When they met, John Doe charmed his way into her world. He pretended to be such a hopeless romantic. So very good was he, at making people see what he wanted them to see… He hid his flaws behind a firmly fixed, smiling mask… but oh, he was deeply flawed!
His ideals sit at such dizzy heights. People who don’t fit his criteria are discarded like trash… and, of course, nobody ever actually fits!
Jane was the perfect candidate. She was a lost soul, her daughter’s father dead, and she had no other family around for him to contend with.
John warned Jane that she should not behave like all of his previous conquests, that he could not bear anger, that she should always be gentle and honest (as if she wouldn’t be), that he expected the utmost patience and caring. In fact, he was saying she had to become the perfect woman.
John only had the one friend – his accountant. Jane now realises that these should have been warnings.
Jane’s own friends did not meet his exacting requirements. They were driven away, while he blinded her with decadent promises of a love that she’d wanted …needed …so much.
On he went, wiping her life clean of all allies, until he finally had her almost all to himself. There were just two left …but one was working abroad and the other was dying. There was no adult left to watch him take everything he needed from her …nobody left to stop him, save her young daughter, who could not be removed in the same way.
Then John proceeded to alternate between treating Jane like she might have been special, and then having huge, childish tantrums. He always blamed her for sparking them off every time he couldn’t get his own way …and he always blamed his previous victims for his ‘reactions’. Every one of them, he claimed, had hurt him in some way that made him into the cruel, vindictive, malicious person he was.
John works hard to be seen as a perpetual victim of cruelty. He extracts sympathy, as a bee extracts pollen, drawing deeply on each and every flower until there is nothing left and then moving on to the next.
Unfortunately for her, by that time, Jane was completely lost and confused. She had no friends left to turn to, and her daughter was far too young to understand the complexities of the game he was playing.
John had her give up her own plans for the future (college, university etc) and start working for him without pay, often for long hours, and usually way into the night. She even had to give up her car, since she had no money coming in with which to run it.
When his original business was going down the drain, Jane managed his shareholders when they wouldn’t listen to him anymore and did the jobs of the workers that he had to “let go”. She helped him to write the computer program that is now the backbone of the new current business. Then, when he had to sell his house to cover his debts, he moved into hers.
Jane didn’t own her house …but she had a ‘Life-time Tenure’ on a lovely old Victorian house in a private sector, with a built-in maintenance program, which meant that she didn’t have to worry about the major issues of upkeep.
It was, and still is, the only place in her entire life where she ever felt it was truly her home. Having worked her way up the ladder to get it, Jane was extremely proud of her achievement.
But it didn’t take John long to take that from her too, claiming that he needed to buy it, to use as capital, to meet business regulations.
She now knows that he only married her to secure his own status. And any pretence of love was just that. The only thing that ever truly mattered to John was the client bank and the huge amounts of money it brought him.
Now that he had taken everything she had to her name, John began to bully, belittle and criticise her, demanding that she be eternally grateful to him. Never once did he thank her for all she had done for him!
On one occasion he completely lost it, yelling at her that “she should be grateful that a man like him would even ‘consider’ marrying a freak like her”. Jane was in despair!
It was too late for her to get out now – They were already married and she had nothing left to fall back on.
She has been kicking herself ever since for allowing him to swallow her up and take over her life like that.
Jane decided that she would just have to make the best she could of things. She focussed on the business and gave her all to its growth, hoping if she made a good job of that, John would be easier to live with. She also did her best to create the kind of home he demanded.
The next few years were taken up with Jane’s daughter leaving school and getting her own place, then having the new house refurbished, and later, her daughter moving again to be closer to her mother. Jane’s friend had died by this time. The friend working abroad was coming home again …but suddenly John decided the house wasn’t big enough any more. They were preparing to move. And of course, move they did, away from her daughter, her one remaining friend and her home.
Sometime after the move, an incident occurred where Jane and her daughter argued. Exactly why it happened is not clear …but John took full advantage of the situation. He placed himself as the sole link between them by repeatedly telling Jane that the daughter had insisted “She, Jane, wasn’t to go near if she ever wanted to see her new baby grandchild” …at the same time, constantly telling the daughter that “her mother was still angry with her and didn’t want to see her”. He kept this going for years, bringing the child to the house himself, for periodic visits, claiming to each that he was working towards a reconciliation.
Jane didn’t dare challenge it, in case she lost that last meagre precious contact.
John had finally, and very effectively, removed her daughter from her life too.
At this point Jane had a complete breakdown.
For the next few years, she was on antidepressants, doped up to the eyeballs, easily manipulated by John …and not remotely caring what happened to her.
As it turned out, she lost that last fragile contact too, when John abruptly decided they would be moving abroad.
He chose a massive, run down, mostly derelict house, right out in the sticks, where there were no friendly faces and the nearest signs of life were seven miles away. He spouted a myriad of ridiculous ideas as to what they could do with it but, apart from a few token gestures, left it just as it was.
Once Jane was safely out of the country, and he was able to travel back alone, John started living a double life. He went back and forth. Every time he came home, he argued with Jane at every available opportunity, blaming her for every negative thing that occurred and generally making her life miserable.
Eventually, Jane discovered that John was seeing someone else.
His petty criticisms instantly became violent rages. He was aggressive and abusive and even started physically harming her. He stormed out in manic, screaming frenzies, throwing bags into the car, yelling that he wouldn’t be back. Then, weeks later, he would come back and do it all over again. This went on for over six months. At some point, he just didn’t come back. Jane didn’t know what was going on.
She has since found out that he had been cheating for three or four years at least, maybe longer.
Even now, after over five years of pursuing his new victim, without success, John openly says “He will have his way in the end”. Jane finds that quite creepy. He sounds like a stalker. She feels kind of sorry for this other woman.
Jane is now stranded. She doesn’t have the finances to get back to her native country.
She lives alone in the huge crumbling house John chose. It is falling apart and lets the rain in.
She has only been able to see her daughter and the family four times in the last ten years. She has two more grandchildren who barely know who she is.
The joint savings that they had, of around £300,000, have mysteriously disappeared.
Just as he did in the beginning, John has systematically destroyed what few friendships they had here too, with his visits, dramas and appalling behaviour. Jane has to be very careful not to let him anywhere near any new friends she makes.
Now he is back, wailing that it’s all going wrong, hounding her to sort it all out, put everything right for him …but, at the same time, his selfish demands make her life even more difficult than it already is.
~
Jane prays daily for John’s car to meet a very large truck …and for the truck to do a thorough job. Quick, clean, and preferably in the 1st week of the month.
She is finally making the long climb out of the mire.
.
***This is a true story and was written for The Domestic Abuse Awareness Campaign
Things That Rattle My Cage 