When *Mel married *James, the man she thought was the love of her life, her world came crashing around her that same year.
“Soon after the wedding, my mom passed away suddenly – she was only 49,” the Adelaide woman tells Kidspot.
“We were very close. After she passed away, it was like I was in a trance for years grieving her loss.”
In the years that followed, Mel would suffer trauma she never could have imagined – and just when she thought she was free, she encountered yet another devastating blow that left her unable to say goodbye to her dear mother all over again.
The start of something awful
In the early years of Mel’s marriage, she trusted James implicitly with everything she had.
“He would say, ‘I’m really good at taking care of money. How about I sort it all and you won’t have to worry about it?’,” the 45-year-old, who was employed full time for her entire marriage, recalls.
“At the time, I appreciated it because I was younger then, and not great at managing it. But that was the start of the financial abuse, and I didn’t realize what it was until the gate shut behind me.”
In the beginning, Mel says James was very open about their finances, and as their situation improved, he began to stop allowing her direct access to their money – even her own income, asserting that she didn’t need to ‘worry about it’.
“He was very controlling,” she says.
“If I was going out to lunch, he would allocate me money for that on a card. I had to ask permission to use any of the money because he was ‘better’ at managing it than me.”
James’ controlling behavior extended far beyond the couple’s finances, to the point where Mel had to walk on eggshells in her own home, one that she purchased in equal share.
“We had to sleep in separate rooms for our entire marriage because he hated the sound of my breathing, and I wasn’t allowed to put any of my things anywhere in the house, other than the room I slept in,” she says.
“That room came to be my only sanctuary, and I would listen out for him in the middle of the night, opening the door and picking up my phone to check what I’d been doing on it. The memory still triggers me.
“He was only nice to me if I was doing the ‘right thing’, which was to work full time, keep the house perfect and make sure I cooked all the meals.”
Such was James’ intimidation over Mel, he installed a surveillance camera both inside and outside the house, which he told his wife at the time was to keep an eye on their dog, Tommy.
“He went overseas on his own on holiday and called me, demanding to know where I was because he couldn’t see or hear me on the camera at home,” she says.
“I had to move myself into view of the camera to prove I was home. Then he would call me in the middle of the night, making me do a walking tour of the house with the camera to find out if anyone was staying over. I had to show inside the wardrobes and under the beds and outside the house as well.”
James’ abuse then turned physical.
“One day, he charged towards me and I fell backwards onto a chair,” Mel recalls vividly.
“As I was sitting there, I saw his fist coming and turned away but he managed to thump my thigh so hard. I couldn’t walk for weeks after that. He never wanted me to go to the hospital.”
Finding the courage to flee
After nine years of marriage, Mel found the courage to flee from the domestic violence and take refuge at a friend’s home.
“He put me down one too many times, telling me that I was living a ‘nice life’ because of him and that I was useless without him,” she says of the argument they had that day.
“He was constantly accusing me of sleeping with other people, and I just snapped and calmly walked out the door. At the time I thought I would end up going back in a few days if he realized what he had done and made amends, but he was so horrible to me after I left – even banging on my friend’s house in the middle of the night – that I never went back.”
Mel spent more than $50,000 in the family court to be awarded her share of the marital home, only to be tragically robbed of what was really most precious to her.
During the property settlement, Mel requested multiple times via her lawyer to have the ashes of her mother and grandmother handed back to her, as James was still residing in the home.
“I just thought they would be returned to me because he didn’t want anything to do with them,” she says.
“The whole time we were married, I wasn’t allowed to keep them in the house. He refused. I had to keep them in the garage. I tried to hide them in my wardrobe at one point but he saw them, and forced me to take them outside.”
To her shock and devastation, she was never able to see them again.
“He says he has no idea where they are and he doesn’t have them,” she says emotionally.
“But I know they were there when I left and he was the one who packed the house up for sale. If he had come out saying he had thrown them out, at least I know what happened. It’s the not knowing that’s worse.”
Since the loss of her mother, Mel’s grief never subsided, having also said goodbye to four grandparents and an uncle in the years since.
He took the dog, too
Mel has also been left heartbroken over her beloved dog, Tommy, which James gifted her during their marriage.
“He was actually a gift after I found all the text messages and photos from an affair he had been having,” she says.
“He was the light of my life. I poured everything into raising him and taking care of him. I took him to all his vet visits – and James would tell me he wouldn’t allow money to be spent if he needed surgery. Tommy would lick my tears away and he would nuzzle into my neck when he knew I was upset.”
The pup remains alive and well, however, Mel was never able to see him again as he was withheld by her ex.
“It was him or me,” she says painfully of her cherished pup.
“If I went back to take Tommy, I would have never been able to leave. Leaving Tommy behind was like my leg being caught in a bear trap and I had to cut off my own leg so that I could survive. I knew I would never get him back. All I have is photos of him and I dream of him at night, and he smells like warm wool.”
“I carry a lot of trauma”
At this time of her life, Mel once imagined she would be happily married with children with Tommy by her side. But James crushed all of her dreams.
“We talked about having kids before we got married and both wanted them, but then once we got married, he said, ‘Let’s wait a year’,” she says of her ex.
“But then it turned into him hating children and never wanting them. As the years went on, I still wanted to have kids, but never wanted to have them with him.”
Now Mel feels she has completely missed her chance to be a mum.
“I’m in a different phase of my life now where that yearning to have kids is gone, but I would have definitely tried to have them for so many years when I was younger, but I couldn’t then.”
Despite so much having been ripped from her so painfully, Mel has found the strength to move on, but the loss of her mother and grandmother, not once but twice, remains with her always.
“I’ve carried a lot of guilt over it, especially for my sibling, who can’t say goodbye to their mum,” she says, fighting back tears.
“But I know that my Nan and Mum understand that it’s no fault of mine that this has happened. I carry a lot of trauma but I know that I’m safe now, and the life that I’m living now, I couldn’t have imagined when I was in the middle of everything. I’m happy and living the peaceful life I’d always wanted.”
*Names have been changed to protect identities.
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