Chapter 2. The beginning of the end

The Janergy Effect manuscript

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"I want a divorce!"

Am I the only one who has wanted to blurt those words out of their mouth at some point of their life? I knew that I was in the wrong place, with the wrong man, while trying to live my right life.  And rather than saying what I wanted and needed to say, I sat silent, hoping that this would be the last time I was yelled at, or the last time something got smashed – you should have seen the imprint on the fridge from where he punched it - or the last time I had to watch him storm off in a rage when he didn’t get his own way or I did something to annoy him.  It went on for far too long.

“I want a divorce! I want a divorce! I want a divorce! I WANT A FUCKING DIVORRRRRRCCCCCE!

I had practiced those words in my head for many years – even before we sealed the deal with rings and vows that we had prepared to cement our ongoing commitment to loving each other. They were thoughtful, whimsical and simple but they never really lived up to the meanings that we had attached to them; well not for me anyway.  In fact, when I look back now, there was nothing right about that relationship, because something always felt off.  But like many others before me and many after me, we go ahead with something because at the time we think it is right and deep down we believe that love will make a bed of roses out of what turns out to be a shit show.

I should never have married him, but I did and I was slowly suffocating under the weight of his anger and control.  The two things that I wasn’t became part of my daily norm and the anger and control eventually became unbearable for me.  There are so many things I love about myself and these include that I never get angry and I never try to control anyone and yet here I was on the receiving end of someone else’s inability to own their emotions and how they impacted on others.

I am someone with a very high resilience level and when this relationship started to wear me down, I knew that I had to find my voice and hope that it would be heard.  That is hard when you know that a larger and stronger voice was going to power over the top of yours, so you just begin to shut up and go on living a life that no longer feels like it has any spark, until one day you say enough is enough, and you mean it, and more importantly, you do something about it.

When we met, he was attracted to my presence. I am a bit of a free spirit and have a very easy-going nature and the things that he initially liked about me, became the things that seemed to eventually annoy him the most. It annoyed him that I would not get worked up about stuff, or I would be forgiving when someone did something that wasn’t right. I was never angry, nasty or sarcastic. I had learnt that it’s possible and okay to let stuff go and move on, rather than milking every last agonising miserable ounce out of a situation.

He used to mockingly call me an “enlightened being”, as I had developed a natural way of keeping perspective and looking at life with a free-spirited and easy-going attitude and vision.  I’m actually chuffed to be an enlightened being, as I think it implies that I have done the work needed to get my shit together and be in touch with life and the things that matter. And what matters to me, is making sure that people feel safe and secure and fill their life with as much joy as possible and here I was with a man who was not making me feel safe and secure.  Was there joy? Yes, there was, but it eventually became overshadowed by all the other shitty stuff that was chipping away at my soul.

When you live with someone who is angry and controlling, you eventually succumb to the environmental factors.  You put up and shut up and even start to shut down emotionally and physically.  Towards the end of this union, I had no desire to be in his personal space. The energy he was giving off was all encompassing and I could feel it physically and mentally draining me. But I would always find ways to keep myself going and keep preserving what sense of self I could, so that I could continue to function and put on the happy smile that people would love to see.

Throughout my life, I always struggled with speaking up for fear of making others feel uncomfortable. Does anyone else do that? You know that something isn’t right, but you choose to suffer and be uncomfortable, rather than stand up for what is rightfully yours in the first place.  And for me, it was my right to live in peace, harmony and to be respected, and I was compromising my own wellbeing and values because of the fear of what would be dished out to me verbally or emotionally. It didn’t matter how many times I begged for things to be better, the message just never got through.

I’d been single for many many years and apart from settling for the first man who came along, I consider myself to be a bit of an explorer. I like to see the bigger picture of life and want to make great stops on the way to my final destination. He used to say I was a squiggle as I could never just go in a straight line anywhere. Who wants to live their life in a straight line kind of way – I couldn’t bear to think of all the things I might miss out on seeing, or all the people I would not get to engage with if I lived my life going in a straight line. I love being a squiggle because it gives me choice, freedom and spontaneous excitement. 

I remember once we were leaving our local coffee shop and someone said hi, so I said hi back and stayed for a brief conversation.  Mr Cranky Pants stormed off (in a straight line) back to the car and I followed moments later knowing full well that there would be displeasure at my breaking rank and not adhering to the rules.  And the rules were simple.  If we say we are going, we go. Don’t go off the plan.

Well, it just occurred to me that straight lines are made with rulers and he was ruling the roost.  I was making my way through life with my sparkle, my positivity and my squiggleness and that’s what people would love about me.  This aspect that I bought to our relationship made him look like a great guy, but my squiggle was beginning to slowly unsquiggle.

My stomach churns as I write this, as it is stirring up memories and emotions of a woman who should have been living a carefree existence but instead was on someone else’s clock and agenda.  I was also trying to balance someone’s poor emotional bank balance and I have to wonder how I ever ended up in that union given it was so far from the life I had been living before we met.

Actually, I know how I ended up in that union, I was lonely, I was going through some other life events and I was sucked into his charming ways and before I knew it, I couldn’t see a way out and the moments that should have been great and happy, became lost as they were steamrolled with his anger and control. Outwardly, my shine and sparkle were still on display, but the weight of the ruler was reigning supreme.

There were a couple of moments early on in the relationship that my alarm bells went off and one was when we were having a celebration at his place and were enjoying some champagne.  He had begun washing up and I was just enjoying every sip of my bubbles till he told me to hurry up and finish it so he could wash the glass. I just thought wow, you are a bit of a pleasure thief so I stopped and gave the glass back.  I didn’t even bother finishing it. It was an awkward uncomfortable moment and as someone who believes that fun comes first and washing up comes second, I found it very strange and quite a demanding display of unnecessary authority.

Very few knew the daily torment that had snuck into my peace-loving life and eventually, I had the courage to share with some, but kept the depth of my torment locked away from most, who I can only assume had no idea, or had no idea what to say when they witnessed my public belittling or the angry face or words that would be cast my way when his displeasure at me struck.  Even something as simple as me not putting something in the right place in the fridge would be enough for him to become frustrated and annoyed. And yet at other times, he didn’t care.  This was a true passive-aggressive relationship.

My family were witness to his behaviour and were sometimes targets and at one point early on in our relationship they offered to come and pack me up and move me out.  I declined, thinking that all would be okay and that my kind, calm persona would eventually rub off and he may start to display some of qualities that would make him a softer human. But no!

Not only was I subject to grief by him, but I also had to deal with his son, whose sociopathic and bizarre behaviour was finally confirmed when he was arrested for a violent crime when he was 15.  He ended up spending a period of time in a juvenile jail for this, but there was much debate about whether he should have gone to the big house due to the nature of the incident.

It's important that I add a graphic content warning here. He had recently run away from home and met up with some bad eggs and he was obviously getting into some bad business, because one day, we received a call from the police saying they had arrested him after shoplifting and discovered he was carrying a rather large knife – the type of knife that is called a meat cleaver.

We headed off to the police station to find out what had happened and to take him back into our care.  We hadn’t seen him for some weeks and he claimed he was living on the street and needed the knife for protection and I just sat in disbelief as he stony faced lied to the police about all manner of stuff. 

The police released him into our care and he was expected to come back home with us. After all, he was a minor, and as we walked out of the station, he just turned and walked off in the other direction and refused to come.  We left empty handed and it was only a few hours later that he was arrested again – for carrying another rather large knife, and he was physically bought home to us by the police.  They gave him a fairly tough talking to, but once they left, so did he.  We found out that he had been living not far from home with a group of troubled kids and there appeared to be one older boy who was calling all the shots and obviously influencing him in really negative way.

During this time, I was working from home and I heard on the news that a group of youths had attacked someone with a machete at a location nearby.  I had this overwhelming feeling come over me that he was involved.

Later that evening, we started receiving some very strange and threatening phone calls and assumed it had something to do with my ex-husband’s son, so we turned the phone off and went to sleep and just figured they were probably drunk kids being idiots.

In the morning, we were contacted by the police who said they had arrested a number of boys over the recent attack and guess who was one of them? 

This boy was charged the following morning for his involvement and was so stupid, that he thought he’d just be allowed out and could get back on the street.  He spent the day in lockup whining and complaining and clearly not realising the magnitude of what he was involved with. He was then charged and sent to the juvenile detention centre where he was held until his trial many months later. Because of his age, his details were kept private, so it was something we didn’t have to really deal with publicly. We were the people who were supposed to be keeping this child out of harm’s way, but he would do what he like and didn’t care about the consequences and never ever showed any remorse for his actions.

At trial he pleaded guilty and through his cooperation in implicating the other members of the group, he had his longer sentence reduced. A condition of his release was that he had to live with us and had to be in the company of one of us at all times. This meant that everything you wanted to do such as going for a simple morning coffee meant that he had to come, except he would often refuse to come with us or fit into our adult life needs, so it was pretty shit. I was still working from home, so can you imagine how that must have been for me?

He was so disregarding of the rules that he would pretty much do what he wanted and he had this wonderful way of making everyone else feel like they were the bad guy, or girl, in my case.

The release conditions were very clear – he was not to be out on his own, so that meant at times, he would have to be home by himself, but he didn’t care for the rules and we’d sometimes see him down the street hanging out with his friends after sneaking out. It was like nothing ever happened and he didn’t care about what would happen should the police see or catch him breaking his release conditions. This kid certainly seemed to have nine lives.

Eventually, he was allowed to have a bit more freedom and was given permission to go outside alone during the day, but had a curfew at night and wasn’t allowed out without a guardian. I began to notice that a particular window was ajar when I got up in the morning and at first, I put it down to simple forgetfulness, but this boy was a risk taker and would climb out the window and scale along the edge of the building and go wandering.  Although we were only on the first floor, the window he would climb out of was much higher up as it was at the back of the building and due to the way the place was constructed, it was a long way down to the ground.  Not only was it unsafe, but he was breaking the law. We then had to begin locking all the windows and doors to minimise his night time escapes.

It was a pretty difficult situation as he ensured that everyone was kept as uncomfortable as possible and things came to a head one day when he got into a very bad argument with his father and it became quite physical.  I had no option but to call the police because I didn’t know who would come off worse.  The police came and this master manipulator spun a story that made him look like he was in real danger, so they him away and put him into a motel for a few nights with a guardian, but he was back after a few days. 

He also had to do some supervised programs – it was earn or learn after being in Juvie – and he was assigned a social worker who would ferry him to and from these.  There was only one day I felt physically scared to be in his presence and it was when he came back home to pick up some identification.  Once inside our flat, he cornered me in the hallway because I wouldn’t give him the paperwork directly. I insisted on giving it to the caregiver who was outside, as I thought it would be better as I had no trust in him. He would not let me past to get to the door and was getting agitated and angry, but I told him to back the fuck away and to let me through. Yep, he threatened me, but I stood my ground and was not going to be intimidated anymore by him.  I know what this young boy was capable of and I was already going through enough without having to manage him as well.  After that experience, I insisted that he was no longer welcome in our home.

This boy was king at exhibiting disturbing behaviour and the actions he displayed throughout my relationship and subsequent marriage, were not those of somebody that I was ever used to having to deal with. As it turned out, he was one of the main offenders in this crime he was involved in, and I still feel so sorry for his victims to think that their lives were changed forever due to the actions of a teenage boy.

Even before this event, he displayed such strange behaviour.  When his father and I began dating, he would go through my belongings that I kept at his place and do things like chop off the tips of my lipsticks, or I’d find that my things would suddenly disappear and I was set up to believe that I was imagining or overreacting to this child’s torment.  We have a name for it now folks, and it is called gaslighting. And it was bad.

Not long after meeting my ex-husband, I went out with some girlfriends for a party and bought home a whole heap of helium balloons and put them in the bedroom. He decided to take the scissors to them and cut off all the strings and I thought that was just a disgraceful act, but there never seemed to be any discipline for his bad behaviour.

Initially my ex-husband would always side with his son and I’d always have to take a step back and accept the behaviour that I was apparently imagining.  We even went as far as to put a lock on our bedroom door so he couldn’t get in and any items I had that were part of the wider home, I packed up and put away so he couldn’t touch them. There were so many things I eventually found that had been thrown out the window by him.

Eventually, my ex-husband’s eyes were open to the scale of which this boy would be subtly tormenting me and although he was always a problem until the day I left, he was no longer my problem.  I could write so much more about this child, but I am going to park it here, because it isn’t something I really want to revisit.

I did feel a great deal of sympathy and empathy for him and did my best to treat him as I would my own son, but no matter how much I displayed my kind, caring, empathetic and nurturing nature, it was clearly not welcome in this boy’s life

I guess you are probably scratching your head wondering why I kept going on with this relationship.  I certainly got the two for one NO DEAL!

If I was the woman I am now, I would have just got up, told my ex to grow up, to stop being such a nasty man and walked away, but at that time, I guess I was also being manipulated in a way that controlled me to stay in that relationship.

I would come across people who had such beautiful unions and who talked so highly of their partners and treated them with so much respect, kindness and love and I wished that I was one of those people, but nope, I was the woman who hung her head or snuck off with an excuse when yet another not so subtle dig was directed at me while beers were shared with the neighbours, or any other time when a put down was thrown my way.

He would also turn his rage to other members of my family and with raised voice, stamping feet and finger wagging to prove his point, he was like a man possessed and I would stand by helpless, not knowing how to intervene because I didn’t want to make the situation worse.  It couldn’t really get any worse to be honest and it was only a matter of time until I eventually said those magic words……I want a divorce!

The weird thing about this relationship and possibly relationships with this kind of abuse is that you find yourself wanting to comfort or make sure the person who is the abuser is okay.  Many a time I would chase after him when he had a melt down and try to put things back on track.  It was like I had to pick a side and make sure he was okay, even after he had treated me or others so badly.

His anger was next level but when he had been drinking, it was off the chart.

On one occasion not long after meeting, he had been at a work function for most of the day and when it finished late in the evening, he called and asked me to come and pick him up.  I drove the short distance into the city and he wasn’t where he said he would be. I ended up seeing him further down the road sitting at a bus stop. He got in the car and then I was witness to something that I could never in my wildest dreams imagine.

First up it began by him wanting to know why I had come to get him. He accused me of stalking him all day and night and said that I was crazy for following him around. I tried to explain that he had rung and asked me to collect him, but it just wasn’t registering.  He was so far gone with booze that nothing I did or said would have sunk in.

He then started screaming at me to let him out of the car, but I couldn’t stop because it wasn’t safe.  He then exploded and proceeded to punch my windscreen with so much force and so many times, that it smashed and I had no choice but to pull over.  I was so scared that I was going to be the next thing that got hit or that this situation would cause an accident. 

When he got out of the car he was raging and then tried to attack a taxi driver who was just standing there minding his own business. As I watched him displaying this kind of aggression, I wondered what the fuck I was going to do. He was out of control and it wasn’t the only time he attacked strangers when he was drunk.

I drove home, called a friend and told him what happened and asked if he would go and see if he could find him and check if he was okay.  I didn’t really know what his cut of point was in terms of harm as this was the first time I’d seen this side of him. Meanwhile, I hid in the spare room down beside the bed hoping that if he came home, I would be spared any further trauma.

He did eventually arrive back, still yelling and carrying on.  His clothes were ripped and he was an absolute mess.  He fell into bed and awoke like nothing had happened.  He wasn’t even genuinely sorry or even embarrassed about this or the damage he did to my car, let alone concerned about how I felt following this ordeal and that’s because I was the reason he did it. I remember sobbing through most of the day and trying to avoid him and having to face this horrible question…..are you going to be like this all day?

So how did I feel after this event?  I felt fearful, confused, sick, distressed, embarrassed that the apartment block witnessed his return and continuing outburst.  I also felt like I was in unchartered waters and hoped to god that nothing like this would ever happen again.  But it did, on many occasions and I just learned to live with it or at times when I did try to break away, I was sucked back in with apologies.

He could never take responsibility for his own anger or actions as it was always someone else who triggered his rage.

Throughout my story, I hope that you may feel inspired to think about whether any situation you are in is the best one for you or whether you can do something to change it for the better.  Even if it is just finding a little more joy in your day, or finding the courage to take a bold step to regain or find your power.

I believe we can take control of nearly any situation we may find ourself in and any emotions that come with it.  Anger is something that can be controlled, and I believe that if you really want to make a change from within, you have to identify what that change is, and put in the work.

Part of his anger stemmed from past hurts and that was apparent when blame was passed on to other people for the actions he was displaying.  I have my own past hurts, but I have learned to respond in a way that will not do harm to myself and others.  Oh, and I don’t want to look like a giant dick, just because I don’t get my own way.

I often wondered how his body coped with the roller coaster of anger that was flowing through it, because all that rage would have to put stress on your organs and towards the end of our marriage, he began to have raw festering sores on his legs. I used to say that maybe his blood was boiling with rage and eating away at him?  Doctors could never find the cause of these, even after countless tests, so maybe I was right, maybe his anger was eating him alive.

During this relationship, I felt like I was living two lives – the life a woman who never knew what I would do next to trigger an unbearable, unnecessary outburst and the woman who wanted to fly high and shine brightly and be in a happy union where I felt respected, cared for and safe.

Regardless of what fucked up event had happened at home, or at the market, or in the street, or at a café, or the local club, or in the car, or the car park, or at a friend’s place or on holiday, or on the phone or anywhere really, I would try my best to be me – smiling, happy, sparkling me, but it was hard to do when your stomach was churning or your eyes were red from crying or you had to pretend that all was okay, as it would only make him madder if you showed how affected you were by his torment. And whenever I heard that horrible question – are you going to be like this all day? I knew I had better pretend to be the happy wife.

Many days would start and finish with tears rolling down my face and what as I can only describe a gnawing in my stomach.  It was a horrible feeling and one that was quite foreign to me, until I met him.  It’s really hard to just pretend like nothing has happened and you have to go back to being the loving, romantic partner who has to forget the events that have unfolded, because I should just be able to “get over it”, but it isn’t that easy. 

In times when arguments were happening, another favourite sayings was “do you want a divorce?” Oh boy, did I want a divorce, but I didn’t have the courage to say yes. I figured that the fallout from those words may have been even more detrimental to me, so I just said no. Over and over again.

It took me a long time to realise that I was in a very emotionally abusive relationship and one that I slowly tried to turn around with my desire to make it work.

I had for the most part of the final tough year tried to find new and creative ways that I hoped would connect with his rational intellect.  He was intelligent, so I began to thoughtfully initiate discussions about how much I was suffering and shared ways for him to see that anger is a controllable emotion and that if this emotion didn’t get under control, it would eventually bring us unstuck. And unstuck we came.

I was so grateful for my work, because it was a safe space. Mostly! And I say mostly, because it was where I went each day to find some respite, but even there, I would often arrive upset or have to deal with angry messages or calls and I’d put on my happy face and get on with the day. It was hard to function, but you just begin to separate those two lives and I think that’s probably where my strong resilience played such a big part.  I could still get on with the job regardless and never let my home issue affect my working day.

I was also grateful for his work towards the end of our marriage, because he took up a job that saw him travelling up and down the coast which meant he was away a week and then home a week and the weeks he was home, he would drop and pick me up from work.

One afternoon, he came to collect me and I was running late to meet him. I was helping someone in crisis, so didn’t have a chance to call and let him know.  I was only 10 minutes late, but that 10 minutes and me not letting him know was like putting a match to a stick of dynamite and when I hopped in the car…..KABOOM. I would never be late again and I knew at that moment that I was done in that relationship.

It was only a matter of weeks and following another outburst, that I finally had the courage to say those magic words - I want a divorce, and I was ready for the fallout.  Thing is, there wasn’t any big hoopla or aggressive outburst at that moment. It came a while later and he was shocked, which is strange given that he seemed to be happy with this “normal” and when he suggested counselling, it was a no from me. I had suggested counselling so many times and it was always met with resistance.  I had released the words I had wanted to say for so long and we were done. Actually, we weren’t quite done.

I remained strong in my decision, took my wedding rings off and wondered “what next”.  It was a while before we publicly shared our separation, and people were genuinely surprised. From the outside we looked like a solid couple, but from the inside it was a mess.

We also had to live together for a long period of time, as there was no other option easily available for us to live independently. A clean break would have been amazing, but it was about nine months till I was finally on my own and starting my new life.  Talk about a rebirth. But during this time, I was still at the receiving end of his tantrums, but the great thing was, that I was no longer going to put up with his shit.

Shortly after I had said the magic words, he went overseas to visit his family and that gave me some breathing space. And even during this time, I was subject to ongoing drunken messages and calls about how I had ruined his life and how I would be responsible for something stupid he might do when he was drunk and in a rage.  I wasn’t going to own his guilt. In fact, I don’t think I ever owned his guilt, which is a good thing, but I was certainly a verbal punching bag and at times very afraid of his anger and that was more than enough weight to carry.

There were some good things in this relationship and I think it had potential to be a solid union, but it wasn't growing and growth in a relationship is so important. We did a lot of amazing travel, threw great parties, we did have lots of fun, but it was always overshadowed by the turn of events that could be triggered by what I consider to be nothings, but for him were somethings.

In fact, he had planned to propose to me on Sugarloaf Mountain in Brazil while we were on a work trip that he had qualified for.  His boss knew of this and knew of how important is was that he qualified but that didn’t stop him from having another almighty meltdown leading up to this trip and his excuse this time was stress and the worry about not being able to give me the proposal he’d hoped for. What a lot of nonsense.  He was just an angry man who couldn’t control his emotions and used excuses to make it seem okay. We did go to Brazil and he did propose and I said yes.

I knew all along that I was deserving of more and already knew that the future was not going to be a great one with him, but I was stuck in this situation not really knowing how to get out of it. Ten years is a lot of time and energy to give to someone else whose changes only seemed to be for the worse and me and my total being were investing in something that didn’t and wasn’t going to give a good return.

Some people are of the belief that our path is laid out for us and others believe that we make our own destiny and I think I have a foot in either camp.

Our life is made up of experiences both good and bad and they are sent to challenge us and help us grow.  How we react and respond is also essential to our growth and it didn’t matter how I responded to events in my relationship, I knew I was never going to be free to be me, or more importantly, I’d never be truly happy.

I stopped looking for ways to help fix an unfixable situation and began looking at ways to help fix me and to take back ownership of my own life. It was a choice.  I either put an end to my suffering and stopped investing, or I continued to pay the price of trying to repair something that for ten years was just going in the same unhealthy direction and was wearing me down.  I couldn’t stand to be around negative, angry people and here I was dedicating my life to one.

The fear of living in fear and in this shitty marriage was now worse than the fear of stepping into the unknown and at 48 years of age, taking back my life.  And with that I:

1. Acknowledged that I deserved better
2. Took control of the situation
3. Made the decision to end it and did something about it
4. Had faith that all would be okay and asked the universe to work its magic
5. Congratulated myself for taking this ginormous step and kept moving and forward focussed.

When was the last time you did a stocktake of your life and made a list of what is working well and what isn't? Whether it is your job, a relationship, a friendship, or something as simple as opening the cupboard to see what's in there that you may not have used for a while and could be out of date. I think we are in a time where we realise how life is so precious and it's okay to take a moment and think about whether the people or things we are spending our life with or what we are doing is serving us in a way that is best. And if it isn’t, then it’s okay to let them go, because they are not meant to be there.

I am proud of myself for initiating the beginning of the end, because I, like everyone else, deserves to live a life of peace, happiness, freedom and one that should have unconditional love with so much respect. It was never going to be the relationship that I truly wanted for the rest of my life and thankfully, I took the steps to find a way out.