I Thought I Knew the Signs

By Nicole

I have had 3 serious relationships in my life all of which have involved family violence. My first serious relationship at 19 seemed like true love. We clicked instantly, we were inseparable. I felt complete, at first. By the end of our 2 years together I felt the opposite. I was an empty shell with no clue who I was, no friends, no job, no money and broken. He would make such a fuss when I wanted to spend time with my friends I eventually ended up never seeing them. Each time I tried he would start an argument and by the time I went out I would not enjoy myself and gradually my friends dwindled away. It was no fun for them and they wondered why I put up with it. One day, just before Christmas, we were sitting either side of a table talking. He made a comment that no-one would be getting him a Christmas present. I responded matter-of-factly with "how many presents have you bought for people?" Instantly I had a punch in the head. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly I didn't see it coming. I was in shock and got up in a daze with tear filled eyes and without another word staggered up the hallway and left the house. But not the relationship.

My next serious relationship, with my ex-husband and father of my two older children, also had physical violence. Not sure if it was the first instance, there were so many, but one that stands out is when I was 9 months pregnant with our first child. We were having a BBQ the next day so our extended families could meet before the baby arrived. He went out for a few drinks the night before but had still not arrived home at 5am. I woke up and went looking for him out the front. A few minutes later he crept in holding his shoes and I of course questioned where he had been all night. He said he had slept in the car so as to not wake me up. I said to him that wasn't true and that I had just been outside and he was not in the car. To that I was pinned down on the bed, he straddled me, held my arms down and leaning over my swelled belly head butted me and spat in my face. That shut me up. I struggled through the next day without saying a word about what happened to anyone, putting on a smile that each time I expressed reminded me of what he had done as I had been left with a slightly fat lip, just enough that I could feel it but wasn't noticeable to others. Alone in my pain and sadness. This was the beginning of 14 years of bruises and shame. Over the years I was punched in the head, the arm, spat on, pinned down, "corked" (a term I learnt of when I asked him why that punch to my leg had hurt so much?), left with a black eye, scratches, fat lips, several bruises, an almost broken thumb, and received that look, that glare of complete and utter disgust and hatred. And I have and still am blamed, over and over again. Oh and left without any money or income with young children to care for and feed. Made to suffer I suppose, I am the enemy apparently despite my pleading to be treated with respect.

I am now 43 and have just come out of my last relationship 6 months ago. This time around I am left with a kind of surprised feeling, for a few reasons. I am surprised I ended up in yet another abusive relationship. I thought I had overcome many things from my previous relationships. I thought I was older and wiser. I thought I knew the signs. I thought I had put these experiences behind me. I thought I had finally found the real thing, with someone so different to, even in fact the opposite to, my ex husband. I thought, as do so many in our community, that I was with "the nicest guy in town". And yet here I am. At my age, with all my experience, here I am again. But this time there seems to be something more to it. This time it seems like there just may not be a day any time soon that I feel peace, or completely free. You see this man who I thought was so different, so kind, so caring, so genuine appears actually to be in many ways - more dangerous. Not physically, I don't live in fear that he will physically hurt me or my children. He did a few times when we were together leave me with a minor bruise or two but that is not what worries me now. What worries me now is that because I have a 2 year old son with him, I am going to have to interact with him for many years to come and so far things have not been easy and there are no signs of them ever improving. This man is very good at what he does. I do believe he is a master at what he does, he has it down to a fine art and many people fooled. He fooled me, thats for sure. He needs to control me, whichever way he can. When we were together we had a discussion one day, if you could call it a discussion. He was instantly overcome with anger, red in the face and struggling to physically contain himself when I initiated the discussion. I tried to explain to him that I was allowed to have an opinion and that my opinion did not have to agree with his, that it was ok to disagree. But he insisted over and again that what he was saying was not "his opinion", rather it was "fact". He needs to be right, and now that we are apart, he needs to win. The problem now is, the annoying, time consuming, exhausting thing is - he is relentless. He is hell bent on making life as hard as he can for me. He is conniving, spiteful and seemingly resourceful to a degree. As for our precious little boy, it is a constant struggle to try to convince this man that our son needs to come first. He should be our priority. Instead he treats me like I am the enemy and he has had an injustice done to him. I am to blame. He is possessive of our son and angry at me for having something that belongs to him. My big fear at the moment is that our son falls asleep at the time of changeover, he is only 2 and of course doesn't always sleep when plans require him to. This has happened a few times and it is with shaking hands and butterflies in my stomach that I make the call to Dad to let him know and possibly change the time so that our son can get the sleep he so needs. The fury is ignited. This is our life right now. Add to this his withholding financial assistance to me "because I stuff him around", threats of recovery orders if I go on holidays, attempt to limit me from moving more than 15km away, and have just had court proceedings initiated on me with a totally innacurate, fabricated account with false accusations against me, one being that I have a mental illness and our son is at risk in my care. How low will this man go? I am hoping the courts see through his ridiculous attempts to discredit me. All this takes away the attention from our son. Its yet another tactic to control and punish me, emotionally and financially.

These are the three men I have cared about the most - this has been my experience of so called "love". I am finally feeling happy, secure and content on my own - I am safe, well getting there anyway.