I have been working on healing myself
since I discovered the truth about my own situation, and I recently contacted
Donna to offer my voice to the crusade against these abusers. Like so many of
us, I have fought hard to make sense of what had happened, to regain my
shattered confidence and ultimately to reclaim my life. It has been a difficult
journey – and I am still learning and growing through the experience. Not long
after my discovery I started writing a blog. Initially it was just for my own
healing, but as time went on I made it public and it has gradually attracted
readers from around the world, many of whom have told me that my stories have
helped them in their own healing. I am delighted to have the opportunity to
share some of my stories and musings here on this site – the very place that
played such a major role in my own recovery.
I consider myself one of the lucky ones.
I escaped, and I have come out the other side. Wiser, stronger and more
determined than ever to help others do the same. I tell myself (and anyone who
cares to listen) that if I can do it, then so can other people! I am an
ordinary woman who was thrown in to an extraordinary set of circumstances. I
will be sharing some of my blog posts on this site, together with specific
accounts just for the Lovefraud audience. Thank you for having me here on this
site – I am very excited to be part of the team and I hope that my experiences
are useful to others.
For my first post I would like to share a little
more about my history – starting with excerpts from a blog I wrote just a
couple of months after finding out the truth about my husband. It was the start
of my self-exploration as to how I had allowed myself to be duped and then
betrayed on so many levels. At that time I did not yet know about sociopaths.
Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy it.
I am an English woman who has lived in
France since 2003. My home is an old stone farmhouse, nestled in the beautiful
countryside next to the River Charente. It was June 2009, just a couple of
months since ‘the discovery’ and I was sitting outside working on my laptop
when I was visited by one of the village locals who had been kindly looking out
for me over recent weeks. A weather-beaten farmer in his late sixties, he
speaks no English (fine for me as my French is pretty good) and uses a broad
local Charentais dialect. His family has been in the commune for countless
generations, and they’ve dedicated their lives to tending the fields, planting
and harvesting the crops, and organising the regular communal gatherings. He is
well past retirement age and, as with so many of the locals, still works day
and night on his beloved land.
Since being left alone with my young son,
I had regularly returned home to find a gift on my table just by the kitchen
door – a bucketful of freshly cut daffodils, bags of fresh cherries and
vegetables picked from neighbouring gardens, and plants for my own garden
wrapped in newspaper to keep the roots moist until they can be dug in to the
ground.
The locals, of course, knew what had
happened, and on this particular day, Berber shuffled up to sit at the table
where I was working. He doesn’t speak very much, and often leaves awkward
silences between the gruff and clumsy words he uses. It’s clear he struggles to
say what he means, and he frequently resorts to grunts, harumphs, and the
typical Charantaise shrugging of the shoulders peppered with regular outbursts
of “bah, eh oui!” which is a great substitute for many words.
But this particular morning he sat down
and asked me how I was getting on. He asked whether I’d found any work and how
my son and I were settling in to the changes. I carried on typing and explained
that I’d been throwing out new seeds everyday in to the field of employment,
and that one day something must surely take root and bring the results I need.
I kept the smile on my face, and the strength in my voice that I’d learned to
perfect over so many tough times. But he must have noticed something. He stared
at me with his deep brown soulful eyes, and wriggled in his seat, pulling
himself up taller and clearing his throat. It clearly took a great deal of
effort to find the words, but eventually he simply said “Je ne te
laisserai pas tomber” which means “I will not let you fall”
I lost my composure at that point, and my
mask of courage slipped. Despite myself, I felt my eyes welling up as tears of
gratitude started trickling down my cheeks. I had no words. I just became aware
of tiny cracks appearing in the brittle shield of strength that had been
protecting my heart from pain. Berber said no more, asked me no more questions.
He just nodded, got up from his seat, squeezed my shoulder and quietly wished
me “bonne journee” or “good day”.
Since then I’ve thought about the power
that a hand of friendship can have – and questioned whether, perhaps, on
previous occasions I’ve been so concerned about staying strong (typical British
‘stiff upper lip’ and all that) that I’ve overlooked support that could have
been available to me all along?
I’ve had to face a number of ‘challenges’
throughout my life (and realised how I’ve come to dislike the glib over-use of
that word to describe problems or even traumas – under the ‘keep positive’
mantra of well-meaning but sometimes deluded modern-day motivators) so now is
probably a good time to explain a few of them.
For me, it seems, change has been a
constant in my life since my earliest memories. Not for me the slow, gentle
undulating waves of change to which one can gently acclimatise, but instead a
mighty tsunami that arrives without warning and washes away everything in it’s
path in just a blink of an eye.
The first was the death of my
father when I was just 4 years old.
I absolutely adored and worshipped my
‘Daddy’ in the way, I suppose, that only a daughter can. To me he was my hero,
my saviour, and I knew that however much love and adoration I gave him, he
returned it ten-fold. My mum was pregnant with my little sister at the time, so
dad had taken it upon himself to be the ‘clown’ and ‘entertainer’ to me as mum
was understandably less energetic than usual! He would frequently return home
from work with special treats for me – small things, sometimes a paper
airplane, other times bubble gum that he and I would sneak behind the sofa to
eat, pretending to hide from mum because she didn’t approve of any kind of gum
(all part of the game, of course!)
He’d often scoop me up above his head,
put me on his shoulders, and tell me “Boo” (my nickname) “just
look at the world – it’s all there waiting for you!” and I truly
believed I could do anything. We were all very excited about my sister’s
imminent arrival, and would sit for hours discussing names and what games we
were going to share with her. I remember his friendly easy smile, one that
spread right across his face and lit up his eyes – a warmth that couldn’t fail
to touch anyone else who was around him. I was so very proud of my Daddy.
That fateful day, he’d decided to return
to his office in the evening to finish off some work. It was way after I’d gone
up to bed, and I remember hearing the door shut behind him, as he shouted
out “see you soon!” before the familiar sound of his car
engine disappeared off down the lane. I snuggled deeper under my covers and
settled down to a comfortable sleep. That was the very last time I’d know that
feeling.
He died that evening in his office – a
mixture of the prescription drugs he was taking to shake off a cold, together
with the glass of wine he’d had at home with my mum had, apparently, left him
slightly drowsy. The heater in his office was new and, unbeknown to anyone, was
leaking lethal carbon monoxide fumes in to the air. My Daddy’s lifeless body,
slumped across his desk with pen still in hand, was discovered by his brother
when he arrived for work the next morning.
I wasn’t told about his death until after
my sister was born, 10 days later. I can only now begin to imagine the torment
my dear mother must have endured through this time – she was only 32 years old,
facing life as a widow and about to give birth. All I remember from my point of
view was that I was to go and stay with my best friend in the village ‘until
after the baby arrives’. And I really don’t remember much else. Until I was
home. I’d met my gorgeous new little sister, and then mum sat me gently next to
her in her bed to tell me the news.
And from that moment on I knew that life
would never be the same. The funeral had been and gone, I had a new sister to
‘look after’ (for that was how I saw my role at that point – because Daddy was
no longer there to fulfill it) and a new school to start. We went down to the
coast for a few months to stay with Nan and Gand, my mum’s parents, and I
remember developing scarletina, eczema, and all manner of other minor ailments
for which I was given gallons of potions and mixtures to combat. I remember
playing in the park with my Nan, I remember long walks along the seafront, I
remember sitting on a huge model elephant on the pier…. but I do not remember
crying.
The next tsunami was to hit
12 years later.
Towards the end of 1980, not long before
my 16th birthday, I had developed a nasty bout of pneumonia. Weeks and weeks at
home meant that I had missed a great deal of schooling for my all-important O
Levels the following summer. By the beginning of the New Year I had recovered
sufficiently to return to school, and we all trotted along to the doctors to
get a certificate proving that I had missed a chunk of last term through
illness. It was to be sent in to the examining board in the hope they would
view my papers with compassion when the time came.
It was a Monday, 12th January 1981, and
after the doctor had signed the certificate, mum asked him if he wouldn’t mind just
taking a look at something for her? So she laid down on the couch and the
doctor bent over her. He touched her and then looked at my sister and me and
asked us to go in to the waiting room. He didn’t need to say anything. There
was something in his eyes that turned my blood to ice and I felt the familiar
feeling of dread rising up through my body.
My heart was pumping as my little sister
and I went through to the waiting room, and I just couldn’t keep the words
inside me. I turned to her, and said as gently as I could “Mummy’s got
cancer”. I didn’t understand where this “knowing” came from, I just knew
with every nerve cell and fiber of my being that it was true.
We both waited anxiously, and watched for
the doctor’s door to open. Like my dad, mum also had this most incredible
energy about her – people have often said that she lit up a room. And as she
came out of the surgery, she was still wearing her biggest smile, and gave a
jolly laugh and nod to the doctor as she closed the door behind her. But it was
no good. I wasn’t fooled. I knew there was something wrong.
We all got to the car, and strapped
ourselves in – I was in the front seat next to mum, who was still wearing her
famous “come along gals!” sort of smile I was so familiar
with. I waited a few moments until we were out of the car park, then I turned
to her and asked gently “Are you going to tell us then?” She
faced my questioning stare, her smile not quite as convincing as she
countered “Tell you what darling?” And I had to say it. “You’ve
got cancer, haven’t you?”
And with that, with those five small
words, the truth was out and I knew that life, once again, would never be the
same.
The three of us spent that evening at our
dining room table, talking, crying, hugging and trying to understand what it
all meant. It turned out that she had found a lump in her breast a few months
earlier, but had been told by her brother that it was nothing she should be
worried about, so she had ignored it (and that’s another story for another
time). Now it had spread and the doctor had told her that they had to operate
immediately to find out just how bad it was.
She went in to hospital just over a week
later, cheerily telling people she was going in for a hysterectomy. Why? Well,
she explained that she wanted to keep strong within herself, and that this
would help her so that she didn’t have to explain the scary truth to others. So
we went along with it, and were forbidden to tell friends or family what was
really happening.
I realize now that this was just about
the worst thing any of us could have done, as we had to keep up the pretense
that everything was ok, while struggling with the inner turmoil and fear of the
truth. But my sister and I stayed true to mum’s wishes. We stayed strong, and
during the first few days I only told one very close friend what was really
happening – and felt wracked with guilt in the process. The truth came out
pretty quickly, though, as it became clear just how far the cancer had spread,
and mum simply couldn’t hide it anymore.
The illness didn’t last very long. My
sister and I visited her no more than 4 times in hospital. By Wednesday 4th
February, we were told she was too ill for us to see her – and she died at
21.50 on Friday 6th February less than a month after we had first discovered
she was ill.
I didn’t go to her funeral. Mum always
said she didn’t want a funeral – too much fuss, too much sadness and such a
waste of flowers she used to tell me. So, again, I followed her wishes and
opted instead to go to school that morning – utter craziness as I look back on
those times, but I honestly thought I was doing the best thing, and that she’d
have been proud.
We went to live with our guardians – an old
friend of the family, his wife and their young son, and another baby on the way.
And we did our best to fit in, to be ‘good girls’ and to help out and stay
happy – we were conscious to not become a burden, and although our entire
existence had changed, we did a pretty good job at keeping up the façade.
The next tsunami happened on
Sunday 9th January 1983.
Just a couple of weeks earlier we’d
celebrated my 18th birthday with a huge party at the house. I was in my final
year of A Levels and things were pretty good. My sister and I had arrived home
late from a weekend visit with our paternal grandparents in Lincolnshire. We
had made the five-hour coach ride down from Peterborough to Eastburne, and then
took a taxi home just before midnight. We’d been laughing together the entire
journey, and giggling at some of the things our grandparent had been saying and
doing over the weekend. The house was in darkness when we got home and everyone
was already in bed. So we said good night to each other and crept quietly to
our bedrooms. Mine was right at the top of the house, and directly above the
bedroom of my guardians. I reached behind the door to turn the light on, and
went in to my room.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. There, strewn
across the floor and my bed, were my mother’s clothes…! I stared in disbelief
as two familiar demons, shock and horror, wrapped their icy arms around me. It
could only have been my guardians who would have done this – but I reasoned
that there was nothing I could do at that point. So I carefully picked up the clothes,
folded them up, and got myself ready for bed. Once again, that well-known
feeling of dread was gnawing away at the pit of my stomach. My heart pounded
and my head swam with unanswerable questions that seemed to taunt me. I knew
for certain that my life was once again about to change forever.
The following morning we got up and went
down stairs for breakfast – I don’t remember whether or not I told my sister
what had happened, but I do remember than neither of our guardians was at the
breakfast table. Their small son toddled in, and we busied ourselves with
getting him fed and watered, as was our usual routine. My guardian came down
just a minute before we were due to leave, and I asked where his wife, Gilly
was. He just brushed me off saying “she’s too tired this morning” and
rushed us in to the car. The car stereo was at full blast, and nothing was
said. So I steeled myself to ask that same question I had asked my mother when
she came out from the doctor’s surgery “Well, are you going to tell us
then?”
My inquiry was met with coldness. Not the
love and concern that mum had shown when I had asked her the same question. No,
this time it was a sneer. “You’re going to stay with your grandmother.
You’re to pack your bags tonight and you’re leaving tomorrow morning. You’re
not coming back.” And that was that.
I felt a failure. I hadn’t managed to
safeguard our new home, or protect my little sister. Once again I pulled myself
up to stay strong and ‘grown up’ in a situation where I was still not much more
than a child myself.
Many years have passed since then, and
there are many more stories to tell – but they are for another time.
For now, suffice it to say that the
most recent tsunami hit on 21st April 2009 when I discovered the truth
about my husband. And it’s been the most devastating shock I have yet had to
deal with – it is also the one that has hit me the hardest. Because this time I
was an adult. This time I had chosen my situation. And the betrayal crashed
down on every single level of my heart, body and soul. Everything that I’d
trusted, everything that I’d loved and put my faith in was suddenly swept away
in a heartbeat.
Is it a coincidence that it happened on
the very day when I officially outlived my mother – and, therefore both my
parents? I don’t know – I’m still working on that one.
I’ve decided that I must have been born
with a strong soul to endure such things – but I’m beginning to wonder just
what lessons I’m meant to be learning. Lessons that perhaps I’ve just been too
darned stubborn or stupid to learn!
This time, I decided that perhaps I’d
stop being so strong. Perhaps I’ll stop believing that I have to be super human
and carry the weight of responsibility on my own.
This time, perhaps I’ll be able to accept
the healing waves of unconditional love and support that surround me –
often showing themselves in the most unexpected of ways and from the most
unexpected of people. Just like the innocent visit from Berber – a local farmer
who knows nothing of my earlier past.
This time, perhaps I WILL let myself fall
– and learn to trust that I’ll be caught, supported and carried to safety by
the hands of friendship that are reaching out to me every day. Perhaps I’ll be
the soft human being that I really am, and perhaps in the process I can also
heal the little girl who, somewhere deep inside of me is still waiting for her
hero to come home.
Since writing that particular post I have
come a long way. Over the coming weeks I will be sharing stories with you about
the things I learned along the way, together with some of the methods I used
that helped me to survive and ultimately reclaim my life. I hope you will find
them useful!
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