Life's a risky business

We all take risks every day. Some big, some small. To try that newly opened restaurant, buy that new car or even that new home (most of us spend only minutes viewing houses, for example, before spending many hundreds of thousands of pounds on them) not knowing whether in time, these choices will become a blessing or a curse.

We get on planes knowing there is very small chance they will fall out of the sky. We get behind the wheels of our cars, knowing we could get hit by a drunk driver. Life is full of risks and we draw comfort from the statistical probability that these things probably won’t happen to us.

The same is true of relationships. We go on dating apps, give people the benefit of the doubt and hope we don’t end up with a dud. We choose abusive partners because we have no idea they will turn out to be abusive.

I was in my forties when I met my abuser. I remember when the #MeToo movement came out and thinking, ‘really? That many women? Have I been that lucky to be in the tiny minority of women who have never had more than a catcall/wolf whistle to say #MeToo about?’

I’d never been in an abusive relationship before, nor ever been made to feel frightened of a man since I started dating when I was in my teens. I’d never been sexually assaulted, or even had a man pressure me into sex or get annoyed if I declined sex. I hadn’t even been bullied at school.

I’m loathe to admit that when I was a teenager I even got into a car a couple of times with older men I barely knew. I realised even then it was a stupid thing to do, but I did it, and who didn’t do a few stupid things when they were young? And guess what, even those men - whose behaviour was undeniably questionable and who really can’t have believed 16-year-old me when I told them I was 19 - dropped me off safely. As such, I was totally blindsided by my abuser.

At the time I met my abuser I was a practising solicitor, a single mother to my two sons and a homeowner. I considered myself independent and strong. I didn’t see myself as someone who accepted poor treatment by others, indeed it was my day job as a human rights lawyer to stand up to those who harmed other people.

When I was younger, I had travelled through many countries as a solo female traveller, just me and my backpack. I remember being in Quito, Ecuador, hanging around waiting for my boat trip to the Galapagos Islands which wasn’t due to start for a few days. I signed up for a day trip to a beauty spot a couple of hours outside the city and turned out to be the only person on it. As a single female alone in a foreign land, I felt a little uneasy, and remember weighing up the risks and wondering if I should make my polite excuses to the male tour guide/driver and just not go. He could have kidnapped me and extorted me, my gut whispered, robbed me or even murdered me. But here’s the thing: my gut also accepted what I knew to be true: that most people all around the world are decent, hard-working people just like I am. They are not psychopathic murderers or rapists or abusers. I went on the trip that day and both the scenery and the male tour guide were lovely.

Most of us are just muddling along in our own lanes trying to keep out of trouble in life. I’d been extremely lucky to get to early middle age surrounded by good, decent people, without ever having been victimised by anybody.

Being abused, at age 42, came totally out of the blue. It rocked me to my core. It was also not my fault. I gave my abuser the same benefit of the doubt early in our relationship as I’d given every other partner I’d ever had. The only difference was that they weren’t abusers and he was. I became a victim for one reason alone: because my abuser chose to abuse me.