Domestic Violence
Without Prejudice
I told myself I am over it but are you ever? Once you have lived twenty years with a violent man, the bully, the bogey man that will hurt you or the kids.
His rage unabated all these years, silly sad pathetic man. Oh I did all the normal things, loved him, trying to heal his bitterness and rage, what a waste of time.!
I was so soft hearted and my Sis says I still am, wearing my heart on my sleeve and every emotion showing on my face.
I'm glad then he did no permanent damage. He called me a bad Mother, Wife, Friend, Lover, trying to bring me down to his dark level and I never ever felt like that.
I knew my girls would turn out fine as they had me for a Mother, a Mother who loved them unconditionally and with every fibre of her being.
I still delight in everything they do and am so proud of them.
My girls and I have been through some of the worst times, known to man. And we all are out the other side, me being single as long as I was married.
I was such a child when I married and yet it was what I wanted to do, be married or with be with a man I loved and have a big sprawling family.
I saw it as I wanted it as I came from a big family and knew how comforting and fun that was and wanted the same for my girls.
We never were to get it, really as he was violent from when Debbie was six weeks old and you never knew what would trigger him, his temper.
Once I slammed the door on him in a huff and he beat the door in and beat me around the head, always where it would not show.
They are clever violent men, they hit where it won't show, the head, the kick to the leg, high up, it's like they know what they are doing, although afterwards they will say they have no idea what came over them.
Not wanting to be seen by the bigger community as a wife beater and certainly not by his parents as they weren't too keen on his temper either.
They warned me off him and I had a chance to get out at the beginning, but let him take over the wedding plans as I was so scared about being pregnant at 17.
In those days the pressure was on to get married, to be "respectable", and I knew my parents had no money if I decided to go live with them and have the baby on my own.
He took over and told his Mum and Dad, his Dad refusing to have anything to do with it, he was upset I ended up with his son and let me know about it in no uncertain terms.
I loved and respected his Dad and was sad for ages at his non acceptance. But my ex was also very charismatic and charming and could be loving if pushed, so I pushed back and we were happy for a while.
I innocently thought I could make it work, was sure as an intelligent, loving, nurturing female I could "save" him. I had a soft affectionate Dad and had no idea that men that hit women and kids existed.
My Dad had a big rule in our house, boys did not hit girls, ever! So they did but were just cunning about it. Sometimes we deserved a thump or two from the boys, being girls after all. We were allowed to be pretty spoiled, from Dad.
Mum preferred the boys but even then she was not a touchy feely Mum, distant mostly and quite savage with her cutting wit. Jackie said she never went to one of her shows, not one, and I only realised that the other day.
Jackie luckily marrying my Father and me stupid idiot, marrying my Mother, great !
And as with my Mother I had to be the best at everything and then I would get his approval. Jackie releasing me from that nightmare, saying she wished we had a Mother that had told us we were "good" or was "proud of us". Dad always did but we wanted it from Mum.
We didn't realise then she was mentally ill. We should have seen it, the long sleeps, the vagueness, the forgetting things and her "fugue" states, where she disappeared for weeks on end.
Sometimes into hospital and sometimes to places where we had lived before. She was truly mad by the time she died and yet we still held out hope she was "in there".
She wasn't. And if people say these days they are schizophrenic I just smile and nod and think,
"You should see a true Schizophrenic!". Having seen two close at hand you would not want to know any schizophrenic that goes untreated, believe me.
My poor mad Mum, stuffing her face with meringues as we walked in a Supermarket, or her trolley with 24 cheesecakes, or yelling at bank tellers or asking security to "Call the Manager" if she was asked to open her handbag at the checkout.
She saw it as an impingement of her rights as an honest person and ranted about it for hours. Not calming down. And in those days they tried to sedate mad people which made them worse.
When she was truly out of it, she would goose step up and down the verandah, to the neighbours looking like a demented Nazi.
"Heil Hitler", she would say and just ignore our entreaties to come inside and the ambulance would have to be called and the police half the time.
It was awful and we had to keep it hidden how ill she was because of the stigma attached to mental illness. When Jackie and I diagnosed with mild depression we freaked, absolutely freaked out, and was told yes depression hereditary, but Mum was "ill", we were not and thank God for that.
I was diagnosed also with a mild bi polar, which means I can go without a lot of sleep at certain periods of the year. I know when it happens and that's why I write a lot, to slay the "dragon" as it were.
I take my medication and watch out for signs of depression as does Jackie, we will be on them the rest of our lives, but that's ok.
We stay healthy and selfish these days, no one can make Jackie do something she doesn't want to and no one can make me go somewhere I don't want to.
And to my Mum I owe my intelligence as she was sooooooo intelligent. She belonged on another plane of intellect, the genius kind. She trod the fine line between genius and madness every single day after the war.
Terribly injured in the War, a War she never forgot, and I know of others, millions probably affected in the same way all over the war.
Ah well, we are all fine now. Her kids. and she would be proud of us even though she couldn't say it. I know she would have felt it.
So I went into the marriage with young girl love in my heart and not too many domestic skills and that is basically what he wanted. Some one to do as she was told, boost him up, make him look good but once I couldn't respect him I became a feminist, big time in the mid 70's.
We all did, the young women of that time, we wanted better. The Family Law Act came into being, freeing men and women from "fault" divorces. And most importantly a Single Mother Pension came into being.
Meaning you could leave and live in basic circumstances with an income and for some women that was a choice they had to make.
One friend getting her hubby to leave the family home after years of coldness and indifference and she never saw him again. He disappeared as he didn't want to pay maintenance for the 4 kids and he punished her by never seeing his kids.
He died a few years ago and was not missed, seeing as they had nothing to miss.
And I stayed, leaving time after time and each time I did and had to come back it was worse. I don't know why but he had a fixation about me and still does. I'm guessing rejected child gets rejected and hates and hates and hates.
He hates his girls, he hates his grandkids, (Can you believe that ?), he barely knows them or of them. He has two boys now and they are "Perfect"< compared to anyone raised by Janette.
And considering I been a single Mum for 21 years, five months after my youngest daughter died, I think we are doing really well thanks.
He took everything off us, the house, the cars, the money and the business and we didn't ask him back. He beat Yvette so savagely she ended up in Hospital and was awarded $10,000 criminal compensation.
Bet he doesn't mention that as he would have gone to jail if he hadn't changed his plea to guilty. The police losing their temper in the end and saying,
"Plead guilty, or if you are found guilty and plead not guilty you will go straight to jail. We have the photos of the injuries you did to your daughter, aged 21 and six stone if that!"
They were fed up with him and his lies and bullshit, insisting we fly from Qld for the trial, which we did. He didn't look at any of us.
He didn't look at us the day of Lauren's compensation case either. Us all in the one room with our partners and him on his own in another.
Sad.
But they do say what goes around and he lives somewhere on 30 acres surrounded by his just as nasty wife and two small boys ans as he is in his sixties I wish those two boys and her good luck with that.
Maybe he doesn't beat women and children with weapons and his bare massive fists, closed or unclosed, any more but I doubt it.
Hope he learned not to beat animals to death anymore, and laugh, or maybe he does, and if he does I hope she gets away or stops him........
He threatened only yesterday to give Yvette a "Biff", she who sued him for criminal compensation and won all those years ago. He hides on the hill as he does not want to be known as a wife beater, and in his mind he never was,
He does not want his girls to know even where he is buried. And I'm guessing they won't care to look. And that the last silly second I will spend thinking about him and his vile ways, he is what he is and will never change, so we live in "Spite" of him.
Just as Mladenka does without her Dad. There are some things in life that are neither fair or reasonable but you just have to get over it. And we did.
Deb now married and 2 gorgeous girls and she is in shock as to how much work kids can be. And she saves kids from homelessness and despair.
Yvette a Mother to 7 and I admire her patience and her ability to just "be", sometimes, me doing all the follow up like the anal little person I am.
Alena is a love, just love and happily living a great life. We are all blessed in our lives and then some, so in all he didn't damage us and we feel pity for him, not anger. He obviously not a well pup.
But my Counsellor said of the marriage,
"What do you feel like now, looking back"
"I am glad to have my girls"
"That's enough"
And yes it is, he gave me in the end 4 beautiful lives, mine to shape and influence and teach and to give me many gorgeous grand kids and for that I am eternally grateful and if he doesn't want them, I certainly do.
If you have violence in your life, go and stay left, no one should live like that, no one.
Love Janette
I told myself I am over it but are you ever? Once you have lived twenty years with a violent man, the bully, the bogey man that will hurt you or the kids.
His rage unabated all these years, silly sad pathetic man. Oh I did all the normal things, loved him, trying to heal his bitterness and rage, what a waste of time.!
I was so soft hearted and my Sis says I still am, wearing my heart on my sleeve and every emotion showing on my face.
I'm glad then he did no permanent damage. He called me a bad Mother, Wife, Friend, Lover, trying to bring me down to his dark level and I never ever felt like that.
I knew my girls would turn out fine as they had me for a Mother, a Mother who loved them unconditionally and with every fibre of her being.
I still delight in everything they do and am so proud of them.
My girls and I have been through some of the worst times, known to man. And we all are out the other side, me being single as long as I was married.
I was such a child when I married and yet it was what I wanted to do, be married or with be with a man I loved and have a big sprawling family.
I saw it as I wanted it as I came from a big family and knew how comforting and fun that was and wanted the same for my girls.
We never were to get it, really as he was violent from when Debbie was six weeks old and you never knew what would trigger him, his temper.
Once I slammed the door on him in a huff and he beat the door in and beat me around the head, always where it would not show.
They are clever violent men, they hit where it won't show, the head, the kick to the leg, high up, it's like they know what they are doing, although afterwards they will say they have no idea what came over them.
Not wanting to be seen by the bigger community as a wife beater and certainly not by his parents as they weren't too keen on his temper either.
They warned me off him and I had a chance to get out at the beginning, but let him take over the wedding plans as I was so scared about being pregnant at 17.
In those days the pressure was on to get married, to be "respectable", and I knew my parents had no money if I decided to go live with them and have the baby on my own.
He took over and told his Mum and Dad, his Dad refusing to have anything to do with it, he was upset I ended up with his son and let me know about it in no uncertain terms.
I loved and respected his Dad and was sad for ages at his non acceptance. But my ex was also very charismatic and charming and could be loving if pushed, so I pushed back and we were happy for a while.
I innocently thought I could make it work, was sure as an intelligent, loving, nurturing female I could "save" him. I had a soft affectionate Dad and had no idea that men that hit women and kids existed.
My Dad had a big rule in our house, boys did not hit girls, ever! So they did but were just cunning about it. Sometimes we deserved a thump or two from the boys, being girls after all. We were allowed to be pretty spoiled, from Dad.
Mum preferred the boys but even then she was not a touchy feely Mum, distant mostly and quite savage with her cutting wit. Jackie said she never went to one of her shows, not one, and I only realised that the other day.
Jackie luckily marrying my Father and me stupid idiot, marrying my Mother, great !
And as with my Mother I had to be the best at everything and then I would get his approval. Jackie releasing me from that nightmare, saying she wished we had a Mother that had told us we were "good" or was "proud of us". Dad always did but we wanted it from Mum.
We didn't realise then she was mentally ill. We should have seen it, the long sleeps, the vagueness, the forgetting things and her "fugue" states, where she disappeared for weeks on end.
Sometimes into hospital and sometimes to places where we had lived before. She was truly mad by the time she died and yet we still held out hope she was "in there".
She wasn't. And if people say these days they are schizophrenic I just smile and nod and think,
"You should see a true Schizophrenic!". Having seen two close at hand you would not want to know any schizophrenic that goes untreated, believe me.
My poor mad Mum, stuffing her face with meringues as we walked in a Supermarket, or her trolley with 24 cheesecakes, or yelling at bank tellers or asking security to "Call the Manager" if she was asked to open her handbag at the checkout.
She saw it as an impingement of her rights as an honest person and ranted about it for hours. Not calming down. And in those days they tried to sedate mad people which made them worse.
When she was truly out of it, she would goose step up and down the verandah, to the neighbours looking like a demented Nazi.
"Heil Hitler", she would say and just ignore our entreaties to come inside and the ambulance would have to be called and the police half the time.
It was awful and we had to keep it hidden how ill she was because of the stigma attached to mental illness. When Jackie and I diagnosed with mild depression we freaked, absolutely freaked out, and was told yes depression hereditary, but Mum was "ill", we were not and thank God for that.
I was diagnosed also with a mild bi polar, which means I can go without a lot of sleep at certain periods of the year. I know when it happens and that's why I write a lot, to slay the "dragon" as it were.
I take my medication and watch out for signs of depression as does Jackie, we will be on them the rest of our lives, but that's ok.
We stay healthy and selfish these days, no one can make Jackie do something she doesn't want to and no one can make me go somewhere I don't want to.
And to my Mum I owe my intelligence as she was sooooooo intelligent. She belonged on another plane of intellect, the genius kind. She trod the fine line between genius and madness every single day after the war.
Terribly injured in the War, a War she never forgot, and I know of others, millions probably affected in the same way all over the war.
Ah well, we are all fine now. Her kids. and she would be proud of us even though she couldn't say it. I know she would have felt it.
So I went into the marriage with young girl love in my heart and not too many domestic skills and that is basically what he wanted. Some one to do as she was told, boost him up, make him look good but once I couldn't respect him I became a feminist, big time in the mid 70's.
We all did, the young women of that time, we wanted better. The Family Law Act came into being, freeing men and women from "fault" divorces. And most importantly a Single Mother Pension came into being.
Meaning you could leave and live in basic circumstances with an income and for some women that was a choice they had to make.
One friend getting her hubby to leave the family home after years of coldness and indifference and she never saw him again. He disappeared as he didn't want to pay maintenance for the 4 kids and he punished her by never seeing his kids.
He died a few years ago and was not missed, seeing as they had nothing to miss.
And I stayed, leaving time after time and each time I did and had to come back it was worse. I don't know why but he had a fixation about me and still does. I'm guessing rejected child gets rejected and hates and hates and hates.
He hates his girls, he hates his grandkids, (Can you believe that ?), he barely knows them or of them. He has two boys now and they are "Perfect"< compared to anyone raised by Janette.
And considering I been a single Mum for 21 years, five months after my youngest daughter died, I think we are doing really well thanks.
He took everything off us, the house, the cars, the money and the business and we didn't ask him back. He beat Yvette so savagely she ended up in Hospital and was awarded $10,000 criminal compensation.
Bet he doesn't mention that as he would have gone to jail if he hadn't changed his plea to guilty. The police losing their temper in the end and saying,
"Plead guilty, or if you are found guilty and plead not guilty you will go straight to jail. We have the photos of the injuries you did to your daughter, aged 21 and six stone if that!"
They were fed up with him and his lies and bullshit, insisting we fly from Qld for the trial, which we did. He didn't look at any of us.
He didn't look at us the day of Lauren's compensation case either. Us all in the one room with our partners and him on his own in another.
Sad.
But they do say what goes around and he lives somewhere on 30 acres surrounded by his just as nasty wife and two small boys ans as he is in his sixties I wish those two boys and her good luck with that.
Maybe he doesn't beat women and children with weapons and his bare massive fists, closed or unclosed, any more but I doubt it.
Hope he learned not to beat animals to death anymore, and laugh, or maybe he does, and if he does I hope she gets away or stops him........
He threatened only yesterday to give Yvette a "Biff", she who sued him for criminal compensation and won all those years ago. He hides on the hill as he does not want to be known as a wife beater, and in his mind he never was,
He does not want his girls to know even where he is buried. And I'm guessing they won't care to look. And that the last silly second I will spend thinking about him and his vile ways, he is what he is and will never change, so we live in "Spite" of him.
Just as Mladenka does without her Dad. There are some things in life that are neither fair or reasonable but you just have to get over it. And we did.
Deb now married and 2 gorgeous girls and she is in shock as to how much work kids can be. And she saves kids from homelessness and despair.
Yvette a Mother to 7 and I admire her patience and her ability to just "be", sometimes, me doing all the follow up like the anal little person I am.
Alena is a love, just love and happily living a great life. We are all blessed in our lives and then some, so in all he didn't damage us and we feel pity for him, not anger. He obviously not a well pup.
But my Counsellor said of the marriage,
"What do you feel like now, looking back"
"I am glad to have my girls"
"That's enough"
And yes it is, he gave me in the end 4 beautiful lives, mine to shape and influence and teach and to give me many gorgeous grand kids and for that I am eternally grateful and if he doesn't want them, I certainly do.
If you have violence in your life, go and stay left, no one should live like that, no one.
Love Janette
