separation of the business interests (during which, as you can imagine, he is still employing his tactics) none of my actions is motivated by any need, want or desire to do him in. All of my actions are designed, intentionally, to show him (and everyone else involved) that I will not be bullied, manipulated, undermined and so on and so forth. They are also intended to limit the damage that could be caused to both of us through his negligent pig-headedness.

I often wondered, when he had driven me almost to breaking point and I was standing in front of him, fists clenched, purple in the face from screaming, two inches away from his face, why he never showed any fear.

I would have, and I did when he did it to me – I tried to get away from him as quickly as I could. But he didn’t once try and run away from me. He told his parents that I scared him, but it didn’t make sense because you don’t hang around people who scare you – and he did. He’d stay right there and keep pushing – push, push, push, hoping that I’d really lose it and run him through with a knife or something so he would have something really serious he could accuse me of but I never did. He knew I never would and that’s why he wasn’t scared. He had nothing to be scared of because I wasn’t out to do him in – unlike him.

I have mentioned this before but the most predominant emotion I felt throughout the whole of my marriage was anger. I used to feel angry 90% of the time (the other 10% I felt depressed, which is the same – anger turned inwards, I have since read). He accused me of being out of control, said I was a thug and told his parents that I got angry with him and hit him. His father told me I had a problem with anger and should go and seek anger management counselling – so I did! So desperate was I to make our marriage work that I believed him. I was prepared, at the time, to do anything to make it work and so I arranged to go for counselling (even though I was of the view that it was my husband who had the anger problem).

I disclosed everything to the counsellor. I told him about our marriage and the problems we were having. I told him about my husband and myself and told him how much I loved him and wanted to make it work and that I hadn’t even realised I had a problem with anger until my father-in-law had mentioned it, whereupon I’d thought maybe he had a point.

Having listened to me talk about all this for a whole hour, the counsellor (who was standing to make around £600 out of me if I took the course), turned to me and said: “I don’t think you have an anger problem. From what you have told me, I think your anger is a justifiable response to unreasonable behaviour from your husband and that for the most part you have it under control.”

It was then I began to realise that if I wanted to move away from anger and violence, I had to move away from our marriage.

Having been separated from my husband for almost a year, I now know this to be true. I cannot think of one single time I have been angry or felt prolonged outrage since (except once or twice when I have had to deal with him).

When is violence justified?

I also do not feel guilty anymore about defending myself against his regime. I feel justified. I have often thought about the question: when is violence justified? I guess every head of state in world has asked themselves that self same question before declaring war on their neighbours.

Being a peaceful person at heart, I find it hard to justify any. I am certainly not a supporter of war or violence in any shape or form, but having lived through four years of an abusive relationship, I can understand why victims display violence and anger too. But I have also come to realise that, as with war, it doesn’t actually solve or achieve anything and in that sense it is not the answer. It doesn’t stop the abuse or violence from the perpetrator nor does it shut up their verbal attacks and emotional undermining. If anything, it feeds their campaign and it does this in three ways:

1) Whilst the victim is being angry and violent, they are giving their power away to the perpetrator and thus, unwittingly, putting them in a position of power and control (which is exactly what the perpetrator wants).

2) It feeds the perpetrator ammunition with which to sustain their campaign of accusation and undermining.

3) It gives the victim a sense of powerlessness and thus makes them feel bad about themselves, which ultimately undermines their confidence and self-esteem, which is already at a low ebb – again, what the perpetrator wants.

Most people I have talked to are of the opinion my actions were justified, that I had been pushed beyond the boundaries of self-restraint to a place where I had no option. Now, that may be so, but it doesn’t stop me from wishing I hadn’t done it, wishing I could have been more composed, able to ‘turn the other cheek’ and not have been pushed into a reaction. But I did and I was and so I have to live with that. But I take comfort from the fact that, for me, anger is not a problem merely an emotion.