News Review
12 JULY 2024 ausdoc . com . au
‘ I had to squeeze myself into a tiny space to minimise the damage ’
At least 40 Australian women have been killed by a partner or ex-partner so far this year . Nobody is immune to the threat of intimate partner abuse .
Anonymous GP
IT began with him frogmarching me out the door when our first child was five months old .
At least , that was what I thought at the time until I learnt better many years later .
Looking back , the disrespect actually started much earlier in the relationship , rooted in entitlement and control .
By the end , when I was finally able to extract myself after years and years of increasingly violent abuse , I was a shell of my former self .
I believed , by then , what he had told me — that I was nothing without him . That nobody would ever want me . That I was defective and damaged and useless and pathetic . I believed by then that he was actually the victim : that he had been betrayed by my inability to meet all his needs ; that it was all my fault .
The only reason I was eventually able to extract myself was because I was supported by a very good friend and an excellent psychologist and I had the means to support myself and my two children financially . I see myself as one of the lucky ones . I was very afraid when I eventually decided to end my abusive marriage . I knew what he was capable of .
I knew he would be infuriated that I was slipping out of his carefully constructed web of control , that his meticulously crafted persona of a successful , accomplished man would tumble .
I knew that him being infuriated would put me in grave danger .
I knew this because he had told me that , if I ever left him , he would hunt me down , cut my arms off and bury me alive in a box .
That he would strangle me beforehand , not enough to kill me but enough that he would be able to see the panic in my eyes . Going to the police would have compounded his anger , made me even less safe .
That ’ s why I never reported him .
Behind closed doors
As I write this , more than 40 women in Australia have been murdered by their partners or ex-partners since the beginning of 2024 — often around the time the relationship was ending .
Many of these murderers have been talked about in glowing terms by their friends and family : he was such a good father , such a good provider , such a good mate , things must have got pretty bad for him to snap like that , to do what he did , poor bloke .
It is my own experience that men who abuse do not ‘ snap ’.
They are perfectly capable of hiding their dangerous , abusive side from people outside the home , perfectly capable of appearing to all and sundry as model citizens and providers while simultaneously abusing their partners behind closed doors .
They are manipulative and devious and perfectly in control . These men do not ‘ snap ’. These men plot and plan revenge when they realise they are losing control .
In my lived experience , that is what intimate partner violence is all about .
How it started
In my case , that control began insidiously . Unkind comments about my appearance and demeanour , denigrating remarks about my friends and family , wanting me all to himself .
In the early days , after the classic ‘ love bombing ’ ( all too commonly seen only in retrospect ) came the campaign to separate me from my support network , to isolate me , to make me reliant on him , my abuser , for financial support , emotional support , comfort .
It is weird , a sort of Stockholm syndrome situation , and all these years later ,
I still do not really understand why I fell under his spell . But I did . He was the archetypal ‘ charming abuser ’, an expert manipulator . But he was not all bad , I told myself . He could be kind and loving when it suited him , and I clung to these little crumbs whenever they occurred , using them to reassure myself that things were going to be okay . Except they were not . And nobody knew because he told me that , if I ever mentioned what was happening at home to anyone , I would be “ very sorry ”.
He told me that no-one would believe me . And he told me that what he was doing to me was not violence , it was “ domestic correction ” because he was “ number one ” in the house and I was not to forget that .
One of his favourite ‘ jokes ’ was this : “ What do you say to a woman with two black eyes ? Nothing , she ’ s already been told twice .”
I did tell someone once , though — a psychologist he had insisted I see so I could be “ fixed ” to become a better wife .
I told this psychologist he had chased me down the hall and kicked down the bathroom door , which I had locked to try to escape him .
I told them I had squeezed myself into the tiny space between the toilet and the vanity , trying to make myself as small as possible to minimise damage .
I told them that , thankfully , once he had taken out his anger on the door , he no
He told me what he was doing to me was not violence , it was ‘ domestic correction ’.
longer had any left for me .
Instead , he laughed , pointed at the broken door and said : “ Look what you made me do .”
He refused to replace the door , wanting it to remain a reminder of my failures as a wife , and I had to use that bathroom without any privacy until we sold the house and the real estate agent pointed out we really did need a door to the ensuite . I relayed that story to the psychologist . Their response was : “ He is getting really close to the edge . We need to protect him because he could lose his job if this sort of thing came to light .” I often think back to that conversation . How much different would my life have been if I had been supported to leave him then , with recognition and validation that I was in a dangerous and abusive relationship rather than feeling co-opted to stay and support my abuser because he was “ close to the edge ”.
I cannot think about that too much because it makes me so angry . And so sad .
So I stayed , and as a result , I endured many more years of increasingly sadistic and harmful abuse , of every sort .
Nobody but that psychologist knew what was happening behind closed doors because I was so deeply ashamed .
I would go to work , as a doctor , helping others to solve their health and other problems , but all the while , I could not solve my own .
I could not stop the violence in my own home ; I felt like a hypocrite .
I would get home after a long shift in ED , hide among the clothes in my cupboard and cry silently , helpless and hopeless , then square my shoulders and head out the door the next day to do it all over again .
I was leading two very separate lives , and no-one would ever have guessed it . Shame is a powerful silencer . I shrunk into myself , more and more , avoiding social situations because it was too hard to keep up the farce .
Friends and family would compliment me on juggling my kids , career , marriage and how I made it all seem effortless .
I would think to myself , “ If only you knew .”
My self-esteem plummeted , and I barely said anything at home anymore , not wanting to enrage him .
I felt like a shadow in the background , always watching him to gauge his mood , pre-empt an attack and hopefully avoid it . It was a cat-and-mouse game , and he loved it . He knew he had me in a corner . He thrived on that game .
The abuse escalated over the years , moving from verbal abuse , to shoving and restraining me , to preventing me from driving ‘ his ’ car , refusing to pay bills so that all my income was spent and there was nothing left for discretionary purposes , kicking me , grabbing my hair , punching me ,