Sarah Kanowski

Probably a third of them were people saying, what an incredible story.

I'm so sorry you had to go through that experience.

Wow, what a Hitchcockian sort of story that was.

and some of them were, a few of them were people who recognised some of the characteristics I described, his dog, his four-wheel drive, and said, I know who you're talking about, including family members, his family members.

What did his family say?

They were very sorry that this was not the first time in their lives that they'd had to deal or heard this story.

And they were very sorry that I had to go through that experience.

But by far the bulk of the responses, I would say, were from people saying, thank you, that happened to me.

Women and men, some men, saying I was with a character like that, it broke me.

And the trauma that people that have been in these relationships go through is absolutely immense.

I mean, you can't compare one relationship breakdown with another.

These relationships seem to have a very special capacity to wreak havoc.

And often there's financial havoc.

I was very fortunate that he didn't ask me for money and I didn't give him any money.

So financially, I wasn't the worst off for it.

But a lot of people lose a lot of money or they have children with these people and then have a life ahead of them where they've got to engage with that person.

Did it leave you with a sense of shame?

Yes.

Yes, deep sense of shame.

And it was the main reason I didn't want to write about it publicly.