‘I mistook his obsessive neediness for real love’

Independence

Upon graduating from secondary school, I was accepted to study fashion design at Belfast Metropolitan College. The thought of continuing my studies and having no money didn’t appeal to me. At seventeen, I wanted to be independent and be able to buy myself nice things, so I told my parents I would not be going to college. I wanted a job. I looked through the classifieds. An accountancy firm called O’Kane’s was seeking an accounts typist. The office was near Queens University in Belfast. 

In preparation for the interview, my mum bought me a black pencil skirt and a houndstooth jacket that accentuated my tiny little waist. With my blond hair in a bun, I looked very smart. My dad drove me to the interview and waited for me outside. The partners’ secretary, who was called Nuala, came down the stairs to greet me. She was lovely and had a happy, warm, engaging face. “I love your hair and your outfit,” she said.

I was still quite shy, so I didn’t know what to say. 

She interviewed me for about ten minutes. Then she said, “I would like to offer you the job.” 

 “Yes!” I replied straight away. “Thank you!” 

Nuala informed me I would be earning £218 a month. 

“That’s grand,” I said. In my excitement, I had forgotten to ask her about the salary. “See you on Monday!” 

I skipped out of the office feeling like I had won the lottery. 

Later that day, Nuala rang me to confirm the details. She said, “You just looked so beautiful I had to give you the job.” 

This surprised me, as I was not that confident about my looks. She hadn’t even asked me about my typing speed. To be honest, I wasn’t a great typist.   

I managed to get myself up every morning at six to catch a lift with my dad to the train station. I would ride the early train to Belfast and walk the three miles to the office in time to start work at nine. At the end of the workday, I would walk to the station to catch the train back to Antrim. Sometimes my dad would pick me up at the station, but usually I would just walk home. It was just so exciting to be working in the Big Smoke, as I had spent most of my life in the countryside.  

I loved working at O’Kane’s. When I met all the junior auditors, I remember thinking: What a big world I am in now. The firm was like a family to me. Nuala was my second mum, and Lind and Angela were my big sisters. Being the most junior employee, I was tasked with making the tea and coffee. I had no problem with this for the first year, and then it started to annoy me. 

The clients liked me. They would give me presents at Christmas, much to the annoyance of Angela, who had worked there for many years and had never received so much as a box of chocolates. I had fun working there, and I started to grow as a person and find my personality and confidence.   

My boss—Wee Hugh, as he was known—wore a hairpiece. In the summer, we could see the glue running down his forehead. He smoked cigars, so the place always stank of cigars. He would shout down the stairs at Nuala, and she would reply, “Yes, Mr. O’Kane, I am on my way!” 

She ran up and down the stairs of the three-story Victorian house, her heels hammering against the steps like a machine gun. Constantly running up and down those stairs kept us all fit. Mr. O’Kane would sometimes grab our asses as we walked past. In those days, no one took sexual harassment seriously. You were expected to just laugh it off. 

When I had been there for two years, I knew it was time for me to move on. As much as I loved working there, I knew there would not be any room for me to grow. I needed a higher income and I wanted to develop myself, so I decided to sign up with a recruitment agency. Before long, I interviewed for a job as a receptionist and purchase ledger clerk at a printing company called Lumaset. Though its head office was in Dublin, it had one sales director in Belfast. He was called Charlie. At my interview, he didn’t ask me too many questions. I had barely left their offices when I got the call from the agency to say I had the job. Perhaps I was just lucky. Charlie was a character. He was addicted to tennis, so we knew we could always find him hitting balls at the boat club after work.

As a Catholic, I feared being attacked on the way out of work.”

By this stage I had earned my driver’s license, so my dad would let me take his car to work on the days he was not using it. I missed my O’Kane family so much that I would still go over there to have my lunch. O’Kane’s was in a predominantly Catholic area, so I felt comfortable there. Lumaset was based on the Donegal Road, which was a hugely loyalist area. As a Catholic, I feared being attacked on the way out of work. Once I became better acquainted with my colleagues, I began to enjoy working there, and I enjoyed my trips to Dublin. It is such a big and exciting city.   

First Love 

At around the same time as I was taking these first steps into my new world and starting work at O’Kane’s, I encountered my first love. My mum would always push me to go out to discos with Brenda. At that time, we both were very innocent.

Neither of us had ever kissed a boy, and the notion of having sex seemed light years away.”

I was two months away from my seventeenth birthday, and Brenda was two years older than me. Neither of us had ever kissed a boy, and the notion of having sex seemed light years away. I had long, blond hair, which my mum would patiently crimp for me, even though it took forever. I thought I was just so cool. At the same time, I didn’t think I was anything special, but I had started to get a lot of attention from boys. I had a tiny waist and large breasts, but I was not aware of how beautiful my figure was. 

My sister was extremely keen on a particular night at a new bar in the city called Bosco’s, but I was never all that interested in going out to Belfast, as I always felt it was a dangerous place. My dad worked in the city, and one evening he would be attending a late meeting there, so he offered to drive us to the bar and collect us afterwards. Feeling comfortable with this arrangement, I agreed to accompany Brenda on her night out. Off we went into the Big Smoke. 

My dad worked for British Telecom as an engineer.  He had witnessed a lot of sectarian conflict in his workplace, which was based in Ballysillan, a predominantly loyalist area. Through his increased involvement with the trade unions, he became increasingly passionate about helping people of both religions to work together in harmony and advocated against sectarian intimidation between Catholics and Protestants in the workplace. This was the start of the great contribution that my dad made to Northern Ireland politics and the peace process. He wanted everyone to coexist peacefully, and he hoped for the day the Troubles would end. 

He had personally witnessed many terrible things. One evening while he was working, he was commanded to drive a vehicle alleged to contain a bomb into the RUC Police Station in West Belfast. Imagine the fear he must have felt as he drove that van through those gates without knowing what would happen. Fortunately, this turned out to be a hoax bomb threat. 

My dad was very charismatic, with a huge, infectious laugh. People just loved him. He was kind, considerate, and accommodating—perhaps to a fault. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 

As my dad dropped us off at Bosco’s, he said he would be back to pick us up at ten. “We had better not be late,” I said to Brenda as we went inside and sat down. 

I was a bit of a nerd back then. I ordered my usual — Pernod and blackcurrant — which would last me all night. Gosh, I thought, I love this music. I ran onto the small, flashing dancefloor and started to dance. My sister joined me. She kept saying she fancied some guy with curly black hair. I just kept dancing and pretty much ignored her. Later, when we sat down, she hissed, “Oh my God, he’s coming over. Don’t you dare mention that Dad is collecting us, or I will kill you.” 

I rolled my eyes. She always tried to act so grown up. Curly Hair approached us with a mate who was tall and geeky. I didn’t really understand what Brenda saw in this short, baby-faced boy. In his baggy, pleated trousers and cropped leather jacket he looked like one of the members of Spandau Ballet. The guys both tried to include me in the conversation, but I wasn’t interested. I never wanted men to get too close to me, so I always kept my distance. 

When Curly Hair offered us a lift home, I chirped, “No thanks, my daddy is collecting us!” 

Brenda flashed me devil eyes. 

“Come on, hurry up!” I said, as we walked towards the door. “Dad will be here soon.”   

Of course, after all that, my dad was uncharacteristically late. Curly Hair appeared and said, “Would you like to wait in my car?” 

He waved proudly in the direction of his white XR3i, which was parked nearby. 

“No, we wouldn’t,” I replied curtly.

My sister looked at me in horror. “Yes, we would like that very much,” she said without taking her eyes off me. 

I said, “No, we wouldn’t! Here comes Dad.” 

As I ran off, Curly Hair called after my sister, “Where will you be tomorrow night?”  

She said, “We go to Tullyglass every Saturday night!” 

When Brenda climbed into the car, she shouted at me for being a nerd. I just ignored her. 

“Who is that, anyway?” I asked her.

“His name is David. He’s lovely! He lives on the Shankill Road.” 

I was gobsmacked. The Shankill, a predominantly loyalist area, is one of the most dangerous places in Belfast. This is where the famous Shankill Road Butchers had come from. I said, “I’m going to tell Mum about this.”  

“He’s coming to meet us tomorrow night,” she said. 

 “Why did you tell him our plans?”

I could still hear his Belfast accent and the way his voice had sounded like an old man’s. I found him a little creepy. But if my sister liked him, then that was all that mattered. 

The following night, I headed out to Tullyglass with Brenda, Michelle, Maggie Rose, and Shelly, who was a few years younger than us but was great fun. Even though I had been attacked there by a group of girls the year before, I still loved the place. 

As we walked in, my sister said, “Oh my God, here comes David!” 

She ran over to join him on the dancefloor. David’s skinny mate was there, and he kept looking at me, but I paid him no attention. I was not remotely interested. I had fun with the girls and danced to my heart’s content. My sister looked so happy. 

At the end of the night, when I went to get my coat, David’s friend approached me. “David doesn’t fancy your sister,” he said. “It’s you he fancies.” 

“Well, I’m not interested in him,” I said. “He’s five years older than me.”  

As we waited for my dad to collect us, Brenda gave David our home telephone number so they could arrange a date. I didn’t tell her what David’s friend had said. Brenda was on Cloud Nine, so I didn’t want to hurt her. 

A few nights later, the phone rang. My dad answered it. “Denise! There’s a call for you.” 

It was David. He had called to ask me out. “No,” I said. “And I don’t appreciate you doing this to my sister.” I hung up. 

I went to Brenda and told her what had happened. I felt she needed to know what David was doing behind her back. She was not happy, but she didn’t make an issue of it. I said, “I won’t be meeting him,” and she said, “OK.” 

When I arrived home from work one evening a few weeks later, my mum said, “That guy David called four times tonight.”

“Oh? What did he want?”

“I think he wants to invite you to a party.” 

“He’s too old for me,” I said. “I’m not going.” I was enjoying my new job in the city and had no interest in boys.  

“OK,” she said. “I think he’s going to ring back.”  

Later that evening, he phoned again. I said I was busy. For the next two weeks, he phoned me every evening and each time I said I was busy. Eventually, he stopped phoning me. 

About a week before my seventeenth birthday, he phoned me again. “Please let me take you to the Helmsman in Bangor.” 

This time, I accepted his invitation. The Helmsman was a fabulous disco that I really wanted to visit, but I had never been there as it was so far away.  

I told my mum, “I am only going because I want to see the place.” 

“OK,” she said. “Be careful and have fun.” 

By now my sister had moved on from David, as she had found someone else to fancy, so she didn’t mind that I was going on a date with him. 

David drove up in his fancy white XR3i, and when I opened the car door a waft of aftershave hit me. It smelled like the perfume department at Brown Thomas. We had a great night. He was very nice, and I found him far more attractive than when we had first met.

One evening, David started pressuring me to have sex. I demanded that he bring me home.”

I agreed to go out with him for my birthday. I told him I was coming up to my eighteenth, but he knew I was fibbing. He picked me up in his car and presented me with my birthday presents: my first album—The Best of George Benson—and a pair of Pepe jeans. At the time, I didn’t own a pair of jeans. Ever since my mother had burned my favorite pair of jeans, I had started to dress quite conservatively. I always wore dresses or skirts. 

“You have such an amazing figure,” David said. “You should have a pair of jeans.” 

The next time we went out, I wore them and felt very sexy. 

After that, David would drive up from Belfast to collect me in his XR3i every weekend and we would go out somewhere. After our night out, we would snog in the car at Antrim Lough. It was full of cars with their windows all steamed up. One evening, David started pressuring me to have sex. I demanded that he bring me home. I was very annoyed. 

When I got home, I told my mum what had happened. 

She said, “Right, that’s it! He is far too old for you. Tell him you don’t want to see him anymore.” 

When he phoned me the next day, I said, “I don’t want to have a boyfriend. Just leave me alone.”  

Sex was never discussed in our home. I have never seen my parents or my siblings naked. To this day, I am quite reserved about sex and nudity. Throughout my life, men have always viewed me as sexy, and I could never really understand why. I was not particularly confident about my appearance. Looking back now, I understand that I never loved myself for who I was.  

A few months passed. A few phone calls later, I decided to go on another date with David. This is where it started: my first love, relationship, and marriage. I was seventeen and about to embark on my first sexual experience. I had no clue about how it should be and what to expect. 

He is extremely needy, insecure, possessive, and jealous.”

Although David is a handsome guy, as a child he had been involved in a car accident, and I believe this had caused him to harbor some insecurities. His obsession with me stemmed from these issues, and from his relationship with his overprotective mother, who was overprotective. She may have overcompensated because she blamed herself for his accident, and this likely contributed to David’s issues. He is extremely needy, insecure, possessive, and jealous. At the time, I didn’t recognise these characteristics—I thought this must be real love. Having never been shown a healthy kind of love by my mother, I didn’t know what real love would look like.

While most girls my age were out at discos and meeting boys, I was dining at fancy restaurants and going to the cinema on most nights. David would shower me with lavish gifts, and I would feel obliged to capitulate to his demands. Whenever I wanted to go out with my friends, he would start an argument with me, and it made me so upset and anxious. This made it impossible to do anything on my own—it didn’t feel worth fighting for. 

I spent every night with him. My family had left Antrim and moved to Belfast. By the time I was eighteen, we were all travelling to the city for work, so it didn’t make sense anymore, and we wanted to be in the city. David would come to see me at my parents’ place, or I would stay with him at his parents’ place. They owned a shop, and I would often help them out by working there. David became a part of our family. He was almost like another son to my mum. They all loved him, but they could see that he behaved possessively towards me. 

At my best friend’s wedding, I was having fun dancing with my dad, and David came over and said, “Your boobs are bouncing up and down, and people are looking.”   

Looking back now, I wish I’d possessed the strength to stay away.”

I had started to come out of myself and develop my confidence. I have a fun personality, just like my dad, and I was simply expressing myself at a family gathering. He was twisting it into something else and trying to make me feel ashamed. Deep down, I knew this was not right. 

We had many arguments, and many times we split up. This only ever lasted a few weeks, as he would bombard me with cards and teddy bears until I came back to him. Looking back now, I wish I’d possessed the strength to stay away. I guess I was also very insecure. I mistook his obsessive neediness for real love. I was afraid no one would ever love me like he did. 

David seemed to be overly obsessed with my body. I had a beautiful body, but I was not that sexually driven. I didn’t desire sex, but because he did, he was constantly pressuring me to perform this act. I began to dread it so much that it became very uncomfortable for me. He would say, “I love you so much. Please—just tonight, and I will let you off for a few days.” He would buy me things and say, “In return, I want to have sex four times.” 

This didn’t feel right to me. Why would I need to have sex in return for a gift? But I had never been sexually or romantically involved with anyone before him, so I had nothing with which to compare it. 

At the time, I had no idea what was going on; all I knew was that it didn’t feel right at all. I started to feel that what I wanted didn’t count. I started to hate sex. Even having relatively little experience of it, I knew it was something I really didn’t need. I did love David, and I guess I loved how much love he showed me. Was his behaviour towards me somewhat unhealthy and obsessive? I think so. Although David loved me and behaved generously towards me in certain ways, I simply knew this was not the kind of love I wanted. As the years rolled by and I matured, I began looking at other men and feeling attracted to them. Whenever I watched romcoms, I would wonder what it would be like to really fall head over heels for someone. At this point, I really should have walked away and never looked back, but I stayed with him. My insecurities kept me there. I believed no one else would ever love me like he did. I wish I had followed my instincts. If I could go back and rewrite anything in my life, this would be the thing that I would change.

When I was twenty-one, David proposed to me, and I accepted. Deep down, I knew I didn’t want to get engaged; it was simply what I felt I had to do. I felt like I was living the life of a thirty-year-old woman. I yearned to be out enjoying life, traveling, and dating boys, like other girls my age. I started going out more frequently with my friends, and this fueled escalating arguments. 

Finally, I decided I just couldn’t do it anymore. I broke off our engagement and split up with him. At the time, I had been spending even more time at his parents’ house, as I preferred being there to dealing with my mum’s controlling and abusive behavior, which had become unbearable. Losing my sanctuary was one of the toughest aspects of the breakup. 

After leaving David, I started modeling and doing motor shows. David had never wanted me to model, as he was so possessive of me. Now I had the freedom to live my life as I pleased. When I was signed to promote Peugeot at the Ulster Motor Show, I was so excited. At the show’s launch I was photographed for the cover page of the Sunday World, lounging atop a swanky convertible in a pair of sexy white short shorts, a skintight white T-shirt, and a black leather biker jacket. The same image of me appeared on the cover of the Belfast Telegraph. People would come up to me and exclaim, “Denise! You’re on the front of the Telegraph!” 

I realise I must have needed the security of having him near me. I simply could not go it alone.”

I felt like a movie star. This was such a massive confidence boost for me, and I felt that I was making my mark in the world. Although the innocence of it all makes me laugh now, working at those shows and at many Bass Ireland promotions around Belfast was incredibly empowering. I became braver and more poised and self-assured. I felt comfortable revealing my flirty, fun side, and my real personality started to shine through. 

And yet, David was never far away. He continued to linger in the background, and I kept going back to him and leaving again. I knew I was hurting him, but I couldn’t help it. He loved me so much that I couldn’t stay away. Looking back on it now, I realise I must have needed the security of having him near me. I simply could not go it alone. Whenever I tried to make it on my own, I would always end up falling back into my safety net. I was addicted to the way he loved me, even though it was slowly destroying us both.

This is an extract from Still Standing: From the Shores of Belfast to the Lights of Dublin by Denise Robinson. Denise is an IMAGE Business Club member. This month Denise launches her new podcast, ‘Enough is Enough – The Dee & Rhona Show’.