Over the past year some of you may have noticed that I went through a bit of a rollercoaster in the real life regarding a particular woman. I am writing this as a warning to you, so that you don’t fall into the trap that I did.
All that glitters is not gold. I used to think this referred to pyrite, because it is obvious that diamonds aren’t gold, nahmean? But it is meta-fucking-phorical, yo. When I met this woman I thought she glittered, I thought she was gold. She was hot, sexy as sin, a 10/10 head turning, whiplash inducing sex bomb. She even attempted to challenge my sexual appetite, telling me she was insatiable, she wasn’t insatiable, she just had issues, but I won’t go into that. She was fawning, would make me out to be the answer to her prayers, said I was perfect, awesome, that I was the best thing to happen to her. She told me she wanted to be my wife, have my children, cook my dinners, wash my clothes, keep my house tidy and be my personal sex slave. It all amounted to a brightly dazzling glittering perfect whirlwind of a relationship.
It didn’t matter that I knew she was a former prostitute. Her story was that her husband kicked her out and she had no money and nowhere to go, that she would never return to that life and wanted to be with me and me only. It didn’t matter that she had a 5 year old daughter. According to her story, her daughter was way better off away from the abusive ex husband anyway. I was happy to be the “saviour” of that poor child who had endured a savage first five years, a surrogate father. It didn’t matter that she was on government benefits. She did things to me. Sexual things. Things that even now are making me smile a wicked, dirty smile. Things that clouded my judgement more than the years of drug and alcohol abuse ever did.
Cracks started to appear a couple of months in, she would tell me stories that didn’t add up. Her ex husband didn’t seem to be the person she made out. She would tell me of other partners who would abuse her physically and things didn’t marry up. She would treat me like dirt and when I told her to stop it, she would apologise and give excuses, mostly revolving around something that I did that was “wrong” and that I needed to change my behaviour. She was a master manipulator and I saw it, but I also considered myself to be above that, able to control that shit. All in all, though, she was still holding me up on a pedestal, treating me like a king. And who doesn’t like being treated like a king? I was envied by many a dude and who doesn’t like to be envied?
But the cracks were becoming craters and soon it was 7:3 good times to bad. Then 50:50. Then it was 3:7. She became restless with living in a shitty lower socio economic area and I thought a change of scenery, months before my plan to save money for a purchased house where we could “start afresh”, might help. I moved us from that shitty suburb closer to the city, to a beautiful apartment across the road from a park that faced a beautiful harbour cove. It was awesome., but she still wasn’t happy. It got to 2:8 and I thought she’d never be happy when she came to me and said, “I got a job interview, I think it’ll help if I feel like I am contributing.”
It was as a “receptionist” at a brothel. Goodbye dignity. She manipulated me, told me “if it affects us, our relationship, our sex life, my relationship with my daughter” then she would quit. Within one week it had affected it all and more. But she wasn’t going to quit and the optimist in me decided to just deal with it. I sometimes despise my optimist.
Things continued downhill. I lived with a night shift brothel dweller who neglected her daughter and as became a pit of vile and venom, I suspected drug use, I suspected that she was considering not just “receptioning”, I suspected a lot, but was always telling myself it could work. Fucking optimist with his blinkers on. She would keep me up all night with phone calls telling me I was a piece of shit and then I had to go to work while she slept during the day. I lived a shaky existence, every day I arrived at my front door, my hand shaking so much my keys rattled, my inside voice screaming at me, “just walk away, just fucking leave and never come back”, but I always opened the door, fearful of what I was going to encounter. I often felt relieved if I encountered indifference. It meant she wasn’t in a mood. How fucked is that?
She then told me the reason she was always pissed is that she thought I wasn’t committed to the relationship, manipulated me into thinking I was at fault for her moods. By this time I had on several occasions walked out in fury, never to return, only to have her contact me and talk me back. My parents told me to get out, they watched as my mental state deteriorated. So I did the only thing I thought would fix the problem, I asked her to marry me.
One day, a week prior to the engagement, I left, telling her I was done with her shit and on the way to work she rang me in hysterics telling me to take her daughter because she was going to kill herself. I, like an idiot, came home to find her in the bath with razorblades. Her daughter watching cartoons while she was meant to be at school.
I was being mindfucked. I knew it, but I had a mistaken belief in myself that I could handle it. I couldn’t.
She practically told me everything was my fault and the only way I could make things right was to buy her flowers and that she was going to sit down on Friday night and tell me how I had to fix the relationship. So, like an idiot, instead of saying, “fuck this, you manipulative bitch, I’m out,” I bought her flowers and chocolates and sent them to her for when I arrived home Friday evening.
She claimed she never got them. The flower company said she did. They were fucking expensive too. However, according to her, I shouldn’t have bought those flowers, no, that was wrong of me, I should’ve bought some crappy servo flowers, then she would’ve been happy. I couldn’t win. Not a good start to the night, but an important note for later, when the delivery note saying they were delivered assisted in vindication.
We put the kid to bed and she began her run down of my failings. I’d had enough and told her so. She threw a bottle at me. She went to pick it up again, I grabbed the bottle, she went nuts, I let go of the bottle, she stumbled back. What follows is a series of events where she attempted to manipulate me further. I went for a walk at 3am for 3 hours and cleared my head. I came to the conclusion that I wanted out, there was no doubt. There was a further series of events on my return that eventuated while I was packing my bags to leave, part of which was she threatened me with “a world of hurt” from her “friends”.
I left and this time there was no intention to ever return. She knew this. So when the cops investigated a domestic disturbance, she concocted a story of violence towards her.
The following months I had to deal with openly contemptuous police officers, lawyers and the court. I was a condemned without trial “wife basher”, the charges against me were two counts of assault, it didn’t matter what they were or the circumstances surrounding them. Both of which were fanciful and farcical lies. Over my head was the possibility of being convicted of a crime I didn’t commit in a category that pierces the very heart of my character.
Mendacem memorem esse oportet. A liar must have a good memory. She didn’t. Her statement to the police contrasted so incredibly badly with her testimony in court that it shredded her credibility. She brought new and more horrific lies to the court hoping to paint a picture of a mad man, but only succeeded in proving herself to be a vindictive woman.
Given a soapbox, she proceeded to explain that I had used a “lethal jiu jitsu” move on her, that I had done to her things that, were they in her original statement, would probably have had me locked up until the case was heard. She was relishing in this opportunity to destroy me for abandoning her. But it all fell in a heap, you can’t lie on the stand and not be called on it. Normally, however, it is the defending lawyer that calls you on it. This time the prosecutor literally had to tell her to stop talking, as she was dismantling his case against me, to which she literally told him, the lawyer on her side, that she expected the opportunity to say what she wanted to say and what she wanted to say was relevant, to which the prosecutor disagreed, somewhat hilariously (if it wasn’t my arse on the line). My lawyer dismantled her lies without having to do much, she had already proven herself untrustworthy with the prosecutor.
My testimony was the truth, I was grilled on my jiu jitsu experience, what little I have. The prosecutor tried to trip me up repeatedly, but I had nothing to hide. What happened that night was what I said in my statement and was what I said in my testimony.
I wasn’t lucky enough for a verdict that day. I was told to come back in three months, the date set for last week. The prosecutor put his “submissions” in, a short rambling summary saying basically, “he’s a big guy, he does jiu jitsu, come on, he did it!” The magistrate even had to direct him to address a few things he didn’t even mention, one of which was the first charge, the charge the prosecutor offered to drop if I plead guilty to the second charge before the case. My lawyer had a 9 page document debunking every lie in her statement/ testimony, proof of the delivery of the flowers that she said she never received and outlining exactly why the court should find me not guilty.
The magistrate summarised the case and dismissed the two charges.
What did I learn from this experience?
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All that glitters is not gold.
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Be wary of a flatterer.
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a) The justice system views a man as guilty until proven innocent in cases of a domestic nature involving a woman.
b) That if I had to deal with this sort of injustice so that a woman who is in actual danger of harm is safe, then so be it. -
Honesty works.
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There is evil out there. A person might not be evil, but evil works through their mental illness.
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My dignity is priceless. I will not sell it for anyone ever again.
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I have an amazing support network of friends and family, I must maintain it. Special thanks to Mr Miyagi and Cualltaigh, both of which have provided me with friendship and support throughout this ordeal while I have been living out of my home state. I owe you guys a lot.
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Have a positive outlook, especially when things are grim.
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Fear nothing for nothing is to be feared.
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Martial arts experience will get you grilled in court, no matter the level of expertise (I’m only a white belt).
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Prostitutes are loose no matter how big my dick is.
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The moment a woman does something physical in anger to me is the moment I walk and never return.
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Take things slowly in relationships, find out about the person first, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
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Sex is a drug and I am an addict.
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Jiu Jitsu provided me with calm rationality during an extremely heated situation. I can honestly thank my training for keeping my head level in what was my most stressful experience yet, as well as providing an outlet in the months after.
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This list goes on…
