Mother reveals full impact of ex-husband’s vile abuse

A brave woman has revealed the harrowing impact of living with an abuser, who has now won the right to have his identity protected.

A woman has given her harrowing victim impact statement to the County Court.

A Victorian mother whose marriage was plagued with vile abuse and rape by a man who was once an ambassador for violence against women has been gagged from sharing her story as her ex-husband sought a suppression order to hide his identity.

The woman told the Herald Sun she wanted to speak out to give power to other victims of horrific domestic violence.

But she was silenced on Monday after her abuser successfully applied to have his identity — and hers — suppressed as he fronted Victoria’s County Court for a pre-sentencing hearing after a jury found him guilty of nine counts of rape.

He was also found guilty of threatening to inflict serious injury and two charges of assault against her, the mother of his four children.

The woman, 41, bravely faced him in the virtual hearing to read out a statement on how his insidious crimes had impacted her.

She revealed her torment at feeling like she was not worthy, how she had to apologise for everything, and how her children can’t even hug her around the neck without her having flashbacks of his hands clasped around her throat.

“Every single day, multiple times a day, I struggle not to curl up into a ball and sob,” she said.

“Every day I fight those poisonous words that were yelled at me. The words that told me I was nothing, told me I was useless, too fat, too stupid, too ugly, no good and a waste of oxygen.

“That I was lucky that he would have me because no one else would want me.

“These words were spat at me again, over and over and over again, for hours at a time.”

She also spoke of how she was not the same person any more following the years of “sexual violations” and “forced sexual punishments” from “the man who was meant to love me”.

“I feel ashamed that I was a bright, intelligent, outgoing and strong person and I was reduced to nothing,” she said.

“But the shame does not belong on my shoulders. Because there is never any excuse to abuse or rape someone.

“I have to remember to lay that blame firmly at the feet of the perpetrator.”

Her husband will return to court next month where his lawyer is expected to make further submissions on mitigating factors before he will be sentenced.

In Victoria, rape carries a maximum penalty of 25 years jail.

The man is facing up to 25 years in jail for raping his wife nine times.

Read more of the domestic violence survivor’s powerful victim impact statement here:

I am writing this to explain the inexplicable. The impact that his ongoing, persistent and consistent abuse, rape and coercion and violence has had on me.

How do I explain what it means to have to fight for so many years not to be systematically destroyed to become nothing?

While also simultaneously being made to believe I was.

How do I explain what it means to get to the point where I actually believed to be treated the way that he chose to treat me?

How do I explain the wrath of an abuser who was losing his victim, once I started to believe I didn’t deserve his abuse?

The best I can do is try.

Every single day, multiple times a day, I struggle not to curl up into a ball and sob. I get the urge to cry because I am exhausted.

Every day I fight those poisonous words that were yelled at me.

The words that told me I was nothing, told me I was useless, too fat, too stupid, too ugly, no good and a waste of oxygen.

That I was lucky that he would have me because no-one else would want me.

These words were spat at me again, over and over and over again, for hours at a time. These words continually play on a loop in my brain. Sometimes in the background. Sometimes in the foreground.

But they are always there.

The effort that it has taken so far and will take in the future to try and turn that abusive rhetoric off for good is mammoth – and it’s an ongoing struggle.

I fight every day to get out of bed. To prove that I’m a whole person.

A person that isn’t damaged beyond repair – and that can still live life.

I have to tell myself these things just to be able to get out of bed.

I fight every single day to prove that I am worth something.

That I’m worth love. And that my love for others is worth something. Even if that voice in my head tells me that I’m wrong.

An intense wave of fear washes over me, when anyone, even one of my own children, put their arms around me from behind. Or place their hands on my shoulders. I feel that when anything touches me around my neck, because my brain is instantly transported back to those moments when his hands were around my throat.

I am crippled by the fight, flight, freeze and fawn response on so many occasions.

Even seemingly insignificant, random things like random noises, silence, a particular phone notification, and a tone of voice. These things in the past signified that something bad was about to happen.

It takes a constant and concerted effort to function normally.

I struggle not to react or break down.

I am done living my life in hibernation, though.

So I push myself, even though my brain is screaming at me not to.

That it’s too hard. That it’s too dangerous to live my life how I deserve – and how I have always deserved to live.

I constantly second guess my ability to make decisions.

I doubt whether I might know something.

I doubt that my input could ever be of value.

I doubt I could be anything but a burden on anybody because that’s what I’ve been told for so many years.

I am so accustomed to walking on egg shells.

Everything being my fault. Trying to keep the peace. Trying to avoid even the slightest potential conflict.

I am so convinced that it is me that is the problem. That it is me that is the cause that everything happened.

That I apologised for everything.

I apologised for talking.

I apologised for offering to help.

I apologised for sending an email or a text message.

I apologised for sending birthday greetings.

I apologised for giving a gift.

I apologised for eating.

I apologised for drinking.

I apologised for breathing.

I apologised for just existing at times.

I cannot shake the sense that everything is my fault – even when it clearly is not.

So I apologise.

My personal life and future happiness has been affected because I have been put down for so many years.

And I struggle not to feel worthless to society.

How can I explain the deep-seated dread that weighs down on my insides when even the mention of dating is brought up?

I feel shame, humiliation, and disgust, feelings that the abusive rhetoric in my head spits at me.

I ask myself, why would anyone want anything to do with the broken, damaged disgusting piece of work that I am?

And after being told this for so long, it’s now embedded in my thoughts.

I fight a perpetual battle with the thoughts that I am a complete mess and will never amount to enough of anything for anybody.

I don’t feel worthy of another person’s attention or praise.

I feel unworthy of anything good.

Because I feel as though I don’t deserve it.

I was told for years I was only being given what I deserved.

I didn’t know it at the time. But I know it now, and that was abuse.

But knowing this and being able to stop the abusive messages that live in my mind are vastly different.

I fight hard against the instinct to have a universal distrust for everyone new that I meet. I fight the doubt that creeps in to those I already do.

I fear that anybody could be lovely in public, but behind closed doors a completely different story exists.

I have been conditioned to expect that this is the case. I have to constantly recalibrate my danger radar.

It kept me alive for so long.

It now flips from being over active and afraid of everything because of the way fear and danger were normalised to not working enough as I have been so conditioned to ignore my own instincts.

I have anxiety over the effect he has had on my physical health.

I am terrified that the stress I am under that has affected my heart, will kill me.

I have had countless days off work.

Missed a great many social outings.

And spent unproductive days in bed because of a tension migraine.

I’ve had more sleepless nights than not.

I often wake from nightmares. Dripping with sweat. Heart racing. Breathing ragged. I have to employ the many techniques I have been taught to try and ground myself. Bring myself to the here and now, not the past of hell on earth, and the future of what if threats come to fruition.

To recover in the moment I have to bring myself back to the limbo I’ve been in since I left.

There’s been rivers of tears that have flowed down the drain, as I am relentlessly hit with feelings of being disgusting, and have had to shower and try and scrub myself clean at any time of the day or night because of the sexual abuse I was subjected to. Because I was endlessly told that I was disgusting.

I have to learn to acknowledge my emotions. That I’m allowed to show emotion in front of others, and in stressful situations because I’ve spent years of learning that it’s not safe to show I am afraid, or hurt because that’s seen as a weakness, and gives power to the abuser.

My brain lives enshrouded in a heavy fog, which is the result of the trauma I have endured.

I have pushed and pushed and pushed, and yelled at my brain to remember things. Take things in. And the fault remains.

I understand what trauma does to the brain and how it works.

But it doesn’t stop it happening despite my best efforts.

I am eternally exhausted from sleeplessness – but more from the never ending loop of vile put-downs that prevent my brain from switching off.

I fight every single day to ignore the hurtful things that have been told over and over and over again.

I battle with my own brain to not just see just the darkness, but the light also.

Every day I fight to find the person that I was before the abuse.

Even though that person has gone.

Changed, bearing more scars then she ever believed possible.

To be the person that I want to be now.

I work hard at being a positive and happy person, who sees the good, who focuses on the good, who thinks the world is a good place.

I tell myself there are just some people making bad decisions, causing bad things to happen.

But most people are good.

Some days, though, I feel as though the whole world is just horrid. People are awful and there is nothing but bad out there. And my brain screams at me that I should know this already.

I resorted to always having torches with me. In my car. In my handbag. In my work bag. On my person. Next to my bed. Torches that were deemed self-defence because of how bright they were.

Because I feared him turning up and using me, as I’d been told I had to be available for him, even if I did leave.

I was once proud of my grades. The abuse and this aftermath has adversely affected my studies, and I am proud to just scrape through with a pass.

I watched in agony as my high marks that I strived to achieve at uni slipped each year.

It began when the abuse escalated.

I’ve lost friends because of the isolation, the abuse, the stories that emerged after I left, and since I dared break the code of silence that enshrouds domestic violence.

Faced with the wrath of outing the abuser, besmirching the good bloke, I have spent countless hours crying on friend’s shoulders. Having them listen to me at stupid hours of the night, when I have woken up and needed someone to talk to.

I constantly fear that they will run, too.

Because the rhetoric in my head says, why would they stay? What good are you to them?

I feel the effects of the social shame that society hold for women like me who stayed. People think: Why didn’t she leave?

I feel ashamed that I was a bright, intelligent, outgoing and strong person and I was reduced to nothing.

I can’t even begin to explain what nothing feels like.

There is a mountain of work that the abuse we have endured has left to be done.

And it is now my lifelong work to try and retrain my brain to do that.

It’s hard work. And it will continue to be hard work.

How can I attempt to describe what it is like to be so afraid for so long but the afraid button for normal things no longer works.

Aggressive and abusive people who can trigger a sense of danger in others don’t even rate on my “be careful metre”.

I have to remind myself that when someone treats me as if I don’t matter that I’m allowed to be upset.

I don’t have to just submit and accept that I’m nothing.

That I’m allowed to be asked to be treated with respect.

It takes incredible effort to remember that there is no excuse for the shame that has been pushed on me for so long. The shame that society often adds to.

Thankfully that seems to be changing somewhat.

I still feel the shame. I sense that everything that happened was my fault.

But the shame does not belong on my shoulders. Because there is never any excuse to abuse or rape someone.

I have to remember to lay that blame firmly at the feet of the perpetrator.

Every single day I strive to live.

I strive to find the good.

I strive to find reasons to smile, reasons to laugh.

And even if there are days I’m unable to, I remember the phrase, fake it till you make it.

Faking it is hard work, and exhausting. But so is living with the aftermath of abuse and rape. Life is for living, and as much work that will take, that is what I will do.

Anyone who has experienced sexual assault, family and domestic violence, can call the 24-hour hotline 1800 RESPECT for help and counselling.