This post deals with domestic abuse and might be triggering for some readers.
Angie Jordan didn’t have a home for the 40 years she was married to her husband.
She had a house. But no home.
The latter would imply a sanctuary of safety; a place she nurtured just as it nurtured her. In reality, though, she lived in fear inside her house on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
Ms Jordan, 60, was the victim of coercive control. Whilst domestic abuse has historically been understood as those behaviours that result in broken bones and bruises, it is now known to involve much more insidious forms too.
Coercive control occurs when the abuser uses a deliberate pattern of behaviours to exert and maintain control over their victim. The most common behaviours include interfering with family and friends, monitoring movements, insulting and belittling emotional attacks and financial abuse.
Ms Jordan knows all too well how dangerous it is.
She was nearly murdered, which she discovered after reading a eulogy her husband wrote for her.
But, of course, it didn’t start with the horror.
Ms Jordan met her husband when she was 18-years-old. He was 14 years her senior.
“I fell madly in love, but I realise now that I didn’t fall in love with him… Essentially he just mirror-imaged me. He said he loved all of the things I loved, but he didn’t. He just said that to entrap me in this relationship.”
What ensued was a marriage spanning four decades that was filled with horrific abuse. The examples are as endless as they are frightening.