His Past

Not long into our own relationship, John and I started to discuss previous relationships. I'd only had a couple of previous boyfriends, but then I was only 18 when I met John. He, on the other hand, came with considerable experience. I don't remember whether I just assumed myself naive, or whether I was impressed with his experience, but I allowed him to show off with stories of his past relationships. He discussed two women in particular - Kate, the girl he was engaged to for a while when he was 19, and Georgie the, the one who had been round all his mates. He told me that he had been devastated when Kate ended their engagement, in fact he was so upset that her mother took pity on him and took him into her bed. Several times! At that point I remember thinking, 'I'm out of my depth here'. Still, I stayed with him.

One evening we went to the 21st Birthday party of a friend of his. John went missing for a while so I went to look for him. As I walked up the stairs I could hear his voice talking to a woman. It was Georgie, one of his ex-girlfriends. As I reached the top of the stairs I heard her say, 'See you on Wednesday night then, can you remember where I live?'. What should I have done? Walked away. of course. What did I do? Ran off crying. He followed me, apologised, said it would never happen again and he only wanted to be with me.

Thinking back, I feel so foolish for my actions. However, they are part of my past and I am unable to change them.

Today

This evening I'm sitting on my bed, in the house that he lied and cheated me into buying - it's worth £170K but I have a mortgage of £100K - this is my current position after 27 years of marriage where every single week I brought a wage in, mostly a full time wage and over the last few years earning more money than he did. Not that I had any money throughout that 27 years - John took just about every penny I earned and used it as he saw fit. By the way, the house he lives in has a £60K mortgage and is worth £400K.

My little house is in darkness apart from the light of my laptop while I type this blog post. I'm not listening to the TV or radio - I need to be aware of all the sounds happening outside the house.

Today was the day John received the letter from my solicitor. Today was the day he harassed me all day long, calling me at work making threats and putting me in a vulnerable position. Today was the day he called my solicitor back stating he wouldn't be agreeing to what the letter asked, and that I wasn't entitled to anything from the house I had left a year ago in order to get away from him.

I left work at 5.30pm. As I made my way to the car park - a 10 minute walk- my eyes were on the lookout and my ears were burning. Was he somewhere near, following me? My mobile phone bleeped, a new message. Guess who from. 'You had better get that notice of interest off my house by Friday, or there won't be a house left for you to have an interest in'. This didn't frighten me - anyone who has been in a relationship with a controlling person knows they are mostly full of empty threats. Bleep. 'If you don't stop doing what you're doing...' (i.e. using a solicitor to file for divorce) '...you're following a dangerous path.' No, I told myself, I am leaving the dangerous path and making a new life.

Suddenly I felt so alone. Of course all 'our' - now his -  'friends' think the world of him. Nice, charming, do anything for anybody John. Anybody except his wife and daughter that is. Of course they don't know the real John, the John who walks up the path each evening on his return from work while his daughter and wife cower and wonder what kind of mood he will be in. The John who walks into the living room while we are in the middle of watching a TV programme, picks up the remote and flicks on to another channel, then walks back out of the room. The John who does not allow laughter in his house - except at the expense of his wife or daughter or when his friends are around. The John who throws countless cups of hot tea at his wife (only a couple ever hit me - I became very good at dodging). The John who is capable of trying to strangle his own daughter yet making such a fuss of everyone else's daughters. The John who has never shown even an ounce of love towards his own daughter. No, his 'friends' appear to have decided how poorly done to he is, left alone by his wife to fend for himself. Along they come, helping him out in his big house with his not so big mortgage, bringing him food and helping him with household chores. Poor lonely John.

Getting to know him

I really don't remember too much negativity about our first four years together. We had our good and bad patches, but doesn't any relationship? I do remember knowing something wasn't right in our relationship, and crying in my bed at night knowing I must end it, even writing letters to him saying we were finished - though I didn't actually send any of them.

I wouldn't want readers to think it was all bad - it wasn't. We had a good time in between incidents. He would take me out on the back of his motorbike at weekends, visit me two or three evenings at home during the week. We would go off for weekend trips, even holidays (though after our two week break in Ibiza he told me he hated the place, however went back the following year with his mates and I found photos of other girls they had become 'friends' with).

I'm trying to remember one incident more clearly. I know it was a Friday night and I was out on the town with my girlfriends while John was out with his mates. We would meet up for last orders in one particular pub, The Three Tuns. I have no idea what started it, but I remember one of my friends saying something that upset him. All of a sudden he had her face in his hand and was twisting it. I remember grabbing his hand and pulling him away from her. Then and there I finished the relationship, didn't see or call him again for two weeks. Again, I really cannot explain why, but I missed him with all my heart. How could I? What sort of person was I who could miss someone who had acted in this way? I cried inside for the whole two weeks, felt humiliated by my boyfriend but also felt so alone without him. After two weeks he called me and we were back together. For this, I feel ashamed and will never forgive myself.

Another time I was out for a drink with another friend, who casually dropped into the conversation that John had given her a lift home after seeing her out one night - and called in at his for a coffee on the way! One of my best freinds - how devastated did I feel! Again, the person I am now would not have continued in this relationship, but the girl I was then, for whatever reason, did just that.

Our first year

January 1982 came and went. I began to forget about the Suzie episode and life returned to normal. Our relationship ran fairly smoothly for the next few months, if I recall correctly. John would come round to our house three evenings during the week, we would meet up for last orders on Friday nights and go out as a couple on Saturdays. I say fairly smoothly, looking back I could kick myself for some of the things I found flattering at the time. The constant touching I had put down to him not being able to keep his hands off me, but the constant little put-me-downs, why did I let him do that? I realise that I was young and naive, but am still unable to understand why I let myself be opressed within a relationship. No matter how many times I search my memory for possible reasons, I come up with a vast blank.  One thing I do know, however, is that it used to be part of my personality. At school I was quiet and shy, and I remember being around 17 years old and hoping and praying that I would find someone to settle down with, even if they weren't the nicest person in the World just someone to share my life with, and hoping that just because I was the worst looking of all my mates (in my eyes at the time) I wouldn't be 'left on the shelf'. Still I can't find a reason why I had these thoughts, though it's obvious to me now that I was suffering from lack of self esteem. Where that came from, I have no idea.

Our First Christmas

October to December 1980 were happy months. I was in love for the first time, in a proper adult relationship with a man 5 years my senior.

Christmas Eve. Suzie and I were at a nightclub in the City Centre, dancing and having fun. I remember the DJ playing Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody at midnight. Our spirits were high as we chatted on our walk back to the taxi rank. Out of the blue she said, 'I saw John today, we had a good game of squash'. My heart sank - he had called me late afternoon and hadn't mentioned anything about meeting Suzie for a game of squash. I didn't question her, just pretended I already knew and carried on chatting. Inside my heart was breaking.

Christmas Day was completely ruined for me, I felt devastated. I tried to put on a brave face but my parents kept asking what was wrong. Inside my head I was coming up with all the excuses I could find as to why he hadn't told me, but I knew the real reason. Suzie was gorgeous, and she knew it. She could have any guy she wanted. But she didn't want John - I knew that for sure. I felt so stupid. Of course he hadn't been looking at me that night in October, I was just a way of getting to Suzie. I should end the relationship with him before he could hurt me any further.

But I didn't. Instead I asked him about the game of squash. His reply, 'Her white shorts were so short, I could have been in there'. Then he laughed and said, 'It was only a game of squash, what are you going on about?'. I kept on hurting for the next month, then I let it go. Looking back, I have no idea why!

Early Signs

The signs were there from the start - of course it's easy to look back and say that now. At the time they weren't apparent to me. I knew nothing but a loving family home, was naive to the turbulent events which occurred in some people's lives.

The Friday following the night I gave John a life home, my friend Lizzie and I were out on the town when we bumped into John and his mate Andy. An hour or so later Lizzie and I had agreed to go out as a foursome with them the next evening. John kept on joking with me, 'Have I drawn  the short straw?'. He said it flirtatiously, and I joked back that there were no short straws with me and Lizzie. Putdown number 1 - before we were even dating - and I hadn't even recognised it!

Neither did I recognise the fact that he started telling me to change the way I dressed. He wanted me to dress in pencil skirts with stockings tops showing beneath the split of the skirt if you looked hard enough. And I did it - to please him. Then when we were in the pub having a drink he would place his hand at the top of the split in my skirt. I thought it was because he couldn't keep his hands off me - in reality, of course, it was an ownership statement.

Early Years

I'm not going to pretend I've been an Angel. I'm just an ordinary woman with strengths and weaknesses of my own.

At school I was quiet and shy, kept the same small group of friends throughout - OK apart from one or two turbulent periods but hey, that was then we were teenagers so what else would you expect? We were good girls though, not brilliantly academic but kept out of trouble, just average teenagers. The worst we ever did was annoy our parents by talking for hours on the phone in the evenings and running up their bills, but that was common in the 70's. Then, when we left school and started earning we discovered night life and would go out into the town centre Friday and Saturday nights, get tipsy and flirt with the boys - all pretty much innocent stuff.

I was a skinny teenager in an era when voluptuous bodies were much the preference. That, together with my lack of confidence, didn't put me in great stead as girlfriend material. However, while studying in the 6th Form my confidence grew and along with that came my first boyfriend, Phil. The relationship lasted three funfilled months - all totally innocent apart from kissing in the back row - and helped me gain self esteem. A few months later along came Adam, a mate of my cousin. Like Phil, Adam was another nice lad. Mum was impressed because he was Catholic (like I was supposed to be) and had achieved good results in School. He would help my little sister with her homework - hence Mum was even more impressed! But he would post me love letters through the door telling me how much we loved each other - we had barely kissed - and weeks before my 18th he started talking about this special piece of jewellery he was going to buy for my birthday. Freaked out, I ended the relationship. Needless to say, Mum was devastated.

So a few months later there I was, on the dance floor with Suzie looking out of the corner of my eye at John watching over us. He wasn't like my previous boyfriends, I knew that all right. He was a bad lad with a bad reputation. But I had a taste for him, wanted some excitement in my life, so when he asked about a lift home, of course I agreed!