When Hawkesbury woman Karen (not her real name) told the harrowing tale of her domestic abuse and subsequent loss of custody of her children, she said something shocking at the end.
“If I knew back then what I know now, I would have stayed,” she said. “At least I got to tuck them in every night.”
Karen, in her early 30s now, told her story to the Gazette in support of upcoming White Ribbon Day on November 25 which campaigns to stop domestic violence.
She has two primary-school aged children, a boy and a girl, and was with her ex-husband for a total of nine years.
“We have been separated now for three years,” she said. “Everyone has good sides and bad sides. As women, we fall in love with their good side.
“Things went wrong fairly early, before the kids arrived. There were controlling behaviours, A couple of times I tried to escape. The first red flag was when we went out one night and had a fight. I said ‘that’s it, it’s over’. We went to go home and he started swerving crazily and threatened to kill both of us.
“I was 21 and he was 10 years older, and we’d been living together for about six months.
“I’d learnt that when you’re in a dangerous situation with someone, you calm them down to get out of that situation. So I said I still loved him, it was OK, and calmed him down but when we got home I got out, kicked off my heels and ran down to the police station. I didn’t go in though.
“You question what you did to promote that behaviour and you forgive. Most women I know have hot heads and hot mouths. So we look at ourselves and feel guilt and remorse.
“A few days later we got back together. A lot of things happened after that, but I don’t remember them now – I don’t dwell on the bad things.
“I fell pregnant a year or so later, then we got married. On the way to the wedding my best friend begged me to drive off and she would look after the fallout. I had told him I’m not going to marry him unless this, this and this changes and he said he would. I kept on with my dream of having a husband and a family and a home. I was 24 by then.
“We had lots of good times in between but over the years he got colder and colder. Trying to get love from that man was like trying to get blood out of a stone. I think he kept me around to be the kids’ nanny. He couldn’t give me compliments. Anytime I felt good about myself he would find a way to bring me down.
“Once I’d left and had time away to think about it, being with a controlling man is like being in a cult. Over time they slowly manipulate your brain to believe that you’re only worth what they say you’re worth. You slowly start to believe them. It started when I stopped working [to have kids].
“I would talk about leaving and he would say ‘you couldn’t cope in this world, you’d be in the gutter without me’. It was almost like a child and adult situation.
“He’d give me enough money each day for bread and milk and dinner. I didn’t have a bank account. I started to feel I was reliant on his ways. It’s all I knew. When money was tight I’d ask if he wanted help with the budget and he’d say ‘you couldn’t do the budget, you’d have no idea’. As the years went by the cult mentality becomes your normal.
“My friend checked out – she couldn’t handle it anymore. I haven’t seen her since.”
She said another facet of their problems was drugs.
“We’d got into smoking a lot of marijuana in this marriage, and addictions hold you there as well. He was the supplier. I got to the point where I wanted to get off it. I went for a week of detox and it got me off it. I stayed straight for a couple of months.
“I asked him to get on board with it as well [getting off the marijuana] as when he ran out of it and didn’t have the money to get some more, he would take it out on me – hit me. I’d hide in the backyard until he’d had a smoke.
“He busted my face right up a few times. One night we had a really bad fight because I’d got my first Facebook account. He hit me in front of my son. I grabbed my phone and went into the bedroom and said I was calling the police. Instead I rang my mum to come and get me. He thought he’d get in first and rang the police himself and said I’d been hitting him.
“Police came but didn’t know what to do, but because my son was there they had to do something, and they arrested me. I had a busted lip but he denied he’d done it. When I got down to the police station, the officer said ‘we’re sick of families like you. If we have to come down again, we’re going to take your son’. I had absolutely no respect for them after that. Why would I call police again?
“They put an AVO on me to protect my husband. I had to sign it as I was shit scared and afraid they’d take my son. You do what you have to do to survive. It was an AVO where you’re still living with the person. We had more fights but neither of us called the police.
“He would hit me and I would hit him so I felt guilty afterwards that I had contributed by standing up for myself. I tried to get away a few times but he would pull cords from my car so it wouldn’t start, hide my phone, lock me in the house, lock me out of the house.
“I remember him once asking me who I was straightening my hair for and later I found my straightening iron and tanning lotion thrown up the backyard. I just wanted to look nice. It all goes back to your feelings of self-worth. It gets to the point you don’t bother straightening your hair.”
The beginning of the end was when her counsellor advised her to leave.
“I knew it was a very toxic relationship. The counsellor said ‘go to detox, get your kids and get out of there’.”
She and her sister-in-law decided to try one last thing – an intervention, with both of his parents and Karen’s mum to come to their house and try and sort something out. It started out well.
“His parents asked him to come home and stay with them for a while. He denied the problems and asked his father into the bedroom to talk to him. They were in there for half an hour. His father came out and said ‘this is your marriage and you should sort it out. You should never have come to us’. He started yelling at my mum to get out of his house. The look in his eyes – I knew I had to get the f--- out.
“When I got to my car he’d undone the wires again and I couldn’t drive. I was going to take my kids but he grabbed my daughter’s arm and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t play tug of war with her so I left with my mum. All I had was my handbag and phone.”
She rang the Women’s Cottage in Richmond, which her mum had recommended many times, and in a matter of hours they had an exit plan for her for the following morning.
“I picked the kids up from school and daycare halfway through the day and caught the train from Windsor to a refuge in the city. It was two hours away. I was shaking. We were at the refuge for about two weeks. I put my son into school near there.
“My husband kept sending messages saying he was suicidal. I believed him. I said I’d come back but live with my mum and he could see the kids on the weekend. We had this arrangement for the next eight months. I got myself a weekend job and rented my own place.
“Everything was going fine then he wanted to do the property settlement. He threw me a bone but I got financial advice and they said I’d be robbing myself of $200K so I said no.
“The next time he had the kids he didn’t return them. He kept them for a week. I pleaded with him and said I would accept his offer, so I got them back again.”
Things went bad again when he found out she had a new partner. “That was it. He was yelling at me about having a partner. He pulled me out of the car onto the ground and said ‘you’ll never see them again’. My daughter was crying but my son was silent. He took the kids. He pulled them out of school and daycare.
“I called the police after I hadn’t seen my kids for a week or two. I tried to get Legal Aid but that takes a month or so. They denied me. I didn’t see my kids for three and a half months. They were living with his parents and he put my son into a school near there. I finally got to court with a Legal Aid junior.
“We fronted up against his solicitor, apparently the best one in Parramatta. But my paper trail of trying to get help with detox stuck to me like shit to a blanket. He hadn’t tried to get help and so was able to deny it [that he’d had a problem with marijuana too].
“My junior couldn’t handle the heat in court. The judge said as the kids had been where they were for several months, they should stay there for stability. I was given access one night a week ‘and we’ll see you in six months’, the judge said. They gave us both random drug tests where you had to urinate in front of a nurse so they knew it was your urine.
“The courts still did nothing. I had a part-time job but ended up getting a full time job so I could get my own solicitor. Legal Aid will only do the bare minimum. I finally got a good solicitor. I’d say to anyone, get yourself a good solicitor, no matter what.
“The court ordered a family report. They said ‘the kids are missing their mother – they need to go back to her for five days a fortnight’. I’d got up every night to change their nappies, breastfeed them, look after them….. I agreed to that and the court approved it. We’d been nearly two years in and out of court. He enjoyed the power play. He had the biggest grin every time we walked out of court.”
Holding her heart she said. “the emotional turmoil that drags out of you, it is absolutely tiring and draining”. “It’s all you live and breathe. People would constantly think ‘what’s she done that he’s got the kids?’. You stop worrying what people think after a while.
“They’re basically being brought up by their grandparents and he goes there for dinner each night.
“If I knew back then what I know now, I would have stayed. At least I got to tuck them in every night. I would do anything for that. They fall over and I’m not there to cuddle them and that kills me. The pain of him hitting me is nothing like the pain of being away from my babies.
“I hope that my leaving will teach my children – my daughter – that you don’t put up with a man like that. You teach them that’s not OK. But he’s their dad – I want them to love him. They can be themselves when they’re with me but he doesn’t like to see them hugging me so I have a code – I’ll wink when my son leaves and that means a hug, to take the pressure off him in front of his father.
“I’ve done everything I can do to try and make this the best for the kids. That’s how I sleep at night.”
It looks like it’s working. While her son used to mimic his dad and blame Karen around the time of the break up, “now he has a chivalry around me. When I ask him what he wants, he says ‘whatever’s cheapest for you mum’.
“They’ve had to grow up before their time. I’m lucky my daughter is resilient – she’ll be OK. I’m not out of their lives. I have to look at the positives. I don’t take my children for granted.”
