A Christmas Wish.

And a story from Christmas past.

Photo by Jonas Smith on Unsplash

As we approach Christmas and New Year, I wanted to thank you all for subscribing to my blog. For those of you that have paid subscriptions, you have contributed towards many women being able to attend The Freedom Programme that I facilitate year-round. But equally important, to everyone who has free subscriptions to my blog and who share the content on their social media platforms, you are raising awareness of domestic abuse in all its forms and without awareness, we will never be able to protect victims and survivors.

Christmas brings back a lot of memories for me - not good ones sadly. It was 2am on Christmas Day 1987, when the incident that led to me taking my then 2.5 year old daughter and leaving my abusive husband on the 4th January 1988, happened. By no means the last incident as that happened in February 1988. But nevertheless, an incident which would change my life and ultimately thousands of other women’s lives in the future. He drove myself and my small daughter down the motorway, very drunk. Pulled into a motorway service station and proceeded to rape me in front of our daughter. I didn’t see it as rape. I was his wife after all. I knew then I had to leave, but when we got home, the Christmas Tree lights were twinkling, my daughter was so excited. I couldn’t leave. I could see no light at the end of the tunnel. I knew I had to leave but how and when, I had no clue.

I got through that Christmas, playing happy families with our respective families and friends. I was a master actress! I worked for as much of it as I could, leaving my daughter with my mother. I was, at that time, an auxiliary nurse in a private residential care home. Work was a distraction for what I knew was imminent. My escape. Possibly, the end of my life. It is not an exaggeration to say that that is what I was afraid of. A premonition of sorts as not even two months later, he did indeed attempt to take my life.

After I left him on the 4th January 1988, he was arrested and sentenced to two months in prison for breaching the non-molestation order I had against him for the previous three months before I left him. On his release, after one month in prison, he broke into my home whilst I was out and on my return jumped out of a wardrobe with a carving knife and stabbed me. Another incident, my 2.5 year old daughter sadly witnessed.

He fled but thankfully was arrested later the next day and was remanded in custody. In January 1989 he was convicted of several crimes against me, one of which was Rape, and was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. That wasn’t the end of my story of course, as many of us know, it often isn’t, because the abuse usually continues for a long time afterwards.

He was able to be convicted of rape because I had a non-molestation injunction in place when it happened and this meant that he had effectively lost his ‘conjugal’ rights. This, I was told, was a first and changed how society viewed rape within marriage. Not something I was proud of then, but I am now! because it changed the course of many women’s lives after his conviction and the wide spread media interest in the case. Our names were not mentioned, but I remember sitting in traffic lights with cars either side of me and Capitol Radio were reporting on it. I felt as if everyone knew it was me! That the men in the cars adjacent to mine knew. Obviously, they didn’t!.

It took me many years to feel able to speak about this particular incident and of course, it wasn’t the only time it had happened. It had happened many, many times through our relationship. I still find it difficult to talk about, especially at Christmas when it happened!

Why am I telling YOU this? Because it dawned on me that despite my blog heading into its 6th month, I hadn’t told you about this part of my ‘story’, and although a few of you will know, a lot of you won’t. And when I started this blog, my intention was to raise awareness of domestic abuse and its many forms and not to shy away from speaking about things that may be controversial or taboo. So here we are!

I won’t deny it, the first few Christmas’s after that one, were hard and it took great effort on my part to carry on and act as though I hadn’t a care in the world. But as the years went on, it did get easier, and I realised - that night was a turning point for me. Had it not happened, would I have left just over a week later? Would I still be alive now? Probably not. And of course, since then, I have fought many more painful, difficult experiences in life, as we all do.

So this Christmas, I won’t be feeling the trauma of those memories. I will be doing, what I do every year on Christmas Eve. I will be raising a glass of wine to each and every person out there, who has experienced or is experiencing domestic abuse, knowing that as long as we keep talking and sharing our experiences (when it is safe to do so), we will be making a difference to someone.

Thank you once more for all your support and for subscribing to this blog and I wish you a very happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year. ‘See you all in 2023.

Sharon XXX