Sometimes the most revealing question is also the simplest. When did love ever enter the arena? Looking back over decades, the pattern becomes difficult to ignore. A man stacking chocolate bars marries a woman who has completed her exams, secured a stable teaching career and brings financial security into the relationship. Together, she invests years… Read More When Did Love Ever Enter the Arena?
“If anything ever happens to me, my children will look after you.” It sounds comforting. It sounds reassuring. It sounds like a promise of security. But psychology suggests that promises about future generosity are often easier to make than to keep—especially when the money belongs to someone else. After observing people’s behaviour for decades, actions… Read More “Don’t Worry, They’ll Look After You.” The Psychology of Inheritance and Why Money Changes People
People look at the wedding photograph and ask the same question. “Why the rush?” Why a whirlwind wedding in Las Vegas? Why get married just before moving to France? Why sell your own secure home which took years to buy, give-up a successful career, financial independence, family and lifelong friends so quickly? For years, I… Read More The Wedding Was Quick. The Control Lasted Thirty-Two Years.
People look at the wedding photograph and ask the same question. “Why the rush?” Why the quick engagement? Why the quick wedding? Why leave behind a secure home, a career, friends and family to move to another country? Looking back now, the answers seem painfully obvious. At the time, they were invisible. That is the… Read More Looking Back: The Psychology of Isolation, Control and the Illusion of Choice
“Your sanity is worth a lot more.” It wasn’t the advice I expected to stay with me. It wasn’t a legal argument or a financial calculation. It was a simple recognition of something neuroscience and psychology have been telling us for decades: Chronic stress is expensive. Not just emotionally, but physically, cognitively and neurologically. After… Read More The Price of Peace: Why Walking Away Is Sometimes the Greatest Victory
The story of Susan Kuhnhausen is extraordinary. She survived because she possessed a rare combination of experience, training, physical skill, and the ability to remain functional under extreme stress. She had spent thirty years as an emergency room nurse. She had treated violent injuries. She had encountered people in crisis. She had practised self-defence techniques,… Read More Why Most Survivors Are Not Susan Kuhnhausen
A person’s opinion is formed from the information available to them. In psychology, behaviour is the most reliable data we have because intentions are private, but actions are observable. If someone: Says they want a relationship but repeatedly disappears. Says, “I’ll see you next week,” and then doesn’t follow through. Ignores messages for days while… Read More Behaviour Creates Reputation
For years, survivors have carried an impossible burden. “Why didn’t you know?” “Why didn’t you leave?” “Didn’t you see the signs?” The truth is that many abusers do not introduce themselves as violent. They introduce themselves as charming, attentive, generous, funny, and devoted. The coercive control often begins quietly and escalates over time. A publicly… Read More The Past Doesn’t Always Stay in the Past
People keep saying the same thing to me. “You look different.” “You seem so much more relaxed.” “You’re smiling more.” “You’ve found your voice.” At first, I didn’t know what they meant. Then I realised they weren’t seeing a new version of me. They were seeing the version that had been buried for years. Abuse… Read More You Only Realise How Bad It Was Once You’re Free
Annabel Rook had dedicated her life to protecting vulnerable women, yet her own life was ended violently by her controlling partner, in the home they shared together. “I’m sure the irony is not lost on people,” Annabel’s father, Peter Rook, says. “Because here she was, the great safeguarder of women. But who was safeguarding her,… Read More “Overwhelming” evidence of his short temper and a pattern of abuse.
