I met a boy. I didn’t have very high expectations, I’d been let down for so long, but when I met Tony, I was blown away. We got along so well, and soon we were seeing each other almost every day. He was doing and saying all of the things that every girl wants, and to be honest, I didn’t expect it to last. From my experience, guys put on an act where they’re all sweet for a while, and then all of the cute stuff goes away. That’s what I was expecting, so I was pleasantly surprised, and still am every day, when he’s still just as sweet as he was when we met.
It took some getting used to. I was used to being pushed away when I tried to show affection, and I certainly wasn’t used to someone else being the one to show affection.
Mike was still harassing me, and I was worried that it would scare Tony away, I felt like I was this girl with all of this baggage. But Tony was amazing. He was caring, and supportive. In the beginning I’d expected him to get angry at me when Mike would text me, because that was the reaction I was used to, but Tony was just worried about me, and if I was okay. It was so strange, and foreign, and amazing to feel cared about.
It wasn’t hard to move on. Mike’s constant harassment only made it easier. I started being more stern with him. He needed to know that is was over forever and nothing was going to change that. He needed to stop contacting me, and crying, and threatening me, and telling me that I was a bad person for leaving him. And he just wouldn’t listen when I told him to stop. We would push me to the point of cracking and I would yell at him and tell him what a bad person he was for everything that he did to me, and then he’d act like a hurt little boy, like I was a psycho for snapping at him.
There were a few times that Mike sent me a message that was “meant for someone else”. Mostly about how he wasn’t drinking at all. What he didn’t know is that I’d walked past the regulars at the bar he drinks at a few times and they’d told me that he’d been in there every day that week drinking. Just some more proof as to what I liar he is. As he realised it was really over, and I was responding less and less, he threatened suicide more and more. He would tell me it was my fault that he was going to kill himself. That everyone would blame me for what he was going to do.
One night he sent me a picture of a noose that he’d tied and hung in the shed.
He tried to meet up with me one day to drop of some crap. Honestly, just crap that I ended up throwing out. I didn’t respond to him though, I didn’t want it. So he showed up at my parents’ house. Luckily no one was home and he left it on the porch. He did this another time with a box of car oil. That time was a little more scary though, because he did it at night, when we were all sleeping.
The worst was one night, he was calling and texting, and I’d had enough. I picked up the phone the next time he called and I let loose. I’m sure the neighbors could hear everything that I said. He mentioned that he saw on Facebook that my parents were away for the weekend. He told me he was going to get ice cream, and then I heard him get into his car over the phone. I told him that he better not come to my house, that I didn’t want to see him.
I little while later he tried to call again. I didn’t answer. I fell asleep. My bedroom was at the front of the house, and my windows were open because it was summer. Luckily (unluckily? I don’t know), I was sleeping naked, so my curtains were shut. I woke up to him calling my name, the same way he used to call it when he was drunk and abusive, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. He was outside. The fear that went through me was unspeakable. It was late at night and he knew that I was home alone. As quietly as I could, I slid off my bed and onto the floor to hide. I was shaking and felt like I was going to vomit, I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen with fear. He knocked on the door, I couldn’t remember if it was locked or not, I was panicking. He came to my bedroom window and called in. I picked up my phone and, while trying to hide the light from it, turned it to silent. Almost instantly it started vibrating from him calling. It felt like forever went by before he left.
A few minutes after he drove away he phoned again. I picked up and I told him that if he came back, that I would call the police. He didn’t think I was being serious. I was so, dead serious. He didn’t come back.
He texted me 10 times the following day. I told him to stop harassing me. He called me a nasty heartless wolf. .
I met Tony and his friends on the Gold Coast the next day for New Years Eve. We had just become official, and I was so happy. Things were so amazing with him, all the other shit just went away. Until Mike muscled himself back into my mind with a text message, pretending to be one of his bikie friends, saying that him and 64 other bikies were coming to kill me. Tony told me it would be okay, that we’d go to the police and sort it out.
I went back to the police station two days later. I told them what had been going on and the cop I was speaking to was appalled. He told me that all of the guilt tripping was emotional abuse. He told me that Mike threatening to kill me was emotional abuse. He told me that I should have called the police when he showed up at my house, and that if he ever shows up again, to call them straight away. He told me that I had plenty of evidence that Mike was breaching the Good Behaviour DVO. He took photos of all the incriminating messages to use as evidence to charge him with breaching, and he told me to go back to the court and apply to amend the DVO to No Contact.
The breach was sent to the Jimboomba police. They would have to go find him, and give him papers telling him that he was required to attend court again for breaching the DVO. At the same time, I went back to court myself to amend the DVO.
A couple days later I was granted a temporary no contact DVO, but that wouldn’t be effective until Mike had been served with it. So, every day, I called the Jimboomba police to see if they’d gone to see him and serve him the papers, and every day, he continued to harass me. I phoned the police station every day for over two weeks, and they’d done nothing. I was furious. They weren’t taking this seriously.
I started receiving text messages from the real estate company, Mike wasn’t paying rent, and now it was in arrears. I called the real estate and told them that I wouldn’t be paying it. I told them that they knew the situation, and legally, they had to let me out of the lease. She tried to fight me and suggest that Mike move out, and I live there and pay the rent until the lease was up. I lost it. How thick was this woman? She knew what he’d done, I couldn’t live there, secluded in the middle of nowhere, alone, where he knew where I was. I went online, pulled up the official websites for renting in Queensland, and sent her highlighted screenshots about how what she was doing wasn’t legal. She backed down after that.
Okay, so Mike’s not paying rent, he’s about the be evicted, the police haven’t spoken to him yet, and he’s still harassing me. I phoned the police again and told them that he was about to be evicted, and once that happens, it’s going to be much harder for them to find him. They said they’d send someone out. When I phoned to follow up the next day, they hadn’t done anything. Look, I get that they’re probably under-resourced, and I get that there’s other, more important things going on that they need to attend to, but this was serious too. There’s all sorts of propaganda in the news, supported by the government, about how domestic violence needs to be addressed, but I wasn’t being taken seriously. The amount of tax I pay to this government, and the ONE time I asked for help, to quite possibly save my life, I was ignored.
Finally, one day I got a phone call. It was the Jimboomba police. They’d gone out to see Mike, but he’d been evicted and they didn’t know where he was. REALLY?! YOU DON’T SAY!!! They asked me if I knew where he was. Of course I didn’t. I was avoiding him like the plague. By this point I’d honestly given up. It had been about 6 weeks since I’d reported everything. I didn’t expect him to be held accountable for his actions anymore.
One day I received a text from Mike’s Mom, saying that she couldn’t believe what I’d done, that she thought that I was better than that, whatever “that” was. I assumed that Mike had finally been served, and I told her that I had to go back to the police, that he didn’t leave me another option. She started to play games, “no, that’s not what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about, blah blah blah”. I told her that I wasn’t messing around, and if she wanted to tell me what the issue was, great, and if not, that I didn’t really care. She was upset that I had moved on with Tony. She implied that I was a whore, and said that everyone else was saying it about me too. She dragged my Mom (who is a nurse at the hospital) into it, saying that she’d told Mike not to step foot in the hospital. She said that I never cared about Mike, and that I was just using him.
I offered to send her the recording, so she could understand why I’d left. She lied, and told me that she’d heard it. I know that she didn’t, because the only people who had it, who still have it today, are myself, and the police. She told me that I didn’t know what domestic violence was. She told me that I had no morals, and she told me to stay away from the rest of her family, including Tina*, Mike’s niece, and one of my best friends.
Fuck this woman. I’d respected her until this point, but she picked the wrong girl to mess with. Below was my response, word for word.
Sue*,
I’m disappointed that you’re acting the way you are. Perhaps if you truly understood the situation then you’d be more understanding of my moving on. Unfortunately, even after I tell you, you’ll still choose not to see the truth. Mike is your golden child who can do no wrong in your eyes. He’s never been held accountable for his actions because you’re always there to back him up and bail him out, and that’s why he doesn’t take responsibility for his actions. He always has an excuse to put the blame somewhere else, and because of this, you can expect to be bailing him out and supporting him for the rest of your life, just as you have for his whole life, apart from the 6 years when I stepped in and did it.
Mike was horrible to me, and I’m not just talking about when he was drunk, this was all the time. Now that I’m out of that situation and looking back, I can see how bad it really was. There was a point in our relationship where my anxiety and depression was so bad because of him that I was physically sick, vomiting for no reason. What was his reaction to that? He told me to suck it up and stop being so miserable. He called me a whore, a fat ass, a lazy piece of shit, and every other thing under the sun, on a daily basis. He threatened to hurt or kill me so often that it didn’t even faze me anymore. He threw things at me, grabbed me and bruised me, dragged me out of the bedroom by my legs while I was screaming and crying, and in the end he hit me and grabbed me by the throat. He would yell at me and beat me down emotionally until I was crying, and then he would stand over me and laugh and tell me that he didn’t care that I was crying.
I did everything for him. I put up with all of that shit and still tried to make him feel loved and cared about every day, which was never reciprocated. I worked for 3 years while he was too depressed to work, but not too depressed to go over to Barry’s and get high and drunk. I was out of the house for 12 hours a day for work, and when I’d get home, he’d be upset that he’d had to vacuum that day. He got a brand new fucking car, and then immediately stopped working, so I got to pay off his new fucking car while I drove around in my 95 Camry with broken heating and AC. I was made to feel guilty if I bought extra things, or a lot of food when I was trying to be healthy, but it was okay for him to drop $300 a week on alcohol and cigarettes. He made me feel so guilty every time I saw my family, and I wouldn’t hear the end of it for days. So the fact that I’ve moved on and met someone else shouldn’t really be a surprise when you consider the fact that I was in a completely one sided relationship with someone who went out of his way to hurt me. When someone pushes you to hate them, it becomes very easy to move on. Mike has no one to blame but himself. And before you start judging me for moving on, perhaps you should take into consideration the fact that Mike has joined several dating websites. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. He should be trying to move on, but don’t try to drag me over the coals for doing the exact same thing he’s doing. I’m a smart girl Sue, don’t pick a fight with me.
Mike is an abusive and controlling person. He has massive anger issues and other psychological issues that need professional help. He’s a pathological liar, and he throws out threats to people at the slightest bit of tension. You should know, I know that you’ve been on the receiving end of those threats many times, yet you still choose to stand by him and defend him. Bail him out and then have a go at the person who tried for 6 damn years to help him. And in your defense of Mike, you have started lying. You lied about hearing the recording, you lied about there being a second recording, and you lied about my Mom telling Mike to stay away from the hospital. My Mom hasn’t even had ANY contact with Mike since May.
You said in one of your messages that I don’t know what domestic abuse is. I don’t know what kind of twisted, fucked up world you live in, but everyone who knows the situation, from my parents, to friends, colleagues, and even the police, they’re all horrified by Mike’s abuse. The police that escorted me to pick up some of my things told me later that Mike was showing all of the signs of a serial abuser, and that if I went back to him, it was only a matter of time before they would find me in a dumpster. Just because you were in a worse relationship in the past, doesn’t discount the horrible things that I had to go through, and fuck you for making it out that way. You are part of the domestic violence problem, trying to sweep it under the rug and undermine the victim. I’ve lost all respect for you now for that. You say that I have no morals, but I was a saviour for the last 6 years while I supported and took care of Mike, and you didn’t have to. But now that I’m not there doing all the work and taking all the abuse, I have no morals. You know who I am Sue. The last 6 years wasn’t an act, and you KNOW that I’m a good person. You can lie to others, and yourself, and tell them what you want about me, but you know me. Maybe you should look at yourself and the piece of shit son that you raised, and then ask who doesn’t have any morals.
And don’t run around thinking that you’re the ruler of the family and everyone bows down to you just because you’re the Mom. You have many issues yourself, that many people can see, and if you think you’re going to dictate what I do or who I see, you’re in for a rude awakening. You have NO hold over me Sue. I don’t owe you anything, and I don’t answer to you, ever.
I know that you’re going to read this and not absorb any of it, it’s just going to make you angry, and then you’ll run around to everyone and show them and tell them what a horrible bitch I am, but you know what? I don’t care, because I know this letter is the truth, and if you choose not to see it, then that’s your problem.
She didn’t respond to that. I don’t know what her reaction was, I can only hope that she saw reason in what I’d written, even though, I’ll admit, it was pretty harsh. But seriously, I was so angry. She knew what I’d been through, and she was villainizing me?! I don’t think so.
So Mike’s Mom stopped bothering me. I haven’t heard from her since actually. But Mike was still harassing me. All I could do was watch my back and wait for the police to catch up with him.
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*Please note, his name has been changed, although he doesn’t deserve any sort of protection or privacy, and I’m sure that most people reading this already know who he is. It wouldn’t be difficult for those who don’t, to figure it out. Still, I have to do the right thing so this doesn’t come back and bite me in the ass.
*Other names may be changed as well to protect them from retaliation.
If you’re dealing with abuse please reach out. Your local Domestic Violence Hotline can help guide you, and you’re more than welcome to get into contact with me to talk.
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