I am not bitter - Lemalu

Businesswoman Lemalu Sina Retzlaff has urged mothers who are suffering in abusive relationships to seek help. For many of them, she says they believe that suffering is normal.

For Lemalu, it was her “normal” for a while.

A day after she broke her silence publically about being in an abusive relationship, she tells the Samoa Observer that she fell in love and she never imagined herself a victim, much less a ‘survivor’ of years of domestic violence.

“If someone told me the person I fell in love with would be doing what he did to me over the years I would say ‘no way’,” Lemalu says.

“I fell in love with an almost timidly humble young man who was very successful in what he did. And I respect that the discipline that he applied to his chosen profession was at a high level and ended up making him one of the best in the world in his profession.”

The man in question is her former husband, Muliagatele Brian Lima. A former Manu Samoa, Muliagatele was arrested and charged for causing actual bodily harm and being armed with a dangerous weapon in relation to an incident involving Lemalu last week.

Lemalu says the attack last week was the latest in a series of incidents.

The first very public incident was six years ago before the 2007 Rugby World Cup. This was the first time she realised she no longer had any boundaries.

“We had an incident that went public,” she said. “And my father’s note to me to was place your boundaries around you and make sure everybody knows where they are.

“It was the first time I realised that all my boundaries had collapsed, that it wasn’t about me anymore it was about him.”

The second public incident was when her former partner chopped off her hair.

“I came to an impasse where the incident had gone beyond a boundary that you didn’t think it would go beyond,” she says. “In my case and I am trying to keep this very general, but in my case it was when my hair was cut, just chopped off.

“I was very fortunate my impasse, my incident - that made me think it is now beyond the boundary it’s time to leave was that - it could have been worse.

“But that’s when I thought I would leave “Leaving was very difficult, even today.

“It has been three and half years since I left. June of 2010 was when I moved out and then the divorce proceedings were granted two years ago in 2011.

“It is now three and a half years since I moved out and left, which means my ex-husband and I were no longer living together.”

This is why this latest incident was so unexpected.

“In this case I was totally taken by surprise you know,” she said.

“You thought you moved on and you are trying to move on. Then for the first 24 hours afterwards, I thought, is this ever going to end is this it for me forever?”

It wasn’t forever. Lemalu finally found a self that was stronger than she ever imagined – she was a survivor and one that would not live in the deafening silence of spousal abuse any longer.

It doesn’t mean that living with the abuse in the preceding years hasn’t taken its toll.

“You are actually tip-toeing around the situation. You are thinking twice about how you wear your hair, the length of your skirt, you are to think twice about saying the wrong things, you get to learn what the triggers are and then you avoid all those triggers.

“So you are actually living like you are walking on eggshells.

“In a moving car whether you change the station to Corey because that is what you want to hear in the morning, your partner may not want to hear Corey, he may want to hear Sioeli in the morning.

“That might be a very normal conversation for a different type of relationship to have in the morning – ‘Honey I want to hear Corey this morning because there is something happening’.

“In these situations you are driving in you are just making sure whatever the station is its theirs.

“If you do turn it, you know exactly what the wrath is going to be, what the reaction is going to be – so you do tiptoe around.”

She said this was becoming her “normal.”

“The children were young but it was becoming my normal,” she said.

“It was my norm to tippy-toe, it was my norm to walk on eggshells, it was my norm to think twice before saying, speaking, thinking, touching things.

“I was becoming somebody who thought twice before going and saying hello to somebody in public especially males because like I said, to think the most common part of the abuse is the accusation of an affair, it becomes quite embarrassing in a small community.”

She said often what is not understood is that this behaviour towards a survivor of domestic violence is sustained and controlling.

“It is not a one off incident of a man who has a bad day and knocks around a woman,” she said.

“It is the result of daily emotional abuse and the women are being verbally abused on a daily basis.

“That is the environment that they are living in, we are living in constant verbal abuse. I received texts constantly for the last three years despite having left.

“I got texts right up until this incident.”

She said her situation is not unique and that in a PPDVP study on reported cases here in Samoa every one of them had horrible verbal words.

“So its not a case of one off not controlling your anger and hitting someone,” she said. “It is a sustained verbal really ugly, really ugly verbal abuse.

“What the studies say the most common one is you are a whore, and then you are ugly and then you are useless. Another one I found that was very common was your friends are all talking about you your friends hate you.”

She said in learning about domestic violence she came to understand that this was the process of isolation – the abuser comes across as charming and you fall in love with them. Then the abuse starts.

“There is an illusion created that you are the stronger more controlling partner,” she said.

“There is an illusion created that you are the more dominant partner. When I hear that in researching the issue it really took me back because I was Brian’s agent, I negotiated his contracts. So there was this illusion that you can do all that that is your role.”

She said there was also constant build up of your successes

“They build you up a lot – ‘you’re smart’, ‘you’re funny’, ‘you’re beautiful’ all the things you want to here,” she said.

“So yes you fall in love. But the very things they tell you that they are attracted to you for are the very things that then get destroyed throughout an abusive relationship.

“Those are the very things that get attacked first. You go from ‘you are so smart, you are so intelligent, boy you’re so clever’ to ‘gee you’re a fiapoko you think you’re so smart, you think that because you have a degree and I don’t, that’s what it is isn’t it?’

“So this is the kind of thing that starts.”

She also had the children to think of.

“We are a very public case and always have been and that also has an impact on the boys,” she said. “I guess why now (about speaking out) it has always been about the boys with me.”

She said it was in the aftermath of this last incident that for the first time she did not make excuses for her ex-partner to her sons.

“On the Friday I was at home, I woke up and had a session with my sons and tried to make them understand,” she said. “Again nothing bitter I could see the disappointment in their faces (with) what happened.

“I said ‘it was dad’ and they just understood and then I said ‘well you know he was angry and I am not going to make excuses for him this time’.

“We had a good session about that this is mum’s face. It is now difficult to protect them when they have to see their mother looking like this.”

Saying that though, she said she was trying to make this interview as independent as possible.

“So I don’t seem to be angry person I don’t want to make it a situation where I’m trying to lay blame on the abuser – he remains the father of my children,” she said.

“I would like to say Sophie that throughout the whole process, I still believe that the boys need to maintain a relationship at the end of the day it is there father.

“That has been the most difficult part of having to speak about this and I think for many women that would be the same case.

At the end of the day you have children and it’s their dad and every kid wants to have a cool dad.

“And you try very hard to try and shelter the children from it.

“I urge every woman that is in this situation to not paint an unnecessarily ugly picture of their partners when there are children involved. To try as much as possible to protect the children from that and they can still maintain a relationship with their dads.”

She said this last incident they had broken through another boundary.

“I thought I had broken all the boundaries and moved on,” she said.

“We need to be aware that not only do you need to be doing support around your families around your women during the time when they are in a relationship.

“I think it is important to understand that we need to also take care when women leave the relationship.

“I have three boys and they have to know that it is wrong. Again when I say that I am very aware that I would like my boys to love their father and never take that away.

“But as boys in general growing up they need to know that it is not normal behaviour that this is not a normal situation.

“I am not bitter and I do pray that people who can and have connections to offer support to Brian and his family also at this time.”

To be continued…

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