a wounded, divided life

Delores, 48, has been separated from an abusive husband for five months and has been doing her best to hold down a customer service job and keep her private life out of her working life, but the more she tries to divide herself the less she is able to achieve her intention.

“I just can’t help myself at times,” confides Delores. “I am crying one minute then being rude the next and not only were customers being shocked by my erratic behavior but also my co-workers.”

“I was inadvertently taking out all of my frustration on everyone around me at work,” confesses Delores, “but it was the arrival of my estranged husband at my workplace that was the last straw.”

“We had a ferocious argument, I was screaming and crying and he was hurling abuse at me and shoving me around,” explains Delores. “The police were called and I was asked to take time off to get myself together.”

“I took the rest of the week off and really tried hard to calm down and get my life back together,” says Delores, “but since returning to work I can’t help noticing that co-workers are avoiding me – and I don’t blame them.”

“I guess younger women involved with similarly violent men are not yet old enough to have experienced the incredible pressure required for the monumental blow up that they saw me have with my estranged husband.”


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Delores is 48 and has been separated from an abusive husband for five months. She has custody of their two children, plus a child from a previous marriage, and they all moved into a separate apartment when her husband became so violent that she feared for their lives.

"Unfortunately, my life became even more terrifying when I left my husband because he knows where I live and hounds me every night," explains Delores. "There is no peace in my life - or my children's - and I despair of ever being able to live a normal life again."

A restraining order didn’t restrain her husband, and poor Delores began to fall apart - which, of course, was his intention.

“All of this would have been bad enough had I not been working," says Delores, “but I was doing my best to hold down a customer service position and my usual friendly and calm service was sadly deteriorating.”

‘I know that every workplace seems to have either a sad sack or a mad cow, or both, " says Delores, “and I am just mortified that my estranged husband turned up at my workplace and made me look and act like the maddest cow you’ve ever seen.”

"The separation period is volatile for most women," explains Delores, "and divorce does not always close the book on a violent marriage. I just hope that one day all this madness will end and that my estranged husband gets help for his mental problems.”

Read more by Delores on this situation:

a wounded, divided life

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mad old cows at work