Friends and Whanau

That policeman stayed with me for an hour and a half, which I really appreciated. At the end of the day he said your wife now has the long arm of the law with her, you can't fight it. You need to learn a way to get on with your life, involve your kids, realise your marriage is over, and move on.

If you see things that make you feel very uncomfortable and there were things that made me very uncomfortable about the relationship - the control that Kara's partner had, the high levels of stress, that Kara obviously had been crying before some of our visits, the pushing us away - because she would want us there but she'd need lots of warning. Suddenly it may be very uncomfortable, she'd ring up and say no it's not a good time, things have come up - just be aware and just start asking questions if you are uncomfortable with what's happening because there may be something deeper than the person's willing to admit.

And if you see something like a small child terrified of their father, then take that as a huge warning sign, this is not normal.

Me being open with them was never going to happen, not at that stage anyway, cos I just didn't trust anyone enough to tell them what was going on with me, what I wanted to do, but at that stage I had no idea what I wanted to do.

We didn't want to put pressure because it could have gone the other way, cos we knew she was vulnerable so if we put pressure on it you know she just could have walked away and left us rather than walked away and left him.

Just don't give up on them, just stay there, hang in there and stick with it, stick with them and yeah just give them what they need I guess. Get rid of that if it was so bad she'd leave, and you know she brings it on herself, or can't be that bad or she would have left by now, yeah get rid of all those and look at it for what it is.

Like I said before I don't think there is a quick fix, it's when we feel you know safe enough, strong enough to leave, we will leave.

I don't know if its actually saying anything or more just to be there to support you - listen to what you are saying - not be judgemental and say oh well it's just you know cos I've heard that so many times - and just support them and just help them along with it.

Probably less words is better because sometimes you just need someone you to cry on their shoulder or someone to say is there anything I can do to help and leave it up to you know the person - like say yeah well I would really appreciate it if you did this but can you do it like this so - you know because you are still keeping part of that secret, trying to get out because you don't actually want your partner to know what you are up.

I had to sit and analyse it myself and go through a process myself of how do I do this, how am I going to and the only way I thought of it - I have to be Bernice's friend, I've got to support her, I've got to be there for her but then on the other side you've got him there that you've also got to go through and analyse and sort out what's going on in his brain, which I did.

So I had to put him in a sense of security, a false sense of security. And It was about keeping her safe it had nothing to do with him, nothing to do with him at all, it was all about her and the children.

You've just got to keep trying to make things better for yourself, learn how to stop getting angry quick, use what you've been taught, use what you can where you can, and help anyone you see in the same boat that may need a hand. Just tell them, maybe try this, maybe try that. It doesn't work for everybody but it's worked for me and I'm glad I did it.