by Bunkie King
In January 2000, we go camping at a beach near Corrimal, south of Sydney. Our family normally enjoys these holidays but we have an atrocious time. Jacques and I smoke dope from morning to night. It takes precedence over everything. We take the kids down to the beach to let them play for a while, then Jacques insists we rush back to have a bong. I go to the shops to get some milk for tea and Jacques offers me a bong as soon as I get back. The whole time we’re just bonging and bonging and bonging.
I’m not proud of this behaviour. I know we should be doing things to give the children a great holiday. I could tell him, You go home and have the bong and I’ll stay with the kids on the beach, but I don’t. I get really sick of the situation but Jacques doesn’t tone things down. He is focused solely on his own needs, what he wants to do. Everything is about him, him, him.
One day we’re walking along the main street of Corrimal. I don’t have any money so I ask him to buy the kids pies for lunch. He refuses. I can’t believe it. My anger at his selfishness grows inside me like a cancer. I decide we should leave early and a huge argument erupts on the drive back to Katoomba.
‘Well, that was a waste of time, going away and just smoking dope. We could have done that at home,’ I tell him. I’m fed up.
Jacques turns it back on me as usual. ‘I’ve got to have something to make me happy. Nothing else does.’
‘Hang on,’ I retort. ‘I’m paying the bills and all I’ve ever wanted was for you to look after yourself and be happy. You won’t even do that!’
When he was diagnosed with hep C, I told him I understood that he had a terminal illness and couldn’t work or help me. I accepted that. At the time I gave him the opening to leave if he so desired but he said he wanted to stay with us. I then suggested that we move away from Sydney and that he should just concentrate on taking care of himself, to exercise, get outside in the sun, into the garden, anywhere. I knew he loved gardening, his smokes, his music and his drawing. I said just do whatever you want and live however many years you’ve got left. Try and be happy. I’ll take care of everything else.
Things were all right for the first few years, but then it started going sour again. He buys a new computer every other year and downloads copious amounts of porn. He eventually gets bored with that and moves on to downloading music. But he is constantly morose and walks around with a black cloud over his head. I think he is only happy when he is making life hell for everyone else. The kids and I are permanently on edge waiting for the inevitable outburst.
But now I don’t hold back. I give him heaps on the drive back from the holiday.
‘It’s not fair. You don’t have any responsibilities for the house or the children, or anything else. All I asked of you was to take care of yourself and be happy. Don’t give us grief. But you won’t even do that. It’s not on. Not any more.’
By now I’ve had enough. I can’t keep carrying the whole load while constantly being under attack. It’s just too much. ‘What more can I do? Seriously. What more can I do? I give up.’
The argument continues until we pull up at our house. I get out of the car to open the gate. Jacques throws the car into reverse and plants his foot on the accelerator — is he trying to run me down? Fortunately, the trailer we’re towing jams up into the back of the car otherwise I would have been knocked onto the road. I might even have been killed.
I yell out, ‘What the hell were you trying to do?’
‘My foot slipped,’ he snarls. ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’
We continue raging at each other as we unload the car and take the children inside. While I start unpacking our holiday things Jacques stuffs his clothes and toiletries into a bag, loads a single bed onto the trailer and moves into the shed at the back of the property. This marks the beginning of the end of our marriage.
Soon after this episode I give up cigarettes and dope, leaving us with nothing in common. Jacques vents his anger at me at every opportunity and eventually wears me down emotionally. I blame myself for being a bad wife and feel undeserving of love and respect. Full of self-pity I think, I can’t do this any more. I must be such a terrible person. This is the pits. What’s the point of living? There must be something about me, something I’ve done, that makes him unhappy — that’s why he’s so angry at me.
After 15 years of marriage — that number 15 again — I reach breaking point. I have made so many sacrifices and in the process have completely neglected myself. Exhausted, I drive home from work one night along the Great Western Highway with the trucks thundering towards me, their lights flashing across my face. Overwhelmed by despair and hopelessness I feel an urge to turn the wheel towards their solid bull-bars, seeking obliteration. Peace.
I have no energy left to care for myself or for my children; I am helpless and lost but refuse to ask for help. I don’t want to admit that I am unable to cope. The only confidence I have is in my capacity to always pull my weight and never be a burden on anybody. I fall sick with flu-like symptoms — a thick head and sore throat. I can’t work, which, as a casual employee, means no money. The stress of not knowing how I can pay the bills and buy food is a strain too great to bear. My body and mind collapse and I suffer a breakdown. I end up in hospital weighing 45 kilograms and vomiting blood, having not eaten a meal in months. I’m bereft of any spirit for life; I have only kept functioning for the sake of my children.
Mother and Julia visit me in hospital before I get discharged. They see I’m in no condition to go back home. I just don’t have the strength any more. Mother is nearly 80 and can’t help but calls my sister Maria, who had been a nurse.
‘She’ll die if she goes back home,’ Mother tells her.
Maria drives up from Canberra. I’m lying on the sofa in the lounge room when I hear her voice, ‘My god, Bunkie! You’re so thin!’
I barely have the energy to speak. My head drifts somewhere in a dark place, only half-conscious of what is happening as Maria takes command.
‘Pack your bags,’ she instructs my daughter, who’s now nine. ‘I’m taking you to Canberra. Your mother’s very sick and someone has to nurse her.’ Mint has no idea how long we are going for and is completely at a loss. She packs a change of clothing, a book, a pair of pyjamas and a stuffed toy — quite sensible for a nine-year-old. When 14-year-old Stephan arrives home, he is told to pack as well.
Jacques howls, ‘What about me? I’m sick. I’m dying. Who’s going to look after me?’ He accuses Maria of trying to break up the family.
‘I’m not taking your wife away from you. I’m saving your wife so she can come back healthy,’ she replies.
Maria bundles us into her car for the five-hour drive to Canberra. As soon as we’re inside she has news for me. ‘You’re staying here until you’re well.’
She looks after us and nurses me back to health, adding some flesh to my bones. Maria explains that I have to recover physically before I can build any kind of emotional or mental strength — but it won’t happen overnight. We stay six weeks. She lets me be at peace, without responsibility or cares, all the while nurturing both my body and my soul, convincing me that I’m a decent human being. Her faith helps me see that I am a worthwhile person. I have spent 30 years trying to be important in someone else’s life, getting little in return except regular criticism and downward-spiralling self-esteem. Slowly it dawns on me: respect from others will only come once I learn to truly respect myself.
Being away from home, away from the constant strain of keeping the family functioning, I begin to realise some serious truths. I need to make big changes in the way I live. Maria and I talk about our family pattern of being undemanding and selfless and about my two major relationships with Jack and Jacques, both of whom I let lead me. I always put their needs before mine. Always.
Day after day Maria feeds my body and my self-esteem. She points out how similar we are and often says how beautiful I look. She shares her culinary skills and praises my ability to make delicious sauces from scratch, without using a packet mix
. We go shopping for ‘bling’ and do girlfriend stuff like going for massages and out for coffee with hot damper slathered in strawberry jam and whipped cream. Mint wants to get her ears pierced so the three of us head off to the Tuggeranong Hyperdome shopping centre — Maria gets her second set, I get my third. We laugh and spend a lot of time in her garden, under a huge old gum tree, drinking tea and musing. The resonating ‘dong’ of her big bamboo wind chimes adds to the soothing atmosphere. I close my eyes and feel the warm summer breeze on my face. I recall how nature heals my spirit and I drink it in.
From the bottom of a dark hole I slowly comprehend that I’ve allowed myself to be dragged down, ever so gradually, so the descent was hardly noticeable. The isolation, sense of guilt and self-blame, the misguided loyalty, all played a part in the erosion of my self-worth. I begin to understand that through a desperate need for love I lost, or perhaps never developed, any sense of my own integrity. In an attempt to avoid others’ anger and the pain of rejection I relinquished care for myself. In order to create a future for my children and myself I need to take control of my life. I’d known this when I was a young girl, but lost it during my three-decades-long quest for belonging.
I return from Maria’s with a whole new perspective. I’ve been too weak, too willing to allow an unfair situation to continue. I always considered my partner’s needs to be more important than mine. But not any more. I resolve to be more assertive.
Of course, Jacques doesn’t like my newfound feistiness; he’s used to my compliance. I do well for a while, caring for the children and myself first and him second. He accuses me of trying to dominate him.
‘I’m not,’ I counter. ‘And I don’t want you to dominate me. I just want a partnership.’
I explain how a couple needs to complement each other — not have one engulf the other or take over their life. It has to be an equal partnership. But he keeps playing the victim.
After he hassles me for money to buy dope I get angry.
‘That’s it! I am working to support the family and I won’t give you money for drugs any more. You buy your own. I don’t give a damn. I’m going to look after the children and myself — the children because they’re my responsibility and myself because nobody else is going to.’
Early in 2001, his mother’s health deteriorates. I have an intuition and prepare the kids, telling them: ‘He’ll leave after his mother dies because then he’ll have his inheritance.’
That’s when I finally acknowledge that he isn’t committed to being a husband or father. A few months later he leaves for Sydney, supposedly to be there for his mother. She dies on Mint’s eleventh birthday; ‘one of the worst birthdays ever,’ says Mint. Two weeks before Christmas 2001, a woman from Centrelink phones me with news that my wife’s pension is about to be discontinued. She informs me that because Jacques and I aren’t living together any more I am no longer eligible. Merry bloody Christmas! Is he doing whatever he can to hurt me?
In mid-2002, Jacques is diagnosed with emphysema, the same disease that killed his mother. He appears at my door asking to be taken back. ‘Who’s going to look after me when I’m old and sick? Will you look after me?’
He is tanned and fit and has put on weight, as if he’s taking care of himself, as I always wanted him to do. He plays on my sympathy by expressing how much he misses the children. Stephan is 16 and Mint is 11 and I want them to have a father. Because of this I feel obliged to take care of him. Dedicating myself to the wellbeing of others is all too familiar and I give my consent, but with a condition.
‘OK. But you can live in the shed, not with me.’
When I was sick and staying in Canberra, Jacques got some of the girls from my soccer team to make the shed habitable — they lined the walls and made it a proper little room with a potbelly stove. It’s his choice, but he complains to his family that I’m forcing him to live in the shed.
In the mid-1990s I had become involved with soccer because the children were playing and Jacques was coaching the All Age Ladies team. I start playing at the age of 42 and continue for the next five years. The Wentworth Falls AAL squad is strong, a team to be reckoned with in the Nepean area. The ages of my teammates range from 17 to 52 and we bond well. We all have nicknames; mine is Petal because I am so soft and delicate. (Not!) Playing soccer makes me realise I probably should have been a little more enthusiastic about sport when I was young because my thin, wiry body is perfect for running really fast. I enjoy playing and the team is a fantastic bunch of people.
I convince Jacques to lock away what’s left of his inheritance. He puts it into an account that requires both our signatures to withdraw — he’s already squandered tens of thousands of dollars. Over the next five years I continue caring for him even as he becomes addicted to really strong prescription painkillers like Endone for the pain in the joints and muscles that he gets with hep C. It would have been better for both of us if he’d stayed away. I realise we bring out the worst in each other.
***
In 2005, I decide to subdivide the property and build a new house with a separate section for Jacques with an en suite bathroom. I find a good builder but there are lots of small problems to overcome — water flows and easements keep adding to the original estimates. As each problem arises, I regard it as simply a hurdle. But Jacques just wants to give up.
At one point as the builder is going over what we need to do, Jacques repeats his usual refrain, ‘We can’t do this. It won’t work.’
Something inside me snaps. Brrring! No. We can’t, but I can! I flashed all the way back to that little girl sitting on Kirribilli wharf who realised she’d better look after herself. Ultimately, everyone is alone. You want a nice house? You want that dream? Then bloody well do something about it because nobody else is going to do it for you. I finally accept that I’m better off on my own. I have a life to get on with, kids to look after.
To his complete amazement, I tell Jacques to leave.
‘You’re out of here,’ I exclaim with absolute and complete conviction. I feel as though it’s the first right decision I’ve made in years.
But I’d made one mistake, registering the Katoomba property in both our names. Jacques procrastinates about the settlement for some 10 months. Apparently he wants 75 per cent of the assets plus custody of our daughter. That scares the living daylights out of her. Jacques can’t look after himself let alone a teenage girl. No chance. He plays the same emotional games that he has played for years but I don’t give in. I can see through it all now. I have the strength and clarity to say, ‘I’m not thinking about what you need any more. My priority is the wellbeing of the children and myself.’
He argues that the house and land should be given to him because he’s dying while I can work and start again. I don’t say yes this time. I don’t go to England because Australia is too small. I am now in touch with a powerful part of myself that I hardly knew existed.
‘No. I paid for it so I’m keeping it. It is important for the children and me to have stability at this time,’ I tell him. ‘You go.’
I free up his mother’s inheritance plus give him an extra $10,000 from the money I have borrowed to construct the new house. He receives 26 per cent and I retain 74 per cent of our joint assets. With a sigh of relief my obligations to him are finally over. I move on.
And so does Jacques. Within two years he has met a Mormon woman in the US — I guess via the internet — cleaned up his act, moved there and re-married. He has virtually no further contact with his children.
***
On 2 October 2006, I receive the keys to the house built to my specifications. Two days previously my mother had died. Julia had called me a week beforehand, telling me that Mother had had a stroke and was in hospital. She’d been living in the flat under Julia’s house in Katoomba for the last few years. I visit the hospital on the way to work. Julia later tells me Mother rallied when she saw me.
When Mother died my relationship with her was quite good. Over the yea
rs my sisters had vented their childhood grievances to her. They all felt strongly that Mother didn’t do enough to protect them. But I had no expectation of her and as I got older began to appreciate that she’d done her best. I guess because she’d never behaved in the way a loving, nurturing mother would, I didn’t relate to her the way most people do to their mothers. I just considered her someone who’d been influential in my life.
By the time she moved to Katoomba in her 70s she had mellowed and was very kind to me. I used to visit her to complain about Jacques and she’d listen. She’d share how her own marriage had broken up for similar reasons — my father wouldn’t get a steady job or take responsibility for being married with children. Although she still loved him, she told him he couldn’t come back until he got a job and brought in some income, but he wouldn’t, or couldn’t.
I sob throughout her funeral and feel much sadder than I had when Father died in 1993, as I’d had virtually no relationship with him since their divorce. Mother’s funeral is the first time I have seen Jack and Leona for many years. Afterwards, I hug my other sisters but Leona keeps her distance.
When I arrive at the wake, I enter to see Jack looking straight at me. I smile but he turns away without response. Leona is in the kitchen helping prepare the food and cleaning up. I say hello and tell her I’ll take over the washing up. Our mother may have died, but it’s obvious there isn’t going to be any kind of reconciliation between us.
Mother dying was such a confronting experience. It seems highly significant that it happened at the same time as I take possession of the first house of my own. This is a big period of transition for me. It feels as though now, aged 52, without a parent or a partner, I’m finally starting my adult life.