freedom from domestic violence

Chantal, 48, made a proud decision 12 years ago to be poor and free rather than rich and abused, but in divorcing an abusive husband and freeing her children from domestic violence she never imagined that they would end up years later denying her suffering and blaming her for divorcing their father and stuffing up their lives.

"I deserve a medal of bravery for what I did 12 years ago," claims Chantal. "I can't believe, in this day and age, that anyone - least of all my children - would deny my suffering and wish I had remained in an abusive relationship."

"Divorcing that man was the bravest decision I have ever made," says Chantal, "and having made it I empowered myself to make similar decisions about anyone else who dared to abuse me and make me feel bad about myself. I don't care who they are - employer, friend, lover, mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter - I will not tolerate an unhealthy relationship. I will not be controlled, owned, raped, humiliated, blamed, pushed, shoved or threatened ever again."

"I was very naive when I married and consequently fell pregnant immediately," explains Chantal. "After the birth of my first daughter I went on the pill and stayed on it, despite mounting health risks, for thirteen years without a break and then finally, on strict medical advice, I took a break and fell pregnant again. My ex-husband refused to use male contraception - he couldn't care less about whether I fell pregnant or not - so during this break from the pill I refused him sex."

"He retaliated by forcing himself on me when I was asleep," sighs Chantal. "When I woke up and realized what he was doing he forced me on my stomach and continued raping me until he was done - and then he turned over and slept, leaving me crying."

"I don't know whether he deliberately raped me to make me pregnant - or just to satisfy his lust," says Chantal, "but when I told him I was pregnant he was a lot happier than I was. Imagine this happening thirteen years after the first mishap - after all my precautions!"

"During my second pregnancy the abuse worsened," sighs Chantal, "and after my second daughter was born it became intolerable. He lashed out at all of us."

"I protected those kids with my life, literally, and although they may prefer to remember one or two bad times over the thousands of happy times they spent with me, I did my very best and I'm very proud that I raised two children to healthy adulthood," says Chantal. "It was my duty as a mother to protect my children from harm and provide them with a good, strong female role model."

"I felt deep despair being stuck in a marriage where I had to take his abuse as if I deserved it, and especially so if he dished it out in front of the children."

"I didn't want my children to see their mother being abused," explains Chantal. "If they now feel, as their father encourages them to do, that I lied and made a bad decision twelve years ago that adversely affected them and as such I am responsible for everything that goes wrong in their lives forever and ever then what can I say?"

"It was such a long time ago - and neither of my children knew half of the stuff that I endured and possibly can't even remember the abuse they did witness," says Chantal, "so their father can easily paint an entirely different impression of what happened and impress it upon them."

"I suppose I can chase up the medical records, the police records, the court records and the witness statements - but why the hell should I?" asks Chantal. "If they want to believe that their father is incapable of abuse then let them believe what they want."

"It's history, it's dead and buried, it's stuff that happened between their father and I and essentially has nothing to do with them. The divorce did not affect them adversely - it freed them from domestic violence - and I can't believe that twelve years later they would blame me for something they should be thanking me for."

"It is ludicrous and grossly unfair for them to claim that their problems are a direct consequence of my divorcing their father twelve years ago and as such I must take full responsibility and blame," says Chantal. "The consequences to myself and my children of remaining in a domestic violence situation would have been abominable. Do they truly believe that my staying in an abusive marriage would have been a good decision that would have benefited them?"

"I am in my rights to protect myself, tell them to let go and mind their own business - I am not their property and I refuse to get involved in irrational arguments with them," says Chantal, "but that's all I can do. Even though I can see that their relationship with their father has become dangerous and they need to cut ties with him immediately before he does more damage to them, I've never interfered in their relationship with him - and I never will."

"It's a mantra, I know," sighs Chantal, "but no matter how hurt I feel, and how badly I can see how they are being affected by their father, I must respect their right to make adult decisions involving responsibilities and consequences for which they, and they alone, are liable."

"They must learn to let go of the past - as I have," says Chantal. "If they don't, they are liable to end up in abusive relationships themselves."

"I feel healed enough from the experience to be able to marry again - and I have been looking," says Chantal. "but finding the right guy at my age isn't easy."

a doomed marriage

Shona, 27, had plenty of signs that the man she was madly in love with was an abuser, but she ignored them all in the mistaken belief that love conquers all and marriage would change him.

"Jesse and I had been dating for four years prior to marriage," explains Shona, "and it was a roller-coaster ride for me from the start but I expected everything to calm down over time."

"You see, I caught him on the rebound from a girl who had dumped him," sighs Shona, "and it was pretty obvious that he remained madly in love with her the whole time."

"He was just using me as a therapist - sometime to dump all his sorrow on," says Shona, "but I was so attracted to him that I couldn't let him go. I just hung on hoping and praying that time would heal him and he'd learn to love me as much as I loved him."

"Dates with him in the early days were little more than him driving me past his ex-girlfriend's place - or parking outside - constantly talking about her."

"By the time he realized she wasn't coming back he was sort of stuck with me I suppose," says Shona, "and that's when signs of abuse started."

"Jesse would make unkind comparisons between his ex-girlfriend and me," explains Shona, "and there wasn't much I could do about it because what he said was true. I wasn't blonde, I wasn't cute and I didn't have much of a figure - but I hung on in with the relationship because he may not have admitted it to me but he must have appreciated my inner goodness."

"Once we were at his place watching an old movie about a girl who wouldn't let go of a man who hated her and he perplexed me by saying that I was like her," muses Shona. "All Jesse had to do was tell me he hated me and didn't want to see me any more and I would have gone away - but he didn't!"

"On the contrary, he'd ring me every day and make plans to spend weekends with me," exclaims Shona, "but when he was with me he was kind one minute and nasty the next. My girlfriends said he was emotionally abusing me - but at that stage I didn't see it like that at all."

"When my girlfriends rallied around and tried to get me away from him because they could see how unhappy I was, Jesse became more possessive of me than ever."

"He demanded that I stopped seeing my girlfriends - he told me they were stupid and jealous of me," sighs Shona, "and when he gave me an ultimatum, saying it was them or him, I naturally chose him because I loved him so much."

"He was not only isolating me from my friends but also my family," sighs Shona. "He had nothing nice to say about anyone in my life, and when I had nobody left in the world except him, he asked me to marry him."

"I was overjoyed with his proposal and although I had dreamed all of my life of having a fairytale white wedding in a church I just accepted what he wanted - a quick and nasty out of town marriage ceremony."

"We spent the wedding night at a cheap motel and for the first time in our four year relationship I saw him drunk," sighs Shona. "He just sat there drinking by himself and when I asked him to come to bed he shoved me against the wall and with a face contorted in hate he said some awful things to me - things that must have been the truth. In vino veritas, I suppose."

"He took off his wedding ring and threw it at me, saying he didn't want to be married to me," says Shona "He had waited until I was finally trapped in marriage with him to treat me like abject dirt, but expecting me to cry and beg him to be nice to me he got the shock of his life when I got dressed, took off my ring, called a cab and went back home. It was over."

"The next day he parked outside my place all day, begging me to forgive him," says Shona, "but my parents had already made an appointment with a lawyer to annul the marriage and I never wanted to see him again."

"Three months later, after constant begging for forgiveness, I decided to give Jesse a second chance," says Shona. "I believed I was still in love with him and because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life wondering whether it might have worked out I ignored my lawyer's advice and went back to him."

"I'm glad I gave Jesse a second chance because within three months his true feelings manifested themselves again and it became abundantly clear that he didn't love me at all," says Shona. "He just expected me to love him - and keep on loving him - without any sort of reciprocation from him."

"He married me as a punching bag, someone to dump on, someone to possess and make demands of," says Shona. "He couldn't have the girl he really wanted, so he was just making do with me - and that's a real stinking basis for marriage. I may not be a blonde cutie, but I deserve better than that."

"I was ashamed and devastated that I'd wasted so much time, energy and love on a man who I knew, deep down, could never love me like I loved him," says Shona. "But despite the humiliation of it all I'm glad I finally plucked up enough self respect to let him go."

"Reciprocated love may conquer all," says Shona, "but lopsided love creates abusers and victims. It was a doomed marriage and I am so glad I took contraceptive precautions because if he had made me pregnant I would never have been able to get away from him."