The Ghost He Became — And the Fire I Survived -Part 2

Chapter 6: The Passenger Seat Was a Death Sentence

There were moments when I thought I might die, not from a disease or some slow decline, but because of who I trusted to drive a car.

He would come home from those trips completely wrecked, high on cocaine, drunk on whatever had been handed to him, his body buzzing and his mind unreachable. Then, somehow, he’d get behind the wheel. Not just once. Not just twice. It became routine. If we had to go somewhere he’d insist on driving, angry and hyped up, convinced he was fine

I’d sit there in the passenger seat, barely breathing. Watching his hands on the wheel. His eyes darting. My entire body trembling, trying not to show it. My only prayer was to make it back to my children, who were with his parents, the only place we could leave them. I didn’t know yet that they weren’t fully safe there either.

I’d stay silent on those drives. I knew better than to argue. I knew what happened when I did. And so, I’d clench my fists, hold my breath, and beg the road not to end our lives.

Chapter 7: I Woke Up Cleaning Cocaine Off My Kitchen Bench

Living in Austral should have been a fresh start. Instead, it became the setting for my worst year yet. The friend my husband had pulled in, another one from the boat crowd, began coming over nightly.. He was no different. Addicted. Reckless. Toxic. And suddenly, our home was no longer a safe space. It was a trap.

Each morning, I’d rise early to clean. Not just the mess but the evidence. A fine white layer of cocaine dusted the kitchen bench. Sticky rings from alcohol bottles. Tiny plastic bags on the floor. I wiped it all up before the boys came down, hiding the truth from their eyes. I was living in a house full of danger and lies, and I was the one cleaning it up just to maintain some illusion of normalcy.

This only became so much deeper with pressures increasing and the ex-husband pushing for what he wanted and making requests of me that fought against my morals but I did to only please him.

Chapter 8: The Silence Was Screaming, and I Was Done

There was a moment, I remember it clearly.

I stood in the kitchen, staring at the mess. The residue. The smell. The tension so thick it wrapped around my lungs. My boys were asleep. The house was quiet. But the silence was deafening.

I had been the one holding it all together for too long. The chauffeur, the cleaner, the mother and the protector. The human shield and just when I started finding my voice again, they noticed.

His mates began calling me, not out of concern, but with veiled threats disguised as care. They’d say things like, “He needs you,” or “Don’t leave him now.” But it wasn’t advice. It was control. A subtle but sharp reminder that they were watching. That I was being watched. That I was needed, not for love or support, but because I knew too much.

They knew I had seen behind the curtain, and that I had picked up on the affairs most of them was having on their partners. That I knew about the drugs he was supplying my ex with almost daily. I was no longer just the woman in the background. I was the threat with a quiet memory and a long list of things I had never spoken aloud.

Then came the night it all exploded.

My eldest had woken up crying. He needed me to help him back to sleep, I was standing in the kitchen, elbows deep in cleaning dinner up from that night, trying to scrub away the grime of our life. I called up to him, “Go wait in bed, bub. I’ll be there in a minute.”

It’s a moment I still replay. A moment I regret. But also, one I don’t. Because staying in that kitchen allowed me to see it, the mask slip. The man he truly was.

My ex came crashing through the front door, his dog came running straight at me, full of pent-up energy and what followed behind him, was something darker I couldn’t name. My Ex-husband stormed toward the kitchen. But then he saw our son, still crying at the top of the stairs.

I tried to calm it. I said, “He just needs me. I’m coming.” But something in him snapped. His eyes went black. His body turned. And the second his foot hit that first step, I ran.

I didn’t think I just moved. My body reacted before my mind even processed. I jumped between him and our son as fast as my body would let me. I saved my child from being grabbed, but I couldn’t save myself.

He shoved me with everything he had. Full force into the wall, and I tumbled down the stairs. I hit the tiled floor hard. But pain didn’t register. All I could think about was getting back to my son.

I crawled up off the floor and climbed the stairs, shaking, breathless, crying, and broken. I reached him, scooped him up, whispered over and over that I loved him. I tucked him into bed, tears falling onto his sheets. I stayed there, holding space for his safety, even when I had none of my own.

Then I got up. Wiped my face. And went back to cleaning the kitchen like nothing had happened. I was filled with rage and heartbreak and a scream I didn’t have the freedom to let out.

I told him to leave that night and for an hour, he did. But he came back. Of course, he did to only be still high and still drunk. Then pretending nothing happened. There was no apology. No explanation. No truth.

And that was when I knew: the silence I had lived in for so long wasn’t protection anymore, it was endangerment, and I couldn’t keep swallowing it.

Chapter 9: When I Said, “Get Help,” I Was the One Blamed

In the coming days, is when I couldn’t do it anymore. I had nothing left to give. I told him directly, “You need help. I can’t do this anymore. You need to go, stay with your parents, talk to them, do something but I don’t want you around. You’re toxic. You’re violent. And if you stay, it’s only going to get worse.”

But instead of hearing my words, he twisted them. Weaponized them. Used them as an opportunity to build a new story, one where I was the abuser, not the survivor.

He went to his parents, not to get help, but to seek sympathy. To manipulate them like he had manipulated me and unsurprisingly, they believed him.

Of course they did. These were the same people who covered up what his father had done, the way he had laid his hands on my son, multiple times. My neurodivergent son. The boy I had protected through every storm. Fabricating stories and manipulating the truth. They had seen that and still chosen silence. Still chosen to look the other way, continuing the secrets of violence and abuse.

When abusers raise abusers and the women around them cover, lie, and enable, they become just as harmful as the men they protect.

Did they reach out to help?
No. What came next was blame.

Phone calls flooded in. Accusations. Condemnation. Not about what he had done but what I had said. That I told him to get counselling. That I was threatening his gun licence, something these people idolised over family safety. Also that I had forced him out.

None of it was true. But the lie had already been planted and those around him were quick to water it, never once asking for my side. Never once checking on the kids, never once asking if I was okay.

It didn’t even shock me, because in the story he created, I was the villain. And honestly? I didn’t mind being the villain, as I still showed up, I still cooked. I still raised our children. I still offered kindness, even when my body was bruised and my spirit was frayed. I stood by the truth in silence.

Chapter 10: Werrington — Where the Mask Fell Off Completely

He lost his boat mates, as I warned him about, would happen. Because he tried to take control back and well that blew up in his face, but he also kept in contact with the club ones. What came next was being told he was getting a hit put out on him, while still being near my boys without consideration for anyone but him and he kept this quiet for some time.

Then came the move, from Austral to Werrington. Well, his parent wouldn’t take him in or deal with helping him, and I wanted to show my kids that even broken marriages, we can support each other, while he was getting help so, he came too, but only under conditions.

I set boundaries. Rules. Limits. He agreed. Swore he was trying.
Said he was in counselling. That he was finally talking about it.
That he wanted to get better.

I wanted to believe him.

Because despite everything, I still had hope. I still held onto that tiny part of me that wanted to see healing. I wanted him to get better. For himself. For the boys. For me.

But the promises were short-lived. The boundaries? Shattered.
The conditions? Broken the moment they were set and this time, the mask didn’t just slip. It was torn off completely.

In Werrington, the real violence began, it wasn’t just screaming anymore.
It wasn’t just manipulation. It was nightly attacks, waking up to bruises, to being pulled around and waking up to penetration that wasn’t consensual.

He found a new supplier though his work. One supplier became several, so he always had access. Building new connections from the area we lived, all the way down in barracks in Holsworthy. I watched the man I once loved to become someone else or maybe; he had been this all along.

I wasn’t just a woman anymore.
I was prey and worst of all, I wasn’t the only one hurt.

It was my boys, a 7- and 4-year-old.
They were watching.
They were learning.
They were starting to absorb everything I had once protected them from and in that house, I realized something deeper than heartbreak.

This wasn’t a man losing control. This was a man exercising it. and this time he had all of us under his boot.

Affirmation

I am not invisible.
My voice matters — even when others try to silence it.
What I endured was not love.
It was control disguised as care, and silence forced by fear.
I will no longer carry burdens that were never mine.
I am breaking the cycle — and I am reclaiming my power.

Prayer

God,
Thank You for the strength You placed in me, even when I couldn’t feel it.
Thank You for the whisper of truth You kept alive in my heart while others tried to drown it out.
Help me release what was never mine to carry — the fear, the silence, the blame. Help me raise my children in light, not shadows, in truth, not secrets.
Protect my heart as I heal, and my steps as I rebuild.
Let my voice, once buried, rise up to speak healing, to speak truth, to speak freedom.
Amen.