Robert says he didn’t know he was abusing his wife, until a counsellor handed him a piece of paper.

At Mamamia, we have a year-round commitment to highlighting the epidemic of domestic violence in Australia. During May, Domestic Violence Prevention Month, we will not only raise awareness of the personal impact of violence, but do our best to ensure victims have access to help, and encourage those who abuse to take responsibility and seek help for their behaviour.

Warning: The following deals with domestic abuse and suicidal ideation and might be triggering for some readers.

In recent years, the stories of Australia's domestic violence survivors and victims have rightly been platformed like never before. Thanks to their bravery, we've been given a glimpse into the reality of life under the thumb of an abusive partner, to understand the mechanisms that keep them trapped.

But in order to find solutions to this scourge, we need to look closely at the people responsible, too. That includes asking perhaps the most important question about domestic violence: why do perpetrators control and abuse the people they love? 

Here, we've asked just that of a former perpetrator. This is the story of his descent into domestic abuse and, critically, his path out.

Robert Sanasi feels like there are two versions of himself.

One is the man you'd meet today. The good-humoured marketing executive, father, and adoring husband, the man who feels like he's "won the jackpot" when his wife, Deborah, walks in the door each evening after work.

The other is the Robert of the first half of their marriage. The one who abused her. 

Watch: Women and violence, the hidden numbers. Post continues below.

For 15 years, Robert subjected his wife to a campaign of coercive control, an insidious form of domestic abuse that involves a pattern of manipulation, isolation and humiliation designed to dominate and trap a partner.

It took a breakdown, a personal reckoning and professional intervention for Robert to confront that side of himself and get the necessary help. 

Today, he considers himself reformed.

It's a rare feat, and that fact is lost on neither him nor his wife. They're prepared to reflect on it here in the hope that it improves understanding of the forces that can drive abusers, and to show that, with the right intervention, there is the capacity for change.

"What have I done?"

"Refreshing". That's how Robert struck Deborah when they first met in the '80s while working together at an advertising agency.

"He has a way of making people laugh, and he certainly did that for me," she told Mamamia. "He was very positive, very optimistic, and had these big dreams. He was really fun to be around."

When Robert left the company, their professional relationship gave way to a romantic one. They married and, four weeks later, Deborah fell pregnant with their first child.

Yet as they established a new business and Robert grappled with his demanding work schedule, it soon became clear that his needs were to take priority.

"There was pressure to support him in the business," Deborah told Mamamia. "I started to notice, 'Geez, he's not very being very kind to me.' I was expected to keep going to meetings with him, and he didn't seem to care if I was feeling sick or not."

That's how it began. Slowly, subtly. Over the years, individual behaviours quietly accumulated into a campaign of abuse. 

He left to do business transactions both times she was in labour.
He made her use the kids' bathroom because she was too messy.
He made her stop parking her car in the garage because she might scratch his.
He made it clear the house ought to be neat by the time he got home from work.
He made comments if she wore shoestring straps or anything else he deemed 'revealing'.
He berated her if she spoke to another man.
He controlled the mail and most of the finances.
He made almost all of the household decisions, except those relating to the kids; that was her domain.

"When you add up all these little things, it was like I ended up being a second-class citizen in my own home. It was just so subtle and so slow," she said. "He was just taking more and more control as the relationship proceeded."

Then there were the "explosions", as she called them, in which Robert lost his temper, threw things, punched walls and yelled. The first didn't come until seven years into the relationship. 

"He was started bringing out this laundry list of offences that he was carrying from even before we were married," she said. "He started, essentially, [verbally] bashing me with 'you did this and you did that. I don't even know if I love you.' 

"I was completely shocked. I had no idea he was holding on to all that. And at the time, my self-esteem wasn't great, so I started to think, 'What have I done?'"

These explosions happened every few months. Afterwards, Robert would stonewall Deborah until she sought to repair things between them. Then he'd soften. Until the next time.

Listen: The stories of abusers are rare, and important.

This cycle is typical of domestic abuse. Tension rises towards an incident of abuse, followed by reconciliation and then relative calm. Rinse and repeat.

Indeed, much about Robert's abuse was typical. A "garden variety abuser", he called himself when speaking to Mamamia.

For one, coercive control is typically targeted at an intimate partner. 

"With people like me, usually your primary relationship is the one that means the most to you, and the one you want to protect the most, and therefore one you control the most," he said. "So in business, you can afford to be a nice guy, then when you get home, it's a different story."

That's among the reasons it can be difficult to detect. Robert and Deborah say no one in their world noticed. Or if they did, they kept quiet.

But this kind of abuse also flourishes because it exists outside common understanding of domestic violence as black eyes and broken wrists. Yet it's frighteningly common. 

A survey conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology regarding the prevalence of domestic violence during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic found more responders reported experiencing coercive control than physical or sexual abuse: 5.8 per cent to 4.6.

That's greater than one in 20 of the 150,000 people surveyed.

Coercive controlling behaviours can be incredibly damaging in the long term, even lethal. A 2019 review of domestic homicide cases in NSW found that the perpetrator had previously exercised "controlling and coercive" behaviour toward their victim in 99 per cent of cases. 

Yet it's notoriously difficult to prosecute. Even if the victim is willing. Much of the time though their self worth has been steadily eroded, their support systems have disappeared, and they are manipulated into a sense of normalcy. They can rationalise the abuse as 'marriage troubles', minimise it because there's no physical violence, or even justify it through misplaced self-blame.

Though Deborah has a degree in psychology, not even she recognised her victimisation at the time. Emotional abuse and control hadn't been covered in her course, nor was it discussed in the media like it is today. 

Robert, too, maintains he wasn't aware that he was being abusive. 

"It's not like I was preoccupied with thinking, 'How am I treating Deb?' I just didn't care. I didn't care about anybody else, really. And that pretty much sums it up," he said.

"As a Narcissist-type person, you can't see anyone else. There are mirrors all the way around you so it's virtually impossible, until you start breaking down some of the things that keep you there."

For Robert, that took a counsellor handing him a piece of paper.

The beginning of the end.

It was the mid-2000s when Robert's abuse reached a crescendo.

Deborah had accepted a job at a local church, an act of independence that left Robert feeling threatened, wounded, fearful and angry.

"She was leaving every morning, and I didn't have that control. I started to go to pieces," he said. "I remember I got so bad that I went into the office of the guy who hired her. I just barged in and told him if he didn't sack her, I was gonna do something bad to him. I was in a rage."

Robert experienced a breakdown. He lost weight. He cut up Deborah's bank cards. Stonewalled her. The explosions became more regular. He drew up divorce papers and vowed to sell the house and take custody of their children. He took another woman to a charity event in her place. He developed a prescription drug dependence and became suicidal. 

Robert finally sought help from a counsellor — largely for the sake of his children. That counsellor, who had expertise in dealing with domestic abuse, probed him about his relationship. 

"Do you ever raise your voice?" the counsellor asked. "Do you ever throw things? Do you ever call your wife names? Do you control the money? Are you critical of her? Do you put her down?"

"It's the only exam I've ever got 100 per cent on," Robert said. "Then he went to his filing cabinet and pulled out a diagram showing the cycle of violence, and I thought, 'My God, that's how garden variety I am. This is already pre-printed, ready for someone like me.'"

The counsellor instructed him to discuss his realisation with Deborah. It took a few days, but he did.

"His words, from my memory," Deborah said, "were, 'Listen, Deb. What I've been doing in this in our relationship is called emotional abuse. And what that means is I don't bash you with my fists, but I bash you with my emotions.' And then he handed me this piece of paper."

Stunned, Deborah went online and began researching non-physical domestic violence. The material she found told the story of her relationship.

"I went into shock. And then I felt extremely angry that what I'd been dealing with for all these years was actually his problem, not mine. Because he'd always told me it was my fault that he got angry," she said.

"A huge light went on for me. And I was very, very clear, I wasn't going to stay in a situation like that."

Released of that guilt and self-blame, Deborah asserted herself. She wasn't going to be controlled any longer. This was his problem to fix, and it was up to him if he was prepared to try.

Deborah Sanasi. Image: Supplied.

Leaving or separating is known to be one of the most dangerous times for a woman in an abusive relationship; doing so in a safe manner typically takes careful planning, support and resources. 

Fortunately, Robert didn't intervene. 

"I can't imagine how much guts it took for Deborah to stand up to me," Robert said. "If she didn't do it, I can guarantee one thing: I would still be abusive. And why wouldn't I? Because everything was going my way, I got everything I wanted. But she's a gutsy, gutsy, gutsy woman."

Robert entered a period of specialised domestic violence therapy. 

"So I had to learn what a husband does, how a normal man treats his wife. I really had no idea because I was just a frickin animal," he said. "I was acting like an animal just purely out of my own insecurities and pain.

What it takes to recover.

Fortunately, both Deborah and Robert say their own children were shielded from what happened between them. By their account, Robert never abused them, he never lost his temper toward them and they never witnessed his escalations: "Their memory of him was that he was just a bit tightly wound, thank God," Deborah said.

Still, as part of his reformation, Robert owned up to them. They were teens at the time.

"I sat them down, and I said, 'Look, I've just discovered that I've had a lot of things in my life that have affected me, and the biggest thing that it's done is I've been mistreating your mother really badly. And I need to deal with that.'" Robert said.

"They've developed into beautiful kids, thank God, because we had a lot of troubles. And now they understand that you can change if something means enough to you."

When Robert took responsibility for what he'd done, Deborah felt relief at first. Then there was finally room for her feelings, for her hurt and pain and fear to come to the surface.

"I was very jumpy at that time, I was very emotional," she said. "Some days, I was angry. Some days, I was sad. If he would just even open the bedroom door, I'd jump; I was very on edge. It was just like everything I suppressed, that stuff just started flooding out of me."

Deborah was diagnosed with PTSD. 

It took her a long time to heal. It took evidence that Robert was behaving with civility and respect. She had to witness over and over and over that he didn't make a comment about her clothing, that he chose dialogue over outbursts, that he trusted her with their finances, and a million other little things.

Most powerful, though, was the realisation that he wasn't going to stop her from leaving, if she wanted to. He had relinquished his control.

"It was really up to me whether I could forgive enough to stay in this relationship," she said. "Thankfully, nobody put pressure on me; Rob didn't, my friends didn't, I didn't put pressure on myself. I just gave myself the freedom to take my time and just see if I got to that place where I was ready to let him back in."

After two years of separation, she did. They are still together, and both say they've established mutual trust. Deborah said there have been no instances of abuse, and if there was a recurrence she'd be "onto it in a flash".

These days she can see it clearly. The complex interplay of factors that drive abusers and abuse; trauma, mental health, stubborn ideas about gender roles in a relationship — the man as the dominant one, the breadwinner, the decision-maker; the woman as the caregiver, gentle, and submissive.

And Robert says he can, too. 

"I still have a lot of shame and guilt and disgust," he said. "People treat their dogs better [than I treated Deborah].

"But when you've been saved from something that's pretty bad, for both of us, the appreciation just has never gone away."

Robert's apparent success was in treating the root of his abusive behaviour. Something that takes time, money, access to mental health services (he still goes to therapy fortnightly); things lacking for many perpetrators.

Other interventions are available, including behaviour change programs, which have demonstrated moderate success. And online resources and support services are more prevalent than ever. But Robert argues nothing will get through unless the perpetrator is ready and willing to change, to confront their issues and accept what they've done.

"You've got to take full responsibility for it. No excuses," he said.

"Work it out, and leave your wife or your partner out of it because, man, she's been through enough,

"Run to the pain instead of away from it. And when you do that, what's the worst thing that can happen? You get upset, you cry more... It doesn't kill you to deal with your sh*t."

If you have experienced domestic abuse, support is available. Call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) to speak to a trained counsellor.

If you are worried about your own behaviour in a relationship, please contact Men's Referral Service on 1300 766 491.

Feature Image: Supplied.