Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls (10)

 

Today, December 10th, is day 16 of 16 Days of Activism ; International Human Rights day, an annual reminder of the Declaration of Human Rights and a time to reflect on rights upheld in our communities, and rights that have been breached.  

The World Health Organisation has declared a longstanding epidemic of violence against women and girls, which makes International Human Rights Day a significant day to end the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence. A day for our countries to reflect how endemic violence against women and girls is, understand what keeps women stuck in abusive relationships, and commit to taking just one action to end this abuse.

For Sarah, part of what kept her stuck in her abusive marriage was the beliefs she’d been taught and accepted from childhood, in particular that marriage is for life; marriage vows cannot be broken.  While she was being abused Sarah confided in people of faith, including Church leaders, but not until she left did a priest suggest to her that Jamie’s violence broke the marriage contract, and Jamie’s affairs broke the marriage contract. Whatever the rules of the Church, this marriage was over.

Being Catholic meant Sarah would not be able to marry again in the Church unless she had her marriage to Jamie annulled, which requires the cooperation of both husband and wife.  Sarah knew Jamie didn’t cooperate in the divorce process; he would never take part a annulment process.  This was another weapon of power and control Jamie wielded.

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WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter 10

Sarah

Sarah went back to school in the new year, telling her head teacher Jamie had left. She was teaching in a Catholic school, and her colleagues were very kind and supportive. One friend offered her ‘rescue remedy’, an herbal remedy for times of distress and overwhelm. Her friend Jean suggested it might help to speak to her parish priest. Her family had had difficulties of their own, and he had been a great help. She said, ‘He’s the least judgmental person I’ve come across.’
Sarah worried about becoming isolated and knew she needed help. Her past experience of the Catholic Church had been patchy. Now, after working for so long in this Catholic school, she was becoming aware of the many changes in the Church over the past few decades, and she felt more comfortable with the Church as it was now. Sarah arranged to meet with Jean’s priest, arriving at the appointment with some trepidation. One of the strongest messages from her childhood had been unworthiness. Jamie had reinforced this, and she didn’t need another messenger conveying her lack of worth now. She worried she might have to jump through hoops to become accepted.

A man, who was about her own age, met her. He wore a sweater – no clerical collar and black suit. Fr Joe offered her tea and sat down with her and listened. She was anxious because she thought he would disapprove of her ending her marriage. She worried he would tell her to reunite with Jamie.

What he said was amazing to her. Hers and Jamie’s was not a true marriage. Jamie’s abuse and affairs had broken the marriage contract, and the only way forward was to separate. He spoke to her about a marriage counselling service and offered to arrange an appointment if she wanted that. Sarah gratefully accepted.

Sarah went on to talk about her isolation and need for community. She was happy working at St Margaret’s and had enjoyed taking part in Mass at school. She now wanted to take part in Mass regularly and bring her children with her. Fr Joe welcomed her, giving her the times of Mass in his parish and in the parish where she lived. She felt going to Mass where she lived would give her children a greater sense of belonging. She wasn’t sure she was ready to go to confession. Would this mean she couldn’t go to communion? He encouraged her go to confession but only when she was ready. He did not feel it was a prerequisite for attending Mass and receiving the Eucharist. She left feeling accepted and arranged to meet with Fr Joe the following week.

Soon, she was meeting with Elaine, a marriage counsellor, who patiently led her to understand the need to look after herself. If she was well, Elaine helped her see, her children would be well. Elaine patiently led her to understand that it was not her fault that Jamie was violent and controlling towards her – the ability to live in peace and safety in your own home was a fundamental human right. Trusting this took Sarah a long time – she believed violence was wrong but wasn’t sure that our society and our faith communities taught this. Elaine listened to her worries about money and the house, work and health, and Erin’s anger and David’s distress. Fr. Joe checked in with her regularly to make sure she was keeping her head above water, emotionally and practically, and asking if there was anything he could do.

Jamie saw the children regularly, often coming to the house. When he left, Erin would become very upset and angry. In the autumn, Andrew, a children’s nurse therapist, began to work with Sarah and the children. Andrew met with Sarah and Jamie and emphasised that it was important to stop using smacking as a form of chastisement. Jamie told him no one could tell him how to bring up his children.

Sometimes when Jamie was visiting the children, Sarah would try to talk to him about the damage he had done. This would end up in another assault on her. At one point, she contacted the Police Family Protection Unit. But the unit was in the early stages of its development, and all the officers could offer was to install cameras in the living room. Jamie would know to avoid them, and any outbursts would take place off camera. Although he and Sarah had split up, Jamie maintained that, as long as they were still married, he had right of access to the family home. Without evidence, Sarah could not get a court order against him. She did not feel safe in her own home. Now when he visited, she left the house.

Sarah began divorce proceedings, but Jamie did not cooperate. When her solicitor sent him a letter, he would ignore it. When asked for information about his finances, he would not give it. When asked to confirm he was now living in a common law relationship with Janice, he would not reply. Eventually, a private detective went to his house and confirmed Jamie’s living situation. This was entered into the record, and friends signed written statements confirming Sarah had talked to them about the beatings. Her solicitor sought divorce on thegrounds of adultery and violence. Jamie continued to take no part in the proceedings, but fifteen months after they split up, a divorce was granted.

In the divorce decree, Sarah was granted Jamie’s share of the house and a financial settlement, and Jamie was deemed liable for the court costs. However, he refused to sign the documents to hand over his share of the house – the sheriff’s clerk had to do this. He said he would provide the financial settlement, with interest, when he retired and he had access to his pension. He did not pay the court costs, and Sarah was told by her solicitor that she would have to pay and then claim the money back from Jamie.

Sarah changed the locks in her house. Jamie no longer had right of access, and she now felt safer.

Over time, Jamie’s behaviour toward Erin and David deteriorated. His partner, Janice, was used to her son Martin, who was happy playing video games and watching television. David was quite different. He preferred to be outside running and climbing. Janice found David hard to deal with and often complained about him. Soon, despite warnings against any physical punishment, Jamie began hitting the children, Martin included, across the head.

Erin became more and more distressed. She was often left in charge of the younger children and felt that, if anything went wrong, she would be held responsible. Then a year later, a new baby boy arrived, which delighted Erin, but she was left on her own to care for him too.

On one occasion, Jamie, Janice, and the kids were out for the day. On the return journey, Jamie and Janice began an argument. It became very heated, and Jamie stopped the car and got out. Janice followed him, leaving the children alone, not knowing where they were or what was happening. Erin was terrified while she looked after her three brothers. When Jamie and Janice came back, she was crying. Jamie complained, saying he didn’t know why she was so upset.

A few months later, Sarah saw Erin flinch whenever Jamie moved his hand. On one occasion, when they were having a meal together, Erin accidentally knocked over her empty milk glass. Jamie leaned over to her and lifted his hand to her face in a threatening way, just short of striking her. Erin’s distress was obvious. Erin loved her daddy but wanted him to stop treating her like this.

They met with Andrew and talked about this. Erin and David agreed that Sarah could talk to Jamie and say he must stop hitting the children. If he didn’t, they would not see him. Sarah checked with her solicitor, who told her that the course of action she’d planned on was right in the eyes of the law.

Sarah arranged for a friend to come to the house to be with the children while she spoke to Jamie. She talked about Erin’s distress and asked him to stop hitting the children. Jamie would not agree. He said again that no one would tell him how to chastise his children. Sarah said there was no option then. He could not see the children.

When Jamie left the room, Sarah thought he was leaving the house. Instead he brought Erin, who by now was eight, and David, six, into the room. He said the children had to decide for themselves who was right. Both children said they wanted their dad to stop hitting them. David said he was worried his dad would get in trouble; a new law that banned smacking children was going through parliament. Jamie said he did not agree with that law, and anyway, it was not law yet.

Jamie left the house that evening and did not see his children again for two and a half years. When they saw their dad again, he told them they were strangers to him. He added that they needed to make the effort to get to know him and the rest of his family. By now, another child had arrived, a girl.

***

Erin and David struggled to maintain a relationship with their dad for the next four years. One evening, they were staying with Jamie. After a row, he grabbed Erin by the neck and dragged her back into his house, breaking her necklace and scratching her neck. David and Martin saw this.

The next day Erin, now seventeen years old, reported what had happened to the police.

A lengthy and detailed investigation began, and Jamie was arrested and charged on seven counts, including one of raping Sarah. The procurator fiscal felt that it would be impossible to achieve a conviction based on the historic nature of the evidence, and court proceedings were stopped. Jamie was referred to his chief constable for internal discipline. He received a deputy chief constable’s warning, the equivalent of a final warning to a civilian employee.

Their decision to go to the police had broken the hold Jamie had over Sarah. A conviction was not secured, but Jamie’s deputy chief constable’s warning meant that Sarah was believed. Although Jamie continued to deny his actions right up to the door of the deputy chief constable’s office, the warning stood.

Sarah was believed, and she was now free to rebuild her life.

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Witness – Sarah

On first thought, the idea of being a witness to my own life might seem odd, but years of mindfulness practice has taught me it’s essential. When I was caught up in the storm of events, planning and reacting, constantly on the go, it was impossible to see another way of being. I realise now that this constant state of crisis and fear of doing wrong, together with the shifting ground beneath me, are all tools of the abuser. For me, the sense of seeking solutions gave me a false sense of control over my life, and perhaps this illusion was part and parcel of the abuse. I loved Jamie and wanted what was best for him. I was committed to Jamie and our marriage, but I had never been committed to myself, not until we split up and I began to rebuild my life. I read a lot about coping with divorce and helping my children cope, and we had reliable professional help, but for several years, my focus was still on solving the problem of Jamie’s discontent in order to help my children cope with their father.

Jamie had a very Victorian approach to marriage and parenthood. No matter how charming and playful he could be, ultimately he wasn’t to be crossed. We had to present ourselves to the world in a way that would reflect well on him. Jamie’s grandmother was from a well-to-do English family that had wealth and property. She married a banker, and their upper middle-class values showed up in Jamie’s family. His mother’s parents were socialist intellectuals, his grandfather, a capable scientist.

I was intellectually bright and came from an Irish Catholic family. My grandfather was a career soldier. When he finished his time in the army, he became the first Catholic overseer in the factory he worked in, indicating he was capable and trustworthy – Catholics in Scotland at the time did not get promotions. My grandmother was an air raid warden during World War II and was very involved in the community. My family members were socialists too, but our approach to our fellow humans was more egalitarian. Jamie displayed a sense of entitlement. He demanded traditional roles and expected the rules to be followed by everyone except himself – a common theme among upper-class Victorian men. His own family humorously suggested he had been born a century too late.

The more I considered Jamie’s confusing approach to our lives, the more I realised there was no way forward if he did not take his commitments seriously. He would intellectualise the inevitability of affairs within marriage and, at the same time, was insanely jealous of me, constantly accusing me of infidelity. Having children to carry on the family line was important, but treating those children with love and respect was outside his capacity.

When I revealed the extent of the abuse we suffered at Jamie’s hands, folk wondered why I stayed – they would not have put up with what I did. The truth, though, is they don’t know. Jamie made me feel overwhelmingly responsible for everything going right in our relationship, and he constantly changed what ‘right’ consisted of. Life has its own momentum, and the day- to-day stuff of earning a living and paying bills, meeting friends and visiting family keeps life turning. Before we know it, years have passed, and we are still trying to make it all work.

Discovering mindfulness practice was fundamental in my path of moving on. In Western philosophy, the concept of right and wrong, blame and punishment are very strong. In mindfulness practice, there is no dualism, no right or wrong, just what is. Blame isn’t uppermost; compassion and understanding are. Embracing all of ourselves leads to compassion for self and others; blame creates a sense of failure and can lead to running away from ourselves or becoming overly responsible for others. Silence and being present with myself was a great place of rest. Letting my thinking be just a thought, and not something I was required to act on was a relief. Folk think mindfulness practice is about stopping thinking. It is, in fact, about observing our thoughts and letting them go. Letting go, therefore, became a possibility.

The years since mine and Jamie’s divorce have been exhausting and liberating, terrifying and the most peaceful I’ve ever had. My life has been focused on my children and their well-being, – I’d learned that my own well-being was fundamental to theirs. Erin and David both have significant health problems resulting from the degree of stress they lived with all their lives, but they have both taken the approach that life is for living and have found their own way as adults – Erin as a holistic therapist and David in the music industry. They both carry their experiences of fear and distress but take the approach that these experiences don’t define them, even if others define them by their experience of abuse. We live in a world of advertising that promotes an illusion of life, not the sweat and tears that are part of reality.

Erin, David, and I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which takes its toll. As David grew and became a man, I would find myself panicking as he came down the stairs in the morning because I hadn’t done something I said I would. David wasn’t the least bothered by my forgetting, but for me, I was back with Jamie coming downstairs after a night shift and panicking about the children being noisy or his ironing not being done. Dealing with PTSD requires me to be grounded in the present moment – standing in this kitchen, making this cake, speaking to my son David, not my abusive husband. The energy this requires is huge.

I hoped to find a supportive community at church, but there was little understanding of the reality for us. Erin didn’t settle in the Catholic Church, as much as anything because Jamie belittled it. So we became involved with the local Church of Scotland, which was also difficult. Sometimes I felt like a failure in among the families there, with Mum, Dad, and the children. Mostly, I felt like an outsider, with few people even trying to understand how life was for us. We needed a place where we could be ourselves, bruises and all. We found this is the teaching of Thich Nhat Hahn and the Wild Goose Sangha, a place to practice mindfulness and still stay with our Christian tradition. Eventually, I found church drained me and went less and less frequently.

I was grateful to find a wonderful spiritual director at a retreat centre I often attended for talks. She was the first person I’d met who had read Matthew Fox’s book, Original Blessing, which turns the concept of original sin on its head, citing many theologians who had the same belief. This book helped me greatly in healing my view of myself, and where I stood with God. Theresa, it transpired, had studied with Matthew Fox for two years when she was a young nun. Her approach to spiritual direction was body based, which was just what I needed, given my habit was to be cerebral. I was very aware of how events and interactions affected my body, but I had no idea what to do with how I felt. Between Theresa; Pam, my shiatsu therapist; and mindfulness practice, I now feel more grounded.

Growing up, I had been led to believe life was about getting married and growing a family. By the time I went to college, I knew women could also have a career. Now, we have a situation in which both parents must work in order to make ends meet – to meet the expectations created by advertising and the consumer industry. I have been homeless, and I live on the minimum income the government has decided we need; I don’t go away on holiday and can’t afford new furniture, but I have a rich life and many, varied interests. I am creative both artistically and in writing, and my interest in the well- being of my family and community take precedence over new decoration. I have chronic health problems, which caused me to stop working, but I’ve learned to live with them. I now live at the coast in a place I’d always wanted to live and never thought I would. I am grateful for the many blessings in my life and thankful to have survived the years of abuse.

When we get married, we have no idea what is normal. Our understanding comes from our parents, aunts and uncles, friends and media. We expect to be safe in our own homes and assume everyone is, especially our children. In reality, we don’t talk about the violence husbands and wives visit on each other. We don’t talk about children being physically and sexually abused. In spite of awareness raising and tut- tutting, the overall perception of family life is still a rosy one. And for many it is. But for a huge number of us, it is not. I believe that, unless we talk openly about what constitutes a healthy marriage and empower our young folk to demand it, the prevalence of gender abuse will not change.

Mine is the story of an unhealthy marriage – one I entered with the best of intentions and high hopes. I offer my story to all willing to listen, not as a cautionary tale but as a living witness to an experience shared by millions throughout the world.

 

Meditation

Mother, when we felt alone and unable to go on, You were there in the friends who comforted us and the games we played together. You were in the doctor and therapists who cared for us and in the solicitor who gave us advice. You were there in the priest who supported us and the sangha who walked with us and the women’s groups that shared our experience. You were there in the peace and quiet of the sea. Thank You

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Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls (9)

Instead of asking the question ‘Why doesn’t she leave?’, please recognise this:  It is incredibly dangerous to leave an abusive partner. 55% of the women killed by their ex-partner or ex-spouse in 2017 in UK were killed within the first month of separation and 87% in the first year (Femicide Census, 2018).

Women’s Aid offers the following advice if you are worried about someone experiencing domestic violence:

• Listen to her, try to understand and take care not to blame her. Tell her that she is not alone and that there are many women like her in the same situation.
• Acknowledge that it takes strength to trust someone enough to talk to them about experiencing abuse. Give her time to talk, but don’t push her to go into too much detail if she doesn’t want to.
• Acknowledge that she is in a frightening and very difficult situation.
• Tell her that no one deserves to be threatened or beaten, despite what her abuser has told her. Nothing she can do or say can justify the abuser’s behaviour.
• Support her as a friend. Encourage her to express her feelings, whatever they are. Allow her to make her own decisions.
• Don’t tell her to leave the relationship if she is not ready to do this. This is her decision.
• Ask if she has suffered physical harm. If so, offer to go with her to a hospital or to see her GP.
• Help her to report the assault to the police if she chooses to do so.
• Be ready to provide information on organisations that offer help to abused women and their children. Explore the available options with her. Tell her Women’s Aid and how to access our website.
• Go with her to visit a solicitor if she is ready to take this step.
• Plan safe strategies for leaving an abusive relationship.
• Let her create her own boundaries of what she thinks is safe and what is not safe; don’t urge her to follow any strategies that she expresses doubt about.
• Offer your friend the use of your address and/or telephone number to leave information and messages, and tell her you will look after an emergency bag for her, if she wants this.

Look after yourself while you are supporting someone through such a difficult and emotional time. Ensure that you do not put yourself into a dangerous situation; for example, do not offer to talk to the abuser about your friend or let yourself be seen by the abuser as a threat to their relationship.

In this chapter of WITNESS by Kitty Nolan we hear from Sarah’s friend Kay, who supported Sarah and allowed her to make her own decisions in her own time. Kay accepted Sarah, she didn’t judge her, or try to impose on  her choices she wasn’t ready to make.  Supporting Sarah in these circumstances was very stressful for Kay.  If you are supporting a friend or family member, do make sure you look after yourself too.

 

 

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WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter 9

Sarah

Sarah’s children were so precious to her. She had great difficulty carrying a child to term, and when they were born, she knew she wanted to be with them until they went to school. Erin was now approaching four. She had been at nursery school for a few months and would go to school in August. By now, David was on his feet, and having waited a long time to talk, now talked in complete sentences. Sarah’s hope was to stay with him until it was his turn to go to school, but Jamie began to talk to her about going back to teaching. She could pick up jobs as a supply teacher a few days a month, and that would help the family finances. Sarah was reluctant, but thinking easing their money worries would ease Jamie’s temper, she agreed. David was eighteen months when she first went back to work.

To begin with, she only worked when Jamie could care for the children, but soon they had a childminder because the schools she worked in were desperate for supply cover, and Jamie enjoyed the income. He talked about them having a family holiday.

Although he could be verbally aggressive, there were no more physical outbursts. Soon, though, Sarah began to notice

the same phone number listed in their phone bills, and Jamie would often put the phone down hastily when she came into the room.

Sarah was working hard at school and at home. She had very little time to herself. To the contrary, on his days off, Jamie had a lot of leisure time. He did go for shopping when it was needed and spent time with the children, going swimming or to the park. He had few male friends, but sometimes he’d drive the children over to the coast, and he’d talk about seeing Angela who ran a burger stand on the pier. Sarah knew her and knew Jamie liked her, and she was always kind to the children. Sarah knew Angela well enough to know she would never have an affair with a married man. And Angela’s dad was often at the burger stand. He would never have allowed any married man to play around with his daughter’s affections! However, the strange number kept showing up on their phone bills.

In May, as promised, the family had a holiday in Spain for a week. Just before they left, Jamie told Sarah that the chlamydia infection was back. He said the infection was deep- seated and had not been properly eliminated with the last treatment. This meant another visit to the STD clinic, more humiliating tests, and new antibiotics. Sarah was puzzled. Her understanding of chlamydia was that it was easily treated with antibiotics. They saw separate doctors, and her doctor confirmed that chlamydia responded well to antibiotics. This must be a reinfection. Jamie said otherwise.

They went to Spain, but Sarah was uneasy. The children enjoyed the statue-like people in the streets, doing their best to make the statue people move. Sarah enjoyed the buildings and the warmth. She loved being able to see the breathtaking buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi. They stayed at the coast so the children could swim in the sea, and they saw a dragon created in sand, which began to wash away as the

tide changed. David made friends with a couple of German children. None of the children spoke the others’ language, but they all managed to play together and enjoy each other’s company. Jamie seemed to enjoy the pace of the country; men with briefcases sauntering up the street to their offices – no one was that relaxed at home!

***

In July, Sarah needed her tonsils removed and went into hospital for four days. She had an awful time. It took a long time for her to be able to swallow even water without being sick, and when the children came to see her for the first time, she was hooked up to a drip. David found this frightening and got very upset; he wouldn’t go near Sarah, and Sarah wasn’t sure who she was most distressed for, three-year-old David or herself.

When she got home, she spent a lot of time in bed for the first week. Jamie wanted her to come down and have meals with them, but eating was so painful that, when Sarah tried to swallow food, the tears ran down her cheeks, which upset the children. Then at the end of that week, which was the first week of his holidays, Jamie said he needed to get away on his own. He left her on her own, barely strong enough to look after herself, with Erin and David while he went north climbing. Sarah knew he was easier to live with after he’d had some time to himself, but his leaving at a time like this seemed unfair.

When Sarah returned to school in August, she was given a long-term temporary post covering a teacher who was being treated for cancer. The post was to last until the following June. Sarah now had even less time to herself. After the children had gone to bed each night, she would begin preparing classwork for the next day. Jamie would go out in the evening, and once again, he did not always come home.

***

Sarah discovered that she was a good teacher and that she was well liked by pupils and colleagues. This gave her more confidence, and she began to feel good about herself – at least in her classroom. She worked hard, and given the many changes to the curriculum, especially the infant curriculum, there was a lot to take on that year. One of her older colleagues said she didn’t know what she would have done if Sarah hadn’t been there, as she was feeling lost.

Sarah and Jamie’s wedding anniversary was 29 September. He stayed out all night on 28 September, and when he came home, he gave her a card. Sarah warned him then that she wanted him to stop staying out all night. He said nothing. Sarah had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

***

On Boxing Day, Jamie went away for the day, climbing again. Next day, his sister Claire and her husband, Alan, were due to visit. In the morning, Sarah went out for milk and bread. When she got into the car, she could hear his pager buzzing, so she picked it up. There on the screen was a love message from Janice, a woman Jamie had mentioned on and off over the past six months. Sarah went back into the house, called Claire with an excuse to cancel their day, and gave the pager to Jamie. Sarah was going away for the day; when she returned she wanted Jamie to have made a decision about his future. She could no longer live like this. Sarah knew this was the end and wanted Jamie to take responsibility for himself.

She spent the day back in her home village and tried to go into the church, but it was closed. She went to the town where she’d gone to school and tried the door of that church, but this door, too, was closed. Helen was away on holiday, which left Sarah feeling completely alone. She had no idea what would happen now, except that her marriage was finished.

On her way home, she called in at her friend Kay’s. Kay had always been a great support. She did not like spending time with Jamie, and she hated what he was doing to Sarah but she seemed to know intuitively that Sarah shouldn’t be pushed into leaving him. Sarah had tried before and gone back. Kay did not judge her. She accepted her friend’s decision, even though she didn’t understand it, and she accepted Sarah. Talking to Kay cleared Sarah’s head and firmed her resolve.

When she went home to put her children to bed, Jamie had nothing to say. He said he needed her to help him make a decision. Sarah said he’d made his decision by his actions. He did admit he was having an affair, and the next day he left and moved in with Janice.

Before he left, they sat together with the children. Jamie had David on his lap, and Erin was leaning against him. When Jamie said he wouldn’t be living with them anymore, Erin ran out of the room. Sarah went after her and found her sitting on her bed. They sat for a long time as Erin cried and hugged her mum.

When they went back downstairs, Sarah heard Jamie tell David that he was now the man in the family, and he must take care of everyone. David was three years old. Erin was almost six. That night, after Jamie had gone and the children were settled to sleep, Sarah sat down on her own. She felt angry. She felt betrayed. She felt she’d been made a fool of. And she felt relieved. She also felt she was walking in the dark.

 

Witness – Kay

Sarah and I were among a bunch of mums who started a mother and toddlers group near where we lived. We hit it off immediately. For one thing, when it came to getting things done, it seemed to be down to the two of us. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen making snacks and clearing up. Before I’d had my kids, I had been a drama teacher. Sarah had had a mixture of careers before having Erin and David, but we both had teaching in common. We were also both keen environmentalists, and at that time, it marked us out as being a bit odd, me more than Sarah. I liked to wear ethnic clothes because they were bright and comfortable. Sarah always looked smart even if she was wearing jeans and a fleece.

We bonded over our shared interests and supported each other over the difficulties we had in our marriages. We both loved our husbands, but life wasn’t easy for either of us. My husband, Brian, worked for an oil company and was away in Aberdeen during the week, only getting home for weekends and holidays. Sarah was one of the few people who understood how difficult life was for me and my kids. During the week, we had one way of doing things, but when Brian got home, he expected everything to be his way, which was hard going for me and the kids. Brian couldn’t see what the problem was. All anyone else could see was the big house and the fancy cars.

I knew Jamie could be verbally cruel. – I’d heard him talking down to Sarah often. But to begin with, I didn’t know about the violence. Jamie knew I didn’t like him, and Sarah said he referred to me as her ‘lesbian friend’ – silly man! For Sarah’s sake, I managed to tolerate him, and he was happy to use me for babysitting when it suited him; he even picked the kids up from my place now and again.

I hated that he could be so condescending to Sarah; she was one of the smartest people I knew. She did have a way of chasing down a problem until she found the solution, which sometimes drove me up the wall! She would keep returning to a problem and turning it over and over until it made sense to her, and that could get a bit wearing. She had a quirky thinking style, but no one could accuse her of being stupid.

She stayed with us when the police told her to stay with a friend after an assault. I was mad that the officers had let Jamie stay with Erin and David and sent their mother away. I made a remark about the police covering for their own, but Sarah wouldn’t hear of it. She said they had no power. I wondered if she really believed this. Or did she need to believe it because she needed some sense that there were rules and that breaking them had consequences?

She was so worried about Erin and David and couldn’t get the image of Erin’s wee face out of her head. She seemed sure Jamie wouldn’t deliberately harm them but wasn’t sure he could care for them properly in his condition – another reason I was mad at the police! Jamie was hardly in a fit state to look after himself, never mind a toddler and a baby.

When he agreed to leave that time, it was a big relief all round. Sarah went back home to her kids and tried to relax a bit. But Jamie didn’t stay away for long, only a day I think.

Then when I didn’t hear from Sarah for about three days, I got really worried. Although I was concerned I was betraying her trust, I had to tell someone. So I phoned her doctor and told him why I was worried. He said the practice was aware of the situation, but they couldn’t do anything unless Sarah called them.

When I phoned Sarah the next day, I got Jamie. He said she was ill, and that made me feel uneasy. I managed to make an arrangement to see her later that day. Jamie let me in and left Sarah and me alone in the living room. I saw just how pale and weak she was. She told me about coming home and finding Jamie in the house and his plea for them to get back together again. She hadn’t made a decision. When I told her I’d phoned her doctor, I burst into tears. I was really sorry, but I hadn’t known what else to do because I was so worried.

Sarah wasn’t angry. She said she was okay and was really grateful that I’d been so concerned. I don’t think she realised just how many people cared about her.

She stopped the divorce proceedings, and things settled down for a while. I know Sarah gave Jamie an ultimatum. She went back to teaching and things seemed to be improving. Sarah and Jamie even went away with the kids for a family holiday; usually Jamie went on his own.

Then she phoned late on a January night and told me Jamie was gone; he’d moved in with this other woman, Janice. I knew how tired and vulnerable I felt with Brian away during the week; there was so much to do. If the car broke down, I had to deal with it. If the kids were ill, I was up all night. If the washing machine broke, I had to get it fixed. I was exhausted, and I wasn’t working on top of everything else. I don’t know how Sarah managed, dealing with the house, having a full-time job, and coming home to Erin’s distress all night. But she did. And Jamie expected her to – another reason to be furious with him.

About six months after Sarah and Jamie split up, Brian got a contract to work for a year abroad. This time, the family could go with him. This was a chance for our family to be together all the time, and I jumped at it. When we were away, Sarah and I were in constant touch by email and sometimes by phone. One of the startling things about being parted was that, whenever one of us was having a crisis, the other seemed to pick it up – from halfway around the world – and get in touch.

My marriage was failing, and when we came home, Brian and I split up. It was planned and fairly amicable. Sarah was still struggling with the way Jamie behaved towards her and the children.

We saw each other regularly because, together with a few friends, we set up a meditation group. We met once a week, and we both gained strength from the practice. It gave us space to focus on ourselves and time to breathe. Sarah and the children began going back to her church; she had found a wise and compassionate priest who helped support her and the children. She meditates daily and calls herself a Zen Catholic. I found the Buddhist path was for me.

Over the years, Sarah’s health has been poor, and I know her relationship with Erin was difficult. We still met together from time to time for meditation, and we often had family meditation days, which all our children enjoyed. One Easter, we all went off together for a family retreat led by two of the monks from the Community of Interbeing. Sarah says her meditation practice helped de-escalate difficulties, but there were still moments when she felt she was failing.

I went back to work, and life was full on for both of us. That meant we started to see less of one another. I think we were both finding it tough at that point.

Then a few years later, Sarah told me Jamie had assaulted Erin. This was a step too far! Sarah, Erin, and David decided to tell the police everything. They made a formal complaint about Jamie’s abuse. She asked me if I’d tell them what I knew.

I was happy to give a statement.

 

∞∞∞

 

 

Meditation

Mother, I give in. Church teaches marriage is for life, and I was faithful to my commitment. But what came of it?

Breathing in, I touch terror, humiliation, exhaustion, disease, disability, dishonour, disquiet.

Breathing out, I let go.

Rooting myself in You, Mother, I breathe in safety, peace, clarity, compassion, comfort, healing, honour.

Breathing out, I rest in You.

 

∞∞∞

Follow the links below to get your copy of WITNESS.

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls (8)

 

No one gets married expecting their marriage to fail, and most people try their best to keep their marriage and family together.  If you have no direct experience of living with an abuser it can be difficult to understand why women stay; it can be even more difficult to understand why it can take several attempts at leaving before women leave for good. Leaving requires believing it will be better for you and your children than staying; leaving requires faith in yourself that you will manage to look after your children and yourself; leaving requires resources – money, accommodation, practical and emotional support.

Leaving requires a safety plan , at minimum have a GO BAG with the following:

• important documents – birth certificates, passports, bank cards
• important phone numbers, including your local refuge
• change of clothes
• if possible children’s favourite toy
• medication

THE POINT AT WHICH A WOMAN IS MOST LIKELY TO BE MURDERED IS WHEN SHE LEAVES HER ABUSER.

In chapter eight of WITNESS, Sarah’s dilemma is described together with her sister Helen’s witness account of Jamie’s violence toward Sarah.

∞∞∞

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter 8

Sarah

Jamie returned from the Alps with tales of adventure and Sheila, a friend he’d met on a climb in Scotland who was in the Alps too. Jamie had spent most of his time there with this new friend; he said she was very interesting. Soon letters were arriving regularly from France, and Sarah knew another affair had begun.

In August, Sarah had a small surgical procedure to remove cysts from her ovaries; she was told to rest for at least a week when she got home. Her friend Kay kept the children during the day while Jamie was at work. However, on the second day, when Jamie went to pick them up, he had a car accident and ended up in hospital for several days. Sarah didn’t get much rest, and when he got home, Jamie needed to be lifted and bathed and dressed. He had smashed his elbow and his collarbone and required pins to put it back together. Sarah didn’t get time to recover from her procedure, and there was no one to help out at home.

One morning, a week after Jamie got home from hospital, Sarah helped him get into the bath. While he was in the bath Sarah started tidying their bedroom. She picked up the wastebasket and took it downstairs to empty it. In the basket was an open letter from Sheila. She was back in Scotland now and hoped Jamie had received the birthday present she’d left with his friend Gary. Sarah couldn’t work out how Sheila knew Gary and questioned Jamie about it. Jamie said they were just friends, and Sarah had no business reading his letters.

Next day, Sarah decided to call his bluff. If they were simply friends, then she was sure Sheila would want to visit him after his accident. She sent a pleasant card to Sheila inviting her to visit and then told Jamie. He was furious.

His right elbow and collarbone were immobilised, but using his left arm he picked up David and led Erin out of the living room and put them on the bottom step of the stairs. He closed the living room door and began beating Sarah with his left hand. He told her to sort it out and chased her out of the house. Sarah managed to grab the car keys and drove straight to the local police station. She told the duty sergeant she had been assaulted, and she wanted her children out of the house. Two sergeants came out to the house with her.

Jamie met them at the door, opening it a crack. He said, ‘Nothing has happened here. She’s off her head!’

Sarah could see Erin peering out behind Jamie.

The sergeants told her there was nothing they could do. It was her word against his. They advised her to go and stay with a friend. They left Jamie, who needed assistance to dress and bathe himself, with the care of Sarah’s three-year-old daughter and David, who could not walk!

Sarah had no choice. If she went back into the house, she thought she’d be killed. She spent the next ten days with her friend Kay. That night, she arranged to see her GP, who took note of the injuries to her face and back. The following day, she began divorce proceedings.

***

After ten days, Jamie asked to meet with her. He wanted to sort things out. This time, Sarah held her ground. Other people had seen the damage he had done her; there was no more hiding the fact that he hurt her. Jamie said he wanted them to stay together as a family. Nothing was as important to him as this. He would do anything she asked. Jamie pointed out how difficult it would be to face folks at work knowing that she had told his sergeants about the assault. Sarah said it was up to them as a couple to decided what to do, and if he was serious that his family was the most important thing to him, they would get through this together. But this angered Jamie again. Here she was telling him what to do! There was no way forward from this. Jamie left the house that day, leaving Sarah with the children and very little money.

That night, Sarah breathed a sigh of relief.

The following day, she left the children with Kay while she went to her hospital check-up. Kay was to bring them back in the evening so Sarah could get a rest in the afternoon. When she got home, though, the front door was open. Jamie had forced his way into the house, leaving a hole in the wall at the front door. When she went into the living room, she found a note attached to the tape recorder. ‘Please listen to this,’ the note read. ‘It will be of interest to you.’

She listened while he pleaded that he could not live without his family. He wanted them to stay together and would do anything. Sarah could take no more. When Jamie came in and asked what she wanted to do, she couldn’t answer him. She began to cry until the sobs made her whole body shake. She could not speak or open her eyes and soon could not hold her own body up. She cried for three days.

***

Jamie panicked and sent for Mhairi. Jamie’s sister spent hours with Sarah, just sitting beside her and stroking her head. Once Sarah was asleep, Mhairi went downstairs to talk to Jamie. She told him he had to give up Sheila and start taking his responsibilities as a husband and father seriously. He didn’t like this.

Over the next week, he took great care of Sarah and the children. To begin with, he stopped asking about what would happen to their marriage. He seemed genuinely concerned about Sarah. Then bit by bit, he began to wear her down with his plea to hold their family together. Sarah felt paralyzed by her need for freedom on the one hand and, on the other, her fear that she could not look after her children on her own. Jamie had made her believe she could not cope alone. She also believed that, if her marriage ended, she would be alone for the rest of her life.

Kay came to visit because she was worried, so much so that she had phoned Sarah’s doctor. Sarah’s GPS knew about her situation but couldn’t do anything unless Sarah made direct contact with them.

Sarah saw Dr Cullen the next day. She said she felt she had to give the marriage one last chance. Dr Cullen advised that, if she was going to do this, she should put boundaries in place.

On her way home Sarah gave Dr Cullen’s advice a great deal of thought. When she got to the house, she sat down with Jamie and told him she was prepared to have one last go, but if he hit her again, their marriage was over, and if he had another affair, their marriage was over. Jamie didn’t like these terms, but he accepted them.

Sarah halted divorce proceedings.

***

A month later, Jamie was recovered enough to go back to work. Sarah was in regular contact with Helen during this

stressful time.

 

Witness – Helen

I am the youngest in our family, and Sarah always looked after me. When I was in primary school, Sarah was the one who took me to ballet every Saturday. When I was dancing, she’d be sitting in the changing room among all the coats and shoes reading a book and waiting for me. After Mum and Dad died, Sarah was my main emotional support; young as she was, her strength came through and made me feel safe. She went to college a few months after Mum died, but during the year that Dad was ill, she took a year out, returning to teacher training after he died. I lived with our older sister, Anne, and our Aunt Sarah, who lived in Glasgow, kept an eye on all of us.

I met Jamie for the first time in Sarah’s last year at college, at Christmastime. Actually, I heard him before I saw him, and my first impression was, Who is this guy? He was a visitor in our house but behaved as though he owned the place. At first I couldn’t work out what Sarah saw in him, but soon his charm and wit came through, and there was a lot of banter between them, which felt good to join in. They seemed to be very much in love.

I was the bridesmaid at their wedding, and they were both a great support to me before and after I got married. My marriage didn’t last long. Dan had a problem with alcohol, and when he began travelling to London for work, he got involved with another woman down there. Then I became pregnant with our son. Soon after our son’s birth, Dan became violent and hit me while I was holding our baby. That ended our marriage.

I liked spending time with Sarah and Jamie in the early years. When I stayed, Sarah always made great food, and we’d have entertaining conversations or a game of Trivial Pursuit. Sarah always won, and Jamie wasn’t a good looser. When I’d stay and Sarah was working but Jamie was on his days off, Jamie and I would go out shopping; those times were good. Sometimes, there would be a heavy atmosphere, and Jamie would be terse with everyone. Sometimes I’d hear them arguing after going to bed, and Jamie would sound vicious, but next morning, everything would be normal again. It was an odd mixture.

After I had Douglas, I visited quite often. Being able to concentrate on just looking after him and not worrying about housework was nice, and it was great to have a good meal made for me. By the time I had Douglas, Sarah had had two miscarriages. When she had the first IVF treatment it was good to be able to be the one helping her. Sarah and Jamie were both so happy when the treatment worked. She didn’t work after she became pregnant because of her history of miscarriage, and this meant we saw a bit more of each other.

I didn’t know at the time, but later Sarah told me that things began to go downhill after Erin was born. Jamie was proud of his lovely baby daughter, often taking her out shopping with him, but he didn’t do a fair share of housework. If Sarah was ill, he’d cook and wash, but as soon as she was back on her feet, he’d be back to his own life, socialising with work friends, climbing, and tinkering with cars and motorbikes. He also had a fling with a young office clerk, the first of several affairs.

Not long after Erin was born, Sarah found she was pregnant again. When she went for her sixteen-week scan, though, it was discovered that the baby had died. I came to stay and help out with Erin and give Sarah some rest. The atmosphere Jamie created was awful. Jamie hardly spoke to Sarah and was often short with her, and he made me feel I was in the way, but I didn’t want to leave Sarah.

Later that summer, I was visiting again. A few days into my stay, just after lunch, Jamie was getting ready to go to work. I was in the kitchen with Sarah and the children. Jamie came through and said, “Sarah, can I see you for a minute?”

Sarah went into the hallway, and Jamie started shouting. Then I heard the slap across her face. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to protect her and slap him, but I felt that would make it worse for Sarah when I was gone. I was also worried that, if I went into the hallway, Douglas would follow me, and I didn’t want my son getting into the middle of things.

Jamie went to work, and Sarah returned to the kitchen. She asked if I could see the mark on her face. Of course I could see the mark on her face! Sarah was relieved; I was furious. Neither of us knew what to do for the best, but Sarah was glad someone else could see what had happened to her. She often doubted her own experience. Jamie never acknowledged his violence. He often belittled her. And he never apologised to Sarah or to me.

Gradually, things settled down again. Sarah agreed to have one more cycle of IVF treatment, but she was finding the whole business of trying to have children emotionally and physically draining, and she was clear it would be the last attempt.

A year later I came to help Sarah near the end of her treatment, after the embryo transfer stage. She’d been advised to take it easy and avoid heavy lifting, so I would help out with Erin and some of the heavier housework. It was 5 November, Guy Fawkes Night, and I remember standing at the door after dinner, while outside, Jamie entertained the children with the sparklers. They loved it.

Next morning, everything changed. It was a mother and toddlers day. It was also the beginning of Jamie’s days off, and he was bored. When Sarah went upstairs to say we were off, Jamie started complaining and ended by hitting Sarah over the head. I heard Jamie complain about me being there and saying that, if Sarah could go out to the group, she could manage everything else. When she came downstairs, she had a large red mark on her face. We took the children to the group. Again, I didn’t feel comfortable, but I didn’t want to leave. By the time, I went home Jamie was back to being civil.

After David was born, the situation escalated. I knew things were bad during her pregnancy, although I didn’t know the full story until much later. She came to stay with me when David was about six months old. She wasn’t sure if she could go back. After a few days she phoned Jamie to try and talk about their problems, but Jamie refused to discuss anything on the phone. If she wanted to talk, she would have to come home. So she did.

I went back to college in August that year. In September, I was called out of a lecture to the phone. It was Jamie. Sarah had left and was staying with a friend nearby. He said he knew he was difficult to live with (he didn’t acknowledge the physical abuse). He wanted me to talk to Sarah and convince her that they should stay together. I told him he should be talking to Sarah and telling her what he would do to become easier to live with. Sarah phoned about a week later. She was back home, and Jamie had left. She had no idea how she was going to live, but tonight she was breathing a sigh of relief. I couldn’t get her the next night, but two days later, when I phoned, I got Jamie. He said Sarah was ill and too weak to talk.

I spent an anxious few days worrying about what had happened to Sarah. When she phoned me three days later, she sounded weak. She explained that she’d collapsed from exhaustion and stress and was resting. She wasn’t fit to look after herself, never mind the children, and she seemed to accept Jamie being there. She was still going ahead with divorce proceedings, although Jamie was trying to persuade her to drop them. A few weeks later, she got in touch to say that she had been persuaded to give their marriage one last go, but she’d made it clear that if he hit her again or had another affair, that would be the end.

A year or so later, Sarah found evidence of an affair, and their marriage ended.

The end of my marriage had been very difficult, and again I was able to support Sarah because I’d been through something similar. It was only as she opened up and told me the full extent of Jamie’s behaviour toward her that I realised how bad things had been. Everyone who knows Sarah remarks on how strong she is, but I don’t know how she could live through the life she had with Jamie. He seemed to need her for his own stability, and at the same time, he constantly criticised her for the person she was. His need to be in control was what mattered most. Sarah was aware of how insecure and vulnerable he was, and she tried to care for those parts of him, but he just used her caring nature to manipulate her and, yes, to torture her.

I am so proud of my big sister. She is caring and kind and would do anything for you. I know she loved Jamie, and the fact that she stood by him for so long proves that. In the end, though, she knew she had to leave him for the sake of the children. She could see how difficult it was for Erin watching her dad’s behaviour, and I know David was never the same after Jamie put them out of the living room and attacked their mum.

I know that Sarah can now see that she needed to leave Jamie for her own sake, too. And I know it took the best part of a year in counselling for her to accept that she needed to look after herself. If she was doing well, the children would do well. This isn’t selfishness; it is self-love, something we get very little guidance about in our culture.

Sarah set about trying to have as civil a relationship with Jamie as she could. When he left Sarah, he began living with his new partner, Janice, and her son. After a while, Erin and David began visiting him there. It was never easy for the children, but they preferred seeing him to not seeing him. Erin found it all particularly difficult and, for many years after, lived in hope that her mum and dad would get back together again. Erin’s behaviour at home with Sarah was difficult, mostly because, when she was with her dad, she was constantly anxious from trying to be perfect. Erin was the one put in charge of the younger children, and if anything went wrong, Erin would get shouted at.

When Sarah finally went to the police, it was because of Jamie’s behaviour toward Erin, who by then was seventeen years old. I was happy to give a statement – and less happy that the case didn’t go to court.

∞∞∞

Meditation

Mother, sit with me in my rage. I needed protection from the police and got none. Why? I was terrified he would kill me, and my children’s lives would be a living hell. He wore me down. He said I couldn’t cope alone. They needed two parents. I felt isolated. He made sure I felt alone.

Mother, breathing in, I place my feet on Your earth, my home. My roots sink into Your earth anchoring me, holding me steady. You feed me through these roots. As these memories arise, help me be present with them. Help me feel my feelings, my rage, where it is in my body. Breathing out, I let go into my roots, into the earth, my home.

∞∞∞

Follow the links below to buy your copy of WITNESS.

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women (7)

Pregnancy and being a mother of young children increases the risk of abuse when you have an abusive partner.  All parents of young children know how demanding and exhausting it is looking after young children; it’s the bargain we make when we decide to become parents.  If you are experiencing domestic violence you have an additional layer of demands and exhaustion that is often overlooked, resulting in chronic health issues. Most people can understand the mental health consequences of domestic violence, but don’t look beyond bruises and broken bones.  This chapter of WITNESS talks of one chronic health condition arising for Sarah – migraine, but as time goes on she is diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.

In her paper The Case for a Gendered Analysis of Violence Against Women  used by the Scottish Government at the basis of their gendered based policies, Dr Lesley Orr quotes from ‘The Intolerable Status Quo: Violence Against Women and Girls UNICEF 1997′, which describes the environment Sarah lived in and explains the onset of these life long conditions caused by chronic abuse.

“Imagine a people routinely subjected to assault, rape, sexual slavery, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, verbal abuse, mutilation, even murder—all because they were born into a particular group. Imagine further that their sufferings were compounded by systematic discrimination and humiliation in the home and workplace, in classrooms and courtrooms, at worship and at play. Few would deny that this group had been singled out for gross violations of human rights.

Such a group exists. Its members comprise half of humanity. Yet it is rarely acknowledged that violence against women and girls, many of whom are brutalized from cradle to grave simply because of their gender, is the most pervasive human rights violation in the world today.”

Consider this while you read WITNESS Chapter 7, and also notice which segments of the Power and Control Wheel Sarah is experiencing.

∞∞∞

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter 7

 

Sarah

David arrived into the world with great haste. When he was born, he was wide awake and seemed to be quietly looking at everything. Erin came to visit in the afternoon to see her brother for the first time. Erin brought a small teddy for David, and in David’s bassinet was a beautiful baby doll for Erin. It was a big day for Erin! When she woke up, Mummy and Daddy were gone, and Auntie Kay had come to look after her; by sheer luck Kay’s husband, Tom, was home. Erin liked Auntie Kay, who wasn’t a real aunt. She was one of Sarah’s best friends, and Auntie Kay was great at making up games. Still, Erin looked relieved to see her Mummy and loved her baby doll, which was bigger than her real baby brother!

A few days later, Jamie and Erin picked Sarah and David up from hospital and brought them home. Erin and David went for a nap, and Jamie went straight back to work, leaving Sarah to organise the cot and changing table for David. For weeks, Sarah had asked Jamie to bring them down from the attic to be ready for their baby, but he wouldn’t get round to it. He did it now, and they were all dusty. So, while the children slept, Sarah cleaned these things she needed for her baby.

David had severe colic, and although he was a contented soul during the day, night-time was more difficult. The colic seemed to get worst with his late feed, and he couldn’t settle after that. Jamie said he would take his turn feeding David during the night, but he didn’t wake up to do it. Jamie worked a different shift every week so Sarah looked after the children on her own for days on end until Jamie’s days off came around. On those days, Jamie would take Erin out in the car for the day. It soon became apparent that Jamie’s affair was continuing, and he was visiting this woman, who was called Brenda, with Erin.

Despite David’s colic and Jamie not helping with feeds during the night, Sarah, Erin and David got into their own routine, which worked well for them. The children’s waking and sleeping times usually dictated the routine. Erin had adapted to a good sleeping pattern at three months old, and by now, she always woke up at the same time and always needed a nap in the afternoon. David fit into this pattern except at night; Erin always went to bed with a story at seven o’clock, and David did too, but David was up a lot during the night. Sarah tried to sleep during the day when the children were sleeping. It wasn’t only the children who disturbed her sleep; Jamie’s shifts did too.

A few days a week, Sarah and the kids went to the local mother and toddlers group which Sarah enjoyed as much as her children; the friendships they built there were good ones for all of them. Most days, they would go for a walk in the big estate near their home. Sarah would push the pram, and Erin would either walk or sit in the pram seat. On days when they had the car, they would visit their newfound friends at home or at the park.

Sarah tried to keep some interests going for herself. She was still an avid reader and wanted to learn a bit more about computers, so she found herself a course that ran every Thursday for ten weeks. Her brother-in-law Alan was keen on computers and had given her one he had finished using. Sarah used it mostly for word processing but also enjoyed the game Snake when she had a few moments to herself. When she went to the course, sometimes Jamie would look after the children, and sometimes their friend Paula would babysit. Sarah and Paula had a babysitting exchange. Jamie was happy with this arrangement because he liked Paula; she was married to a friend of his who ran a motorcycle repair business.

Then Jamie told Sarah that he was being moved again to another police station. This time, he didn’t have to move house; he would travel to the new station. This was good in one way; Sarah couldn’t face moving house with a new baby, but it meant that Sarah would be stuck at home a lot because Jamie would need the car to get to work.

In their house, they had an office space in the dining room with a filing cabinet. During the time Jamie was moving jobs, Sarah went into the filing cabinet looking for some paperwork so she could pay some bills and found letters from Brenda. When Sarah challenged Jamie with the letters, his first reaction was to deny he was having an affair, and then he angrily told Sarah she had no business reading the letters. Sarah demanded he end the affair; Jamie said it was over.

By now, Sarah’s health was crumbling. One evening after feeding David, she became aware that she had no feeling in her right leg; this worried her. Sarah’s mum had had two major strokes, and she knew what the signs were. When she saw her doctor, she explained the strain she was under because of Jamie’s affair; at this point she was afraid to mention the physical abuse. Her doctor checked her over, and the indications were that she had not had a stroke; the most likely explanation was that she was under too much stress. Could she get help from anyone? Helen came to stay for a few weeks, which gave Sarah some company, and more of a chance to rest, but by now, she was constantly anxious.

Jamie did not like moving jobs, and although he’d told Sarah the affair was over, Brenda remained in touch with him. This worried Sarah, but whenever she asked about this, it would infuriate Jamie. By now, his first response was to slap her or punch her in the head whenever she angered him. If his clothes were not ready for him to go to work, this angered him. If two socks were not matched properly, that angered him. If she did not put the creases in his shirt properly, he became angry. At no point did he feel he should do these jobs for himself. Sarah was now feeling like a servant.

Jamie’s relationship with Erin was different. He loved spending time with her. She helped him when he was fixing the car. She helped him in the garden. When he went to the shops, she went with him. But when Sarah showed him the ultrasound scan of David, he was not interested. Sarah did not understand. Jamie had said he would support her, and he’d told her he wanted a son.

***

At Christmas that year, Jamie informed Sarah that he had contracted chlamydia, and they had an appointment at the sexually transmitted diseases clinic on Boxing Day. Jamie said he’d had it since March. Sarah felt humiliated but tried to deal with this news practically. She knew how fastidious he was about his health and felt this might be the thing to make him stop and think about what he had been doing. When she saw her GP about this, she felt embarrassed, and when she went to the clinic for treatment, she felt violated; the tests were so invasive.

Both she and Jamie were treated for the disease with an antibiotic, and for a few weeks, Jamie seemed different.

Sarah, too, was different. She realised he’d had the disease while she was pregnant with David. She knew how dangerous it was for a baby to come through the birth canal when chlamydia was present. She talked this over with her doctor. Chlamydia could cause problems with the eyes of newborn babies. Sarah was thankful David’s eyes were healthy. She was enraged that Jamie could risk her baby’s health in this way. Nonetheless, she was unable to show her anger to Jamie; she knew he would either play it down or get angry and aggressive, and she knew either response would make things worse.

In February, Jamie achieved one of his dreams. He had long wanted to ice climb in the French Alps, and they had pulled together the money for him to do this. Sarah was looking forward to a few weeks of breathing space when he was away. She could relax and not constantly worry about what was going to happen next.

A week before his departure, Brenda’s brother phoned to find out if Jamie knew where she was because she’d disappeared from home. Sarah said Jamie hadn’t seen her for months!

‘Then how is it that he was up here visiting her last week?’ came the response.

The night before Jamie was due to leave, he was working late. Sarah knew they had an early start in the morning, and Jamie was not packed to go. He’d told her not to pack his things, but as the night wore on, and Jamie had still not arrived home, Sarah decided to make a start. She began by emptying out his rucksack, which was still full of things from his last climb. He kept his maps in a space at the back of the rucksack, and when she began to take them out, she found an open pack of condoms. Sarah and Jamie did not use condoms; she was on the pill. Sarah was furious, and this gave her the courage to challenge her husband about her discovery when he arrived home. She told him about Brenda’s brother phoning and telling her that Jamie had been visiting them. It seemed to her that the affair was still going on.

Jamie flew at her. He punched her across the face, damaging her jaw. Sarah tried to run upstairs and barricade herself in their room, but Jamie grabbed her and pinned her up against a wall outside Erin’s room. He put his hands around her throat and held them there, squeezing just enough for her to know he could kill her.

He screamed in her face, ‘If you ever mention Brenda’s name again, I will kill you.’

He let go of her and went to bed, sleeping in the top bunk in Erin’s room. In the morning, he packed his things. Sarah left David with a friend and took Jamie to the airport with Erin.

The next day, Sarah went to the doctor. She told him she had a sore on the roof of her mouth, but when he asked to look at it she couldn’t open her mouth properly. It wasn’t her usual GP, and he asked how things were at home.

Sarah answered, ‘Things aren’t easy, but when you make your bed, you have to lie in it’.

She could see no way out.

 

Witness: Dr Taylor

I have been Sarah’s family GP for ten years. The family moved to our practice when David was born. To begin with, Sarah mostly saw one of our female partners, Dr Cullen, and saw me only occasionally. Dr Cullen left our practice around the time Sarah and Jamie separated, and from then on, Sarah and the children mostly saw me.

Dr Cullen began raising concerns about the home situation not long after David was born; the first indication that all was not well was when Sarah phoned our out-of-hours service and told Dr Cullen she had weakness and pins and needles in her right arm and right leg; something similar had happened a few days after Erin was born. Dr Cullen examined Sarah the next day, and there was no indication of anything serious going on physically. She mentioned Jamie’s affair and the stress of this and a new baby and a toddler would be enough to cause her symptoms. The family’s difficulties continued, and Sarah was under constant stress with little support.

Dr Cullen brought Sarah’s situation to the attention of the rest of the GPs at our practice meeting, and this is when I first became aware of the situation. A short time later, Sarah came to see me because she couldn’t get an appointment with Dr Cullen. She had a sore on the roof of her mouth, and when she tried to show it to me, she had difficulty opening her mouth. She said her jaw was sore. I managed to see what was wrong and prescribed an antibiotic.

Before she left, I asked her how things were at home. She looked surprised, and I explained that we share information within the practice about situations that are concerning.

All Sarah said was, ‘You make your bed, and you have to lie in it.’ And then she got up to go. Many years later, she told me about Jamie slapping her across the face and throttling her the night before she saw me. Later, she also said she felt more supported knowing all the GPs knew what she was dealing with. Sarah was reassured that nothing she had disclosed could be mentioned to Jamie, who was also a patient in our practice. I assured her that we take seriously our duty of confidentiality and would only disclose information when we believed someone could be at risk.

There are national child protection guidelines we follow and guidelines for the vulnerable adult, but when it comes to domestic abuse, there are no similar guidelines. We use our professional judgment and our experience of these issues in determining how best to handle them. When domestic abuse is disclosed, we encourage patients to go to accident and emergency or to the police, both of whom keep records of reported abuse. Once abuse has been reported to the police, the woman (or man) is immediately given information about victim support services and Women’s Aid and offered help from the Police Family Protection Unit. This includes information about personal safety planning, personal alarms and, where appropriate, a police alarm is installed in the house, which, when activated, goes straight to the nearest police station and requires an immediate response.

Sarah, however, found the idea of disclosing the abuse to the police or to Women’s Aid impossible because Jamie was a policeman. She had gone to the police when David was about one after Jamie had assaulted her and thrown her out of the house. Two sergeants had come out to the house with her, but Jamie wouldn’t let them in. He said nothing had happened; he knew no witness could corroborate Sarah’s claims. Sarah was advised to go and stay with a friend.

Later that day, she saw Dr Cullen, who noted her bruises. This experience left Sarah feeling she had nowhere to turn to for help or justice. She didn’t approach Women’s Aid because she was terrified of what might happen if she was seen by one of Jamie’s colleagues or one of her friends.

We all know domestic abuse is underreported. GP practices do not keep figures of reported domestic abuse, but I think there should be a record; it would give a clearer picture of the problem and would show the impact it has on GP services, which would help us in planning our service.

I’m sorry to say that many women experience domestic abuse. You could say it comes in varying degrees of severity. Many women live with bullying and controlling husbands. And, again, I’m sorry to say that this is acceptable within our society. Many women do not experience physical abuse but do suffer from emotional and psychological abuse. Many women experience the whole range of abuses – physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, and spiritual.

Soon after Sarah and Jamie separated, Erin and David began showing signs of deep distress, and I referred them to the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service, which Sarah has said was a great support for the children and herself. I was recently asked whether many families experiencing domestic abuse make use of this service or whether there remained a sense of stigma attached to getting help for mental health issues. In my experience, by the time the abuse has been disclosed, families are happy to take help from anywhere. The time from referral to being seen is quite long, but families are willing to engage with the service.

I’ve also been asked if I think there should be a service we could refer families to that would mean they would be seen immediately, but I think the system we have in place works. GPs are the immediate support, and we continue to give support while families are waiting to be seen by Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service. We also refer women (and men) to the Adult Psychological Service and similarly support them while waiting to be seen.

Sarah and the children decided to report the abuse they had experienced several years later, after Jamie assaulted Erin. The police interviewed several members of our practice asking for details of Sarah, Erin, and David’s health records. The police did this over several days, and given the information they received, we were told to expect to go to court on this.

Sarah felt the work done by the investigating officers and the support officers was excellent. The procurator fiscal, however, chose not to proceed to court action but, rather, sent the case to the chief constable for internal discipline. I find it difficult not to question this outcome. Did the case not go to court because Jamie was a policeman?

Throughout all of this and across the years, what has struck me about Sarah is that she has been incredibly strong. I know there were times when she felt otherwise. She has given an eloquent description of her experience and is the only person I have known who has spoken about her experience in the way I would imagine it to be. The abuse she experienced was pervasive; if I was asked to gauge the severity of the abuse on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 was least and 10 was greatest, I would place it at 9. She has talked to me about all aspects of her experience – physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual. She has supported her children incredibly well. Both children have had immense challenges, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. But they are both emerging as capable, talented, and happy young adults.

From time to time, Sarah comes to see me and talks about a flashback. Some situation will have triggered a memory, and these experiences leave her feeling anxious. She feels frustrated that the flashbacks keep occurring. I know she is happier now, although her physical health is poor. But the flashbacks will probably continue for Sarah and her children, to a greater or lesser degree, throughout their lives. Sarah feels she has the skills to deal with them and help her children when they have flashbacks. So while life does improve and happiness comes, it is likely to take a lifetime to process these abusive experiences.

Domestic abuse is insidious. As a culture, we need to take it seriously and, above all, stand up against it.

Meditation

Mother, feel this pain with me. Surround me with your love, Touch me gently. Let your tenderness sink into my skin, into my flesh, into my muscles, into my bones until I am healed.

Help me reconnect with my body. Hold together my scattered self. Give me rest. Give me peace. Give me love.

∞∞∞

Follow the links below to get your copy of WITNESS.

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls (6)

Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Violence and Infidelity

Pregnancy is thought of as a time of anticipation and solidifying a relationship, bringing increased commitment and, despite morning sickness and body discomfort, joy.  For women in relationships where they are being abused, pregnancy is a time of greater risk and vulnerability – and feeling there is no longer a way out.

Growing up Catholic Sarah was taught marriage is forever, and a significant duty  of marriage was to have children. Sarah wanted children, but getting pregnant and staying pregnant was a challenge; she had several miscarriages, each more traumatic than the last.  

When she was pregnant Sarah expected things to improve because no one would hurt a pregnant woman – right?  She had no idea that pregnancy is a time of  escalating coercive control and violence, especially when Jamie had been kind during her first pregnancy; she definitely didn’t expect him to have multiple affairs.

This chapter of WITNESS describes Jamie’s mother’s reaction to his violence. I suggest we  ask ourselves if there is anything she could have done differently, and, if so, what would she need to achieve that?

∞∞∞

 

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter 6

Sarah

Sarah could not find anywhere to stay. She moved from Liz’s house after two weeks and then spent the next two weeks with another friend. Sarah didn’t tell her sisters what was happening. She knew how Anne felt about Jamie, and Helen was having a hard time of her own, so she trusted in the guidance and concern from Mhairi and her pastor. Sarah believed she was responsible for saving her marriage. And no one raised the question: Should it be saved?

Jamie made contact with her after a month, asking to meet and see if they could sort out their difficulties. Sarah took this as a good sign. When they met, he said he wanted her to come home. He could accept her going to one of the mainstream churches, but not this evangelical house church. Sarah took time to consider his proposal. She and Mhairi both believed that Jamie would return to his belief in God, and Sarah hoped her being part of a Church of Scotland community might ease the way. So, although Jamie offered no apology for his violence, Sarah accepted this compromise and returned to their home. There was never any discussion of Jamie beating her; he blamed Sarah for making him angry and held her responsible for the consequences. Sarah did not understand this, but she continued to carry the blame.

Then they moved to another house in a rural area. Jamie was not happy with the move and did little to help. Sarah had to organise most of the packing and unpacking, even though she was working in Glasgow all day. She loved the new house and the setting; they were surrounded by fields and, in the autumn, had beautiful views of the harvest moon from their kitchen window.

Two years later, in 1992, after a course of fertility treatment, their much-awaited first child was born, a beautiful girl, Erin. Jamie had wanted a son but was wrapped up in his daughter and loved to take her with him and show her off to anyone he met. Erin was the star in his life.

Being a new mother is a challenge for all new mums, but for Sarah, it was made more difficult because she missed her mother, who would have been a great support. Jamie’s attitude towards her was becoming cold again. One morning, Sarah couldn’t find the car keys, and looked in Jamie’s pocket. She found the keys and a note from a teenage girl he worked with – a love note. When she challenged Jamie about this, he laughed it off as meaning nothing. Sarah now felt even more trapped than she had before; she had a small baby and nowhere to go. Worse, instead of Jamie mellowing with fatherhood as she’d hoped, he had become even more dictatorial.

Throughout their daughter’s first year, there were problems. Jamie’s mood swung from delight in his new baby to fury at his wife. Sarah no longer seemed to be a person in her own right; she was his wife and Erin’s mother. When Erin was born, Sarah stopped working. It was impossible for her to continue at her job because part of her responsibility was to be on call twenty-four hours a day. If Jamie was on night shift and she got a call out, it would be impossible to get someone to look after Erin. This meant Sarah had no income of her own, and with a diminished family income, she was responsible for managing the household finances and meeting Jamie’s demands.

His anger now erupted if he could not find socks when getting ready for work or if she ironed his shirt the wrong way. On one occasion when her sister Helen was visiting, he punched Sarah in the face because he could not find socks. He made sure he did this in another room so Helen could not be an eyewitness. On another occasion, he was angry, and as Sarah moved away from him carrying Erin, he shouted at her that she ‘was only hiding behind the baby!’ Fearing he would hit her and Erin, Sarah put Erin in her chair and left the room. Jamie followed her and slapped her face and punched her head. She had no business answering him back.

Erin was baptised when she was eleven weeks old. There was a large family gathering for the christening, followed by a trip to London to visit Jamie’s uncle and aunt. On their return, Sarah discovered she was pregnant again. This should have been happy news, but Sarah felt trapped and worried about how life would be for Erin and the new baby. Jamie was becoming more and more distant, and Sarah felt more and more anxious.

At her sixteen-week scan, her consultant told her that her baby had died in her womb. The baby had died at eleven weeks. Normally the death of a foetus at that stage would result in a miscarriage, but in this case, it hadn’t. The consultant advised Sarah to go home, and as soon as any bleeding began, she should come to hospital immediately. If nothing happened in the next ten days, she would need to come in for an operation to take away the dead foetus.

Sarah was devastated. She had to go to the bank on the way home, and years later, she would recall the long queue she look after Erin. This meant Sarah had no income of her own, and with a diminished family income, she was responsible for managing the household finances and meeting Jamie’s demands.

His anger now erupted if he could not find socks when getting ready for work or if she ironed his shirt the wrong way. On one occasion when her sister Helen was visiting, he punched Sarah in the face because he could not find socks. He made sure he did this in another room so Helen could not be an eyewitness. On another occasion, he was angry, and as Sarah moved away from him carrying Erin, he shouted at her that she ‘was only hiding behind the baby!’ Fearing he would hit her and Erin, Sarah put Erin in her chair and left the room. Jamie followed her and slapped her face and punched her head. She had no business answering him back.

Erin was baptised when she was eleven weeks old. There was a large family gathering for the christening, followed by a trip to London to visit Jamie’s uncle and aunt. On their return, Sarah discovered she was pregnant again. This should have been happy news, but Sarah felt trapped and worried about how life would be for Erin and the new baby. Jamie was becoming more and more distant, and Sarah felt more and more anxious.

At her sixteen-week scan, her consultant told her that her baby had died in her womb. The baby had died at eleven weeks. Normally the death of a foetus at that stage would result in a miscarriage, but in this case, it hadn’t. The consultant advised Sarah to go home, and as soon as any bleeding began, she should come to hospital immediately. If nothing happened in the next ten days, she would need to come in for an operation to take away the dead foetus.

Sarah was devastated. She had to go to the bank on the way home, and years later, she would recall the long queue shehad to stand in and wanting to scream, ‘Don’t you know I’m carrying a dead baby inside me!’

She was utterly distressed and felt all alone. Jamie mellowed a little when she gave him the news, and he looked after Erin when he could. But there was still a distance.

A week later, the bleeding began, and she went into hospital.

She couldn’t bear the thought of another pregnancy that might end in miscarriage, but if she was to have more fertility treatments, her consultant needed to put her name on the waiting list soon. Sarah knew how important it was for Jamie to have a son, and she felt it would be better for Erin if she had a brother or sister. Once again, Jamie promised his support, and she hoped he would follow through this time.

A year later, Sarah was pregnant again.

Helen came to stay at the beginning of this pregnancy to help out; she would do any heavy lifting and make sure Sarah got enough rest. The first morning, as Sarah and Helen were getting ready to take Erin and Helen’s son, Douglas, to a toddlers group, Jamie called Sarah upstairs. He resented Helen being there. Sarah reminded him her sister was helping take care of her because of she was in early pregnancy. Jamie said that, if she was fit enough to go to the toddlers group with Erin, she could manage without Helen. When Sarah tried to argue, he slapped her in the face. Sarah said no more and went to the group.

As the weeks of this pregnancy progressed, it became apparent that Jamie was having another affair. This time when she challenged him, he said it was the hormones; she was imagining things. He was away from home more and more. One evening, Sarah complained about him going out; they had agreed to decorate the kitchen. Sarah had stripped the walls, and they’d bought the wallpaper. Couldn’t they make a start on it? Jamie erupted again, screaming, shouting, banging doors, demolishing the ironing board, and turning the sofa upside down. Sarah was terrified. He stopped short of hitting her, took the car keys, and left. Sarah locked all the doors and then set about putting things back in order.

Two hours later, Jamie returned. When he couldn’t get in, he became enraged again. Sarah didn’t want him to waken Erin, so she went to the door. He said he came back to make sure she was all right. Didn’t she realise that she shouldn’t make him so angry? She said she was fine. Jamie went back out again and didn’t return that night. This was another of many nights he did not stay at home.

His affair continued, and he continued to deny it. Sarah could talk to no one.

Three weeks before their son was born, Sarah and Jamie were visiting Jamie’s mother. They were having problems with money again, and Jamie’s mood was low. They hadn’t visited much since Erin was born, and Elspeth was enjoying spending time with her granddaughter.

Jamie spent most of his time in the bedroom. One evening after Erin had been put to bed, Sarah went in to talk to Jamie. She knew Elspeth liked playing Scrabble and suggested he join them. Jamie said he didn’t want to play a stupid game, and another argument began. Sarah wanted it to stop; she didn’t want Erin to waken and didn’t want to upset Elspeth. Jamie wouldn’t stop, and when Sarah said it was time for him to grow up, he leapt at her and punched her in the head. When she tried to get downstairs away from him, he leaned over the banister and grabbed her by the hair. When she got away, he had a clump of hair in his hand.

By now, Erin was awake, and Elspeth was looking after her. Sarah went into the room where her daughter and mother- in-law were and said, ‘I don’t know how long I can keep on living like this!’

Elspeth said nothing; her main concern seemed to be for Erin.

Sarah felt even more isolated.

 

∞∞∞

 

Finbar

I called you Finbar from the very beginning, not knowing if you were a boy or a girl, and Finbar you remain to this day. Your sister was eleven weeks old when you planted yourself in my womb. Around that time, she began sleeping right through the night. You’d like your sister and sometimes you wouldn’t. She is beautiful, bright, intelligent, articulate;
she always has the last word! She writes evocative stories and loves to draw and paint.
Then after you came your brother. You’d be great friends. He is funny and loyal, compassionate and protective. He is wise and messy, tells jokes, sings songs, plays music, and climbs mountains.
But your dad, he’s not safe. He hurts with words and fists. Like all mums to be, when you planted yourself in me,
I was tired, but weary too, and worried.
He’d punched me before, but now his anger was ever present. He loved being with your sister but didn’t like me. Did you know? Is that why you didn’t stay? At twelve weeks, I felt you begin to fade. At sixteen weeks, no heartbeat. The scan showed no movement, but still you stayed. Was I keeping you here?
Then came the blood and the surgeon and the
long cold silence. Your dad hugged me in the hospital and then didn’t speak to me for days.
I was alone in my grief, empty.

Your sister kept me going and then your brother. When he planted himself in me, he clung on
despite the blows and the anger and my fear.
Have I been angry at you for leaving? Yes. Should you have left? Yes. You are safer where you are. You began a journey into this world and chose to leave for a better one. Our world is better now, too. Your dad has gone. Your sister and brother have grown. Maybe from the place where you are, you can help them move on – forgive but not forget. You have moved on but will never be forgotten,

Finbar.

 

∞∞∞

 

Witness: Elspeth

 

I took a long time to warm to Sarah; I didn’t like that she had come between Jamie and Laura. Laura had become part of the family, and we had expected Jamie to marry her. Jamie and Laura met at a Christian Fellowship Youth Camp when they were both seventeen. Laura’s dad died, and when her mother decided to move back to Southport and Laura was at college in Dundee, she and Jamie decided to live together. This living together was new to me. In my day, you had to get married before you shared a home, but everything was backwards now. I suppose it was just as well because their relationship didn’t last.

Anyway, when Sarah came to us that first Christmas, my husband, David, was very taken with her. I heard him describe her as ‘willowy’, which made me roll my eyes! Most of my family are dark skinned, dark haired, and stocky; the exceptions were David and Claire. Sarah seemed bright enough and certainly willing to help out in the kitchen, which is more than can be said for some of my own children. Sarah and Mhairi helped clear the table and do the dishes and chatted together; I could see they might get on well together.

I couldn’t understand Jamie. Laura had been with him when he’d come home that Easter. He hadn’t come to visit during the summer because he said he had to work, and then in November he left his teaching course.

Jamie had always been a very loving child, and as a teenager, he was really good with children and small babies. He also loved drama and frequently starred in school plays. His problem was that he wasn’t good at cooperating with others and could stomp off in a fury if he wasn’t getting what he wanted. And once he took a stance, you couldn’t move him. Jamie would cut off his nose to spite his face. Generally, his anger disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived, and I thought he’d grow out of his stubbornness as he got older and matured.

Jamie and Sarah’s wedding was a very simple affair, and it was lovely having our good friend Gordon perform the ceremony. We just travelled down for the day, so we were glad that it was short and sweet. Sarah wore a cream silk dress that she’d made herself, and instead of a veil, she wore a little cap made out of cream feathers. She looked very elegant. Soon after, Sarah began working for the civil service, and then a year or so later, Jamie joined the police force.

Once I got to know Sarah, I found we had a lot in common. We shared books and knitting patterns, and she was a great baker, so when they visited there was always something nice for tea. Jamie and Sarah visited often, especially after David died. Claire’s husband, Alan, would come and fix anything that needed fixing, and Jamie kept the garden under control. Jamie didn’t like Alan, and sometimes there were harsh words.

When Jamie finished his probation, he and Sarah decided to start a family, but that was difficult. There was one miscarriage after another and then different fertility treatments, which, thankfully, worked. I went down to visit when Erin was born; she was my sixth grandchild. It must have been difficult for Sarah not having her own mother around, and I was so far away that I couldn’t help. I remembered how good Jamie had been with babies and was sure he’d be a wonderful father.

So when they were visiting me when Sarah was eight months pregnant with her second child, I was shocked at Jamie’s behaviour. David was no longer around, and I was on my own. I knew Jamie could be boorish when he was angry, but I cannot express what I felt when he slapped Sarah. I didn’t see what happened but heard it. The whole commotion wakened Erin, and I went to look after her. When I saw how distressed Sarah was, I didn’t know what to say. Jamie was my son, and somehow his behaviour reflected back on me.

They left for home the next day, and on the way, they were meeting up with the rest of the family for a picnic. Claire told me that Jamie was in a foul mood and hurt his back when he was out on the boating pond. I remember phoning Sarah a few days before the baby was due and saying to her that Christian women who lived with abusive husbands didn’t have to stay with them just because they were Christians. She agreed but didn’t say any more about it. I was worried most for the children.

When they split up, I worried I wouldn’t get to see the children, so I phoned Sarah and asked her to make sure the children stayed in touch. We phoned one another regularly, and I know the first six months was very difficult. Erin and young David (named after his grandfather) were very distressed, and I know that eventually a child therapist got involved. By the time the divorce was final, we only spoke on birthdays and at Christmas and Easter. There were occasional visits, but it became awkward after Jamie and Janice had their little boy. I wanted everyone just to get along. Sarah said that depended on everyone being willing to get along.

Then years later, the police arrived at my door asking for a statement. Was I aware of the difficulties in Sarah and Jamie’s marriage? Was I present at or was I aware of any other assaults? I found this very upsetting. How could Sarah ask me to speak against my son? I was so angry! After a lot of soul searching and upset, I did speak to the police, but I couldn’t forgive Sarah for putting me in that position.

We haven’t spoken since.

 

 

 

 

 

Meditation

Mother, I was lost and alone, terrified for my daughter and my unborn child. Trapped, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted peace, and no peace came. I wanted safety, and no safety came. I felt alone and isolated with my daughter and my unborn child. By now, he had made me feel worthless. I continually doubted myself. My own values were devalued and had no currency in that relationship. I believed my first responsibility was to keep my children safe.

From this distance of time, I now know my first responsibility was to keep myself safe. And in turn, my children would be safe. But then my energies were focused only on my children. To keep them safe I had to avoid making him angry.

He took no responsibility. He felt entitled. His needs were paramount. He was a megalomaniac – all powerful, all demeaning, invincible.

But you are my witness. You see clearly. I am of great value. You are my witness. I am courageous. My children became safe.

Gently, You remind me of my strength. Sitting with you I feel loved. Thank you.

 

∞∞∞

Follow the links below to get your copy of WITNESS

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women (5)

 

There is a lot going on in this chapter of  WITNESS; it talks in more detail about the influence of religion on Sarah’s situation.  Rather than discuss it in great detail, I’d like you to view this Power and Control Wheel link  and use this Power and Control graphic to identify Jamie’s abusive tactics.

 

 

Does the advice from Mhairi and her minister help Sarah understand the abuse she is experiencing?  

Does it help Sarah recognise Jamie is responsible for his actions?  

Does it help Sarah find a path to leaving?

∞∞∞

 

Power and Control Wheel if you follow this link you will find other YouTube videos discussing each segment of the wheel.

WITNESS Chapter 5

Sarah

Sarah and Jamie moved into a police house in Strathclyde at the beginning of 1984, and that year was one of the happiest times they had together. Jamie enjoyed his work and liked being part of a team. He seemed to respect his older colleagues, particularly his tutor constable, who mentored him during his two probationary years. The couple’s new house, situated on the edge of a park with views over the river, was bright and airy. They had plenty of space, nice new carpets, and the money and leisure time to go places on Jamie’s days off. They now had a wider social life with his fellow policemen and their wives and girlfriends. They were also closer to Sarah’s sisters, Anne and Helen, and they saw more of Kirsten and Rob, who still lived in Glasgow.

Sarah was, once again, unemployed. Once again, she could only get work through government employment schemes. After a year, she found work as an adult education instructor on a local community project. She did this for about six months. Then, because the project organisers could see how good she was with people and how organised her work was, they offered her the job of assistant personnel manager. Her job was to interview people sent to the scheme from the job centre, determine their skills and interests, and fit them into suitable jobs on the scheme. The work was both demanding and enjoyable because she met people from all walks of life, and she made new friends of her own. Jamie and Sarah would swap stories about their day at work, and a few times, Sarah invited her friend Joan round for dinner, but usually when Jamie was on a back shift; he wasn’t very interested in getting to know her friends.

During her third year in this job, she was approached by Liz, the manager of a voluntary social work agency. Liz asked her to come and work for the agency, which supported young adults with mental health issues to live in the community independently. The two had known each other for about six months, because Sarah had found placements for some of Liz’s clients. Sarah was thrilled to be asked, so she applied, attended the interview, and took the job when it was offered. She began to feel she had found her vocation.

It was now autumn 1988, and Sarah was away in Glasgow during the day. Early in the new year, Jamie began talking about a new female colleague, and soon, he began an affair with her. Sarah felt angry and betrayed. This seemed like a game to Jamie, but Sarah could not understand how he could do this to her or to this woman’s husband, who was a friend of his.

Sarah began to talk about leaving. During the past two years, while there had been greater stability, there had also been the grief of Jamie’s dad dying, and Sarah had had two early miscarriages. Jamie’s values and morals seemed to be taken from some fantasy novel, and Sarah no longer knew how to deal with him.

Jamie treated the whole thing light-heartedly, with charm, like a naughty boy. He said he wanted her to stay. He said Sarah was the most important woman to him; this other relationship meant nothing. He knew how important it was to Sarah to have a family and assured her that this was important to him too. He wanted her to be the mother of his children.

Sarah stayed.

Again, there was a time of stability and enjoying one another.

During this time, Sarah began to look at where she was in her Christian life. Her belief was strong, but she didn’t belong to a Christian community. She felt alienated from her traditional roots and wanted to be in a community where she could develop friendships.

Mhairi was part of a house church, and she invited Sarah along to the Sunday gathering. Mhairi and Angus had leadership roles in the group, and Sarah spent some time talking to their pastor about the problems in her marriage. Sarah believed she was bound to Jamie for life and was encouraged by the pastor to place her faith in God, and prayer would provide the answer. She was commended for her fidelity to her marriage and encouraged to continue to live with Jamie and to pray and hope.

Jamie had lost his belief in God and was hostile to any discussion involving God or the Church. When he saw Sarah looking to this house church for guidance, his hostility grew. Soon he was not speaking to Sarah; he refused to be in the same room as her. They slept in the same bed, but they did not touch, and every night she could feel the anger and hostility emanating from him. This went on for weeks. The last straw for Sarah came when she met Jamie and a colleague on duty in the town, and Jamie refused to acknowledge her. His colleague spoke to her, but Jamie behaved as though she was invisible. Sarah decided the only way forward was to separate.

On the following Monday morning before Sarah went to work, she told Jamie she was going to look for a place to stay until they could see if they could sort out the problems in their marriage. Jamie was enraged! How dare she tell him this first thing in the morning when he was barely awake! He leapt out of bed and threw his body into her, beating her with his fists on her back, on her chest, in her stomach, and on her head. She struggled to get away from him and eventually did, running down the stairs and out of the house as fast as she could.

As fate would have it, her manager, Liz, was passing in her car, and Sarah waved to her to stop. She stayed with Liz for the next two weeks, all the while looking for somewhere of her own to stay.

Sarah and Liz talked about Jamie’s behaviour, and Liz was very critical of him. In fact, she talked about phoning up the chief constable and telling him about the abuse. This put Sarah in a panic. She was afraid of anyone doing anything to make things worse and became careful about who she talked to.

Sarah continued to seek support from Mhairi and the house church. They encouraged her that marriage was a lifelong bond; God would show the way.

Witness – Mhairi

I am the eldest in my family and have always felt a strong sense of responsibility towards my brothers and sisters. I’m not sure I liked the responsibility, but our mother was ill a lot when we were small, and I’m never sure if I took charge or was given charge. Somehow, if anything went wrong with one of my siblings, it came back to me. I’d forgotten to check a school bag, or I’d been talking to a friend when my brother had fallen and hurt himself. Jamie was the first boy in our family after three girls, much to the delight of our parents and grandparents – someone to carry on the family name.

We lived in the country, so most of our lives revolved around the family, and we saw our friends at school and church. Claire had asthma, which was a constant worry for our mother – and for me. I was responsible for her when we were on the school bus or when we were out playing. Jamie was an easy-going child most of the time, but when he became frustrated, he could get angry enough to break things. One day, he got so angry he pulled out all the sweet peas he had so carefully planted a few days previously.

I was much older than Jamie. When he began primary school, I was almost finished high school, and by the time he was at high school, I was almost finished doing my music degree at Durham University. I managed to get a job teaching at our old high school, so when our parents moved north and Jamie was living in his own flat, we spent a lot of time together.

Then I left teaching and decided to go to Glasgow to pursue a degree in divinity. I met Sarah one weekend when I was home from university. I was shocked because, a month earlier, Jamie had been living with Laura. They had been together for two years and had been talking about getting married for a long time. I couldn’t work out what Jamie was doing. Years later, when I spoke to Sarah about this, she had no idea that Jamie and Laura had been together so recently. Jamie had told her they’d split up months earlier.

I saw them both when I came home for the weekend, and sometimes, Sarah and I would spend time together when Jamie was away mountain climbing. They were mostly very happy. Sometimes there would be an atmosphere when I visited, but Sarah tried to keep things light and made sure there was plenty of conversation. We were interested in many of the same things, so it seemed easy.

When I graduated from Glasgow I was engaged to Angus. We’d agreed to go to Malawi as missionaries – Angus to and me to support him and the community in any way I could. We were married soon after graduation, and I was pleased when Sarah showed me her engagement ring, although disappointed that I wouldn’t be there for the wedding. They planned to get married in the autumn, and by that time, we’d be in Malawi. I knew that Jamie had lost his belief in God, and this caused a strain between him and Sarah, but I was also sure that he would rediscover that belief and tried to reassure Sarah. They had their wedding in our family’s church.

We kept in touch by letter during the year we were away. When we came home because I was having a difficult pregnancy, it was Sarah and Jamie who helped us the most. They helped us clean and paint the house we found, and when Ben came along, they were eager babysitters, which was great for us. If it weren’t for them, Angus and I would have struggled to have any time alone together. Sarah was now like a sister to me.

When Jamie joined the police force, they moved farther away, and once again, we saw less of each other. Jamie seemed more settled now that he had a job with prospects, and he really enjoyed the work. He could be very sociable, and having a job that involved working with the public was good for him. He also enjoyed time on his own; in fact, he needed time on his own. Mountaineering and long runs on the motorbike filled this need, and although he mostly did these alone, Sarah was happy to share these activities when he asked her to. Actually, the only mode of transport they had for many years was the motorbike.

The first year in their new home in Strathclyde was a happy one. It took Sarah that length of time to find work, but she was happy establishing their new home and was beginning to enjoy new friendships. Then Sarah began to confide that things were becoming more difficult; she didn’t seem to complain so much as try to talk things out in order to find a solution. What could she do to make things better? I was happy for Jamie that he had found Sarah; she would do anything to make him happy. I wasn’t sure, though, that Jamie deserved her because he could become very cold and said very unkind things to her. Then again, he said unkind things to all of us.

When Sarah began coming to our house church, my relationship with Jamie became strained. He objected strongly. He saw us as interfering and said some awful things to me and Angus. While I had lived with his boorishness at home, I was angry that he would treat Angus so badly. Sarah left Jamie for a few weeks, and during that time, I didn’t like what I was hearing about his general behaviour and the violence. I’d had some experience of Jamie slapping me.

Still, I was on the horns of a dilemma. I felt very responsible for Jaime as my younger brother, and I wanted to support Sarah. But I knew the effect Jamie’s behaviour was having on Angus, and somehow, I felt I had to hold it all together. Inevitably, something had to give. I had a young family and a husband, and they had to take priority.

When Sarah and Jamie got back together, Jamie had agreed Sarah could attend their local Church of Scotland, and Sarah settled there for a while. This seemed like a reasonable compromise and a way of keeping their marriage intact. I hoped she would find the support she needed there. I still stayed in touch with Sarah more than Jamie, but our contact was less frequent.

When their children came along, I thought life was settling down for them, and Jamie was taking his responsibilities seriously. Then there was a crisis after their second child was born, and Jamie phoned me in a panic. I went over and spent the whole afternoon and evening sitting next to Sarah as she lay in bed sobbing. Later, once Sarah was sleeping, Jamie ask me what he should do, but he didn’t like the answer I gave him. Anyone could see how worn out Sarah was. He had to give his wife and family his whole attention and stop having these other relationships, which he claimed were innocent, but I didn’t believe him.

When their marriage ended, my contact with Sarah became even less frequent, and I rarely saw or heard from Jamie. When Sarah went to the police nine years later about Jamie the police came to speak to me about what I knew, I was shocked. And I wasn’t just shocked; I was angry. Again I had divided loyalties. When Sarah phoned and spoke to me about this I could hardly talk to her. I told her I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make a statement. She said all she wanted was for me to tell the truth, but I felt some truths didn’t need to be aired. I’d been raised to be very protective of my family and certainly not to air dirty linen in public. I felt she was putting me in an impossible position. I knew the police had spoken to my mother, and I couldn’t believe Sarah was expecting my mother to give evidence against her own son!

I did give a statement, but I didn’t speak to Sarah again. It was too painful.

 

∞∞∞

 

Meditation

Mother, with the distance of time, I know you did not want me to suffer.

You were outraged at the beatings I took. You were outraged that my husband terrorised me, trying to control my mind and my spirit.

You knew the guidance given to me was wrong. Why, when I cried out for help from you, did it not come? The teaching I had was that marriage is a sacred bond that only you can break. The bond was broken by the first punch.

Jesus stood by women abused by men, but in the tangle of misguidance, Jesus’s message was drowned. My cry now is for love. There can be no love without justice. My cry now is for peace. There can be no peace without justice. When we live with abuse, inside we die. My cry, now, is for life.

You promise to hear the cry of the downtrodden. Mother, hear it now. For me, for my children, for all women and children living with abuse!

 

∞∞∞

 

Follow the links below to get your copy of WITNESS:

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls (4)

Image from The Freedom Programme by Pat Craven

We may not give much consideration to what a normal, healthy relationship looks like; we generally default to our own experience and think our relationship is fine.  We may have come from a family with happy parents, but as children we have no idea what goes on in their private moments, and we don’t know what goes on in their sexual relationship.  From my previous blog posts we know Sarah’s mother had died by the time she was in a sexual relationship with Jamie; he had also isolated her from family and friends very quickly, so she had no one to raise any doubts with.

Much of our understanding of relationships comes from cinema, television, books and magazines, and girls are raised to be accommodating and nurturing toward others; this combination can result in young women accepting what their partners wants in most aspects of relationship, particularly with sex, because sex is the most private and intimate part of the relationship, which we often find difficult to talk about it.  Others observed Jamie behaving abusively toward Sarah using words and fists, but no one could observed him weaponising sex. It took Sarah years, and counselling,  to understand the events in this chapter as sexual assault – rape.

Reading this chapter you may return to the question ‘Why does she stay?’   As you read I hope it becomes clear,  she felt trapped.

You may feel distressed and triggered reading this.

∞∞∞

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter 4

 

Sarah

In summer 1982, Mhairi graduated from university. She had been a music teacher for five years but felt called to ministry. While she was at university, she met Angus. After she had received her degree in divinity, she and Angus were to be married and, soon after, depart for Malawi as missionaries. Their wedding was set for the beginning of July.

Jamie bought Sarah an engagement ring, which she wore for the first time at the wedding. Jamie’s mum said it was a pity that she wore it then; after all, this was Mhairi’s day. Sarah felt ashamed. For Sarah, once she had decided to marry Jamie and they had begun living together, she had bound herself to him. The engagement ring and their future marriage were just formalities.

Sarah and Jamie married in October of that year and moved into a new flat. Their wedding was small and quiet, with only immediate family and a few close friends in attendance. They ceremony was performed in Jamie’s family church by the minister who had known Jamie since he was small. The newlyweds settled into their new home, and soon Sarah got work with the civil service. This meant they had more money, and she had better career prospects. Jamie continued to work at the golf course.

Sarah had to go to Glasgow for a two-week induction course with six other new employees. Sarah and Pauline were the only women on the course. She enjoyed the training and was confident she could do the job well. In the evening, the six trainees got together for coffee and a chat, and Sarah enjoyed their company. They were all from the same region, so when they headed home for the weekend, they travelled on the train together.

That first weekend, Jamie was waiting on the platform for her; she was so pleased he had come to meet her! She left the train with eighteen-year-old Frank; they said a pleasant goodbye, and Sarah went over to kiss Jamie.

Jamie froze. He wanted to know who the other man was.

As the evening wore on, Jamie became more and more tense and began to accuse Sarah of having slept with Frank. She couldn’t believe he was accusing her of this. Didn’t he know her?

No amount of denial or reassurance changed the tension between them. They went to bed, and Jamie would not speak to her.

The next morning, Sarah was wakened early and found Jamie on top of her holding her down. To begin with, she thought he was making love to her, but no, this was a sexual assault. He thrust himself into her aggressively, tearing her as he did. At first, she just felt dazed and unsure what was going on, but then she realised this was an assault. She knew struggling would make it worse, so Sarah disconnected from her body; she allowed herself to feel nothing. When he finished, she was numb.

Afterward, he raised himself up and growled at her to ‘get it sorted!’ She knew he meant she was to stop sleeping with Frank. But she wasn’t sleeping with him! The assault had been Jamie’s way of marking his territory. Jamie did not talk to her again that weekend.

Sarah left for her last week of training, and once she was back in Glasgow, she tried talking to him on the phone. She was still reeling from the attack and from his accusation. She felt she needed to convince him that she’d done nothing wrong. It was important for her self-image, which was formed by what other people thought of her. She got nowhere.

When she returned home at the end of the course, Jamie seemed less angry. Sarah did not know why. It was becoming more and more difficult to follow his thinking and his feelings.

***

Sarah continued to put her concerns about Jamie to the side, hoping he would soon return to the man he’d been when she’d fallen in love with him. Sarah worked for the civil service for about eighteen months. All the time, she was terrified to get friendly with her male colleagues. Her female colleagues thought she was odd. Sarah felt more and more isolated. Jamie was her main social contact, with occasional visits from her sister Helen and visits to Jamie’s family.

During that eighteen-month period, Jamie looked for more professional work. He applied to join the police force, and after the lengthy application process, he succeeded.

When the couple moved to Strathclyde, Sarah began to feel, for the first time in a long time, a sense of hope that life would become brighter.

Witness: Will

I was the first person Sarah told about this sexual assault; this gave us the opportunity to explore her beliefs about a sexual relationship. The first thing she said was that Jamie was her first and only sexual relationship, and her beliefs about sex were formed by her Catholic background. At college, many of her Christian friends were having sexual relationships, but Jamie was her first; she had fallen head over heels in love. She hadn’t embarked on a sexual relationship with him until they were engaged. At that point, she was twenty-one years old. She had very little sense of what might be expected of her and thought very little about what she could expect of him. Given her background, none of this was surprising.

Sarah said she enjoyed sex, but there were things she definitely did not want to do. For instance, Jamie wanted to have anal sex, and she found the idea bizarre. One belief she adopted was from St Paul, when he’d said, ‘Husbands and wives do not withhold yourselves from one another unless it is by agreement.’ If Jamie wanted to have sex and she was tired or ill, she felt she should. But when Sarah initiated sex with Jamie, he frequently refused. This was just another area not worth getting into an argument over, and here, again, Jamie had the control.

When we looked closely at the sexual assault, I asked her if she felt it was rape. Sarah talked about the definition of rape as someone having sex with you without your consent, but when we applied that definition to what she experienced with Jamie that morning she was stunned. For one thing, it was very common for Sarah to be awakened by Jamie entering her. When I asked her how this made her feel now, she said he didn’t begin by kissing her or cuddling her, so she felt her body was being used. Then tears began to flow, followed by sobs. For many years, she had kept the definition of rape in her head and hadn’t applied it to her own experience. Now that she did, she couldn’t believe she’d allowed it to happen to her. But she hadn’t allowed it; she’d been manipulated and overpowered into accepting the unacceptable.

On another occasion, Sarah remembered that the law on marital rape had only been introduced in 1990. Did this make any difference to what healthy men of the time believed about sex in marriage?

My answer was, ‘Definitely not. Rape is rape and always has been no matter what the law said on the matter.’

Certainly, the assault on Sarah took place before 1990, but that didn’t change the nature of the assault. It was an aggressive sexual act committed without her consent.

After a while, her anger began to rise. ***

Many years later, she described an experience she’d had during a time of meditation toward the end of a migraine. When Sarah had a migraine, there was the headache, the weakness down her right side, and always a huge amount of pain at the bottom of her back. During this meditation, the pain at the bottom of her back took on the image of a flaming red ball. She looked at the ball and realised it was all the anger Jamie had poured into her over the years, and she knew for sure she no longer needed to carry it.

Sarah took the ball in her hands and decided she needed to give it back to Jamie. Visualising Jamie, she threw the ball over to him, saying she could no longer carry this for him. She had wanted to care for him when they had been married, but it had never been her job to carry his anger. He needed to sit with his own anger and find the spiritual and psychological support he needed to transform it. From then on Jamie was responsible for Jamie.

 

 

Meditation

Mother, I am made in your image, your daughter.
I do not understand why I was treated this way.
I do know that you were there, and that, like all mothers do, you react to sexual assault with rage.
I learned to be absent from my body when he harmed me. I know you were present.

The time for healing has come.
The time to remember and feel is here.
As the fear and rage arise in me, I know you are with me. You were my witness then, and you remain so now.

I feel lonely and isolated.
Few people understand.
I need compassion and human warmth. Hear my prayer.

Take my hand as I look into the dark room of my pain. I may not stay long.
It may be too frightening.
But You reassure me; we can come back again when I am ready, leaving and returning until healing arrives.

∞∞∞

 

WITNESS is available from the following links:

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls (3)

For those who have no experience of intimate partner violence, one aspect of  Gender Based Violence , a scourge the world is asked to think about every year between 25th November and 10th December, it can be extremely difficult to understand why women stay in partnerships where they are regularly abused.  This third chapter of WITNESS will, hopefully, help shed light on this.

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter 3

Sarah

 

Sarah found a job as a waitress; she had experience working in a shop when she was at school and as a waitress and chambermaid in a local hotel when she was between school and college. In fact, she’d been working since she was thirteen years old in one place or another. Her first experience of being unemployed was immediately after college. Now life was more settled; they had more money, and Jamie was happier. He had a new motorbike, and this gave them more freedom to travel. Sarah’s hopes of working as a teacher moved further into the distance. She no longer qualified for the government employment scheme, and Shetland was the only place with teacher vacancies. Jamie suggested she get a job there and come home at weekends, but this didn’t seem much of a life to Sarah. Shetland was too far away, and she’d be fortunate to get home once a term. It bothered Jamie that he didn’t have a profession like his older sisters, but mostly, he was content that he and Sarah were able to have a better quality of life now they were both working.

During the summer months, Sarah’s waitressing shifts were long, with only one day off a week. She and Jamie managed to buy a stereo and a washing machine that summer. Whenautumn came, there was no more overtime, and soon Sarah was laid off for a few weeks, but Jamie remained working. The old worries about money returned.

One weekend, Mhairi had a visit from she and Jamie’s sister Claire and her husband, Alan. Jamie and Sarah saw them in the town, but instead of going up to greet them, Jamie rushed her down a side street, saying they needed to go home. As they walked home, Jamie explained that he owed Claire some money and didn’t want the embarrassment of speaking to her and not being able to repay her. This seemed odd to Sarah. He’d asked Sarah to borrow money from Anne, and that hadn’t stopped them speaking to her. When she said she thought Claire wouldn’t mind, Jamie became angry.

When they got to the flat, Sarah said she didn’t understand. He didn’t mind owing money to her family; after all, Claire was like anyone else. This incensed Jamie, who began shouting that his family was nothing like Sarah’s family. They were better and more intelligent! When Sarah wondered what intelligence had to do with anything, Jamie began slapping her and punching her head. Scared, she ran into the kitchen and tried to stop him getting in, but he pushed the door open, throwing her across the room. He flew after her, punching her, and when Sarah curled herself up in a ball on the floor, the attack continued, with him kicking her until he was spent.

She sat on the floor for about half an hour, hoping he would stay away. She was terrified and bewildered; she couldn’t understand where all this rage had come from. She felt trapped in the room and in the situation; she had little money and nowhere to go – no one to turn to or talk to and ask for help. Anne was now married, and her and John’s house was too small. Somehow she had to sort this out for herself. Tears of anger, fear, and loneliness came. She stayed on the floor hugging her knees.

When she had calmed down and there was no sound from the living room, she got up and went through, hoping Jamie had left. She was sore and bruised and wanted somewhere comfortable to sit. She opened the door, and there on the other side was Jamie. He looked wild. He swung round on her and said, ‘One of these days you’re going to make me so angry I’m going to kill you! And it will be your fault that I end up in prison!’ This was both a threat and a shifting of blame onto her. The force of his voice and his presence gave her no time to think clearly, and Sarah accepted the blame.

***

Later, when they were going out for food, Sarah had tidied herself and put up her hair. Jamie was behind her as they were leaving the house. He said, ‘You have bruises behind your ears. You can’t go out like that. You’ll need to take your hair down.’

She did.

Witness – Will (Sarah’s psychotherapist)

Sarah came to see me for the first time in February 2000, just before her divorce. This was the first time she had talked to anyone in detail about what happened that day. She was warm and articulate, and when I first shook her hand, she was trembling. Our first session was to get to know one another and see whether or not I could be of assistance. Sarah asked me about myself and about my experience as a therapist, and I told her my background and the length of time I’d been practicing – she was interviewing me. She talked about how difficult life was; she and Jamie had not lived together for over a year now, but he could still ‘push her buttons’. Sarah came

to me because her close friend Kay had suggested me, and I think it was that recommendation that got her through my door. Still, she was not sure if she could trust me.

Sarah was an abused woman who arrived at my door in a condition of terror. Like most abused women, she was used to being disbelieved and having her situation minimised – usually by her partner, sometimes by family, certainly by society, and eventually by herself. Like most abused women, she suffered the double insult of being the victim and being blamed for her abuser’s behaviour. Folk shake their heads and call it a disgrace when a man strikes a woman and then ask the question, ‘What did she do to deserve it?’ If not that, they ask, ‘What’s wrong with her that she puts up with it?’ So why should she think that I would believe her or have any sympathy for her situation? I made it clear to her that I did believe her and affirmed that Jamie’s treatment of her was wrong. It was illegal and morally and socially unacceptable. We agreed initially to meet again for six sessions.

Abusive men choose women with low self-worth and women who have no strong dominant male in their lives; Sarah fit this description. They groom their prey. The abuser will present as charming, polite, erudite, and witty but will have no sense of humour, and he will fit into his surroundings. The relationship will go along smoothly for some time, and then after a while, he will begin to test the boundaries of the relationship, sometimes sexually, sometimes financially, and sometimes by challenging his partner’s beliefs. We all come from a position of having no idea what is acceptable within a marriage. Therefore, it is easy to be manipulated into doing something we are unsure of or something we really don’t want to do. For Sarah, the first test was Jamie challenging her religious belief; she wanted to agree to disagree, but Jamie used her belief as a way to belittle her and further reduce her self-esteem.

After the initial test the abuser will continue to push the boundaries incrementally. Jamie assaulted Sarah because he was fed up that he had to go to work, and she was still in bed. Sarah left, and then bit-by-bit was persuaded to come back. Jamie now knew he could hit her. Things went along smoothly again for a decent length of time, and then Jamie erupted again, this time punching, kicking, and slapping her until Sarah was cowering in a corner. Jamie then blamed Sarah for making him angry. In fact he went further, telling her that one day she’d make him so angry he would murder her and end up in prison, and it would be her fault. This completely ensnared her. For Sarah, her relationship with Jamie was paramount, and she wanted to make it work. She loved Jamie and wanted to protect him and so was manipulated into taking all the responsibility for his anger and violence. Jamie now had all the power, and Sarah had all the responsibility. Jamie showed no remorse, no empathy for Sarah, and no insight into the impact his abuse was having on her.

Like all of us, Sarah had an image in her mind of what family life would be. She hoped for a strong caring husband, a cosy home, a nurturing environment, and children. Jamie talked a lot about having children, particularly a son to carry on the family name. Sarah wanted to make all of this happen. Bit by bit, she adapted to the expectations Jamie had of her but then found that, once she’d become what he wanted, he wanted her to be something else. The ground was always shifting. She was often exhausted and disoriented. Her life became separated; she lived one life with her co-workers and friends when Jamie wasn’t around and another when Jamie was there. When she heard him open the door to the flat, she immediately became anxious: What mood would he be in tonight and how long would it last?

Women learn what is expected of them as wives and mothers through a kind of cultural osmosis; wee girls play with dolls and have tea parties to be like Mum. Through television, books, and films they create for themselves an ideal of their adult lives and how they will fit into society. The common denominator in all abused women is that they don’t say no; they are trying to maintain what they have committed themselves to and, therefore, compromise. They may not have the strong caring husband, but they do have a cosy home. For Sarah, having children was particularly important, and pregnancy would become difficult for her.

It took a long time and many sessions for Sarah to see and name the power and control Jamie had had and, although they were now divorced, was still having over her. Like all abused women, she believed she caused the abuse, she colluded with the abuse, and she created the abuse. What she came to see was that she had been overpowered, manipulated, and overwhelmed by Jamie. The point at which she began to take control back from him was when she put in place boundaries and, when he crossed those boundaries, followed through on her intention to end their marriage.

The sense of being blamed and accepting that blame still remains, in some measure, with Sarah. Intellectually, she understands that she was captured and abused, but emotionally, the sense of blame remains. How could it not? For decades, she was told it was her fault. When she left, she was belittled because she had stayed for so long. Despite the efforts of Women’s Aid and other groups working in this area, there is still a conspiracy of silence around Gender Based Violence.

***

 

Women’s Aid provides refuge for abused women and their families. There is value in being around others with shared experience, but the norm for all of these families is abuse; they have not experienced healthy family relationships. Perhaps a helpful model would be for local authorities to pay families who have the extra room in their homes to take in an abused family. This way, women and children would live in a normal family atmosphere, sharing tasks and socialising together, thus promoting healthy relationships. Much more needs to be said generally about what a healthy relationship looks like and what to look out for when a relationship might be becoming abusive. Such information needs to be in schools and colleges, at post offices and doctor’s surgeries, and in newspapers and magazines. We need to saturate society with this challenge to men abusing women as the cultural norm.

This Power and Control wheel based on the Duluth Model will also offer some insight.

 

 

∞∞∞

Meditation

Mother, I place myself in the warmth of your loving arms.
I place my feet on your earth and allow myself to be rooted in the earth, my home.
I feel your energy rise in me, supporting me in experiencing my pain.
You were present when he hurt me; you are my witness. Alone in a small room, he slapped me and punched me and kicked me.
No other human being saw.
Later, he made me doubt my own experience, my own heart, my own mind.
But you are my witness.
He did these things to me. He shamed me. He degraded me. He blamed me;
I accepted blame.

You, Mother, surround the cosmos.
I have life and breath in you.
Hold me in my pain.
Heal me bit by bit, layer by layer.
Mine is a long journey back to health.
You are my guide and my companion. Remind me when I doubt my own experience. You are my witness.

Remind me when he denies these acts. You are my witness.

∞∞∞

Follow the links below to purchase your copy of WITNESS

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls (2)

For this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence I am publishing my book WITNESS in instalments.  This is Chapter Two and shows some of the dynamics at play that set the scene for coercive control  which doesn’t always involve violence, though in Sarah’s case it did.

You will notice that the meditations at the end of each chapter address God as Mother.  If human beings are made in the image of God it seems clear that God’s image is both male and female; Father and Mother.  Sarah arrived at this awareness after she no longer lived with Jamie, and found tapping into the motherhood of God opened up avenues for healing that the traditional images of God as father did not. In relating to Gos as Mother she was able to recognise the goodness in herself in being, and acting like a mother, and in noticing her own mothering, nurturing and protecting imperatives she was able to call on those facilities in God.

∞∞∞

 

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan

Chapter Two

 

Sarah

In January 1981, Sarah and Jamie returned home to unemployment and living on state benefits. They still enjoyed each other’s company and shared many interests. Jamie was an enthusiastic mountaineer and motorcyclist; Sarah had a love of literature and art. They read each other’s books avidly, loved music, and enjoyed singing together.

When they had enough money saved, they went to the theatre. They were always together. At first, this seemed romantic and right, but soon Sarah noticed that they only spent time with Jamie’s friends, and those occasions were becoming rare.

As winter turned to spring, they both continued to look for work, and by the beginning of March, Jamie began working again at the golf course. Each morning, Sarah got up before Jamie and cooked him breakfast. She would get back into bed because their flat was so small it was easier if she stayed out of the way as he got organised.

One morning, as he finished getting ready, he began getting irritated. It all started with him losing a sock and built up from there. Before long, he was accusing her of being lazy and telling her she should get a job. Why not work at the clubhouse at the golf course with him? They were looking for staff. Sarah said she wanted to keep trying to get work as a teacher. There were government schemes where she could get work as a teacher, and she was near the point where she would qualify for this scheme.

This angered Jamie, who began shouting. Nothing she said would calm him. She had a cup of tea in her hand, and he told her to put it down; she dropped it on the floor. Before she knew what was happening, he was on top of her, punching her body and slapping her face. Just as suddenly as he’d started, he stopped. Sarah was stunned but soon became angry.

She got dressed quickly and left the flat, looking for a phone. Anne and John had a car; she would ask them to come and get her. Once this was arranged, she went back to the flat and began to pack up her things. Jamie had gone by now; she hoped he’d gone to work.

Shortly after Anne and John arrived with the car, Jamie came back to the flat. He hadn’t gone to work. He could see Sarah was leaving and didn’t try to stop her. When she put her last box in the car, Jamie asked to speak to her alone. There was no apology, no explanation. Jamie gave her some gift-wrapped notepaper and asked her to write to him; he didn’t want to lose touch with her.

Sarah left broken-hearted.

***

In the weeks that followed, there were many phone calls from Jamie. He missed her and wanted her to come back. Sarah wasn’t sure. She knew she loved him, but she didn’t want to be treated this way.

Eventually, his calls and her loneliness wore her down, and she returned. When she arrived back at the flat in St Andrews Sarah went into their bedroom. There on the bookcase were all the photographs he had ever taken of her on display like a shrine.

This touched her, and when she talked to him about it later, he said sharply, ‘Do you think you are the only one who has feelings?’

She felt ashamed.

Witness – Anne

I first met Jamie at Christmas 1979, Sarah’s last year at college. She came home for the holiday, and Jamie came to visit between Christmas and New Year. He was good-looking and charming and had a knack of being able to get his own way. He was good company and seemed to be very much in love with Sarah.

I was the only one in our family who could make it to Dundee for Sarah’s graduation. John, my fiancé, and I sat in the hall next to Jamie, who seemed very proud as Sarah walked out to receive her diploma. I knew how difficult it would be for Sarah to get work because unemployment was so high, but I also knew that what Sarah put her mind to she achieved.

We had lunch at a hotel in Dundee and then drove over the Tay Bridge to their flat in St Andrews. The flat was very small. It had a little table in the window with three chairs round about it and had two enormous armchairs, which Jamie had inherited from his mother. There was a big old- fashioned chest of drawers that they used for clothes and bedding. On top of the chest of drawers was a bookcase laden with books. Books always surrounded Sarah and, so it seemed, Jamie too.

After tea and Sarah’s fruitcake, we settled down to playing a game of Ludo. Jamie, like us, enjoyed board games. We joked and laughed as we competed to get our pieces home first. Then one of Jamie pieces was sent back to the ‘house’. Our families had a different rule about this situation, and that’s when the trouble began. Sarah, John, and I agreed that his piece needed to go back into the ‘house’, and Jamie was certain it should just go to the ‘start’. He was adamant that it should be his way. We laughed, putting out that it was three to one, so we should follow our rules, but Jamie got up and stomped away, refusing to play the game anymore. He was clearly angry with Sarah because she had not agreed with him. We stopped playing, and John tried to talk to Jamie about cars and motorbikes, but it wasn’t until Sarah went off to make tea and sandwiches that things relaxed a bit. Soon after, John and I left for the long drive home.

We didn’t see Sarah or Jamie for months after that. She didn’t visit us over Christmas, as she and Jamie travelled north to see Jamie’s family. She phoned every week, and she seemed to be happy. True, she was still unemployed and continually applying for work. Few teaching jobs were available. Some of her friends had moved down to England and gotten work, and one friend was teaching up in Shetland. Most of her friends were now scattered, so she saw very little of them. Jamie had left his course and was also looking for work.

Then in March, I got a phone call from Sarah early in the morning. She and Jamie had had an argument, and Jamie had slapped and punched her. She wanted to leave and needed to know if she could come and stay with me. She asked if John would drive me to their flat and get her things. I was furious with Jamie. How dare he treat Sarah like this?! How could he treat someone he loved like this? I’d never come across anyone who had been beaten by her partner and didn’t know what to expect. I was worried about Sarah and anxious about what John and I were going into.

When we arrived at the flat, Sarah was alone. She had obviously been crying, but there was no sign of any injuries. She had packed up her belongings and wanted to leave quickly. Jamie had gone. She thought he’d gone to work, but she didn’t want to hang about in case he returned. We packed up the car, and just as we were about to leave, Jamie came back. He asked to see her alone in the kitchen. I could see Sarah hesitate, but she went with him anyway. Later, she said she hadn’t wanted another scene.

When she got into the car, she was carrying a package; Jamie had given her some writing paper and said he wanted her to keep in touch. I asked if he’d apologised; he hadn’t.

‘Well, Sarah, you’re well shot of him. Once a hitter always a hitter!’ I said.

Sarah disagreed; she thought people could change if they wanted to.

***

Sarah was exhausted when we got her to my place. She went for a bath because she was feeling stiff and sore. The bruises on her back and behind her ears were starting to form.

Over the next few days, Sarah said very little about what had happened; she thought it was her fault that Jamie had lost his temper. Every night, Jamie would phone, and every night Sarah said she didn’t want to speak to him.

One night, Jamie was persistent, and Sarah took the phone from me. Jamie pleaded with her to go back to him; he missed her so much and said he didn’t want to live without her. I think Sarah took this as an apology. When she got off the phone, she said she was going back to live with him.

I couldn’t do anything to change her mind. She was an optimist who always saw the best in people. She believed he loved her and believed he would never hit her again.

 

 

 

Meditation

Mother, I place myself in the warmth of your loving arms.
I place my feet on the earth, which is my home.
I allow my roots to sink into the earth and allow you to stabilise me.
I hear you tell me that I am your beloved child; you take delight in me.
As a parent, you enter into my suffering.
You were there when the first blow was struck.
You wanted to shelter me from harm.
You found me a place of safety. You were with me in my heartbreak.
You were with me when I gave in and returned; you travelled with me, respecting my choice, aware of my hopes and desires. You knew better than me, and you knew I did not understand. I needed to learn, and you stayed with me throughout, calling me back to myself, a patient loving parent, always.

 

∞∞∞

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan is available from the links below:

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)

Religion and Violence Against Women and Girls

 

Gender Based Violence  has been studied and discussed for decades, but little is said about this abuse in the context of religion – how religious frameworks and beliefs can keep women stuck.  I was involved in Scottish Women’s Aid Faith Groups Forum between 2011 and 2013, which included several Christian denominations; Muslims; Sikhs and Jews, and the same themes kept occurring, the most important of which was the lack of willingness on the part of the leadership to engage with this issue, or even acknowledge it exists in their congregations.  

Wherever we stand on religion, if we are to have a comprehensive approach to tackling GBV, we must understand the experience of women of faith.  To that end I wrote WITNESS*, which approaches GBV from the position of a woman of faith, offering alternative perspectives to the ones we had learned from our religious institutions.  You will recognise the patterns of violence and coercive control in common with all victims, and you will see how for Sarah’s  faith kept her stuck and also helped her to begin to heal.  

I will share WITNESS, one chapter at a time during these 16 Days of Activism.

∞∞∞

Chapter One

Sarah

Sarah was twenty-one when she met Jamie in late 1979. They were both studying to be teachers. Sarah was in her final year, and Jamie had just started. The first time Jamie invited Sarah out on a date, he took her to his favourite Italian restaurant; he knew Sarah liked Italian food. The staff at the restaurant knew Jamie and his family and welcomed him like an old friend. The pair had a delicious leisurely meal with good Italian Chianti. Just before the coffee arrived, a waiter brought over to Sarah the most beautiful bouquet of yellow roses; Jamie knew these were her favourite flower. This was the most romantic, most attentive evening out she had ever had with anyone. She was so happy! After this, Sarah and Jamie became inseparable.

Jamie was tall like Sarah, with dark skin, dark brown hair, and very pale grey eyes. He spoke with an educated accent and had perfect manners. He was the only one in his family to go to a private school as a day pupil; the rest went to the local primary school and then the local high school. Sarah was never quite sure why this was, but it did mark Jamie out as special. For one thing, he was the oldest boy in the family and he was expected to carry on the family name.

Sarah was tall with fine skin and strong features; she had green eyes and chestnut brown hair. She was intelligent and inquisitive, with warmth and humour. The two spent hours together after classes. On several occasions, Mike, one of Jamie’s friends, threatened to pour a bucket of cold water over them because their time together was so intense. They talked about everything from literature and cinema to politics and religion. They were both believing Christians; Sarah was from an Irish Catholic background though had journeyed away from it in recent years, and Jamie was from the Church of Scotland. They both had some concerns about institutional religion, but Christianity was an important bond.

 

When they’d been together for four months, Jamie asked Sarah to marry him, and she said yes. Sarah had been staying in a student residence, but Jamie travelled back and forth to Dundee from St Andrews, sometimes on his motorbike, sometimes by bus. In spring 1980, they decided to live together; they didn’t have enough money for a wedding and didn’t expect to have the money for some time, so Sarah moved into Jamie’s flat during the Easter break.

Sarah’s parents were dead; her mum had died when Sarah was seventeen, and her dad when she was nineteen. She had brothers and sisters in her hometown, but she felt rootless. She and her siblings were all young and trying to get started in life. Jamie’s parents lived so far away that he only visited them for Christmas and Easter and during the summer break. His parents had moved away from St Andrews when he was seventeen, but he had stayed behind in a small flat his father had arranged for him. He managed to get work at the golf course and stayed there for a few years until he decided what he wanted to do with his life. His oldest sister, Mhairi, lived nearby, but she was at university in Glasgow, and the new couple saw little of her.

Sarah and Jamie settled into the routines of living together, and they both got on with their studies. Jamie went away for a few weeks on a geography field trip, and Sarah had her final teaching practice before graduation.

Sarah’s graduation day was full of mixed emotions. She was sad that her parents weren’t there but very happy that Jamie was. Her sister Anne and Anne’s fiancé, John, came to celebrate with them. Her friends Kirsten and Rob went to the graduation ball and were taken out to lunch by their parents. Jamie didn’t want to go to the ball, and, anyway, Sarah knew they couldn’t afford to pay for it. Instead, she and Jamie had a lovely lunch with Anne and John and then went back to their flat to continue the celebration. Sarah knew getting a job would be difficult because of a shortage of vacancies all over the country. It was the 1980s, and the economy was in recession; Sarah knew she was likely to be unemployed for some time. For the most part, her graduation day was good, although Jamie went into a bit of a mood over a silly game.

Sarah signed on as unemployed at the local job centre and started looking for work as a teacher. She sent her CV to several education departments but only received standard replies. At that time education departments did not take on probationary teachers to do supply work. The benefit of this situation was that Sarah had some time to catch her breath and get settled properly in St Andrews. Since she had begun the course, life had been a bit of a rollercoaster.

Later in the summer, Sarah returned from a visit to her sister’s to find Jamie in a state of great excitement; he had ‘discovered’ that God didn’t exist. He enthusiastically explained his reasoning and expected Sarah to agree. She listened carefully to what he had to say but could not agree with him. Sarah respected her fiancé’s point of view, but Jamie began to look down his nose at her, as she mustn’t be as intelligent as he first thought if she couldn’t agree with what he was saying. Sarah wanted to agree to disagree, but Jamie began to belittle her Christian point of view until it became a subject they could no longer discuss.

Sarah reflected on this. She had heard sermons from priests and ministers about wives being subject to their husband; to encourage women whose husbands were unbelievers, they quoted 1 Peter 3:1–2: ‘In the same way, wives should be obedient to their husbands. Then, if there are some husbands who have not yet obeyed the word, they may find themselves won over, without a word spoken, by the way their wives behave, when they see how faithful and conscientious they are.’ Sarah loved Jamie and had made her commitment to him when they’d become engaged and had begun living together. She also found the words of Francis of Assisi an inspiration: ‘Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary use words.’ Sarah felt this was not a time for intellectual argument; this was a time to live what she believed.

When Jamie went back to college that autumn, he began handing assignments in late and then sometimes not at all. By the end of the first term, after an argument with one of his tutors, he left the course. Sarah hadn’t been successful in finding work. Now they were both unemployed, and money was tight.

***

The couple planned to go to his parents’ home for Christmas; they had money for travelling but no money for presents. Jamie’s mood began to dip – until it became so black he stopped talking to Sarah for days at a time. The silence was oppressive. She had no idea what she had done that had made him refuse to talk to her; it couldn’t be just about money. One night, she left the house and booked into a hotel, planning to use the last of her savings to get some time to herself and gain some perspective. She felt she had nowhere else to go. When she got to her room, she lost her nerve, worrying what Jamie would think; she went back to reception and told the desk clerk she had a family emergency and couldn’t stay after all. When she got back to the flat, Jamie was sitting in the darkened window drinking whiskey and barely noticed she was home.

Sarah gave up some of her jewellery and used the rest of her savings for presents for his family. To save money, they hitched lifts north in order to get to his parents’ home for Christmas. Jamie’s dad, David, met the couple on the last leg of the journey. Sarah was anxious the whole way there; she had never hitched a ride anywhere before. Jamie was used to it and enjoyed the experience.

That first Christmas with his family was demanding. It became clear that Jamie had a difficult relationship with his mother, Elspeth, but seemed to treat his father with respect. He seemed to have an easy relationship with his younger brother and sister, Jack and Fiona, but a more tense relationship with his older sisters, Mhairi, Lesley, and Claire. Claire had married Alan that January, and they would be arriving the next day. The house wasn’t what Sarah was used to; it was full of large pieces of furniture, which looked like they belonged in much a grander house. Everywhere was cluttered, from the front porch full of coats and shoes to the kitchen, which had very little working space. There were four bedrooms, and the house was full; everyone in the family was home for Christmas, except Lesley; Lesley lived on her own in Newcastle with her dog, Maisie, but Maisie was ill. Altogether, seven adults and two teenagers were staying in the house, which also contained three cats and a dog and, when Claire and Alan arrived, their dog too.

Sarah came from a large family, and until her parents had died, eight people had lived in their house, but their house had, nevertheless, seemed more spacious. Her mother had liked things to be orderly and had made sure she had as much space as possible in the kitchen; she loved to cook and bake, and when the sewing machine came out, she generally used the kitchen table. Sarah’s family had more modest furniture because they had a more modest income. From an early age, Sarah’s grandmother had taught her the importance of a clean and tidy house; it had not been a subject Sarah had much interest in, but she’d tried to do as she was asked just to keep the peace.

Jamie had created an image of an educated middle-class family, whose members were bright and artistically talented and somehow superior to Sarah and her family. His mother remarked that Catholics were not very bright, and although Sarah no longer attended Mass, she felt the sting of these comments and entered into Jamie’s family feeling she was somehow beneath them.

These people confused her. They were Christians and socialists, well educated at good universities, and there was a lot of intelligent discussion, but there was also an undercurrent of criticism and resentment. The siblings all wanted their mother’s approval, and each thought the other had it, but it was hard to tell which of them did. David seemed to keep himself out of it unless things were getting too heated; he seemed to be a deep quiet thinker and took his socialism and his Christianity seriously. Sarah felt accepted by David, but displays of intellect seemed a requirement to be accepted by the rest. When Sarah did not understand a point of view or disagreed, Jamie felt this showed her in a poor light. And that was where the oppression began – he needed her to look good to his mother and his older sisters, and if Sarah said anything awkward, his irritation began to rise.

Jamie’s family did all the things that you do at Christmas – the Christmas midnight service, Christmas stockings, presents, and an amazing roast goose. They went out for a Boxing Day walk in the hills and celebrated New Year quietly. Inevitably, at Christmas, when families come together, there are tensions. Mhairi had invited a university friend and her husband to visit, and Jamie began comparing Sarah with this newly married couple. She should be more like Nora, who was so supportive of her husband. Sarah couldn’t see what she was doing wrong.

***

Things came to a head one night when Jamie had taken himself away from the rest of the family and gone into the downstairs bedroom, which Mhairi was using during her visit. When Mhairi went to bed, an angry exchange began; it ended with Jamie hitting Mhairi. His father tried to intervene, but Jamie began to threaten him. Jamie then stormed out of the house and slept in the shed at the bottom of the garden. Mhairi left the next day, and thinking Jamie’s behaviour was a result of worry over money, Elspeth gave Jamie twenty pounds.

He didn’t apologise to anyone, and no one challenged his behaviour further. Sarah was bewildered. Yes there were arguments in her family, but apologies were expected, and patterns of behaviour should change. And for anyone to lift his or her hand to another was unacceptable. Here she was in this Christian household, among supposedly better-educated people, and the pattern was different. The message she was left with was that she was not on the same level as Jamie and his family; they were a class above her. And using looks and words of criticism, Jamie made it clear he wanted Sarah to change so she could be accepted.

Sarah had absorbed negative messages about herself all the way back to her childhood. She was lazy because she avoided housework. She asked too many questions. Whistling was unladylike. All of these were comments made by her gran. When she did well at school, her classmates called her a ‘big head’. Sarah had not felt special to anyone since her mum died, and then she’d met Jamie. She wanted to keep that sense of being adored, and after her experiences that Christmas, she began to put her own beliefs and values in second place to Jamie and his family; she wanted to fit in, and she wanted to belong.

Her friend Kirsten began to see the true Sarah go underground.

Witness – Kirsten

Sarah and I were part of a set of friends from teaching college. When we stayed in the halls of residence together, everyone ended the night in my room, where we made tea and hot chocolate, and if anyone was hungry, we boiled eggs in my kettle! We had long talks into the night and imagined what our futures would hold. Most of us were, coincidentally, Christians from different traditions; the only odd one out was my boyfriend, Rob, an atheist who enjoyed challenging us all on our beliefs! Jamie was one of Rob’s motorcycling friends. Rob told me that Jamie had been living with Laura, a social work student. Laura had become involved with her mentor when she was on placement, and this had led to Jamie and her splitting up.

Soon, Jamie was hanging out with Rob a lot, and before long, he was absorbed into our group. Jamie could be really good fun. He enjoyed a good joke, and he, like us, enjoyed singing along to the guitars that Sarah and I played. He also enjoyed debating the rights and wrongs of the world well into the night but always seemed to want us to accept his conclusions; he found it difficult to agree to disagree.

Sarah moved in with Jamie at the beginning of our last Easter term, and she was so excited about this. Her friend Amir had a van, and he helped move her things into Jamie’s flat. Amir was from the Middle East and was strikingly handsome; he was studying medicine. Sarah told me that, after she unpacked, Jamie was in an odd mood all night and had been rude to Amir. Jamie was jealous, which Sarah did not understand. She and Amir had been friends long before she became involved with Jamie, and Amir was in a long-term relationship with Susanne. I know Sarah didn’t see much of Amir after moving in with Jamie.

***

About four weeks after Sarah and Jamie began living together, Sarah came to me and said she thought she’d made a mistake. Jamie wasn’t talking to her; maybe he thought he’d made a mistake too. I think he could be moody, and Jamie had recently told me that he knew he was too hard on Sarah. I thought this was just one of the teething problems everyone goes through when they start living together. Soon these concerns seemed forgotten because Sarah and Jamie and Rob got involved with the Drama Club Review. Sarah had a lovely voice but wasn’t confident enough to perform; so she enjoyed getting involved with staging, wardrobe, and props. Rob worked on the lighting, and Jamie was one of the stars of the show. The Review was the last big social event we were all involved in before Sarah, Rob, and I graduated, and it was a huge success.

After graduation, Rob and I got engaged, and we visited Sarah and Jamie once or twice, but we weren’t in each other’s lives the way we had been when we were students. Rob moved to Glasgow to work, and I followed him a few months later. I remember that our last visit before we moved was great. Sarah made a wonderful meal, and we had good wine and Rob and Jamie debated late into the night as we had done at college. After that, Sarah and I kept in touch mostly by letter.

Then after Jamie and Sarah’s first Christmas living together, Sarah came to visit me and told me about having visited his family. This was her first meeting with them. They all sounded a bit odd to me, but then I remembered how odd my own family could be and tried to reassure her. She didn’t tell me about him hitting his sister; in fact, she didn’t mention Jamie hitting her until many years later.

Whenever we got together after this, I felt like the Sarah I knew was fading, but I knew that I was different since moving in with Rob and thought that was part of life. I knew she loved Jamie, and I knew she wanted their relationship to work. Looking back, I can see that Jamie began to dominate her. She didn’t go to church as much as she used to; I think she only went when she was visiting Jamie’s parents.

We got married in the same year, 1982 – Rob and I in early summer, and Sarah and Jamie in the autumn. We had a big wedding with many family and friends; they had a very small wedding, with only close family. Rob and I were the only friends invited. Sarah made her own wedding dress from cream silk, using an old trestle sewing machine she bought in a saleroom. It was a simple classic dress with a mandarin collar, and she looked lovely.

We stayed in touch after our weddings, mainly through phone calls and Christmas cards. Sarah and I both had difficulty getting teaching jobs, and I know she was disappointed about having to keep waitressing; this put her out of the running for a place in one of the government work schemes for schools.

Sarah would always fight in the corner of anyone she knew in need of help, and when she did get into teaching, she was a fierce advocate for children needing support. I know she found it difficult to fight for herself, but I had no idea just how difficult life was for her until years later.

 

 

Meditation

Mother, I place myself in the warmth of your loving arms.
I place my feet on your earth and allow myself to be rooted in the earth, my home.
You see me as good. I accept the goodness in myself.
You see me as worthy. I accept the worth in myself.
You see me as beautiful. I accept the beauty in myself.
You see me as desirable. I accept myself as desired.

∞∞∞

* Names and places have been changed in this book to protect the anonymity of the subjects; all events are accurate.

Follow one of the links below to buy a copy of WITNESS.

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Authorhouse)

 

WITNESS by Kitty Nolan (Amazon)