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decided she might as well follow suggestions and have an affair, effectively ending the marriage. He would not, she knew, leave her under any other circumstances and she was certain he would not want to continue the marriage when he was finally told that she had taken a lover.
    To this length she had participated in a short-lived affair three years into the marriage, mainly as a vain attempt to regain her freedom a blundering error made in futility, not wanting to continue any longer in the vindictive mess that was their marriage.
    Later, under pressure, she had admitted to him what she had done when he returned from a trip away working and she awaited the affirmation that they would part. It did not eventuate the way she had planned, much to her distress and disgust, as she knew there could be no proper reconciliation, just more years of the same accusations and nagging.
    Conrad and his big brother, hulking great Arnold with his red face, large head, his lantern jaw and horsey features, had bombarded her with questions to gain the maximum amount of detail in the minimum possible time. Then they had bullied her into remaining tied to her husband, very much against her will. Her unhappiness was immeasurable and she had no hope of rescuing anything worthwhile from the chaos.
    As expected, the whole debacle of the reconciliation did nothing to improve the marriage but as she had not intended for the union to be resumed, the consequences were as devastating as Conrad could possibly have wished for. He wallowed in chaos—it was meat and drink to him. He enjoyed watching her in her misery trying to keep in even temperament while she tended in agony to her little girls.
    She resented the outcome of the enforced renewed bond with her husband and the failure of her bid for freedom, but eventually succeeded in putting the episode behind her and tried to make the best of a bad bargain, attempting to be the wife and mother she had wanted to be in her girlhood fantasies, but never getting anything right in the eyes of her husband. Although he claimed to forgive her, the pattern of his daily accusations that he had seen the man near the house, parked nearby in his car or driving away began and continued unceasingly for the rest of their time together.
    From time to time he told her how very much he loved her. She believed him and tried to reciprocate, while at the same time wondering how he could possibly love her when she was as stupid, insignificant and incompetent as he was forever telling her she was. Never able to live up to his expectations of her, she was often exhausted mentally and physically while she tried to cope with her children, her demanding husband who was even jealous of her devotion to their children, the pressure put upon her by being forced to drive hundred of miles to help with his machinery business as well her own needs to be part of her extended family and to be a part of the group of the few friends she was allowed to have.
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    C onrad got much mileage out of the blunder she had made in trying to free herself, using the affair to torture her for the rest of their married life, to hold her down and to nag her through many sleepless nights. He had generally kept her downtrodden with regard to what she had done in an effort to find her own life for herself and her girls, so that many times she wished only for death.
    However, they battled on together for several more years, bought a house on the Never-never and Annie found she was expecting again. The girls were growing nicely. Ruth was about to begin her schooling at Belsen Primary School and Sarah was ready to embark on her career at Kindergarten. Annie was quietly excited at the prospect of having another child and Conrad thought a baby could be acceptable if it happened to be a boy, which turned out to be the case. Conrad never ceased to throw the past affair in Annie’s face, dragging it into the present,  but not for one moment did he