But instead of recovering from a cesarean just days earlier, the Wagga woman was choked, strangled, thrown against walls, pushed and pulled “like a rag doll” by the father of her children and the man she should have trusted most.

The prominent businesswoman, who wished not to be named, has broken her silence on the insidiousness of domestic violence that took place within the walls of a home she made with her former husband some seven years ago. 

As The Advertiser drives its End The Cycle campaign to lift the lid on domestic and family violence, the woman reflects on the shame and blame associated with it. She wants to address misconceptions of why women cannot “just walk away” and that it can happen to the most unsuspecting of people.

The couple ran in high social circles and he seemed the perfect doting parent and partner – but physical and emotional violence started behind closed doors over time. It was the scream of their toddler who woke to the sound of her being thrown against the wall that stopped the man’s rage that night she brought their second baby home.

“That broke him. I just ran in terror,” she said. “I thought this is not healthy and this is going to get worse.”

The woman, in her early 40s, relocated to Wagga and is happily remarried. “It's hard to explain the guilt a person feels about walking away from a relationship when there are children involved,” she said. "It's important for people to understand the complexity of family violence - the popular view of people who have not experienced the issue themselves is that the victim should just be strong and walk away, but the paradox is, that in the context of a family, the victim can feel that walking away is the coward's way out.”