'I stayed in a toxic marriage for 20 years. This was the moment I finally handed my ring back.'

Sienna* had been with her husband for 10 years before she started to realise who she had really married.

By that time, they shared three teenage children together and their lives were so intertwined.

Their relationship was slow to unravel.

A drip-feed of small changes and compromises that, on their own, didn't seem alarming, but over time reshaped the entire dynamic of their marriage.

They would stay together for another decade before Sienna fully grasped the extent of the control, manipulation, and betrayal that had defined their relationship from the start.

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"It's the analogy about putting a frog in boiling water. You know, if you put it in cold water and turn it up you don't really realise?" Sienna told Mamamia.

"There was toxic behaviour around financial control, coercive control, and psychological control that really crept in from about 10 years. It would be things like gradually taking control of the finances to the point where I had to present a receipt for everything that I purchased. That wasn't there at the beginning, but by the end it was, and you just think, 'How the hell did that become a normal practice?'"

There were other signs too, like isolating Sienna from her family.

"At the start [of the relationship] he would say, 'Oh, no, we can't go to that birthday party. We're busy that weekend'. By the end it would be, 'We're not spending any time with your family because I don't like them'. It just creeps in so gradually, in a way that you don't kind of realise it's happening.

"It almost becomes your norm until you look back, and you go, 'Well, hang on a second. That's actually not normal. That's actually not okay.'"

Throughout their marriage, Sienna says, there were also multiple instances of infidelity.

"There were certainly examples of infidelity right from the beginning, even before we got married," she said.

Each time, she would confront her husband about the affairs, but he would turn it back on his wife.

"It's the typical narcissist. If it happened, 'No, it didn't happen' but if it did, 'It's your fault,'" Sienna said.

"It would start with, 'You're overreacting, it's just a bit of fun. Everyone does this'. And then, as the years went on, it would be, 'Take a look at yourself, you're nothing to look at. There's the door. If you want to go, if you don't want to put up with this, no one else is going to love you. Just walk out the door.'"

Eventually, right before COVID-19, the family decided they needed a fresh start. So, they packed up their bags and moved interstate.

"We wanted to challenge ourselves and our family for a clean slate," Sienna said.

She had changed careers, and their kids had changed schools. But Sienna was hopeful things would be different this time.

Then, she found messages on her husband's phone. 

Image: Getty.

"When he continued to cheat after I had moved our family, changed careers to support him, I just went, 'This is never going to stop. Even a lockdown is not going to make you stop.'"

In that moment, as she held the phone, Sienna knew it was over for good. 

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"I handed back my wedding ring. I said, 'I'm out, I'm done'. So I was just really clear, I handed the rings back and said, 'that's the end of it. I'm moving into the spare bedroom.'"

Sienna collected her things from their shared room and relocated down the hall that same day, unable to leave the house due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

"There was such a clarity with which that decision was made. I never wavered a single day after that," she said.

Her husband was stunned.

"I think that he was really quite startled with the unwavering approach and my refusal to get any further counselling."

For two months, he tried to find a solution. But Sienna was adamant. 

"It didn't matter how much he pleaded or argued. I just went, 'No, decision is made.' I think probably I had already grieved the relationship and was almost waiting for the opportunity to go.

Eventually, Sienna's husband stopped trying to bargain with her and turned to the blame game.

"It shifted back to the old behaviour of 'Well, it's your fault.' The narrative changed to 'You're the one that's walking away. You're the one letting the marriage down by not even trying to resolve it.' This was four years ago and still, to this day, he will not say 'You left because of my behaviour'. It's always, 'you let the family down, you changed the family dynamic.'"

Sienna, however, knew she was doing the best thing for her family by leaving.

"I made my decision in the end because I had teenage daughters at the time and I just realised I do not want them to look at this as an example of a relationship and think it would be okay for themselves."

While the kids weren't privy to their father's infidelity until later in life, they were "aware of his poor behaviour" in other ways. So the divorce wasn't completely out of the blue.

"They were probably surprised but not shocked," Sienna said. "My son even said, 'You should have left years ago.'

"They were very accepting of my decision and very resilient in going, 'Yep, this is the right thing, and we're all just moving forward together.'"

After handing her rings back, Sienna wasted no time.

"By lunchtime that day, I had new bank accounts, a new email address and a lawyer. It was such a clear-cutting of ties."

While she was taking steps to distance herself from her ex-husband, Sienna was "forced to stay in the household with him for the rest of that year".

"That was the worst thing I've ever done, and I should have never occupied the same space as him," she said.

Even when they moved back interstate, the couple stayed in their family home, in separate rooms, while they sorted out the logistics.

"Going through the trauma and the grief and the logistical upheaval while maintaining a very stable front for the kids was the most excruciating part of the entire thing," said Sienna. "I didn't have a choice but to be the parent that showed up."

'We have to do all the work.'

For Sienna, in those early days of the separation, it was important to make incremental changes towards independence.

"After a lengthy marriage, you're so intertwined in your lives, it takes a lot to unpick," she explained.

"Even though you're in a state of shock, it's important to maintain momentum to unpick those threads and do something every day. It could be a small thing. It could be ringing and making an appointment to see a solicitor. It could be looking for houses to rent, or inquiring about schools in the area.

"So many married couples have a joint email address or something, so get your own, transfer your subscriptions, start a savings plan. In every action that you take, do something towards a new life for yourself. There are things that you could do every single day that disconnect you from the partnership."

All the divorce admin fell onto Sienna's shoulders, rather than her partner's.

Image: Getty.

"In every case that I've heard, the overwhelming emotional load that women carry to leave toxic relationships is never identified," she said.

"We have to do all the work. We have to re-establish the children's lives, find new homes, often find new jobs, re-establish budgets and living standards. A relationship breakup is not equal in any stretch of the imagination."

These days, Sienna lives happily with her new partner. But she is still healing from past trauma.

"Some of my responses to my new partner's behaviour are a legacy to what I've experienced before," she explained. "That constant narrative of 'It's your fault' left me with the trauma that I wasn't good enough as a wife or a partner.

"So, my new partner, let's just say he's had a busy day at work, and he doesn't text me back, which is such a minor thing, I can feel my anxiety rising thinking 'I need to try harder. I'm not good enough'. That's the legacy narrative.

"All it means is that my new partner has had a busy day. It doesn't actually mean that our relationship is at risk, but I'm so programmed after 20 years to think that everything that goes wrong is my fault."

After extensive counselling, Sienna is in a much better place.

"I think I come from a position of strength now. At the time, not so much, but when you make that decision, if you grab the bull by the horns, you have to run. You literally have to run into the new life, grab it with both hands, and you will come out the other side. It's the only way to find the strength."

*Sienna's name has been changed for privacy reasons.

Feature Image: Getty (Stock image for illustrative purposes only).