She walked in wearing a full length mink coat β not something I had ever seen in my law office. Had I looked out the window of my office a few minutes earlier, I would have seen her parking her car: a Mercedes Benz, with wipers on the headlights, no less. However, she was, indeed, in the right place. Once we dispensed with the coat, the sophisticated attitude also disappeared, and she became a frightened, insecure woman with a long story of abuse to share with me.
Maureen not her real name, of course became one of my longest-running and most challenging clients. Life had started out well for her. She had all the advantages of being born into an upper-middle class family: university professors for parents, piano and horseback riding lessons, academic encouragement, stimulating discussions around the dinner table, summer trips to Europe.
Maureen graduated from high school at the top of her class, and eventually obtained several degrees, culminating in a Ph. She began an academic career herself, met another academic in a different field, fell in love and got married. What was the path that found her, 30 years later, in my office? Turned out the man she married was a coercive controller of the worst order.
To the outside world, he was charming, solicitous and gracious. He and Maureen lived in a beautiful house and entertained frequently. She stayed at home to raise their son while his career took him to universities all around the world. Maureen stayed at home with their son because her husband did not permit her to work. He told her that she was stupid, a bad mother and ugly so often that she started to believe him.
He made sure their son got the same message about his mother. He gaslighted her until she started to doubt herself and withdrew from the world beyond their home. And that beautiful house? Just the rooms seen by guests when Maureen and her husband entertained were finished; the rest of the house was in a perpetual state of disrepair and renovation. Her jewellery β some of which she had brought into the marriage β was kept locked in a safe for which only her husband knew the code and was brought out only for special events.
