OK, so, thinking about it, my moment of clarity was on our wedding night! I'd always thought it was just his postmodern sense of humour being grumpy about things, and that when it came to something important (e.g. wedding day?) he'd come up trumps. But all day he'd been in a foul mood, furious with me for some reason, constantly pulling me aside to whisper rebukes into my ear, gave a sarcastic speech, and kept shouting at me on the journey home (we spent the night in a shitty little house we'd recently moved into) because I couldn't keep up with him as I was struggling to carry all (!!!) our luggage through the turnstiles on the London Underground.
I remember lying in bed as he watched football on telly downstairs and thinking I wanted to run away and never look back. But I knew that marriage has its ups and downs and is a commitment for life, so I stayed another 15 years.
Then... nothing happened! Nothing changed. I just woke up one weekend and noticed, with indifference, that I had absolutely nothing left in me. No enthusiasm for life at all.
I waited to see if it would go away, but it didn't.
I started keeping a secret journal to try and make sense of it, and one morning found myself writing "I want to live alone." The minute the words were on the page, it was like an electric shock going through me. I stared at them and knew it was what I had to do.
He made our separation absolute hell, making me feel I hadn't got a leg to stand on. How dare I suddenly pull the plug on things for no reason, etc etc. I'd just gone mad overnight, etc etc. I really believed I had no excuse for doing this terrible thing I was doing and was terrified that he must be right that I was mad.
When I finally escaped to a little rented bedsit, I cautiously began my new life, anxiously waiting for the time when I would miss him. Instead, I gradually began to realise how much I'd been living my whole life tiptoeing on eggshells, and began to relax and enjoy life (although I did go on to have three more ghastly relationships, just because I didn't know any different).
Over the years that followed, and particularly since the internet has made it possible to compare notes on abusive relationships, I came to understand in retrospect just how bad the marriage had been. I'd spent all that time as his skivvy and punchbag. I'd been his personal chauffeur, cook, general handyman, secretary, the list goes on... all thankless. An accidental pregnancy made him erupt with "You've ruined my life, you bitch" and "How do I know it's mine?" (needless to say, I ended up having an abortion -- and at the time this was surgical, outside the UK, and he went to a football match that day). Little things like him forcing sex on me when I'd just got off the phone from being told a much-loved family member had died ("You're so sexy when you cry"). Me having to work several jobs to pay my exact half of the mortgage and bills. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture!
The next relationship I had, the guy used to get pissed off with me because I was constantly asking him "Are you OK?" I now realise it's because I had to do that with ex-DH all the time, I was on constant tenterhooks around him.
It's been a long and rocky road since, but I'm now married to the gentlest, kindest, funniest man in the world, the only person I've ever met who "gets" me 100%, immediately notices the slightest trace of discomfort cross my face and does everything he can to make me happy, jumps to help me with things without me asking, etc. We celebrate our 10-year anniversary soon and are ridiculously happy. He makes me laugh from the moment I wake up every day.
Looking back on the person I was in my first marriage, I can hardly believe it was me. I suppose it wasn't, really, it was a tiny version of me that had been forced into a smaller and smaller space until I could hardly breathe. I'm so proud that I somehow managed to get out even though I had no idea why I was doing it. I wish I could go back and reassure her how great things were going to be one day.