25 Aug The Garbage Man: the warning signs of domestic violence

“I’ve packed for you,” he said. A line of garbage bags sat beside him.

A failed attempt at counselling led to this moment. I wanted to leave him and he thought he could “get the counsellor to change my mind”. I told the counsellor, “He’s kicked me, he’s split the muscle in my thigh, I can’t walk and I need your help to get me out of this.”
The day before, I’d called a friend whose father had a vacant house and he willingly offered it to my two children and me. My same friend also arranged  a removalist.

The morning of the day I left him, he smashed my car windscreen into my face. It took three blows for the whole windscreen to shatter. The removal van turned up and gathered my workbags, along with the garbage bags he’d packed. I had no idea what was in them.

When the removalists unpacked my stuff from the truck at the other end, I opened the first garbage bag. It was filled with rubbish. He’d gone around to all the neighbours’ houses and emptied their bins into the garbage bags. Every bag was filled with rubbish. That was my 15 years of living with that guy.

#1 The Lies

The first time my warning light went off, I thought I’d misinterpreted or misheard something he said. I overlooked it. The first signs are confusing.

The lies and deception kept coming. We’d just been to a friend’s wedding and I’d been good friends with the groom for many years. My husband claimed that a week after the wedding, the bride had called him and accused me of being with the groom. He said, “She thinks you’re with her husband but I assured her you weren’t.” Of course it wasn’t true. He was trying to get information from me about where I was.

#2 The Accusations

His jealous behaviour evolved from there, not wanting me to ever be around other men. He made accusations about me flirting, telling me that people had called him up and saw me in places I hadn’t been.

He’d say, “I know what these men are after,” pretending to be protective. I found myself with no male friends whatsoever and became too scared to look at or talk to anyone, especially family or friends that he felt threatened by.

#3 The Isolation

This then crept in to other social situations. He came  to my gym and sat there for over an hour watching my every move, saying he had “locked himself out of the house”. He’d often take my phone because his “wasn’t working”.

One morning, he woke me up at 2am, violently shaking me, sobbing and crying, saying I’d called a guy he suspected I was having an affair with. He was the one who’d dialed the number into my phone when I’d left it behind one day to go to yoga.

He’d always check where I was and who I was with, and kept putting that seed of doubt in my mind that I was doing something wrong. He’d create arguments where he turned things around and made everything my fault.

#4 The Language

His language changed. He started swearing and using derogatory words to describe people. He would use animal names: “What a pig that woman is,” and body parts: “What an a*#!hole”, “What a prick”.

Then he started swearing at me and calling me names. “Stop being a bitch about things”, then, “You are a bitch”, then, “You are a f#!king bitch”. His language became more and more intense.

I made excuses for it, saying, “He’s stressed”, “He’s tired”, “He’s got lots going on”, “I’ll just let it pass”. I thought I was a tough woman, I could deal with it.

#5 The Violence

Then the physical violence started. The first time it was a push. We were having an argument in the bedroom and he wanted to get to the wardrobe, so he pushed me out of the way. Another day, I was sitting on the lounge and he grabbed me by my feet and dragged me off it.

He put his fist through the front door and the shower screen, broke the back door off its hinges when I tried to lock him out, threw a brick at me, threw a plate of food at me, head-butted me, displaced my jaw with his fist and snapped a pair of knitting needles and held them at my throat while he ranted for 20 minutes, pushing them further into me.

My theory on domestic violence is that we need to teach our daughters. We need to teach them the warning signs – lying, accusing, playing victim, jealousy, social isolation, bad language, physical violence – and that they need to take action. I wish my mother had taught me ‘These are your boundaries, don’t you ever step out of them.’ There’s no excuse for bad behaviour – not the first time, or any time.

As women, we also need to band together. When a friend tells you any of these signs, be supportive, non-judgemental and ask what you can do to help. My friend who took charge by booking the removalist and finding me a place to stay took control of the situation when I was too afraid to take action.

The constant stress of violence grinds you down into nothing. You become a person you don’t like, let alone love. I feared for my life. I absolutely believed I was going to be a statistic. He said to my kids, “I’ll never let this go.”

You can’t stamp out the violence in your relationships by trying to teach the abusers. They believe they’re right, that they’ve been driven to abuse to control a situation and that they’re the victim. In any relationship you’re in, if you see these signs say no and move on before it ever has a chance to start. If you have a feeling that something is amiss, trust your gut and get out.

Domestic violence doesn’t happen overnight, it happens bit by bit. It permeates every sense of your life and soul.