I Own You

by Dawn McConnell

  Tim was slouched low in his chair, hands held together as if in prayer, his lips resting on his fingers when he spoke: ‘Of course, the devil will be in the detail.’

  ‘Or the lack of it . . .’ I added.

  ‘Yes. Big on concept, small on detail, right?’

  Now I knew that Tim was on my wavelength. I grinned at him. He had supported me all the way and he could see the way my mind was working. Tick tock, tick tock . . . Just as I was about to give up hope, Deirdre flung open the door: ‘He went for it!’

  ‘Yes!’ I actually jumped for joy. It was an amazing moment. Tim also rose out of his chair and we hugged each other.

  ‘Fantastic news!’ he said.

  ‘Glasgow house to be sold and split,’ Deirdre was reading from her notes. ‘He keeps the art collection, you get Portugal and Mayfair.’

  I actually laughed at that. Stuart hated art – he just wanted to keep the paintings because he thought I wanted them. He was still trying to get to me, to rile me, and yet he didn’t know that I couldn’t give a stuff about the art. I didn’t want anything from my old life, in fact. He could have it.

  ‘Okay, Tim, let’s make this happen.’ I instructed him to start drawing up the deal. Meanwhile, Deirdre took me aside.

  ‘So how does this work for you, Dawn?’

  ‘It’s a terrible deal for him,’ I whispered. ‘He’ll take the company if it’s worth £1 million. That’s all we’ve agreed. We haven’t said how I’m going to make it worth that much.’

  I knew my husband. I knew his greed would be his downfall in the end. The deal was drawn up on just two sheets of paper and everyone, including Stuart and his cousin, signed it. Happily, I’m sure, relishing the prospect that I would fail in my ambition to give him a company worth £1 million and would therefore have to sell everything to give him cash. He didn’t see the pitfalls, he didn’t see the danger signs – all he saw were the pound signs and the promise of £1 million cash blinded him to the truth.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ I said, hesitating before I signed the settlement deal. ‘I want to be divorced today. I want to walk away a free woman.’

  ‘Hmm . . . I’ll see what I can do,’ said Deirdre. And, incredibly, she came back half an hour later and said the sheriff had agreed to grant me my decree absolute today.

  ‘The sheriff was pleased you managed to work out an agreement,’ she said with a smile. ‘You’ll be divorced by the end of the day.’

  And, with that, I signed my name: Dawn McConnell.

  I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of exaltation I experienced on leaving court that day. I was beyond happy, I was released, reborn. I was a new woman. For the first time in twenty-seven years I was free from the man who had controlled and mentally abused me most of my life. Under his despotic rule, I had grown up in fear, I had suffered in silence, I had borne the brunt of his brutal, violent ways and I had cowered with shame. But no more. He had told me I could never leave him and for so long – too long – I had believed him. He had told me he owned me and for so many years I’d thought that was true. But I had fought back and, now, I was stronger than him.

  As I skipped down the court steps, I smiled quietly to myself: for I owned him. He just didn’t know it yet.

  I called Bryce.

  ‘It’s over,’ I said with the most enormous smile. ‘You can start planning the wedding.’

  It didn’t take me six months to make Silverbridge worth £1 million; it didn’t even take three. When Stuart later discovered the mistakes his lawyers had made, my ex-husband was dismayed to find that it wasn’t stated anywhere on the settlement deal exactly how I was to make the company worth £1 million. That was my gamble and Tim’s genius. The wording was left so vague: nowhere did it state that I had to make it up with cash. But not one person on their hotshot team of lawyers had thought to question the wording on the deal.

  And, once it was signed, there was no going back.

  So, I simply took some of the worst performing properties in Mayfair Holdings and transferred them over to Silverbridge. These were properties in bad areas which would be costly to refurbish, hard to rent and difficult to sell when the time came. I bought another three decrepit flats in an even more deprived area and stuck those in there too. Finally, there was just £50,000 left to make the company worth £1 million. But instead of putting in cash, I reduced the company loan by £50,000. So there it was – a company worth £1 million and a load of headaches for Stuart. I walked away with Mayfair, readies from the sale of the Glasgow house, plus our beautiful Portuguese villa.

  I had won. In the final fight, I had got the better of Stuart and his crooked cousin, and I had won the war.

  And it felt every bit as good as I’d imagined.

  Epilogue

  In September 2012 Bryce and I married in a beautiful, simple ceremony at a church in the hills above the Algarve. Bryce had done all the planning, all I had to do was pick a dress and turn up. It was a magical day – my son gave me away, my sister Susy and all her family came, as did all the close friends I had come to love and depend on in the past few years. Melvin and his wife were there, as were Tim, Deirdre and her wife and even my bank manager Sadie, who was by now a great pal. We had the sunshine all day long as we feasted on the balcony of our hotel. Later, after the sun went down, the band struck up and we danced the night away.

  It was a fairy-tale wedding and one I could never have imagined for myself just a few years before. This was the start of my new life and I was so pleased to have the people I loved by my side. My son, who was now strongly in my camp having seen the pain and suffering I had endured at the hands of his father during our bitter divorce, had grown into a fine young man. It was a pity he no longer saw my mother, his grandmother, but after the case Stuart and my mother grew ever closer and when they started taking holidays together, sharing a double room, Callum said they had crossed a line. His grandmother and his dad? He couldn’t stomach it.

  He occasionally sees his father now but says he is not an easy man to be around. Bitter and self-pitying, Stuart lives in a small flat lent to him by his cousin and collects housing benefit and social security. Not that he is deserving of it, of course – the man has contributed nothing to society, so what gives him the right to take from it? After so much acrimony and so many attempts to destroy me, he has wasted all his money on divorce lawyers. His half of the proceeds from the sale of our house was just enough to cover his legal bills. So he no longer drives a flashy sports car, drinks the best wines or goes on luxury holidays. But he only has himself to blame. I would have happily split our assets fairly on day one and parted amicably – but Stuart wouldn’t do it. He tried to bring me down and he failed. He took me on and he lost.

  He has so far refused to take control of Silverbridge, claiming I duped him, but the sheriff has thrown out his appeals. So now he is stuck in a tiny flat, penniless and helpless. He has clung desperately to my mother these past few years. She still has her pension and a handful of properties that give her a decent income. I bet it is a surprise to her to find that she is the richer of the two of them. I wonder, now, if she was also groomed by him in some way, whether he made her extravagant promises he had no intention of keeping. I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since that day I told her to leave the flat. They are welcome to each other, as far as I am concerned. I honestly can’t think of two people more suited to each other than my mother and Stuart Kelly.

  In the years since the divorce, I have rebuilt my relationship with my sister and started new ones with her husband and delightful children. Susy and I have been surprised to discover joy and meaning in our shared history, and finally we each feel able to talk openly about the crazy family we both survived. There are times we laugh like we are never going to stop – and I think that is something only the two of us can experience together. Reconnecting with Susy has made me feel whole in some ways; I am more accepting of myself, of the person I was as a child, and I feel it’s okay to like myself again. Know
ing how much she was hurt by the same family makes me really believe that it wasn’t my fault. After all, we were both just kids. Susy can’t forgive our mother for lying to the police and they don’t speak anymore. I will never take my sister’s love or loyalty for granted.

  Meanwhile, my brother has disappeared to India and I doubt he will ever return. He is a fugitive from justice, a man running from himself and his past. I hope one day he will have the courage to come home and face the truth. It makes me sad, thinking about him, that whatever path he chose in life, he did not seek the help that he so desperately needed. I hope that he finds something to heal his wounds before it is too late. And before anyone else gets hurt.

  Now, as well as running my property company, I have started an online retail business with Bryce. It’s fun and I love the challenge of getting to grips with a new industry. Funnily enough, we’ve been doing quite well and last year we opened three new offices on the continent. Bryce and I really enjoy working together and I’m so proud to call him my husband. Every day I wake up feeling blessed to have found such a wonderful, caring man to share the rest of my life with. I owe him everything.

  I look back on what I have been through and as hard as it may be for me to rationalize my life, I know that somehow I have managed to survive when it seemed all the odds were stacked against me. Why? I think that being a positive person has helped. The glass is always half full in my view, and if it isn’t, you can always fill it up! Though I have been laid low, I have always tried to keep a little perspective about life. After all, there are always people I can think of with far worse problems than mine. Knowing that I am lucky and that I have my health and much more besides, this sees me through to the next day.

  The other thing that helped was the sense of being different. I know it may sound strange, but I never felt like the other girls I knew as a child, girls who grew up dreaming of becoming air hostesses, nurses or teachers. These were the ‘expected’ children, the ones who came from good households that expected them to turn out a certain way. Their parents were lawyers, doctors or professionals and they would be ‘expected’ to follow in their parents’ chosen career until they all ended up the same way. I didn’t want to end up the same way as my parents. Money was all my parents seemed to care about. It was made to seem a very important part of my life from a very young age. Not happiness, contentment or fulfillment – no, it was money. Never once did Mum or Dad sit us down as I did with Callum and say: ‘I just want you to be happy.’

  My parents of course had my life mapped out for me, and I was an ‘expected’ child, as were my siblings. However, from an early age I decided I would not accept the map they had laid out. I knew that I would be successful and my determination to achieve and have everything I wanted is what pushed me through every part of my journey. I took all my bad experiences as just another bump on the journey. I always got up, brushed myself down and started again. Everything that has happened to me has sculpted me for the next journey in my life and given me the tools for my next battle. We all have lessons to learn that are not always in the classroom.

  Yes, there have been some terrible betrayals in my life but I’m not so blind that I can’t see the mistakes I made along the way. I take full responsibility for many of my wrong assumptions. Was Hannah really my friend? No, I don’t think so. I was her employer and it was my mistake to believe I was anything more. I’ve learnt that you can’t buy people with money and, if you can, you don’t want them in your life because they’ll never be truly loyal. I wish Hannah and her family well. We all have our crosses to bear and I wonder if her actions have weighed heavily on her heart. I hope not. I forgave her years ago.

  The fact is, I found good people to help me on my journey and to them I shall be forever grateful. Melvin, Tim, Deirdre and others – they changed the course of my life for the better, going beyond the call of duty to assist me in my time of need. Conversely, my enemies have also given me a lot. I believe I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without them. They made me stronger than I ever believed myself to be. Fighting their dirty war made me look inside myself and realize who I really am and what I believe in.

  Of my past, I cannot deny that the abuse still disturbs me to this day. I have never had counselling for what I suffered as a child but then, after my experiences with the police, I have never wanted to pour my soul out to another stranger. Writing this book has been a great aid in healing some of those wounds but I must admit that they will never go away completely.

  I am changed by my experiences, as surely we all are. I am less trusting of people than I was before and I believe almost nothing until I see it for myself. I am also stronger than before, impatient with incompetence and intolerant of bullshit. Those who know me in business might say I’m a hard woman, but then, I don’t consider that a bad thing in business! For too long I lived with humiliation and shame, blaming myself for the bad things others did to me. Today, I won’t stand for that.

  I think I’ve got my priorities straight these days – but I’m always looking for ways to make myself a better person. Callum comes first now; something I didn’t always appreciate when I was younger. I am a better parent to him now than when he was a child growing up. For this, I have apologized to him and I am humbled that he has forgiven me. Now, if we ever fight, I’m always the one to break the silence. He comes first, not me. That was something I had to learn for myself, something I was never taught as a child. What counts is being there, come what may. Who cares what others think? What the neighbours will say? What it looks like on the outside? The most important thing is to live an honest, authentic life and to show love to those you love the most. After all, this life is all we have. Let’s try to live it the best way possible.

  I am still an angry person, maybe more than ever, but I refuse to push that anger down. Because my anger is real and it helps me. It helps me to act in the right way, to do the right thing and to stand up for myself when I need to. In my previous life, I didn’t have the luxury of anger. I was repressed and my emotions suppressed. I was too scared to be angry because I was told over and over that if I walked out of the door, I would never get back in. Now, I believe that everyone has the right to decide where they want to be, what they want to do and with whom. And I exercise that right every single day. I am the mistress of my own life and my anger helps me to ensure that I’ll never take that for granted.

  So here we are . . . at the end of the book, though this is far from the end of the story. After all, at forty-seven I have so much more to see, do and experience and I can’t wait to jump out of bed every day and get going. I started writing this book the day after I completed the divorce settlement and turned over the company. That to me was the end of the road. I knew nobody else could tell this story. Nobody in the world knew what I had been through or could explain the twists and turns in my life. And somewhere along the way, I learnt that it was important not to let others tell my story for me. I had to speak up, whatever the consequences.

  I had to show other women that it was possible not just to escape a bullying, dominating husband, but to get the better of them. History, after all, is written by the victors and today I am the victor.

  Winston Churchill once said: ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ That’s what I did. I kept going, no matter how bad things seemed, no matter how big the mountain I had to climb, and today I don’t have a single regret about breaking my silence. I own this story. I own my life, as every woman should.

  Today, if you met me in the street, you’d never guess how it all started. In my immaculately tailored suits and my salon-styled hair, you wouldn’t imagine for one minute that I was an abused girl and wife, that I made my fortune from pulling pints, changing beds and taking out bins. I was written off as the dropout: a teen mum and a failure. Nobody thought I could make something of my life, and yet I defied all their expectations. The only person who ever believed in me was my father. I still hear his voice today:

  ‘Dawn, you’ll be al
right. You’re a fighter, like me. A warrior, a proud Scottish warrior.’

  I think about my father often, and I smile when I do. Yes, I am a warrior, just like him.

  The journey continues, the battles go on . . . but I have strength now. I know who I am and relish the fight. Beware my enemies, I know who you are too and I’m ready to take you on . . . any time!

  Advice and Help

  A word about coercive control:

  If you have experienced anything similar to Dawn or know someone affected by the same issues, there is help and advice out there: please see our list below. The law on domestic abuse has changed and now includes ‘coercive control’, just like Dawn experienced with Stuart. ‘Coercive control’ is when one partner tries to control another through threats, intimidation, isolation and restrictions, denying their partner freedom and stripping them of their rights and sense of self. This can involve unreasonable demands, degradation, stalking, harassment, surveillance, bullying, taking away access to money, and controlling access to other people and means of transport. It is like being a hostage in an unreal world created by the abuser, and it carries up to a five-year jail term. There is more awareness than ever that ‘coercive control’ is a real and deadly form of domestic abuse, leading to long-term physical and psychological abuse. It is also a crime.

  Childline: For confidential advice on a wide range of issues, you can talk to a counsellor online, send an email or post on message boards.

  Call 0800 1111 or visit www.childline.org.uk

  NSPCC: The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children runs a helpline for adults and if you’re worried about a child, even if you’re unsure, you can contact their professional counsellors 24/7 for help, advice and support.

  Call 0808 800 5000 or email help@nspcc.org.uk

  Further information and advice is available at