She was a happy, well balanced, capable independent woman of 27 when they met and she fell in love. For her love was not something to be discarded when it began to wear. It was something she had dreamed of for years and after great difficulty she had two children whom she adored. And she stayed with the marriage for their sake for over 20 years.
Soon after marrying she found herself adjusting her behaviour to suit his moods, and because he blamed her for his behaviour she believed she must be the reason, for she still loved him so much. She little realised that her dream of a happy marriage was impossible for his behaviour was due to his childhood and his relationship with his alcoholic mother.
So she devoted herself to him while trying to change any of her actions which she thought might upset him and this meant trying to change the very essence of herself in order to be what he wanted her to be. The perfect wife and mother which his own had not been.
At the same time because he did not like her friends and family he discouraged her from seeing them until she had cut herself off from everyone who loved and cared for her and might have seen what was happening and intervened.
His behaviour was typical of domestic abuse - isolating her from support of family and friends, playing mind games, suggesting it was she who was crazy, constantly putting her down and criticizing her until she believed it all, and he added a little physical force occasionally to enforce his wishes.
After years of living with his aggression and moodiness, which she later realised had been in him almost from the start of their relationship, and dealing with his overspending which emptied the bank account regularly and put them into debt, and days he spent displayed either great energy or lethargy - he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
A terrible blow but at least she knew what had caused his behaviour but instead of things getting better they got worse and it was still her fault and she suffered anguish because of the terrible hand he had been dealt, because she still loved him.
And so it went on - day after day - fighting for a marriage from which he had disappeared years earlier - even he admitted that. It became torment going from the sanity of the world in which she worked into the bedlam of her bipolar home. A case of the sane trying to live in bedlam.
Then she realoised, the world he lived had become a sealed bubble with only himself, the children and herself inside. It was something he could control and nothing must be allowed to enter or interfere with how he ran it which was why he had disposed of her family and friends, thus isolating her from everything.
She worked and he didn't and yet when she came home he was full of complaints, blaming her for the bad day he'd had, showing little interest in her work apart from spending her paycheck when it came in and it was still all her fault of course.
Unable to work he built a stronger bubble to protect his own little world. A world of his own making and one in which he was the master and those within the bubble obeyed him for he was all mighty and they feared his anger and yet he could not see he had built a world that was a fantasy and when he put his face out into the real world it was a mask which smiled and nodded, and made pleasantries and hid the real him.
The marriage began to hang like a dead albatross around her neck, stifling her and killing her love. She was living in the unreal world of a mentally unbalanced man who believed he was normal and who believed it was she who was unbalanced. Eventually, with no relief in sight, it began dragging her down into the deep dark waters of depression and despair where all seemed lost to her.
If she expected sympathy from him she was disappointed for after all he was the important one who had bipolar. Oh, and I forgot to say that when she got better he took the credit which is the way of those who need to aggrandise themselves!
Then one day she woke. Who knows why! Perhaps someone put a hand through the bubble and held out a life belt for her or her inner self said 'enough is enough' and she saw the truth and acknowledged what marriage to him had done to her. It had almost killed the wonderful, real person she once had been and she realised that the only way she could save herself and her sanity and the very essence of her being was to walk away. Divorce.
And when she began it she suddenly found herself on the outside of his bubble with the entry firmly sealed tightly against her and as she watched she saw him turning her children to face inward until they stopped looking out at her. Then began her slow descent into a hell of his making. The man she now loathed.
The divorce court placed them in her care but he outwitted the law by stealing them away and back into the bubble and the welfare organisations set up to protect two vulnerable children were helpless and couldn't restore them to her despite admitting she was the best person to have them in her care.
Then began his lies about her in an attempt to place all the blame on her and he began to reinforce the bubble to stop her seeing her children, and it was most subtly done for he was clever at smiling and appearing to encourage them publicly while actually alienating them.
Eventually it was almost as though she never existed which is the way he wanted it because he needed to be in control and eventually allowing her to see them occasionally, as instructed by the family court, no longer suited his bipolar map and as time passed the trickle of short visits he arranged between them in public places at which he was always present to ensure they did not break away from his will, dried up.
Time passed and the loss of her children hung heavily upon her and she fell apart for life seemed empty and purposeless, and this emptiness filled her heart and soul, dragging her down into the depths again until she felt she would never surface again.
And then a tiny spark, the last spark left of her old self, ignited a flame which grew into a small fire and like the Phoenix, a rebirth took place as the flame grew stronger and all the people who loved her came out in strength and fed and fanned the flame.
So she grew and became stronger until one day she realised he was no longer her master and he had no power over her. Suddenly his power was gone. It had vanished back into the imaginary perfect bubble world he had created in his own mind, and while she knew she would have to wait for another day to re-unite with her children, the world suddenly seemed a brighter magical place once more.
And only then did she realise what a truly evil place she had escaped from.
A Fairy Story? You can judge this for yourself when I start publishing details of diaries written by someone who suffered similar abuse.
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