Later – much later, I laid next to him and revelled in feeling so alive, so unbelievably wanted, cherished, loved.  Words I had never heard, never expected to, alien words of praise, compliments, whirled round inside my head.  Who was this creature he was talking about? This creature who was ‘gorgeous?’A wonderful, unbelievably sexy lover?” Someone else must be in his thoughts… I was dreaming – I simply had to be. This was not the person I thought I was.. knew I was – was it?

Yet it was his hands on my body which made me come alive, made me gasp in delighted surprise,  his lips which burned across my skin. Those thoughts which had roiled through my head in despair the day before were once more spiralling inside, thunderheads of desire, yearning, building to a crescendo I never thought possible.  I met his passion with one of my own I didn’t recognise, and because he told me so – I knew that for him also,this was a surprise. Feelings he never knew he had were pouring from him… a wellspring of emotion we were both drowning in and revelling  in at the same time. Glorious and intoxicating. I slept – another miracle for I had been having trouble sleeping for ages – another  tale for another time.  This time I woke before him… rolled towards him and gently kissed his lips.  Thank heavens I woke before the alarm… and he wasn’t late for work.

This time I knew I would be seeing him again. We hadn’t made a ‘date’ but something inside told me it wasn’t  a casual ‘roll in the hay’ what a comparison! Whatever was happening was in no hurry – all the pieces were in place and ‘in play’, and from this point on would only get better. Something, much bigger, much wiser than my poor understanding  was trying to let me see that the future had a plan for me, and that, at least for a time he would be there too.

Patience was the key – something I would have to work on. I was tired, but incredibly happy. Coming down to earth back at home was  like being wrenched out of a dream. What would happen next?

I had no idea  what to do, how to react, or what to think even.  This was so far outside anything I had previously experienced I had nothing to draw on. I couldn’t even out on a front to bluff my way through.  If I’d been asked I would have had to say I couldn’t remember where the time had gone during the night, it was a dream, a never ending dream of sensations and feelings, an awakening of the heart and soul I’d never thought was possible.  

 I had actually slept very little.  When he had fallen asleep finally I had watched him for hours.  The absolute peacefulness in his face was amazing.  Where his arm lay across me he was warm, almost hot, and in time it was as though we had melded together. I was afraid to move, to break the spell. Truthfully, I didn’t want to break the spell at all.  If I died in that moment I would have been content, I didn’t want anything to spoil this moment. If he woke and the day intruded then everything would return to the way it had been and I wasn’t sure if I could accept that – not now.

But fall asleep I did, albeit briefly, and when I awoke it was to find him watching me. It had been a long time since that had happened and it usually had presaged something unpleasant. This felt nothing like that, but I was still  a little uncomfortable under that gaze. His hand brushed across my face and along my shoulder, down my arm…. Now I knew I was still dreaming, this could not be happening, not after the previous night.  But it was no dream, it was real and the feelings sweeping through me threatened to carry me away.  It felt like electricity flowing through my veins, every nerve in my body alive and jumping where he touched.

The wonder of it all was too much, I wanted to laugh, to cry, to scream and shout, but  to cry – the tears threatened so hard and I had to fight to contain them. Why tears? For no other  reason than I  couldn’t bear the idea that reality was coming back.. this had to be a dream, something to torment me in later hours when I was alone again.   The bigger surprise – that he was also amazed at how ‘he’ felt… that was something I wasn’t prepared for either.  His openness, his candour at how he felt… No this wasn’t real, this was the stuff of romantic novels, not real life, not my life anyway.

Some time later, quite some time later, he offered to make some tea and I was grateful, I needed the time to compose myself, to work out what was happening, how I was. I wasn’t alright, not by a long way. I realised with mounting horror that I had done the one thing I had been determined wouldn’t happen.  Not only had I spent the night with him but I had fallen for him, hook, line and sinker. There was no holding back and playing it safe. I was lost and now I would have to go into survival mode. If that were at all possible. I wasn’t sure how he would react, or what would happen from this point. Part of me shuddered at the idea that this might be the last time I see him.

I knew, deep inside that I’d changed completely.  I had been so determined to remain aloof, distant, friendly but just that, friendly. I didn’t want to be hurt again. Yet that was all past now – I was going to have to work this out as I went along. Was it love? It felt so good, so right, as though it had been meant to happen, something had taken over me, over us and it was so right, so natural, but would it stand the test of the next parting? Well, I’d find out.  That empty place inside where my heart had been was being filled and with it came an ache, which was such a deep need it scared me. How could this happen in such a short time? It was as thought we’d been together for years, or was I just fooling myself.

When the time came to leave it was a wrench.  If he had asked me to stay would I have? A part of me knew I would have said yes without a seconds hesitation… what on earth was wrong with me?  Walking me to my car he stopped and wrapped his arms around me and kissed me gently. There was no talk of when we’d see each other again and I quailed inside. It was as I feared -  this was it, something to torment me with during the long cold winter of my life. Thoughts of the weekend crept through my mind on the way home and I fairly flew along. Then I remembered the parting and how I had no idea what he thought or if I’d even hear from him again. From euphoria to despair and back again – what was wrong with me… such a stupid reaction, what did I expect?

When the text message came in I was surprised -but ecstatic at the same time. They continued each day…. for each he sent I sent one and so it went on until the weekend and he asked me back again. Was this the beginning I’d hoped for but believed impossible? I had no idea but the thought of returning to see him was more than I could have imagined. My heart was singing as I drove down to see him again. If only…….

To get it into perspective – I had never been through the usual teenage  drama of boys, dating, falling in love, out of love, dumping and being dumped.  Why?  It’s a good question. I seemed to skip that phase completely. I went from being the proverbial nerdy bookworm straight into the serious I’m earning a living I’m now an adult phase. At east that’s how it felt.  There was no giggly girly phase where all I talked of with my friends was how cute the guy’s looked. Let’s face it, I didn’t have any girlfriends I could have done that with. Come to think about it, I didn’t have any friends at all at that time.  Quite a pathetic and boring existence. I was alive, I had to be because I was breathing, but beyond that…. ho hum to put it mildly.  My first job was as a sales assistant at Myers,  selling sewing machines. It was a temporary job, I knew it, since I was waiting to be accepted into the  academy…..so I was marking time. After that I met my husband to be and that was that – so the whole dating game had been skipped.  This was a whole new ball game for me.

Ok – so there we were, nice music playing and  talking, continually getting lost in his eyes, the sound of his voice, picking up where we had left off earlier that morning.  I wasn’t surprised when the kiss came – was expecting it, well, by then almost  wondering when it would happen. Once again, it was a surprise and at the same time not.  You know – the feeling you have when you’ve been going out with someone for a long time and you can anticipate how they’re going to behave…. I could see the move coming  – heart starts to beat faster, butterflies in the tummy,  in the back of my mind wondering if I was making a mistake or not….. and at the same time waiting to find out if I was right.  I was – he was great, the kiss was great – I guess –  we were great together! Once again – it was  a huge deja vu moment. This was starting to get  very strange. So many things were feeling as though I’d been there before, it was all so very familiar, yet at the same time I knew it was new and it was really good.

Time  seemed to stand still -  everything was concentrated on the thundering  of my heart and the feel of his lips on mine…. rational thought had totally gone.  There was nowhere else I wanted to be. I was  where I was supposed to be. It felt right. It felt as though it had been meant to happen this way. I travelled half way round the world and back again, met hundreds of people, spoke to dozens of people online and yet I’d met this guy who was literally ‘under my nose’ and he was  – absolutely perfect! We ‘fit’ together like we had been made to go together.  I was excited and I was terrified at the same time.

Dinner was ready but who cared. The oven was turned off…..that surreal feeling continued. The touch of his hand in mine was all I could sense. Everything, every sense was concentrated on where we touched. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered.  Time was suspended, the moment stretched on….. I think I died and went to heaven. Nothing had prepared me for this!

So, we arranged to meet for coffee at mid morning – he had a meeting in town and was free then and it suited me also.   It was so funny in a ‘deja vu’ way. As a young girl I had always daydreamed that the guy I would meet would be tall, dark haired and green eyed.  Here he was, tall, dark hair, okay, a little grey there,  and when I got a good look at his face GREEN EYES! Talk about feeling stupid. He had ordered the coffees and had come to sit down. The first  look at his face and the import of this eye colour hit me and the most intelligent thing I came out with was “You’ve got green eyes’! Yikes – what an impression I was making.  Of course it didn’t help that he turned round and said the same to me since my eyes are a green hazel – quite a coincidence.

So off to a flying start. He was charming, a great conversationalist – and boy is that something that’s hard to find these days. Also, someone who didn’t mind the fact that the lady he was with was quick witted, had an original brain in her head and wasn’t about to hide the fact that she could think for herself!  Yes,  if I have an  opinion I’ll say so, politely, but I wont pretend to be dumb! Been there and had to do it for far too long. The ‘new me’ had decided if whoever I was with couldn’t handle the fact that i could think and speak then it was too bad.  The time for being silenced was long gone.

He had just over an hour he said before he would need to leave to make his business appointment in the city.  It was the fastest hour I think I’ve had in years. Before I knew it it was over and I have to be honest and say I wasn’t ready t see him go. I was having way too much of a good time.  I reminded him of the time and he said he was happy to stay and talk a little longer.  By the time he finally left he would have been an hour late for his business meeting!  I had a fantastic time and I think – no, I know he did too.  It felt as though I’d known him for years, it was so easy to talk to him.

Two days later I took my courage in both hands and called him on the number he gave me.  Talk about my stomach doing somersaults, I thought I was going to be ill! But, there he was, talking as though we’d just picked up where we left off the other day. Five hours later we were still talking, trying to say good night since we had agreed to meet for dinner that night!

I was in a state of shock.  Here was the kind of guy I had always dreamed of meeting. He was interested in the same kind of things I was, alternative  healing and  past lives just to name two, but that was only two, so many more also. Not only that he had so many other things I was interested in too, NLP and  life coaching , and so it went on. It felt so surreal!  My stomach was in knots but I was looking forward to going  down to have dinner with him. He had promised to do a past life regression ‘on’ me and I was really looking forward to seeing those green eyes again.

Trying to sleep was damned hard, but I managed and the day seemed to drag until it was time to leave and drive to the coast to meet him.  We had agreed to go to the beach and see the moon over the ocean, weather permitting. I was almost prepared for him to find some excuse not to go, but we did and it was fabulous perched on the railing and watching the ocean pounding on the beach. It really was an ideal way to start the date off – another weird notion, I was on a date!

Finally we decided to return to his place where he was making a quiche for dinner. Another first – HE was making dinner and refused all offers to help. Did I mind? Not in the least, having someone look after me for a change was a novel experience.   Quiche in the oven and we sat talking. I really felt I’d known him before, even though I knew I’d never met him – not in this life time anyway! It was fascinating and there were so many things we seemed to have in common and agree with, yet from such different backgrounds – unbelievable, and there was no way he could have found out any of this since there was nowhere it s written down. Telepathy? No I don’t believe so because I was picking up similar familiar things from him.  This was so way out – deja vu was a mild term.

I had come back from my overseas trip – not elated at being home after a fabulous trip, but deeply depressed at the possibility of falling into the same old pattern I had been in before.  I had some grand idea that I was going to ‘find myself; whilst I was away. Some way of being able to work out ‘who I was’ as opposed to who I was to everyone else, wife, mother, daughter, sister.  All those roles I knew well and could hide how I was really feeling behind them so that no one saw the ‘real’ me.  That person I doubted anyone would recognise because I didn’t know who that person was either. All I did know was that I didn’t much like who I was  and if I couldn’t change that… well if that was the case I didn’t want to come home.  Which was a euphemism for not breathing any longer!

My trip was to the Middle East, Israel, Egypt, Jordan a short stop in Athens and then onto Switzerland, except, if I hadn’t ‘found’ myself, if I hadn’t found a single person who seemed to like or accept the person I was, then I didn’t want to continue with the eternal struggle to be something I wasn’t.  I was so tired. Exhausted from trying to hide  how confused and hurt I was.  So bone weary of being strong, capable, confident, the person who would get it done no matter what,the person  that no one saw needed a shoulder to cry on. I needed someone to hold me, to hug me, to tell me it would be okay in the end.  Someone just to be there for me. To hold my hand for heaven’s sake!  For the second time in my life I felt so completely isolated and alone I could barely breathe, and I’d had enough.

I joked I was going to find the nearest bomb and sit on it; get kidnapped in the West Bank; hijacked on the way there, hell I would even pay someone to drag me off – anything to let me feel alive for a while.  The funniest part was that even if I had been taken hostage, I could imagine them begging someone to take me off their hands after an hour – paying someone to take me away! Now that would have made a good story.

But I came home, dropped into my black pit of despair as everyone just behaved as though I’d been to the local shops and not away for three months.  Picked up where I left off, handling all those interminable queries from the solicitor, accountant, Centrelink, etc, and everyone just letting the “Can Do’ girl do it!  My fault entirely because I did it, I didn’t speak up, wouldn’t tell anyone what was happening with me, couldn’t let them know I was human, just like them and I needed someone. After all, my husband had walked out on me  months before mum passed away and my first husband……  once I stop shuddering I want to forget that!

So I’m back home and desperate to try to find a way to break the routine, the old pattern I had been in, before I started thinking about doing something stupid again.

But I could do the job, and as  far as anyone knew I wasn’t bothered by the work so I was called in to fill extra shifts often if anyone was ill. A penalty in being available and the manager knowing I used to go to the gym every day. There were so many days when I’d be half way through a class and the phone would ring. I’d end up flying home to shower and get ready and make it back to work as soon as I could. My stress management for the day blown to hell – again!

Then the Enterprise Bargaining white wash started. It was amazing that there was so much paperwork sent out for employees to read and yet we weren’t allowed to have the Union on site because the majority of us had never been advised we could join the union. So, no union members, no reps and no advice from them. What astonished me was the fact that so many of the people I worked with thought that what the bank sent out was so bloody good! They made it sound as though they were being so generous when in actual fact if we agreed to the proposal they would have been taking away so many of the ‘privileges’  we already had.

I cn remember clearly one memorable lunch break when we were sitting in the luch room, everyone wa talking about the EBA and how they were going to vote FOR it!  I couldn’t believe  they had read the same paperwork i had. So I started going through the parts I had marked down  for querying. We were having a meeting in a couple of days when management were coming out – with a union rep -  to answer any questions we had before we voted. Loss of leave days if your child was sick – we had always been able to use our own sick days if our kids were sick.  Extended hours, no overtime if we ‘failed’ to balance, and they were just a couple. By the time our break was finished i had only been able to go through abput a quater of the EBA and already I could see the lightg bulbs going on. We agreed to have a ‘private’ get together to talk about the interpretation of the rest of the EBA before management came out.

That’s all it came down to really, being able to interpret what had been written in a way to make it sound so good and yet was really a smoke screen to take parts of our work contract away from us. By the time management came out, with the poor union rep, who must have felt so out gunned, the ‘girls’ had already decided to vote against the current EBA.  That was the brief, either accept it or vote against it and send it back for review. I’m not sure who received the biggest surprise, our own manager, managment from up town or the union rep.  He couldn’t believe his ears when the questions started. Of course it may not have been wise to have been elected the spokesperson.  I couldn’t really refuse after I’d been the instigator of the discusion turning out the way it did!

I suppose I was lucky. From where I was sitting I had a bird’s eye view of my manager. The look on his face  said it all. He was smirking most of the time as though he was expecting something of the kind happening.  I always wondered if he had over heard our lunch time discussion.   The union rep. – well he wanted to know who had thought up all the qwuestions… and if I was interested in being the union rep at the branch since I had been elected the spokesperson. It might have been interesting, but as an unpaid additional job, and my family to consider, I really couldn’t take him up on the offer. 

We had three more sesions before a fianl EBA  draft was accepted to be placed on the table for management to decide.  We  had a few wins, but not many. It was the first time I realised that it was almost impossible to win if you went up against management. We would never have made  as many inroads as we did if not only our branch but others as well had seen behind the rhetoric and demanded a review of the conditions.  If one person alone had tried to effect any change…. it would have been an altogether different story. 

Still, it was the first time I came to ‘managment’s’ notice.  My own manager was an okay guy and we ‘d had several chats before about different things so he already knew I could think and had an opinion about most things.  It made life at the branch more interesting and I think, in a small way, he respected me for having the courage of my convictions, even if it was only talking to him.  It made me feel good too. Here, for the first time in an age, was a person who was willing to listen to my point of view, debate the issues in an open manner and didn’t try to put me down as an ignoramus. Quite heady stuff really.

The EBA was finally ratified and life settled back to normal. The routine continued. I would try to get to the gym every day, I needed that outlet for not only work but also for what was happening at home.   I would get up early to get the housework done before the kid needed to get up, get  them ready for school, myself for the gym, drop them off, get to the gym and work like a lunatic to get rid of all the angst, fly home, shower, iron, change into my uniform and dash back to get to work on time. Then, after the dreaded balancing, fly home to collect the kids, get dinner cooked and make sure it was ready for when my ‘ex’ got home from work. No excuses – dinner had to be ready to place on the table when he got home. Where even more ‘fun’ began.

Have you ever had a meal where someone has watched every move you make? Try it some time and see how much you enjoy it. It doesn’t matter how good the food may be, it still tastes like ash in your mouth, choking you until it’s over. This was the routine for our evening meal every day of the week. 

I say directly opposite my ‘ex’, my son to my right and my daughter to my left. “He’ would watch everyone covertly from under his eyebrows as we ate.  Both children had turned out to be finicky eaters. Heaven only knows why – we had both groen up with good appetites, refusing nothing we were given as children. But my children – my son would eat only meat, chips and roast potatoes, bread, butter vegemite and peanut better. Ice cream of course – but how many children refused ice cream? Not that he was allowed to have it very often, punishment for not eating his dinner. My daughter was almost as bad.  She would at least eat carrots, but her meals were so small it infuriated ‘him’ just as much. Since she rarely finished a meal she didn;t get  desert either.  Altogether, the tension around the table was so bad the tree of us could barely eat. It was a long drawn out act of terrorism, and we had to endure it daily.

 The only time we escaped was when he was sent away for work. The day he got the position where he would be away for weeks at a time I could have jumped for joy. Weeks when it wa oeaceful. Meals were casual and no longer fraught with tension. All the things we were ‘forbidden’ to have were suddenly on the menu. The day when he called to say he was coming home the pall of gloom started to settle over the house again. I would run around trying to squeeze in as many of the forbidden pleasures before he got back as I could. I felt like crying when I heard the car pull up outside. The kid had to run out t make a fuss of his homecoming, but I could see  it in their eyes, a dullness that spoke volumes of the dread for the coming meal.

Life continued on. The children were getting older and more outspoken, especially my son. My ‘ex’ was becoming more and more depressed and vicious as a result, but carefully hidden. His scrutiny of all of us was even more intense and the repercussions becoming more unpleasant. My daughter started hiding in her room if anything happened, a silent mouse trying to avoid notice so she could stay out of the spotlight.  Things were moving inexorably to a head and I didn’t know how to defuse the situation or rectify it. I was failing everyone, I knew it and hated it, but what was I to do?

Then everything became so much harder.

So, I’m writing about what happened, some of the things which occurred along the way. The things which made me, changed me and finally brought me to the place I am now. Finally able to see who I am, or who I am becoming, and at least start to accept, if not accept fully, that I am only human, imperfect and can only make the decisions I did with the information and knowledge I had at that time. Hindsight is wonderful, but it doesn’t help you to deal with the situation at that time. All it does, more often than not, is be used as a tool to beat yourself up with. I know – I’ve done that for years.

It has been said so often, forgiving yourself is the hardest task we have. It is so true. I can accept and forgive  the mistakes of others. They are only doing the best they can. I can help them, empathise with them, sympathise with them and yes, in a spiritual way, love them as the beings they are. I may not always condone what they’ve done, but I can forgive them far more easily than I can forgive myself. Why?  Because I know better?  Have I the right to hold myself up as someone to look up to, a perfect example of what should be done? Hell NO! Yet I still have to work damned hard at accepting that I make mistakes and it is OK to do that. I can try to make it right, to do better, but I am allowed to be human, frail and imperfect.  But it is hard…. it is a daily struggle when the mistakes I made stare me in the face…. and it’s usually my own face I’m looking at!

So I’m going to be  writing several stories…..which I hope some will be able to recognise as part of their own stories, and hopefully, may find some of their solutions hiding amongst all the things I will write about. Their story is different and  their solutions different, but if they get an idea from what they see, then perhaps it has all be worthwhile.

There were days when I felt as though I was in several places at once. Today was one of those days. I’d dropped my kids off at school, having had a tremendous battle on my hands to be allowed the privilege of waiting until they were both at Primary School before I went back to work. I just loved that statement – as though I had been having an extended holiday because I was at home and not out earning money, since that was his citeria for describing work, acceptable work, it had to produce money – for ‘him’, although he would disagree there too. It was never for ‘him’, it was for ‘us’, for when we finally retired and we could do all those things he wouldn’t or couldn’t do now because he was too worried we wouldn’t have enough money and we would end up like his father, almost broke and living on unemployment benefits – or the pension. The truth was he was totally anal retentive as far as money was concerned. I simply hadn’t seen it until it was too late and years of brain washing had convinced me I was not only stupid, dumb and useless, but I was also fat, ugly and totally non descript. That was one of his favourite sayings, mostly in reference to my eyes, which are hazel, but he couldn’t describe the colour he claimed, they were as non descript as the rest of me. Why the hell did he ever marry me if he thought that?

At first I thought it was because he simply wanted someone to ‘look after him’ but I’d slowly come round to the theory that he liked having someone he could ‘put down’ – it made him feel good. It was such a pathetic line, one I should have seen as a bloody cover up and didn’t, once again, he felt so bad about himself if he couldn’t ‘kick’ one of the few people who couldn’t protect themselves then he felt like a second class citizen. But that also said a whole lot about me. If I was willing to allow myself to be brainwashed – to believe something I’d previously never even considered… what did that say about my self esteem, my supposed intelligence?

The truth of course was very simple. I didn’t have such a fabulous elf esteem. I was painfully shy, meeting people was agonising and actually peaking to someone I didn’t;t know, well even people I knew caused me severe nerves. So I was a prime candidate to convince of my ‘unworthiness’.  The strange thing was, I was willing, to a  large extent to go along with this warped view of myself as long as no one else was affected by it. When my children were born things began to change.  It was okay to hurt me, to abuse me psychologically to the extent that I felt totally useless and worthless, but when his attention was turned towards the children. Suddenly I found I couldn’t accept that any longer. Attack me – not my babies! 

But how did I get myself into this mess in the first place?

At the same time there was an inquiry underway, the Fitzgerald inquiry. (Actually, it was after the children had started school, which brought with it  problems they should never have been exposed to. Slanderous, nasty comments in the playground, repeated by the children who heard their parents saying these same things, and this from our neighbours, people who knew us.)

  There was so much said at that time, some true, some blatantly untrue, and so many generalisations. Even though I was no longer a serving police officer I was infuriated by some of his comments, particularly the one where he said “All currently serving police officers were from the lower socio economic background and therefore of lower intelligence”. That’s the phrase that sticks and perhaps is paraphrased somewhat but that was his intention.  It was his ‘out’  to blame the lower educational standard which had been acceptable for so long by the QPS and the Government for the behaviour of what amounted to a small  number of the police department.  Being politically correct is difficult, back in those days it was called a Police Force, meaning a force against the criminal element… the law breakers in our society. It is such a pathetic sham that it is politically incorrect to call the people who are supposed to uphold the law  no longer a force against the tyranny and lawlessness of the criminal element.  The police are a service, but they often forget that  still.  But that too is another story.  His reaction to the comments of the inquiry were horrendous.

Each and every published piece, article on the news, on the radio, discussed in parliament, which adversely commented on the police officers, was taken as a direct attack on his own personal integrity.  He was a good police investigator – he knew people, knew how to talk to them and to build a rapport with them to get them to open up about the things they, the police, needed to find out about.  He was terrible as an administrator, but as  serving officer, he was damned good. Perhaps too good. All those wonderful skills  employed as a psychological tactic to bring offenders to justice were honed and polished at home.  We, his family, whom he should have been protecting from the outside horrors, we were as much a target for his hypochondria as everyone else, more so.  We were held to higher standards than anyone else. Perfection was all that was accepted and how many of us can live up to that every hour of the day, day after day, week after week and year after year.

I had recognised what was happening. It’ strange how having children makes you see things more clearly.  The higher up in rank he became, the more study he needed to do. He hated studying. The law he knew since he used it daily. All his courses, all the assignments he had to do, all of which were done at home in those days, were researched, noted and written by myself.  He employed the tactics, I learned them as the department expected them to be learned, and I understood everything  I wrote about. I was fortunate, studying was easy and the subjects fascinating. Let’s not forget, I had been a police officer. It was only my ‘ex’ who had brow beaten me into resigning… another idiotic move on my part.  He hadn’t wanted his wife as a member of the police – make his chances of promotion harder, and I believe he was afraid I might overshadow him…. qualifications, tertiary qualifications were becoming more and more required and I had that over him in spades.  It would have made for an interesting situation. That and it was still not accepted by the majority of male officers that female officers were able to make proficient police members. Another tale to be told.

So where did the bank come into the picture?

In his ultimate wisdom, he had decided I was being wasted at home. Me, the stupid, ignorant and dumb housewife, who couldn’t get anything right, was being wasted sitting at home when I could be at work earning a living, and doing the housework, looking after  the children and of course him! Does the incongruity of that situation strike anyone else as funny? So, after looking around it was decided that the bank was a suitable avenue for me to get work. Respectable, a good job, and I could fit it into my daily routine.