Vicki Anstey

But, you know, when you're in a relationship for that length of time, you just think...

this is normal and it's a model that my parents lived by as well and so then you know that felt like familiar and acceptable um but yeah just over time certain things kind of crept in and I started questioning them and daring to do that how long did it take you from those first kind of seeds of doubt that this was forever to actually tell him that it was over

I think probably a couple of years, probably festering, sort of bubbling under the surface, maybe at that point without me even realising it.

But just certain things that were out of bounds, like getting a light bulb out of the loft or something.

You know, questions that I'd ask about my business and the running of that business that I wasn't allowed to have visibility over.

And actually one key character in my book, a business mentor that I really wanted to work with, a lady by the name of Erica, helped me to see a lot, not...

She didn't try to show me that there were necessarily alarm bells that I should be listening to.

But just through the process of working with her to build the profile of my business and to build a strategy around it that I didn't have at that time, the friction that that created between us and our marriage started to make me reassess.

You know what that relationship was really about.

And it certainly was becoming far more controlling than it ever had been in the past.

How do I set up a bank account?

I mean, these questions just sound crazy, don't they?

was admired by all these women coming in to be taught by you and yet on the other side of the coin was this person who didn't have much control at all yeah and I think that environment you know okay I set it up and but I think it was created by everybody who was part of it and I think that started to show me as well you know there were women like yourself who were there and

becoming stronger every day using an amazing exercise methodology that was very little known back then.

And it was transforming people.

And I think in the process of that, it was transforming me as well.

So we were sort of projecting this strength onto each other.

It was an amazing environment of empowerment.

And so I reflect on lots of examples of that, like my friendship group where

Suddenly you just feel this overwhelming sense that you can't let those people down.