a diplomatic marriage

Before her marriage Sidney, 39, was a graduate researcher for a leading politician with a wonderful diplomatic career ahead of her which she willingly gave up when she met and fell in love with a co-worker.

"In the early days I was quite happy being Bob's wife and the mother of his children," explains Sidney, "and while this sort of existence was quite normal for diplomatic wives in foreign countries it becomes out of place when you're living at home."

"You see, we lived in parts of the world where it was unsafe for western women to go out in public," says Sidney, "and we lived in secluded compounds where all the wives just sat around and talked about their husbands and kids."

"It just didn't occur to me that this sort of idyllic existence was not only destroying my self-esteem but also reinforcing innate male prejudices in Bob," says Sidney. "He spent every day working in the company of foreign men with awful attitudes towards women, and what started off as a protective attitude towards me soon became denigrating."

"I understood that diplomat's wives in certain areas of the world did not accompany their husbands to functions," says Sidney, "but when he stopped sharing political gossip with me, brushing me off with words to the effect that it was man's business, I started to feel pretty worthless."

"I had gained first class honors at university and once had a better job and prospects than he had," sighs Sidney, "and I couldn't believe that he was denying me the intelligent conversation and a share in his interesting life that I believe I deserved."

"To save our marriage, I begged Bob to put in for a transfer home and it happened sooner than I had hoped for," says Sidney, "but the years we had spent in an alien culture had a bigger impact on Bob than I had realized."

"Not only that," adds Sidney, "but the years I had spent as Bob's wife and the mother of his kids had devalued me not only in Bob's eyes but everyone else's, too."

"The crunch came at a diplomatic party thrown by a female colleague we had both previously worked with," says Sidney. "I was in my element, happy to be home back among intelligent, stimulating company and Bob got into a filthy mood when I moved away from his side and worked the room on my own."

"I don't know whether Bob had conspired with the hostess to humiliate me," says Sidney, "but when the guest of honor arrived and she moved from group to group, introducing him to us, she very deliberately and cruelly introduced me as 'Bob's wife' rather than as a former colleague."

"I felt like a nobody," says Sidney, "and that, I suppose, is exactly what she meant me to feel."

"After the party I told Bob what had happened and he couldn't understand why I would feel demeaned by such an introduction," says Sidney. "He took my aggravation as a slap in the face for him."

"He thought that being introduced as his wife was a honor and if I didn't see it as such then I
shouldn't be married to him," sighs Sidney. "He boasted that thousands of women would give their right arms to be married to him, and without him I am nothing."

"Reminding him of the relative value of the jobs we had when we worked together meant nothing to him," says Sidney. "He maintained that I gave up all rights to a separate existence and individual honors when I married him. Can you believe that a boy next door type could say such a thing in the 21st century?"

"Right now we're talking about divorce," sighs Sidney, "but with three children I don't feel happy about the course Bob has set me on."

"Divorce is not what I want."

"I want Bob to treat me like he once did - as an equal, a partner in life," says Sidney. "Am I asking too much of him after he's seen how other cultures treat their wives?"

"I willingly gave up my career when I married Bob," says Sidney. "I did not willingly give up on myself and I am shattered that Bob would end up being changed so much by another culture."

"If this is what happens when you marry someone from work," sighs Sidney, "then I wish someone had told me about this sort of thing years ago."

(Sidney's story first appeared as a diplomatic incident and is reprinted with permission.)

abusive relationships

Clara, 46, had enjoyed five years of freedom, living her life independently, before she married at 21. She thought she was in control of her life and knew everything when she entered the relationship - as young adults do at that age - but she was so naive that she now blushes in shame at how she was manipulated.

"Up until then," explains Clara, "I only knew about physical violence and verbal abuse. I didn't know about manipulation, coercion, control, possessiveness, jealousy, blaming and guilt. I didn't even know about romantic love - I had read about falling in love, but I had never experienced it - I just thought that it would happen after marriage."

"I married the new boy on the block," explains Clara. "My mom thought he was a wonderful - a good, clean hard working boy - and she did everything in her power to bring us together. But she didn't know, and neither did I, what he was really like until it was too late."

"I did witness slight signs of violence and bad temper in him before we married, but it didn't worry me too much," explains Clara. "My dad had been a violent man and mom had divorced him and ended up happy, so if the same thing happened to me I thought I could always get away - but falling pregnant made me a prisoner in a way I never imagined possible."

"Knowing young women who ended up being bashed by their husbands in drunken rages, I guess I could have done worse," says Clara. "He didn't drink, and when he raged he thankfully smashed furniture and windows rather than me."

"The abuse just started off small and built up to a crunch time," explains Clara. "I felt like a frog being boiled in hot water without the will or wherewithal to jump out."

"I felt bad when he put me down because I'd gained so much weight during the second pregnancy," says Clara, "but I felt worse when he discarded me as 'dead meat' when I was later diagnosed with cancer. The cancer treatment caused me to lose a lot of weight fast - which was good - but when I lost my hair I was shocked and humiliated when he compared my worth as a woman with our young and beautiful daughter with long, golden hair. Imagine how horrible that was."

"Anyway," says Clara, "I survived all this - and got back on my feet - and I only snapped and decided to end the marriage when he started coming home during the day, when my daughter was at school, demanding sex, violently raging at me in front of our little boy and scaring the wits out of the poor thing."

"That was the crunch for me," says Clara. "I jumped out of that marriage faster than any frog has ever jumped!"

"He re-married very quickly and started another family - but he didn't learn from the first experience," says Clara. "Maybe he thinks I divorced him because he wasn't abusive enough with me and needs to try harder next time around."

"My kids still see their dad and tell me that he's worse than ever," sighs Clara. "His behavior is still violent, abusive, threatening, manipulative and diabolically possessive towards those he considers 'inferior' to him - dependent women and children."

"I think it's the way the man is - his genetic inheritance - and the way he was raised to be," says Clara "For most of his life society sanctioned that sort of male behavior towards women and children - but in today's world it is considered criminal behavior and someone should have the guts to report him to the police or force him into therapy. Like all cowardly abusers, he is 'sweet' in public, does his hitting in private, denies responsibility and sheets blame on everyone else."

"That his new wife remains married to him indicates that she's made a decision that putting up with his abuse - towards her and her children - is far better than being a poor single mother," says Clara, "but what sort of marital ideal is she showing her children?"

"These days, one in three marriages end in divorce and probably one in three divorces is amicable with both parents being able to maintain a friendly relationship," says Clara, "but divorces caused by domestic violence never, ever, result in friendly post-divorce relationships."

"The dynamics between an abuser and his victim never change," says Clara, "and it wouldn't surprise me if most of the two in three marriages that don't end up in divorce are kept intact by abused women who don't have the self-esteem to leave their abuser. I wasn't married in church, but for a woman who was she has the added burden of her 'till death do us part' wedding vow."

"I have lived long enough to know that there are two major classes of people in the world - the abusers and the abused," sighs Clara. "Unfortunately, like most women, I fall into the latter category and that is why I need to be careful of the people I allow into my life. I wasn't very careful in the past because I didn't know any better - back then, all women got abused by men in one way or another - but I do know better now."

"I've got a nice relationship with a guy now," confides Clara, "but I'd never marry again. Why spoil a good thing?"

"Abuse is abuse and no woman in her right mind tolerates it, excuses it or willingly puts herself in a situation where she is liable to get more of it!"

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."