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Introduction

Names of people and places have been changed. With the exception of the Gold Coast and Sydney, all names are fictional to protect the innocent and not so innocent.

My partner drops a knife on the wooden floor just behind me. The loud noise causes me to jump high in my seat. It makes me wonder whether I’ll ever be entirely free of my reactions after the experience I have had with domestic violence prior to meeting Phillip.

Now, I am dogged by post-traumatic stress and the endless analysis of the choices that led me to stay with an extremely violent man for seventeen years. Then, I was being swept along by the need to survive; the hyper vigilance strangely coupled with an attitude of extreme indifference to the horror story unfolding. As a measure of my insanity (I can only think that I must have had a degree of insanity to stay with a man who, from the onset, was violent toward me) and regardless of the high level of abuse, I subjugated my true self in order to fit with Wayne’s idea of what being a real woman meant. Who I was quickly became superfluous. Staying alive and figuring out the key to stopping Wayne’s violence mattered more. It may seem odd to readers that at the onset of his abuse I could still leave relatively easily, but chose to remain. That I stayed will be incomprehensible to many. It was by virtue of Wayne’s skills of indoctrination that he gained complete control of my thoughts and actions. His conditioning resulted in my total acquiescence. Ultimately, having three daughters to this man, the financial security our marriage and business afforded me and the constant mental manipulation and physical intimidation on his part all stymied my leaving. It was easier to stay in isolation than to face the unknown outside the home. Such was my life when my grip on reality disappeared.

This book is an attempt to explain what is perhaps unexplainable: why the abuse to which I was subjected occurred. I also hope to shed some light on the reasons why I stayed, left and then returned, even after the violence, and particularly in the beginning when it should have been so much easier to leave. Yet, perhaps it can’t be explained to—or understood by—anyone other than those who’ve experienced mistreatment at the hands of their partner. I expect that most people, outside of abusive relationships, will wonder why a person who is being abused stays in such a relationship and when or if they leave, why they sometimes return. These are questions I have also asked myself a multitude of times. I can only say that Wayne exerted a form of brainwashing on me which caused me to believe that staying was the best and only option available to me at the time. Coupled with that belief were my natural introversion, naivety, social anxiety and shyness around others, all of which left me vulnerable to an unscrupulous man with mental problems of his own. While I chose to remain, he also chose to continue abusing me, and regardless of whether I stayed or left, nothing mitigates or excuses his reprehensible behaviour.

I have written this book using my actual diary entries to document exactly what occurred as it happened rather than relate my story wholly as a narrative. I hope this format will help make my experiences as real as possible while providing the reader with a clearer picture of what constituted daily life for me and for, I am sure, many others, both now and then. Note that these entries, in particular the early ones, are written with some degree of immaturity, despite my being twenty-four in 1985. Yet, they are indicative of my mental and social development at the time which I regard as slightly backward compared to my peers inasmuch as my innocence and naivety made me less capable of detecting people with dubious intentions.

At the time of the first diary entries, I was sharing a unit with my friend Narene with whom I attended university in Alka Springs. We were in the third and last year of our Bachelor degrees and both of us intended to pursue post-graduate studies the following year. At the time I met Wayne, I was seeing a kind man called Michael. With plummeting self-esteem and little self-confidence, I was hitting a low point which prevented me from seeing Michael’s worth. My state of mind left me open to Wayne’s ‘charms’. When we first met, he acted as though I was the most interesting and attractive female he’d talked to in a long time. This was balm to my bruised sense of self. His attentiveness made him stand out from others and despite misgivings I allowed him into my life. He became integral to alleviating my loneliness and the feeling I had of being a misfit in society. His constant talking dispelled fears that I was boring and unable to carry a conversation. I didn’t have to contribute too much while he held the floor, and this suited me just fine.

As our relationship progressed, Wayne withdrew his conversation while similarly isolating me from others, resulting in more time spent alone with him. Sustained togetherness did not result in our getting to know each other. Rather, Wayne used this time to belittle me relentlessly or he’d refuse to converse with me for days. This was so different to his initial ‘romancing’ and the constant attention he had given me that it exacerbated my confusion and lack of belief in my ability to attract and hold someone’s interest.

I can’t explain why I allowed his abuse to continue when I had never been the subject of anything similar in the past. I had never been a ‘doormat’ before but, somehow, I slipped into that role almost as soon as the relationship began. Wayne’s behaviour was, even then, unacceptable. I railed against it whenever it occurred yet couldn’t drag myself out of the strange inertia I felt when he abused me. I was simultaneously angry with him and detached from his behaviour. It was as if I were split in two. I wanted to leave the first time his violence expressed itself yet another part of me blamed myself for his actions. I became incredibly determined to fix him and create the relationship I imagined we could have. After some years of marriage, I knew that my imagined relationship would never materialise. It then became a matter of surviving each day with mind, body and soul intact.