Fiery Mama’s Blog

Archive for the ‘Life through My eyes!’ Category

Life gets harder before it gets better..

We spent 4 years with Mr J, going through all the ups and downs that we did, and as much as I would love to keep writing about everything that happened throughout the years, I am having trouble getting it all out in the greatest detail. The emotional damage that has been caused by being with this man, this monster. It has had dire consequences on not only myself and my health, but my families as well. So let me tell you all a little about that…. The Family Court process was so long and tedious, after we finally left Mr J in October 2015 after having him trespassed from my home, even more problems started arising for us. I was trying so hard to move on and have my children settled back into a normal routine. My wee girl was enrolled in daycare and was a 25minute drive from where we lived at the Green Shed. I found it harder and harder to take her there, I would be afraid that Mr J would just go on in and take her without my knowledge, even though I had informed the daycare what was going on, nothing could stop him as he was still her guardian. Mr J was making things tough for us, he wanted to get his things after he was forced to move out so I arranged for the local policeman to be present while this happened, I had a disciplinary meeting at work I needed to attend, so I left my home expecting the Police officer to do his job, I had piled up what Mr J was allowed to take with him from the house and had informed the police officer that he was not to go anywhere else in the house, he agreed with me. Much to my disgust when I got home that day I noticed other items had gone missing from our home. I was distraught that even an Officer of the law could disobey my direct instructions. I felt violated. My children were hurting, things of theirs from their own bedrooms had also disappeared. And it didn’t stop there, even though he was trespassed from my home now, he was watching us, he knew the exact times when I would be dropping the kids off to school/daycare, when id be picking them up, he had it down packed. My house wasn’t break in proof it was of an older style with loose wooden windows etc.. he kept coming to my home while I was not present taking whatever he decided was of value to myself and my children. He was cunning that’s for sure.

A list of these items that belonged to my children and myself are below (From what I can remember) to show just how sinister these acts were:

From my sons belongings:

• A Blue Remote control Narva Semi Truck & Trailor – acquired as a gift which was given to my son with the $300 worth of tools that I purchased for Mr J at his request.
• The Power Cord to my sons XBOX
• A handmade Rifle – given to my son as a gift on his birthday from Mr B.
• All the Coins from my sons piggy bank.

From my daughters belongings:

• A 3metre Caterpillar – Soft Toy
• A Tractor Toy given to my daughter for Christmas by my grandparents, he left behind the trailor, horse and cow that went with it (which i later gave to his current partner, thinking she might catch a clue)
• One of those Pink cabinets with the 5 shelves inside that her books were displayed on.
• Clothing including her favourite dinosaur Onesie.
• A range of other soft toys.
• Coins from her piggy bank.

From my belongings:

• The bottles belonging to the Soda Stream, that the kids happened to enjoy making.
• My Pink Tupperware Container that contained my personal bedroom collection.
• Other Tupperware Kitchen Items that he knew I had an attachment to.
• Food Items from the fridge.
• Renovator – Tools
• DVDs

I no longer felt safe in my own home, but there wasn’t really anything I could do about it, I didn’t have an income after losing my job, due to the issues going on in my personal life effecting my work. I had to get back on a benefit, I had no choice. It had been about 6 months now and during that time I had still been allowing Mr J to see our daughter for a few hours here and there, because at the time I thought it was the humane thing to do and I was trying to be civil. But things just didn’t pan out that way. The Police Officer was not listening to me, I visited often with new information about what was going on and how I continually felt uneasy but he said I had no proof that Mr J was breaking into my home and that it was just tit for tat business without evidence. With No paper trail he said I would have no luck asking for a Protection Order for my children and myself. I was at the end of my tether on what I could do to get help. It was then that my family and I decided it would be best to move out of the Valley. We had to get away from him, go somewhere we would be safe and he wouldn’t find us. So that is exactly what we did, one weekend was all it took I packed up the house and we moved at night time so that we weren’t seen. I messaged Mr J after that weekend and told him that we had relocated but I would not be informing him where for our safety. I told him I would message him with a location for him to continue having contact visits with our daughter. I had started seeing someone new while all this was happening, it was nothing full on but it was nice to have some company on the weekends, but he took to my children and I straight away. He protected us and made us feel a bit safer again, I had informed him of all the stress going on in my life and that I wasn’t in the best head space to be in anything serious, but he took that with a grain of salt because he offered to have us move in with him so that we would feel safer and this is where we moved to over that one weekend. I had enrolled my daughter into a new daycare, my son into a new school, they were settling into our new life well. We were there for all of about a month when I received a court notice, I was being ordered to return my daughter to the town where her father resides and if I did not oblige by this within 5 days, further action would be taken to remove my child from me. I was highly distraught about this. We couldn’t return, we couldn’t let him be close to us again. But because we had no choice, we packed up some of our things and  I had to remove my son and daughter from their new friends and schools. We returned in the specified time, we moved into my mothers home for 6 months as we had no where else to go. It was pretty hard as we had gone from living in a sizeable home with my partner to just the kids and myself being squished into a sleep-out building in my Mothers yard. But for the meantime with a court order in place, we were stuck. My Partner would come over and see us on the weekends, unfortunately something really bad happened on one of these weekends and my partner could no longer visit us. One of my Mother’s previous Foster children was also living at my Mothers house at the time. We all got along well and thought we might go dancing one weekend while both my children were having sleepovers. Too much alcohol was consumed and the foster child lashed out, my partner was hit in the back of the head and was severely beaten. My Partner was airlifted to Hospital and was put into an induced Coma for at least 24 hours. I was kicked in the face when I lunged on top of him to stop said foster child hurting him any further. My partner nearly died in my arms because foster child had a psychotic attack and thought my partner was Mr J and he was adamant he was stopping Mr J from hurting me any longer… It wasn’t until the next morning when foster child had no recollection of even hitting my partner, he was very upset that he could even do a thing like that to him, he didn’t deserve what happened.. It took months for my Partner to get his life and health back together, he spent months on ACC. It was one of the most horrific ordeals that has happened to us as a couple. So over that 6 months, I was not only dealing with an abusive Mr J, but I also spent so much time trying to focus on my partner and his recovery. Everything was so stressful. Mr J still had not asked for any contact time with our daughter, so I continued by just allowing her to go watch a movie or have dinner with him on the odd occasion when he was decided he was free. I hated that we had to live here yet he didn’t even want to see her. It was just a ploy to keep control and ruin my life. I soon learned he had a new partner also Miss ALB. I thought surely if he had moved on, he should allow us to go back home to my partner, I begged him for months to let us return. I kept asking him why he’s punishing me, why if has a new partner does he feel the need to keep controlling me. He told me he does it because he can. His new partner hasn’t been putting out for him as he put it so if I wanted him to drop the non removal order then I was to give him certain favors for him to drop this. I didn’t know what to do, I was desperate and vulnerable and I wanted to be as far away from him as I could be.  So even though he was already seeing another woman, I agreed to do this favor for him. One night we engaged in sexual intercourse, I had to let him have Anal Sex with me. I didn’t want it at all. I didn’t want him touching me, I already felt sick to the bone but I wanted to go home and he had everything hanging above my head. He took photographs while we were partaking in this activity, I didn’t even know he had until after it was already done. He said he would go see his lawyer the following day and have the order dropped so we could return to my partner but if i did not do everything his way and do what he told me I had to do, he would send these pictures to my partner. He was blackmailing me. I had no choice but to Obey and tell him I understood just so I could get my children and I far away from him. I needed to be with my partner, I needed to be looking after him. I needed my children to feel safe again.

It was not long after this Ordeal happened that my partner and I were engaged, we had our party in October 2016 and by March 4th 2017 we were Husband and Wife! Something Great in our lives finally! Our son was Ring Bearer and a groomsman and our daughter along with her wee friend were our flower girls. It was an amazing day that neither of us will ever forget. Shortly after we got married, the rental we were in went on the market. We had to start looking for another place to move to. It wasn’t long before we found an amazing house in Goldtown. We moved in more or less straight away. We settled in, it was perfect, we had 10 acres, a vegetable garden, sheds, the kids had a tree fort, there was a pond and a cemetery right out the back. We were in love with our new life. I got a new job where I was settled and happy. My Hubby and I started our own business up and we were doing so well. Our daughter was soon enrolled into school as she turned 5 and our son was still enjoying the high-school which he took the bus to attend. It was arranged with a new order, that Our daughter would go to Mr J fortnightly from school so Friday at 3pm til Monday at 9am, that way we would not have to have any contact with Mr J. Our daughter had only been in her first new school for a week when everything changed.

In December 2017, my world came crashing down around me. My 12 year old son had come home from school one afternoon and he was so down, I was sitting at the dining table with my 5 year old daughter when I asked him what was wrong. He got angry and said nobody likes him and he just wants to die. Straight away I responded to this and told him not to talk like that, we all love him dearly. I wanted to know what had happened at school to make him feel this way but his behavior just got worse. He dove into this dark emotional place and i didn’t know what to do to snap him out of it. At one point he had even locked himself in my car, after I managed to coerce him out of there, he ran inside and started packing a bag, I watched him through his window while he did this because of course I wanted to make sure he wasn’t barricading himself in his room to hurt himself. Once he realized that I was there he ran out the front door and headed for the pine trees. I went searching for him but I couldn’t find him, the only other place he could be was in his tree fort, he knew I could not climb up there and I tried yelling out to him, but heard nothing so I figured he was just up there ignoring me and I would give him some time to cool down. Most times when he is angry like this he will cool down and come in for dinner. But that night it got dark and he still hadn’t come inside. I started to panic, my husband and I looked everywhere for him. It got to the point where we called the Police and had them bring in the search dogs to help find him. It had been 6 hours that he was missing. The police were still having no luck in finding him, so i started to go through Facebook and find his friends contacts, finally I got a hold of one of his friends mothers. She was relieved to hear from me and said my son was there with them. He had been picked up by a mine worker and taken to the next town over, I was furious that someone could have picked up my child, but I was so glad he was safe and not hanging in a tree or stuck down a mine shaft somewhere..  the police drove to my sons friends house and because he had been saying earlier that he wanted to die etc he was taken to Mental Health Services to be on the safe side. I drove straight there but he didn’t want to see me that night so my sister was kind enough to stay with him, I was distraught what had I done wrong to upset him this much, I couldn’t figure it out.. My son started seeing a counselor and that’s when all the truths started coming to light. My son had been molested. After that session, we went straight to the police station and reported the sex crime. An Interview process began immediately. Video conferences, written statements everything that was needed was done over a period of a week. And in the midst of all this happening what was I supposed to do about my daughter? I spoke to the police and told them my concerns about my daughter and the fact that she had contact to go to with the very man that all this was about.  I was told to keep her home, do not send her to contact. I was given a number for a file to give to my lawyer at the time to add to the court files so that they knew the situation and why contact should stop while this man was being investigated for a child sex crime. I did what I was told. Little did I know that while all this was going on. Her father Mr J had approached the family court about my not sending her to contact on this one occasion, Even though this was on police instruction, which was recorded. Before I knew it not only was my son in the middle of a criminal investigation against Mr J. The Family Court was tearing my daughter from my custody for breach of the parenting order with no proof of any of these allegations against me. Before I could even have a chance to explain everything. He filed without notice and told the Family Court I was violent towards my daughter, that he feared for her well being. All this happened while the Judge of the District Court was oblivious to him being under investigation because the lawyer I had at the time did not do her job and did not file the information she was previously given. I was protecting my children the only way I knew how by involving the authorities, only to have my life shattered into a million pieces. I lost both of my children at the beginning of December. My daughter who was torn away from myself at 5 years old by the Family Court and Oranga Tamariki, and it gets worse that because of this so called breach, I was put on Supervision visits with my daughter once a fortnight. It took from December 2017 until February 2019 to have this supervision removed. This in itself is a serious flaw in the justice system. Taking that long to change our arrangements, to get evidence instead of hearsay. The family court abused my daughter for just over a year. That is what you call Child Abuse separating a child from her mother on a whim, just because a narcissistic man wrote down some excuses on a piece of paper. None of this was justified. None of this was true facts. Just over a year that my daughter was in full time care with my sons “alleged”(we use this word because the justice system let us down) molester. My son who went to the North Island to have contact with his Father, which was in our parenting order to be for 3 weeks. Well that got changed while my son was up there. So now he has to reside in the North Island until he is 16 years old. It took us from December 2017 until April 2019 to have a court decision made on my sons outcome, this is over a year that I only seen him about 3 times, while the family courts were taking their sweet time to figure out their shit. The Family Court in the North Island was however shocked by our situation, when we finally got a trial. I can at least say that I am grateful that they could see just how dangerous it was to have my children anywhere near Mr J. It was ruled that my son is not to live in the same vicinity of Mr J for his safety. So now until my son is 16 years of age, I only get to see him on school holidays. And it is quite pricey to be buying plane tickets every school holidays, but we are managing for now.

And this is where it also gets a bit of a hard pill for me to swallow. For the last year and a bit my daughter has been living with Miss ALB while I have had supervision, that I drove over every fortnight to have. She has not been living with Mr J. Mr J had a separate rental house to Miss ALB. My daughter would come back to me and tell me that Mr J only has sleepovers from time to time at Miss ALB’s house but that she lives there all the time with Miss ALB. Everyone I have spoken to in this town so far has said they have not once seen my daughter with her father, only ever with Miss ALB. In February 2019 a new order was made and we were forced by Mr J and the Family Court to relocate no further then 45min from our daughters school. A school which Mr J illegally enrolled our daughter into as he did not have my permission to do so. I had told him that while she was to be in his care she was to attend the same school as my sisters. It was also the closest school to where he lived. But he went behind my back and enrolled her into a small school a 25 min drive from where both Mr J and Miss ALB were residing. The Judge did nothing about this. My poor wee girl is currently in a 50/50 care situation with Mr J since February 2019. We found a rental in the same town as that was what was requested of us now by the court. My Husband and I left our lives, my job, our business, our animals had to be re homed, everything that we loved, we had to leave to move back here, so that we could have care of my daughter. The Courts did not expect Mr J to move closer to us when he had less responsibilities then we did. It been us every single time that has had to drop everything to please the narcissist. We signed onto a 12 month lease with our current rental. We did everything we were supposed to do. I lost my son with being forced to live in the same town as his molester. We have also had 2 miscarriages with the stress of everything that has happened to us, over the past year. And now Mr J has waited until we were actually settled here, our daughter was happy that mum only lived a couple blocks away from her so she could see us every time she drove past on the way to school etc on her week with Miss ALB. Because face the facts here her care has not been with Mr J in quite some time.  I have been trying to organise having her moved back to this school, seeing as we all now live within a 3- 4 block radius of this school, the one I wanted her to be in, so my sisters could watch out for her… Well they have now up and moved to a new house 25min away from us. 2 blocks from the school she attends without my permission. After all that fighting in court to make us move here, Mr J has now packed them up and moved them away! Another vindictive move on his behalf, another reason to refuse making our daughters life easier on her. How does he get away with this every time!? I just cant fathom it! He continues to emotionally abuse my child and still no one seems to give a rats ass but my family and friends, they are all watching it, we all want to fix it, but then there’s a problem. You can’t fix it without the courts, and the courts just don’t care. You talk to Oranga Tamariki about your childs well-being and what do you get !? A WARNING!! A warning to tell you that the hostility between you both must stop or they will put your child into state care.  Hostility! Hostility! Is nothing we have all been telling you taken into account? Does the photographs, police interviews, court appearances, doctors visits, do none of them count? The fact that he molested my child and now he is ACC approved for life long sexual assault counseling, does this not count? WTF NEW ZEALAND!!

Emotion through Poetry

Fear

There’s so much fear in this life, I fear for my son & daughter, I fear for their safety, I fear of never having control over this life, I fear of losing my strength, that I might just break under this smile so fake.

Will we never be safe? Is this our fate? To always fear such threat.

The monster that walks among us, Why was I dealt this curse? Will Justice never prevail?

I feel like im drowning in this fear, a fear of never being free, imprisoned in this life, while the fear, the molester, the con, the thief, walk free doing as they please.

When will they listen? When will they see? He’s only out to hurt me! Let me be free! Take the fear away from me!

 

 

A Mother’s Reign

The memories bring pain, like heartache in the rain

The stars in my babies eyes, dimmed by their constant lies

A hurricane of disdain, when they took away my reign

The truth yet to unfold, so my babies I can hold

The man thinks he is sacred, but that’s my son you violated

As for taking my daughter, soon you will stumble and falter

And my reign I will regain, then it will be you who will suffer in pain, from my children you will refrain, and you will never see them again!

Mama’s on a mission – Part 2

So that’s what we did we moved into a new house, here was me thinking with a fresh start, a nicer home, new goals things wouldn’t be so bad, they might even be better. Everything was Okay to begin with. The day we moved in I introduced Mr J to the Parents of my sister Jay’s, Partner Mr & Mrs R. They Shook hands. I told them how Mr J was a Mechanic and asked if they had anything around their farm that he could fix for them as I’m sure he would be more then happy too have some employment. Mr & Mrs R said they’d keep that in mind, but within two weeks of being there he finally had some employment working on their farm as a general mechanic and farmhand. This was good as it got him out of my face for the day, I could finally get my children into a normal routine without him under my feet wanting me to do shit for him all the time. It wasn’t fair on the kids to not have my full attention. Wasn’t more then a couple months and the neighbor had heard about Mr J being a Mechanic on the farm for Mr & Mrs R. He asked if he could do some work for him as well, this was good it meant some more hours for him and hopefully some more income coming in for the household. I was wrong there though wasn’t I, even though his wages were going into my bank account so that his one wouldn’t suck them all out for fees and debts he was in. The kids and I still didn’t get a cent of it. The funds he made went onto his mechanic parts, buying more tools or you guessed it TRADE ME!! I was getting pretty upset with Mr J, I was getting tired of being the only one paying the rent, the power, the food bill, and everything else that came with running a household with 2 children. It was really draining me. I tried to keep my mind busy by doing the gardens around Mrs R’s place, she would pay me to buy plants etc and landscape her place so that was nice something a little extra to keep my mind off things, I also studied Landscape Design just so I could gain a qualification as well as I loved to Garden. And anything extra I could do to focus my thoughts on something else instead of the way Mr J was treating me, was always a good thing. My son’s Dad, Mr S, Came down and stayed with us for 2 weeks so he could spend some time with our son, I noticed quite an improvement with our son over that time, it was obvious he felt safer with his dad around, I guess he thought he would protect us in some way or another. But for the 2 weeks he stayed. Mr J was a perfect gentleman, even cleaned up around the house. Wasn’t much of a cover for Mr S though, he could see straight through him and thought he was a loser… but why would I take his opinion right, he was my ex and obviously jealous that he couldn’t get any hanky panky from me this time around. I know things weren’t the best with Mr S’s relationship with me when we were together and we did cheat on each other but we were so young, neither of knew any better. But I have been loyal to my partner’s since then, I learnt my lesson and I wasn’t about to just ruin the relationship that I was in, that would have been very wrong of me. Mr F wasn’t even jealous of Mr S & I hanging out though, even though it wasn’t often but I did cook dinner and make sure he was fed while he stayed with us. I was still a hospitable host. Oh how I wished Mr J would have screwed up in front of him though. I would have gotten out of the relationship so much quicker if he just did something wrong, but he didn’t. He was nice to both the kids, nice to me, he was just nice, something I was far from used too.

Alot happened while we lived in this house. We met some new friends, B & V they had 3 children. Their 2 girls A&M would come to our home quite a fair bit, I would babysit them for their parents while they went out to the pub, or friends places to drink and watch the rugby. I didn’t mind the children were lovely and again it gave me an an excuse for Mr J to be nice, because he wouldn’t dare play up in front of anyone else. No one was to know what a complete danger he was behind closed doors. Anyway we had plenty of fun, the girls would all play nicely together, we would watch movies, eat popcorn and sometimes we would even go to their place and the kids would ride the ponies. Of Course we got selfies to show A&M’s parents just how much fun we were all having together while they were out. I got to know V quite well, we became friends, I started confiding in her about some of the things MR F was doing. Really just getting off my shoulders how much I was down because he wouldn’t help out with the bills and would hardly ever watch the kids. I was just getting exhausted and needed an out. V was quite understanding, quite a nice lady to be honest, said anytime I needed to escape just jump in the car with daughter and son and come down and chill out with her. It was great to know I had someone on my side that would let me have somewhere to come to if I needed. We spent quite a bit of time together after that, having BBQ’s or just letting the kids chill together riding the ponies, bike ride’s etc. If I needed to go somewhere she would watch my kids and I’d of course do the same for them, which was alot more often then I would need them. Mr J & B got quite chummy too. B was quite a built man, comes across quite tough. B was a Fencing & Spraying Contractor at the time, so quite outdoorsy, liked to hunt and build things with wood. He built my son a hand made rifle for his birthday, it was really clever. Son loved it! It was nice to have some friends that clicked with us.

However this was also the House where the unthinkable happened to my son. But that’s coming soon as at this point I still didn’t know about this horrific incident.

This house also bought alot of yelling from me again..but that’s what I did when I got upset, I raised my voice and I got upset alot because of him, Mr J was so lazy and so mean! Why couldn’t he just get off his computer and help me out, why was it always me that had to cook, clean, look after everyone! ARGH! He did my head in, why did I still think I loved this prick? Oh yeah that’s right because I didn’t know who I was anymore, I had lost my sense of self, lost my zest for life so to speak. And I was Broken! It also meant Mr & Mrs R could always hear me alot when they were out working on the farm, all I wanted was for Mr J to go outside and do something, pay a bill, play with our daughter and just stop harassing me.  We’d lived in this house for nearly a year, things were just not changing with Mr F, it was like he was permanently in this state of perpetual bliss with his bullying of me and put downs towards my children. I still very much thought it was still all my fault though and that wasn’t fair by any means. When our years lease was nearly up, I was too embarrassed to keep staying at Mr & Mrs R’s Farmhouse, as much as I was so grateful to them for allowing me to rent this place from them, I was ashamed of myself and needed to move on. The Green Shed, My dream spot since I was a little girl was available and I had to take it. The Green Shed was even further away from all my family, but that was perfect for Mr J as I was more isolated now. My friends stopped visiting me, because they didn’t like the man who I was with, or who I was when I was with him. So the whole time we lived in the Green Shed I basically felt like a prisoner, home to do all the cooking and cleaning like always but this time I didn’t get alot of visits from my family, absolutely no visits from my friends, but I had my kids so that was enough for me or so I thought. I was starting to feel like I didn’t have much to live for, I needed something more in my life then just serving the master and looking after the kids, they were both in school and daycare now during the day so I needed something for me. Sitting around on my own all day, just waiting for the kids to finish at school, wasn’t really my cup of tea, so I started looking for a job and I was in luck because I got one! I started working during the day at a local pub, cleaning and helping in the kitchen when needed. I enjoyed getting out of the house, it was nice. I had a bit more routine in my life. And it was needed. I enjoyed making some extra money that I could put into my own pocket for a change. My hours soon changed and I became part time in the Kitchen which meant evenings. Mr J didn’t like this and got jealous because in the evenings I would be socialising with people. Of course for him this meant I could be at work talking about him, which was far from the topic of conversations I was having. I just wanted to block him out while I worked, It made me feel like I was in a whole new world. Things started getting rough though, all of a sudden the car would have a flat Tyre, or the keys would go missing, soon I was calling into work too many times saying I couldn’t make it that I ended up being fired from my job. I couldn’t believe he would sabotage me so much to the extent where I would lose my only independence. I thought that was it, I would be stuck at home, never being able to leave again. He wouldn’t let me have a life, he wouldn’t let me have friends. I would stay home and make sure everything was perfect. Washing was always done, folded and put away. Dinner was on the table every night like clockwork. Until one afternoon I got a call from another job I had applied for previously when I was looking for something else to do. I immediately said I was interested. It was my dream to drive trucks. I got given the hours so I could work between my son getting on and off the school bus and my wee girl being at daycare. I’d worked for a few weeks now and again started having car troubles. I was like you have got to be kidding me. I am not going to let this happen again. So I went straight to a car sales and I bought myself a new car! I felt on top of the world because I could buy something for myself for a change, that was my money I was making and I was not going to let him take that from me again. He was making his own wages now by screwing people over in the mechanics world. My children were so stoked we had a new car and we didn’t have to rely on taking any of the other cars anymore. He couldn’t stop us from going in my new car because it was in my name not his and if he took my keys, I would threaten to call the police and have him charged with theft. I was slowly getting my independence back. I would work all day and come home and sort my kids in the evening, give them dinner, baths, do homework and get them ready for bed. Mr J would have to wait.

Mama’s on a mission!!

Today is a new day and today is the beginning to a new me, its time to be more open, its time for me to tell the world my story! So where do all stories start from the beginning of course…

On a warm summers day in mid July all was going swell…… ugh! Scrap that garbage right… In 2011, this is the year it all starts and as i go on I may need to go back a couple times to make sure i have all the details just right. But bare with me. So here we go again, in the year of 2011 my son and I were living in a rental property in Gore, Southland. My son was all of 8 years old, he went to a Primary School not far from where we were residing, if i remember so it was all of about 3 blocks away. This was perfect as my son was at that age where he liked to bike to school on his own, he was gaining his independence and i was one very proud Mother. Of course id still watch him with eager eyes from the window until he made it around the corner and I could no longer see him. Nonetheless he’d be home at 3:10pm on the dot everyday like clockwork. I was a stay at home mum for the most part, but during the day I would work casually for a small lawn mowing company, this worked out well as I could do this during school hours and if my son was home sick, I could just stay home with him and the owners would work around that which was really appreciated. We had it good for the most part, a nice rental, good school, friends. Life was moving forward and we were getting places.

I don’t know why I felt anything needed to change, everything was going so good with our little lives, but i had a void in my heart, an emptiness, I wanted another baby. My son was getting older and I thought to myself, I really shouldn’t leave it to much longer before he had a baby brother or sister to get along with and give him what i have with all 8 of my sisters, an unbreakable life bond. But how do you have a baby without a man!? I barely went out, I didn’t want to end up with some drunk at the pub, that’s no way to find a life partner… so i did what any desperado woman interested in looking for love does when you live in a small rural town… I signed up to a dating site. It wasn’t long before I of course had perverts galore messaging me, asking if I wanted a one night stand, or if I’d give them advice on what the best Panty Hose brand was at the time, or even just sending dirty pictures of there you know whats with no words attached like really! if you want a woman’s attention you don’t send them your floppy skin and think its going to turn us on because believe me it just doesn’t. It took a wee while of dodgy emails and reading through profiles to come across a farmer boy, from an ever smaller place called Tuatapere, but still not too far away we couldn’t visit each other. We started emailing back and forth, which led to texting then phone calls that would last for hours… 3 months went by and we still hadn’t met but i thought this guy was the bees knees, he was hard working as he spent most of his time driving a tractor when we were on the phone late at night. He was sweet but shy at times, had a lovely phone manner. He told me he would come and meet me as soon as his new vehicle had arrived it was coming down from Auckland he said to me, a Holden Crewman Double Cab Ute, like i had a clue what that was at the time. I said I had a vehicle, mine was a cute wee 2 door Mazda MX5, just enough seats for my son and I. I didn’t mind coming over to see him at his home, but he refused and told me it was more romantic if I waited for him. So that was fine. I didn’t rush the subject. I decided to go on a bit of a holiday to Melbourne for 2 weeks during this waiting period so to speak, I had gotten some modeling jobs over there and thought YES!! what a way to make some money, my flights were paid for and I had an absolute blast of a time over there, I stayed with a wonderful family, who were very hospitable to myself. My son stayed with his Dad in the North Island when I went over there so I didn’t have to worry about not being around for him as I made sure it worked around his holiday contact time. The Family I stayed with took me to their local Speedway where their young son raced cars. I did the couple gigs I had planned on doing while there, it was an epic time. But soon that 2 weeks was over and I headed back home, the next weekend this was in February 2012, this man i was previously crushing on over the phone, came to meet me in person. I got a bit of a shock at first when i seen him walking up my driveway, as you see I had only ever seen 2 pictures of his face this whole time we were talking, he was quite the big boy. I thought to myself is this why he put off coming to meet me for so long because he was ashamed of the way he looked? Oh well i shrugged it off, i mean his size still bothered me a little bit and I can admit that but I told myself, I am not going to be that shallow person and base a mans character by his looks as over the phone he was always lovely and i liked that about him. That night he bought my son and I some dinner to our home, after dinner I then put my son into bed as he was still only 8 and needed his sleep. We watched some movies afterwards and kept talking like we’d known each other for a while. He had driven quite a wee way out to meet us and spend time with us, so i did the hospitable thing and asked if he would stay over so he didn’t have to drive back so late. He agreed to this. We spent most the time just cuddling, he seemed shy, so it was up to me to make a move, after that happened you can only assume what came next.

The next day he got up early and returned back to his home, he wasn’t messaging me as much after that night so i thought maybe it was me, maybe he didn’t like what i had to offer, or maybe in the long scheme of things he was just being polite til he got a shag and then that was it… either way I wasn’t feeling right anymore, he wasn’t really the same person i had been talking to on the phone. So I called it off. I told him it was lovely to meet him, but that we just weren’t connecting in the way I thought we would. He didn’t speak to me again after that. I was pretty embarrassed too. It also had me feeling less confident about myself as I thought I was the problem. I left his number in my contacts, now I know I should have deleted it!! A few weeks later I found out I had gotten pregnant. I was over the moon about this I can tell you now, all i had wanted for a long while was a baby. But I chose to do the pregnancy on my own or so i thought until i was 5 months along and found out I was having a Daughter. Alarm bells went off in my head! Daughters need their daddies was all I could think about.. I cant have a baby daughter and her not have a Daddy, what was I thinking!! If it had of been a boy I would have been all over raising a mama’s boy on my own but NO! I had to have a Daughter…. I got a copy of the scan and I built up some courage and I messaged him. I sent the scan picture with a message that said something along the lines of “I’m Sorry about what happened between us, but it looks like we are having a baby girl, I just thought you had the right to know, I don’t expect anything from you but if you would like to give us a go for the sake of this wee girl I would like to give that a try” I didn’t get a reply from him for a wee while which I thought fully understandable and didn’t think I would ever get one to be quite honest. But then I got a message, he was willing to see me again. This time I drove to his place, which I didn’t even realise was actually a granny flat on his parents property. He introduced me to his parents, they could see clear as day that I was pregnant, but he hadn’t even told them it was his baby, he’d never even mentioned to them that he had ever even met a girl. You would think the fact that he hadn’t mentioned to his parents that they were going to be grandparents should hit some alarm bells there but I thought Okay just let it slide he obviously just did not have the confidence to tell them yet even though it had been about a month since I told him… anyway at 8 months pregnant, I decided I had to move back to Central to be closer to my Mum, my pregnancy had been rough and I got sick alot, so i thought what better thing to do then to move closer to mum so I had her support when baby girl came along. I got a rental property basically right across the road from Mum so it was perfect really. He still hadn’t told his parents that baby was his and I wasn’t just some random pregnant girl who he’d only just met. I can tell you I was not Impressed, however he continued to come visit me in Central without any notice either he would just show up and say he was here to surprise me, he’d bring me a milkshake and a chicken sandwich as that is what I enjoyed eating the most during pregnancy. I didn’t really like that he would show up announced though to be honest, it started making me feel like he didn’t trust me and he was just trying to catch me out with another bloke. Some kind of proof that I wasn’t being loyal to him so he could get a way out of having this child. Say it wasn’t his or blame me for being a Slut and just trying to get a payday out of him… I didn’t feel like myself much anymore.. Our Daughter was a week late, He stayed with me though as the time grew closer to her birth date, she was due to be induced on November 26 2012, she obviously didn’t like that idea and waited til we were on the drive to the Hospital to start coming on her own accord!

So we got to the Hospital and that’s when things started to quite obviously change, I was the one in Labour, but you would not think so with the fact that I was not the one in the center of the attention like I should have been that day, well at least until baby girl had been birthed then of course she would be! I moved around all over the place, I was in so much pain, all he could do was take photos, I was given gas for the pain, but wow I do not enjoy feeling high as a kite, so the anesthetist was called in to give me an epidural, now when you have an epidural its supposed to take the pain away, well at least it did with my first until I had to push at least.. But No! They didn’t turn it up as much, so I could still feel the unbearable pain clenching down on my Uterus. It was agony but did he hold my hand? No! Where the hell was my support!? The Size of the needle and the fact that he got a whiff of the gas, he decided to faint, so all the nurses rushed to him, while I lay there cringing, wanting to get this child out of me, she was already half way down the birthing canal at this stage so it was like COME ON!!! He got back up on his feet and decided he would keep taking pictures, this annoyed me because I did not need pictures taken of my shit as it fell out of me during labour.. i didn’t need all that gory stuff, i needed a bloody hand to hold..I needed help to hold my legs up as i pushed, i needed support! But finally after all the agony, she was here, my beautiful little angel was here, and all the bad feelings I had just dissipated. All I wanted to do was focus on this tiny little miracle I held in my arms. He of course still taking pictures, now these pictures with Mother and Baby having their first bonding moments these pictures are the ones that matter. We were discharged from Hospital within a few hours after her being born. We then transferred to the Birthing Home in Central where we stayed for the night to make sure everything was going the way it should with a newborn. It was a bit of a shit start I had trouble breastfeeding, I was happy she got the colostrum needed at the beginning but I hated myself for the pain I was in just trying to persevere but it just got to much and I couldn’t handle it, so bottle feeding it was for baby number 2. So many other things were going on at the time too but that was the one experience that has stuck with me not being able to feed her myself. she had her first bath there too before we traveled home with her. When we got home her big brother met her for the first time, he was so gentle with her, it was love at first sight, it didn’t take long at all for their sibling bond to stick. Her Father stayed with us for the first week after baby girl was born, helped us get settled in. Then he headed back to Tuatapere. He was only down there for a week, when he told me he had been made redundant from his job. So naturally I felt bad for him. I told him he could move in with us, seeing as we did now have a baby together and I would support him until he could pick up work in Roxburgh, where we now lived. He jumped on that bandwagon pretty quick didn’t even have to think about it. He was moved into our home the following weekend.

After Mr J moved in, It wasn’t long before his attitude towards us completely changed, he became more controlling, more verbally abusive, financially draining on myself and that took it’s toll on my children also. I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong to upset him so much all the time. Don’t get me wrong there were days when he was great, when we would go on trips to his parents Family Farm, go for rides on the motorbike and generally just do what most normal families do, but little did I know that when we were out in the Public eye, he was building his story against me, why would anyone now believe me when I told them what he was doing to us behind closed doors? In the Public eye he was this charming, talented individual that to everyone else looked like he looked after us really well. But it was all wrong, they were all wrong, our relationship was far from right. One instance, my daughter was about 5 weeks old, her father, decided it would be a cool joke to put her in a cupboard and hide her from me. I didn’t know where she was, he told me that my boy had taken her over to Nana’s house, which was across the road. I rang Mum, my boy was there but she was not. Wasn’t long before she woke up and I could hear her cries that I knew exactly where she was. He laughed! He thought it was the funniest thing playing a prank on me and putting my baby in the cupboard, that funny he even took a picture on his phone. I was angry. I yelled at him. I yelled at him alot during the span of our relationship if that’s what you can even call it. But that’s what I did, whenever I got upset with him, I yelled at him, he provoked me every time, he knew exactly what pushed my buttons. We spent the first year of our daughter’s life in this rental across from my mums, little by little he tried and nearly succeeded in isolating me from my family. My Dog Belle of 9 years passed away, while we were at his parents one weekend. He had told me that he took me away so that my step dad could shoot my dog, that they didn’t like her so I shouldn’t have her anymore.. Now this had me cut up inside. My Mum couldn’t do that to me, could she? I was told by my Mum that she got hit by a car, on the main highway where we lived, she apparently tried to crawl back into the driveway but just didn’t make it, so they buried her in the backyard before I got home so I didn’t get traumatized from seeing her the way she was. I thought this was more of a plausible story but I just couldn’t help having bad feelings in my head. It was all his doing of course, he had put so much garbage in my head about my family. My confidence in myself was so cut down, I couldn’t think properly for myself anymore.. How could a man make a woman feel this bad about herself in such a short amount of time. I was Broken. I kept going on with my casual job as a cleaner, I didn’t have many hours as at the time I was still on the Domestic Purpose Benefit and I was only allowed to make an extra $80.00, of course he still wasn’t working then a year later, I kept nagging at him to pick up a job, He found one working for a local guy, that lasted all of about 2 months and he was out of a job again, the money he made there only managed to pay a small amount of the debt he was in from not having any work. So he was back to being in the house all day, sitting on Trade me, spending MY MONEY!!! He would barely look after the kids for me when I had to go to work, usually mum would do that for me. I couldn’t rely on him to do anything, I would come home and still have to cook dinner for the kids, clean the house, it was all on me and I was exhausted. One afternoon I came home, I cant quite recall if I was working or if I just had something to do, but that day he looked after the kids for me. When I came home, my son was balling his eyes out in his room, I asked him what was wrong He said to me ” He chucked me in the wardrobe and locked me in after forcing soap in my mouth, I’ve been in there for ages mum, he only let me out because he seen you come home” I asked her father “WHAT THE HELL HAS BEEN GOING ON?” In a stern voice.. He told me that my son had been naughty for him and swore at him so he made him eat soap to learn his lesson, then told him to go to his room…I was furious! My son doesn’t tell lies to me! So I pushed her Father, I was so upset that he had manhandled my son!! I yelled at him and said ” How do you like to be pushed around by someone not your size? Well? Get out of my house!!! ” I made him leave! I do not tolerate someone touching my child! I had gone straight over to my mums after he left and I cried and cried. My grandparents were there as well. They were all so angry when I broke down and told them everything that was going on for us. I told them I had made him leave, I couldn’t handle it anymore, the put downs, the harming my children, the bruises I was constantly having to hide from him. They all knew it, but they had to wait for me to find the strength to tell them myself. What kind of man does this to a woman and children? This man who would put me down so far, I didn’t feel worthy of living. He would tell me things like he wished he was screwing my sister she has far better looking tits then me, he would tell me I was loose, he would tell me I was a useless mother. Call me all the names under the sun like Swamp Donkey, Slut, Whore, Fish, these names hurt me alot… I didn’t do anything to deserve this treatment but I still thought it was all my fault… My grandparents and my family were absolutely disgusted at the things I was telling them. I was so Hurt. 3 days passed with no contact I thought he was gone for good. I spent most of my time over those days with mum, the kids and I would go over for dinners etc but then I got a text message. “I’m at home, please come home and talk to me” My face immediately dropped and mum knew something was up. I said can the kids stay here, I’m just going to pop over home for a bit, I’ll be back soon. She agreed but she didn’t believe me because it wasn’t more then 15minutes and she’d followed me over home.. I was there with him. He had apologised to me, he was crying so I thought he was genuinely sorry for what had happened and I stupidly took him back into our lives. Mum and I got in a spat because I chose to go back to him after everything we’d already gone through. What could I say, “I loved him” Mum was angry of course and went home again, I went and got the kids back and bought them home. We kept to ourselves a bit more after all that had gone on. We were starting to have issues with the rental we were in by then, it was falling to pieces, We decided it was best to move house for the sake of the kids health. Now by this time it had been 18 months and he still had no job. So this meant I had to get a bond for a new place through work and income, and to state the obvious I was still on the DPB through work and Income because I didn’t know how else I was going to pay my rent and bills and still feed my children, my daughter was still far too little for me to be out working full time and that should have been his role. I still supported all of us, no idea now how I managed on my own, but I did it.