I gave myself the gift of freedom

Jane Fraser, 37, from Rondebosch, Cape Town, lives with her sons, Quinn, 12, and Griffin, 10. She reflects on picking up the pieces, both emotionally and financially after her marriage suddenly broke down

I arrived home on a Friday evening to find Richard rushing out of the door at 4.30pm. Our sons’ nanny told me he had only just woken up for the day! I was irked butassumed he’d worked late the night before. I unpacked my bags and was organising things so that we could have a relaxing
weekend when I went through to the spare bedroom to file something and noticed the
children’s PC game box on the floor. I picked it up and saw that it was soiled. I saw a curled up piece of paper nearby and the penny dropped. Cocaine…

Things fall apart
Richard and I met online in 1996 and had a strong connection from the start; we were even born 10 years apart to the day. He taught me a lot, we had fun together and he opened me to many new experiences. Although there were bad times, we never lost the ability to talk and have fun.

He’d always had psychological issues – in his twenties he was diagnosed as schizophrenic, but he was functional and we had a good life together… until the drugs pushed him over the edge and he pretty much unravelled. He became unstable and destructive.

One year, on my birthday, he intimidated me so much that I phoned my father in Pretoria, in hysterics. It was as though Richard was trying to abduct us by forcing us into his car and, when I refused, he said I was overreacting, deranged and psychotic. My father was extremely worried and on the verge of calling the police. I knew I wasn’t imagining things and his behaviour worsened to the point that, on another occasion, when I refused to give him money, he tried to drive over me and I had to jump out of the way.

Until that moment I had no idea that Richard had developed a cocaine habit and no one told me either. Once it came to light, my helper told me she had known but didn’t want to aggravate the situation at home, as things had become volatile.

Richard was very controlling and manipulative, he was good at making me believe that everything was in my head and I was the one losing my mind. When he eventually started falling apart, I realised I was not imagining it. I knew I had to get the boys out and sought legal advice then started the process of getting a protection order against Richard.

It was traumatic to see their father screaming, crying and, at times, even lashing out at them, so I initiated the divorce and got the boys into play therapy to help them deal with this difficult time. We were a dualincome couple doing pretty well and I was even considering quitting my day job as a corporate IT project manager to pursue my passion and start a doula birthing business; that idea soon fell by the wayside.

By the time we were divorced I discovered he’d emptied his bank accounts, the boys’ bank accounts, all the policies we had and several hundred thousand rands from our bond, too. Our medical aid had lapsed and our phone was months in arrears.

Despite a maintenance agreement in our divorce papers, I never saw a cent as he lost his job and then disappeared after months of chaos, stealing things from our home and demanding more money from me. We haven’t heard from him for two years.

Read more in the March issue