I am now expecting my fourth child, and live safely in Upstate New York with my second husband, so my story has a very happy ending. Most people I meet now are very surprised to hear that I have an abusive marriage in my past. I have my PhD, I speak five languages and I only recently left a successful career on Wall Street to be at home with my children. My second husband is a devoted and gentle husband and father, who as accepted my oldest daughter as his own. We are all very fortunate to have found each other!
When I had my oldest daughter, I was married to an Englishman and living in London. I had just finished intensive business school training to begin working at one of the large accounting firms in the City (their equivalent of Wall Street). I had only been married about two years.
There were early clues that I didn't understand well enough to read as domestic violence. For one, my husband was very jealous and would call my cell phone repeatedly if I went out with clients or attended a work function. He would call me at work and yell so loudly on the telephone that the others in my office were outraged. He turned up at a work function once dressed sloppily and behaving boorishly, including flirting with one of our friends, later laughing that he had done it on purpose to embarrass me. He frequently expressed disgust that my salary wasn't high enough, because he wanted to stop working and pursue a career in theater that wouldn't necessarily pay very well. His family also put a lot of pressure on me - first to abandon my PhD, which I refused to do - and then to push for more pay at work. I confronted him about his behavior on our first anniversary and gave him one year to mend his ways, or I would leave.
The first real instance of violence that I remember came just before the pregnancy. Our weekends were full of activities that he enjoyed, which usually included walking miles and miles all over London. I generally wore comfortable shoes so that I could keep up. My husband initially commented very early in the marriage that he liked me to wear heels. Later, he would make comments that I looked much nicer in heels than in flats (which usually included a dig or two at my weight and general appearance). I kept wearing flats because all the walking made my feet hurt! As his comments became more aggressive, he finally shouted at me that I only wore heels to work, and then threw all of my shoes at me. I reported this incident to a close friend, who chided me for putting up with that kind of tantrum. I explained to her - and to many people as the situation worsened - no one comes home from their wedding and gets abused right away. It is a gradual process, just as the comments and criticism about shoes escalated from compliments when I did as he wished to violence when I did not.
Looking back, I realize that because the abuse had built up gradually, I accepted the kind of treatment that I would never accept from anyone now. My husband told me that I was unattractive because of my weight, so I lost thirty pounds. Then he told me my hair was frumpy, so I changed the color and grew it out. Then he complained about my wardrobe, so I got a few new clothes, only to have him yell and scream at me for spending money. He had already admitted to one affair, but convinced me that it was my fault for being so unattractive, and threatened to have another if I didn't improve my appearance to suit him. However, once I did all the things he asked - there were always more hurtful comments - and when others noticed how I looked, he would become violently jealous. He dragged me from a theater party once by my hair, because a woman had expressed interest in me (even though I have never been interested in other women and was simply enjoying an interesting conversation).
I didn't realize I was pregnant, because the relationship had deteriorated sufficiently that there was no physical aspect most of the time. My daughter appears to have been conceived during the celebration for my PhD graduation ceremony, which included a lot of wine. I don't remember the event at all, and was taking contraceptive pills at the time. The stress of leaving the business training and entering a fast-paced working environment wore me down enough that I attributed early pregnancy symptoms to coping with my new job. I was nearly three months before I took a test. I didn't tell my husband for a further two weeks. He immediately dragged me, quite literally, to an abortion clinic. The counselor heard that I was very happy to start a family and berated my husband. He tried to have his family pressure me to end the pregnancy. I asked my parents for help, but since they were 3,000 miles away in Virginia, there wasn't much they could do.
My husband began an affair at work, and spent his evenings out with his mistress, usually drinking heavily. He would return home intoxicated and attack me. Sometimes he threw things, other times he threatened me and the baby. I would lock myself in the bedroom and call my mother, asking her to listen so that if it sounded like he got through the door, she could hang up and call the police. In the UK, there have been a number of awareness campaigns because domestic violence is still not fully understood or in the open, and one affect of this is that the police rarely respond to domestic calls. However, I hoped that a frantic call from the US would work if necessary. I also began to confide in friends that I feared for my safety and especially for the baby's. Around the fifth month, my husband threw a tantrum at his job and quit, leaving us with only one income. He blamed me for this as well, saying that we would have no financial worries at all if I wasn't pregnant. He did find another job, but later I discovered that he began to hoard money in a secret account for his own use. My salary went towards our bills, which left little or nothing to provide for the baby once she arrived.
He was in the pub when she came. My mother attended the delivery with me. I had a very difficult labor and section, and had to have three transfusions to survive the birth. I was too ill to care for the baby, so my mother stayed but again, my husband remained aloof. He spent most of his free time with his mistress in the pub. He took one day of paternity leave, and spent it with her, and lied to say that he'd attended a sporting event with other friends. During the first few months, friends began to try to help us. One offered to baby sit so we could go out and see a film. When he discovered the movie he wanted to see wasn't showing, he asked to go home but I got very upset and persuaded him to let me at least enjoy an hour away from the baby - the first I'd had since her birth. He criticized my appearance, complaining that as usual I was wearing flats! I became so discouraged with the evening that I went home early.
Finally, he admitted to his affair when I found evidence and confronted him. Over the next few months, I informed him that I considered the marriage over, and knew that it had been irretrievably broken down since before the pregnancy. His reaction was to step up his stalking behavior: calling me incessantly at work, texting and calling me if I was with friends (even if I had my daughter with me), getting drunk if I ever left her in his care for any reason (even a work function I couldn't avoid) and attacking my friends verbally. I decided to move out and began to look for an apartment. At that time, a friend helped me look into the accounts on our computer and I discovered that we'd been living off of my salary alone and that all of his earnings were in a secret account. When I'd asked for things for my daughter - such as a winter coat - he'd told me we couldn't afford it and shown me the 'joint' account balance. After one such argument, he came home with a thousand-dollar personal organizer and said he'd spent his vacation money which he considered 'his' and not the family's. Usually, his mother would hear about these fights and his refusal to provide for my daughter, and would buy what was needed herself in order to avoid me telling anyone what her son was doing.
In response to what I discovered, I began to take steps to protect myself. I waited until I received my bonus to physically move out, but I opened a single account and began paying my own salary into that. I told many of our 'couple' friends what was happening, although as is usually the case, many of them found it hard to believe their charming and fun friend was so violent. I think he began to sense my independence, because his attacks became more frightening. A friend insisted that we go out to dinner to talk once, and when I was too tired (my daughter had been up a lot the night before) he became angry and threw glass poster frames at me in the middle of the financial district!
Around this time, I met my second husband. We were very attracted to one another, but neither of us felt responding to immoral behavior with immoral behavior was appropriate. He was in the final stages of a fairly easy divorce, but had hurt feelings to work through so we were able to support and help one another as friends for many months. As he realized the full extent of the danger I lived with, and the number of affairs I'd discovered (by this time - four), we agreed that it wasn't such a bad thing to expand our relationship. I moved out of my apartment and began making plans to return home to the US.
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Even when separated, my husband continued his disturbing behavior. He would arrive unannounced and uninvited at my apartment and buzz neighbors until some one let him in. He told me that he had a right to be in my apartment because we were married, and he had a right to do as he pleased to me there for the same reason. He repeatedly sexually assaulted me until I threatened to tell his parents we had separated - the entire time, he continued to lie to parents and close friends that we were still married. He told them I was suffering from depression and had to live alone to work through it, but that the marriage was fine. It still amazes me that some of them believe him, including his parents.
As the attacks became more and more frightening, and as I sensed he no longer had control over his anger, I planned to leave the UK without informing him. I talked to two lawyers in the US, one a Hague Convention specialist and three in the UK. All of them agreed that my plan was risky, but that I would get no protection in the UK. The UK social services would only be interested in helping an educated, employed woman if she turned up dead - or the child did. Every single one of them advised me to leave, but cautioned me that if we were found before one year was up, my husband could use Hague Convention treaty laws to force me back to the UK for custody litigation. Weighing the choice between our safety and the possibility of custody litigation in the UK, I felt I wouldn't live six months if I stayed. So helped by family and my friends, my daughter and I left the UK in 2002. As we returned, the Laci Peterson case was in the headlines. I was riveted - it was too close to my own story and I cried and cried for all the people hurt by what her husband did. It could have easily been me.
We weren't found until May 2003, when my husband sent the police to a friend's office and threatened her with arrest. She was terrified, too scared to think clearly and instead of giving them my parents' address (or any address) she told them where we were and then the court papers started arriving. In retrospect, I realize my lawyer wasn't as careful as she should have been in brokering a deal, and that we were really in a position of more strength than we realized. However my husband's lawyer had everyone convinced I'd lose custody of my daughter if I didn't return to the UK and deal with the consequences.
It was terrifying for me to be there without my partner, my parents or any American friends. The psychiatrist who examined my husband's emails to me confirmed that yes, I could have easily been the next Laci and cautioned me to be very careful. The child psychologist who examined my daughter commented on her extreme attachment to me, and believed this was the result of her father's total absence from the first 18 months of her life. In London, though, the judge appeared to be more difficult to convince. I realize now that I should never have expected the UK's legal system to work like ours in the US. The judge appeared offended that a Brit was accused of domestic violence, and seemed to feel I was spoiled and demanding. He cautioned my partner that I would do the same thing to him one day. My partner thrilled me by replying, in open court, that he had no intention of trying to kill my baby or of cheating on me so I would have no reason to treat him that way.
The court psychologist really saved the day. She understood domestic violence, even if the judge did not. She could tell that I was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Her first meeting with my husband she commented on his charm and polish, but the second meeting he was intoxicated and she wasn't fooled any more. She recommended just four weeks of visitation a year, and that we be allowed to return to the US to live. Again and again, my lawyers had tried to suggest that I just give up and remain in the UK, but I was then pregnant again and terrified to become a single mother, of two children, with no job, plus abandoning a happy relationship with my partner. I refused to put that option on the table and in the end, the psychologist convinced the judge that removing my daughter from me - which giving joint custody or custody to the father would do, as I'd refused to stay in the UK - would traumatize my daughter more than anything she'd been through so far. She also testified that she felt the father was not equipped to raise a child properly and that a two-parent home with a stable relationship was best. After four and a half months of living in the UK, staying on a friend's futon - on top of the four years of crisis in a terrifying marriage - finally it was over and I had my daughter. We were $100,000 poorer, and I'd spent the first half of my pregnancy away from my beloved partner, but we were safe for good.
We came home, and we have since worked to get along. We continue to treat my former husband with politeness and respect, even as he raised frivolous case after case in the UK courts, and even as he attempted to retain my daughter unlawfully in the UK and stole her passport. He is on the same watchlist that once held Al-Zarqawi for his threats to kidnap my daughter, and he can never replace her UK passport. She is aware of the issues with his past behavior, for her own safety. As she is growing, they seem to have an uneasy truce of sorts but I know that it is volatile. She has returned home twice with unexplained injuries, much more serious than the usual childhood scrapes, but we are watching and waiting. She is now old enough to tell us if something goes wrong, and the court has insisted that she calls me every other day during access visits. Of course I worry because I know what he is capable of, but he knows the courts in two countries are watching him. As an Englishman, what other people think is paramount and as long as I have custody, he knows his friends doubt somewhere in their minds that everything I said was crazy and he's really a super guy. I think they know the truth, and I think he knows that also. This fact will hopefully contribute to my daughter's safety until she is old enough to tell the courts herself that she doesn't want to see her father, or they will work out a way to keep in touch that also keeps her safe.
So for the overwhelming majority of her time, she is one child of four in a blissfully happy and normal family. She adores my partner, who she calls Daddy. The UK courts have allowed my former husband to draw out the divorce, because he will be liable for child support here in the UK once the UK litigation is closed. Even this is nearly finished, and she will likely get the financial support she deserves. I am proud of how normal and healthy she is, even with the traumatic start to her life. For my part, it feels like a hundred years ago. I have trouble saying that I regret those awful years, because I have my daughter and I might never have met my partner otherwise. But I am certainly happier looking ahead than I am looking back.
