Bookpleasures.com warmlywelcomes Nunzia Mondo, author of My Silent Prison: A CautionaryTale of Spousal Abuse in the 1 Per cent. Her gripping memoirpeels back the glittering facade of expat luxury and privilege toreveal thirty years of emotional, physical, and psychological abuseendured in silence.

Nunzia shatters the illusion that wealth offersprotection from abuse. She exposes cycles of love-bombing, gaslighting, violence, and control, often rooted in her ex-husband’sborderline traits. With raw honesty, she reflects on her regretsabout her children’s pain and her hard-won path to freedom. Today,we’ll explore what sparked her writing, the earliest warning signs,expert insights, and her messages of hope for others.

Hailing from NewEngland, Nunzia launched her career in 1980s finance before crossingthe Atlantic for graduate school in London. She married a Britishclassmate who rose to entrepreneurial success, whisking her into aworld of international luxury. Yet behind the opulence, she enduredrelentless abuse for twenty-seven years. It was a final, shatteringbetrayal that gave her the courage to pursue a divorce she oncebelieved unthinkable. Today, she calls her favorite city home, livingwith less wealth but an abundance of gratitude for her newfoundfreedom. 

Norm: What ultimatelypushed you to break decades of silence and write My Silent Prison,and how did the writing process reshape your understanding of why youstayed so long? 

Nunzia: During the divorceprocess, my GP insisted I go to a psychiatrist because my nerves werefrazzled. I couldn’t sleep through the night and had terriblenightmares starring my ex-husband. 

The psychiatrist was terrific. Sheprescribed medications that got me over the hump, coached me throughsome practical issues I couldn’t figure out on my own, and posedquestions that demanded some deep dives. 

After 18 months or so, bothshe and I felt that she could do no more for me. I had to continuehealing journey on my own. Inspired by Sigmund Freud, I sat down andwrote for three days, just for myself. 

It wasn’t fun, but I wasproud of the 20 pages or so that I’d produced over that longweekend. I looked to see if anyone else had written a firsthandaccount and found only Crazy Love, which involved a loaded gun… 

Myex-husband wasn’t as certifiably nuts as the one in that memoir,but the abuse in my marriage took rather different forms that werealmost as pernicious. I thought, therefore, that my story could be auseful contribution to the topic now called “intimate partnerviolence.” 

Concurrently, I was reading truly excellent books onabuse by mental health professionals Patricia Evans, Beverly Engel,and Lundy Bancroft. 

Now I come to your thornyquestion about how the writing process reshaped my understanding ofwhy I stayed so long. In fact, the trip down memory lane washarrowing. 

As I went through the relationship year by year, Irecalled in vivid detail so many anecdotes of deliberate, protracted,relentless cruelty. So much material that I was horrified by theultimate tally. 

At the end of an evening of writing, I felt aphysical sensation of revulsion in my esophagus—with my ex-husbandand with MYSELF. Writing it all down made me furious—absolutelyfurious—and I transmogrified from victim to idiot. 

I couldn’tcome to terms with why I’d been so spineless and stupid forstaying—surveying the litany of cruelty gave me zero understandingof why I stayed for so long.

Fortunately, I didn’thave a publishing deadline, so when my life became too busy or theprocess was too upsetting, I had the luxury of putting the book downand picking it back up again over a 7- to 8-year period. 

Time led tomore grace for myself. And during this period, there was an explosionof information on the subject of abuse and personality disorders. 

Thebooks I mention earlier, the podcasts, and academic studies Ireference in My Silent Prison helped me impose a framework on the tonof anecdotes I’d amassed. I saw that a sequential rendering of mystory would not be effective; therefore, I parsed it to get rid ofless important anecdotes and then organized them into themes. 

Thewealth of knowledge that emerged during the years of writing allowedhelped me impose a cogent framework (or the illusion of one) on myyears of hell. 

In a nutshell, the writingprocess was initially painful and never cathartic—as many wouldassume it was. Forcing myself to face the horror of three decades wasthe first step in accepting it. I’m not healed, but I am at peace.I also feel that I have something to show for my pain.

I much luckierthan previous generations of women who had to stay schtum andcompletely bewildered and beaten down in their silent prisons.  

Norm: Looking back,what early moment with Tom now stands out as the unmistakable firstsign of abuse, and what internal barriers kept you from walking awaythen?

Nunzia: It must be thevery first anecdote in My Silent Prison, when Tom knocked me to thefloor, blackened my eye, bloodied my nose and lacerated my gumsbecause I had teased him with the intention of cheering him up. 

Whatkept me from walking away was that I’d never seen anything likethis before and thought that it was my fault for misreading thesituation. 

It never occurred to me that this could happen again.Plus, Tom was generous, thoughtful, attentive—so unlike my previousboyfriend of seven years. I adored Tom.

I must admit, though, thatthere were earlier signs of “control” I hadn’t recognized assuch. Telling me that I couldn’t leave the university canteen to goto the library to study. 

Demanding to know why I wasn’t cleaning upthree days’ worth of his unwashed dishes in his flat before makingtea. Expecting that I would pick up the tab for lunch, drinks,textbooks, taxis etc. 

Admonishing me for my poor manners in notsaying “thank you” frequently enough.

Norm: How didrecognizing the love bombing, devaluing, and hooveringcycle—especially in light of Tom’s borderline traits—change theway you interpret the entire arc of your marriage? 

Nunzia: After I’ddigested it all, I saw that my marriage was a sham. Tom never saw meas a true partner or friend, and he never truly loved me. Really, Iwas a vessel for his children and the family administrative assistantalways on the verge of being fired.

I don’t know if this istrue for all folks with Borderline Personality Disorder, but I’msure that Tom isn’t capable of loving anyone—other than his ownmother and three children.

Tom has had two long-termrelationships since our split. The first woman, his erstwhilemasseuse and escort, was completely unsuitable, could barely carry ona conversation, hated our children (who returned the sentiment),demanded money for her children and endless luxuries and vacationsfor herself. 

She wasn’t a “younger model” or even attractive.In fact, she was the sort of gal Tom would have labelled as “vulgar,”yet he was with her for 4-1/2 years. 

He dropped her like a hotpotato when the second woman appeared. This woman is, by allaccounts, completely different—well-spoken, kind, and, mostimportant, very well-fixed financially. 

She was also desperate andlonely when they met, having come out of her own divorce a coupleyears earlier. Tom succeeded at his charm offensive. 

They moved intogether almost right away, and I’ve learned that they enteredcouples counselling almost as soon as they combined households. I’vealso learned that Tom tried to put the same financial moves on herthat he did with me when we first met: what’s yours is mine. 

Shehas been able to put her foot down, though. 

The point is, it’s neverlove for Tom; it’s opportunism and emotional neediness. Tom cannotbe alone. He didn’t enter our marriage in good faith, a fact thatis no doubt lost on him.

Norm: Which incidentinvolving your children haunts you most today, and how has thelong-term emotional fallout shaped your relationship with them asadults?

Nunzia: The top spotwould have to go to the incident at the airport in France when Tomdeliberately rammed his luggage trolley at speed into 10-year-oldDominic. 

The most consequential actof abuse directed at Dominic (and me and the other two kids), though,doesn’t appear in my memoir. That was Tom’s prolonged campaign toturn young adult Dominic against me during the divorce by telling himlies about my legal moves.

Tom succeeded big time.Dominic, who’d just graduated from college, became very verballyabusive toward me and went through my files to spy for his father. 

Atone point during divorce proceedings, encouraged by Tom, Dominiccalled my lawyer to scream, swear at, and threaten him. As soon asDominic kicked off, my lawyer pressed record. 

My lawyer sent me theaudio, and it was horrific. In our jurisdiction, it was enough to getDominic arrested for criminal intimidation. Because my lawyer feltbad for me, and understood what a bad actor Tom was, he chose not topursue the matter. 

As part of the samecampaign to ruin our relationship, Tom then got Dominic to write aletter to the trial judge to report something he thought he’dobserved. The judge was furious that the letter had been sent, and,even more so, that Tom’s side wanted it entered into evidence. 

WhenI learned about the letter from my lawyer, I requested to speak tothe court. I stood and told the judge that I too wanted the letterread aloud and used as evidence—because it would have meant that24-year-old Dominic would have to appear as a witness and becross-examined. 

I felt that this was a way to stop Tom’scampaign—and to let Dominic know that actions have consequences andapprise him of the full set of facts so that he could understand thatI’d done nothing dishonest or untoward. 

The judge said it wasinadmissible, so neither Dominic nor Tom had to answer for thegeneration of this letter.

The passage of years hasprovided some healing, but Dominic’s and my relationship has neverrecovered. 

The trust isn’t there. Even sadder for me is how badlyTom’s campaign against me—on top of more than two decades ofwatching his father mistreat his mother—has messed up Dominic inevery aspect of his life. I’ve welcomed Dominic back into my life,have forgiven him for his behaviour during the divorce (indeed, Iwould never mention it), and am now spending a lot of lot of money toget him therapy. I would go so far as to say that Dominic hatesme—his siblings think so too. 

Norm:Your memoir dismantles the myth that wealth protects women fromabuse. How did life in the 1% both shield Tom’s behavior and deepenyour sense of entrapment? 

Nunzia: It wasn’t somuch being in the 1% that shielded Tom or entrapped me. It was morethat we were an educated and successful couple, and we came from theupper middle-class of our respective countries—so abuse wasn’tunderstood or even acknowledged. 

I have been told—bypeople who don’t understand the nature of abuse or my personalcircumstances—that there was no excuse for me to stay as long as Idid. When you love someone and want to keep your family together,it’s very hard to take those terminal steps. 

Furthermore, earlierin the marriage when I’d left temporarily, Tom told me that hewould find the nastiest divorce lawyer in town, take the kids andmake sure I got nothing. 

When I did finallyleave for good, I knew Tom would be vituperative. But his financialabuse was even worse than I could have anticipated. I didn’t haveaccess to resources because all assets were in Tom’s name, and heemptied the joint account and canceled my credit cards. 

Until thejudge forced Tom to give me an interim lump sum and pay me somemaintenance, I had to borrow from friends to pay for everything. 

People need to realizethat financial abuse is often an aspect of overall domestic abuse inmarriages of any socioeconomic category. However, rich men have thatextra weapon of control. 

Not only did I face the openly avowed threatof losing my minor children and personal financial ruin, but I wasalso frequently told by Tom that I needed to zip my lip with any andall complaints because I lived in such luxury. 

(Some abused spousesin wealthy marriages have it even worse: they have $5 in cash intheir wallets and the indignity of having to justify every creditcard expenditure.)

Ironically, Tom accused mein the final year of not loving him, that I was with him only for“his” money. He must have been projecting onto me the motivationsof the various young ladies who were extracting as much as they couldfrom him. 

For me, being in the 1%was neither here nor there.

Norm: Which example ofgaslighting most eroded your sense of self, and what steps helped yourebuild your confidence and trust in your own perceptions afterleaving?

Nunzia: I would say it wasthe relentlessness of the gaslighting that eroded my sense ofself—the sum total of one form of crazymaking or another 365 days ayear for thirty years. 

Having said that, I’dsay that the most difficult example to deal with was the barrage ofquestions—the same question, screamed at me many times in a row,with no chance for me to answer and always a question that wasdeflection from the subject at hand. 

I feel as though the deflectionand irrelevance were deliberate, as was the barrage, but at a certainpoint, this form of gaslighting served to get Tom himself evenangrier, which then inevitably led to unrehearsed but stunningcharacter assassination of me that could last more than two hours. 

This extemporaneous ranting was one of Tom’s great skills.

Reading and hearing aboutthe gaslighting experienced by others has gone a long way inrebuilding my confidence. I cannot tell you how many times I read orlistened slack-jawed to gaslighting episodes that were exactly likemine. 

Of course, writing my whole story down was key in rebuilding mytrust in my own perceptions. There were unmistakable patterns,weapons that Tom became so adept at brandishing—gaslighting tricks,it turned out, other abusers used as well.

Norm: You describeTom’s dangerous driving as a form of abuse. Is there a particularnear miss that still triggers flashbacks, and how do you interpretyour children’s refusal to drive today?

Nunzia: Norm, thank you somuch for this question about driving. It rarely comes up on lists ofabusive behavior, and it’s only very recent that folks arediscussing reckless driving as a “red flag.” I truly hope MySilent Prison brings driving as a form of abuse to the fore.

The one incident that isthe most vivid and triggers flashbacks from time to time is the onethat nearly did end in death. It appears in my memoir and took placein the final months of our marriage. 

Tom had to metaphorically kissand make up with some friends he’d insulted (an act of contritionthat would have really pissed him off). As we headed home from whatwas ostensibly a pleasant evening, I mentioned that I’d wanted tospeak to the friends about something but had missed the chance. 

Thissent Tom over the edge. He went berserk, saying it wasn’t hisfault. I told him I wasn’t accusing him of anything and said I wassorry that I gave him that impression. 

I couldn’t calm him down. Hebegan speeding up the road (I saw the speedometer reach 170 kph),veering in and out of the oncoming lane of traffic. 

Once we got offthe main drag, he drove almost as fast up a curvy road. It was 15minutes of sheer terror, and I honestly thought this was the end forus as we reached our place. 

As we careened down the drive to ourcompound, we came very close to flying over the ridge and rollingdown the slope to our deaths. Somehow, with one hand on the steeringwheel, Tom managed to keep the car on the drive and used his otherhand to smash me in the face. 

When we parked, we saw that blood waspouring from my nose and mouth. (Of course, Tom was sorry he did thatbut then found a way—as ever—of blaming me for him gettingangry.)

I interpret mychildren’s refusal to drive as more than the Millennial/Gen X trendof not bothering to get drivers’ licenses. They are all threeafraid to drive. 

In a rare moment of candor, Dominic told me that thedriving instructor used by the boarding school in England refused totake him to the driving exam because he was a peril on the road. 

Dominic admitted that he had the same reckless tendencies as hisfather, but not the same hand-eye coordination. He’d decided not tofurther pursue a license because he was sure he would kill someonewith his car. That would ruin a lot of lives.

Norm: How didTom’s infidelities, porn spiral, and contradictory “Christianyears” converge to create the final three years you describe as‘hell on earth’?

Nunzia:  It’simportant to understand infidelities and porn predated and postdatedTom’s Christian Years. The resumption of the infidelity and pornafter the Christian Years blossomed into other vices. 

It’s not completelyclear to me why Tom abandoned his Christianity and his male Christianfriends, but I think all it took was an invitation from one of hisnot very salubrious industry mates, who showed him a very good timeone evening. (I mention in My Silent Prison that BPD folks often apethe behavior of those around them.) 

He fell into a bad crowd of richmen and finance types, and he was susceptible to the variousentertainments they offered—girls, more alcohol than he was usedto, and party drugs. 

In retrospect, I’m sureTom was a sex addict who returned to his old activities with greatgusto. It is also the case that when you go down one bad path, it’seasy to keep exploring. 

Before you know it, you’re imprisoned byyour vices. As masses of cultural evidence now indicate, this senseof unbridled entitlement is a big problem with successful, wealthymen. 

They’re Big Swinging Dicks who feel as though they should getwhat they want whenever they want it.

As I lay out in the book,Tom was Big Swinging Dick with a midlife crisis and BorderlinePersonality Disorder to boot—and that unfortunate alignment ofstars spelled pandemonium for everyone in his life. 

Norm: Among the expertsyou cite—Dr. Ramani, Lundy Bancroft, and others—which resourcemost powerfully validated your experience, and what single piece ofguidance would you offer victims still trapped? 

Nunzia: I would say thatDr. Ramani most powerfully validated my experience. When she said thecycle of abuse is eternal—that you can count on it—that’s whenthe penny truly dropped. I’d already left Tom and had listened toplenty of Dr. Ramani, but this pearl of wisdom really stuck with me.She was telling me: Tom’s cruelty would never have abated. It hadbeen a good decision to be done with him. 

The single piece ofguidance I have for abused partners is this: you’re not going to beable to fix it, so make plans to leave as quickly and safely aspossible—and do not go back.

I also found therecounting of others’ real stories by Dr. Ramani and Christina ofCommon Ego very validating. Gosh, that same thing happened to me!While the scars of abuse are never fully healed, you get some comfortfrom finding out that you’re in good company. 

Hey, maybe I’m notso defective.

The most important conceptI learned from was Patricia Evans’s paradigm of Reality I andReality II, the former being Power Over and the latter being PersonalPower. The unwillingness to recognize another’s Personal Power in arelationship is just a microcosm of what we are seeing in society asa whole. Personal Power means respect and mutuality. 

Power Over in the form ofmisogyny, misandry, human trafficking, organized exploitation ofminors, Christian Nationalism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism,classism, authoritarianism, Trumpian kleptocracy, Antifa, frivolouslawsuits, malicious social media posts—all these phenomena springfrom a lack of love, decency, and respect for others. 

Think about it:We’re in an endless loop of Reality I/Power Over, both individuallyand collectively. Our ugliness is autocatalytic and widespread. Wesee it in friendships, romantic partnerships, in families, atchurches, at the little league game, at the office, in our local andnational politics, in our foreign policy. I highly recommend PatriciaEvans’s book The Verbally Abusive Relationship as a starting pointfor anyone attempting to effect change at any level. 

Norm: As we concludeour interview, do you envision a sequel exploring your healingjourney or your children’s perspectives? What core message do youhope readers carry away about love, logic, and leaving?

Nunzia:  No, I do notenvision a sequel to my own story, and I would not be the rightperson to explore my children’s perspectives. I hope that Dr.Ramani, who has a huge platform, will write a book on the traumacaused to children who grow up in DV environments. 

The trauma is, inmany cases, permanent, affecting the ability of these innocentbystanders to conduct healthy relationships as adults. (Dr. Ramanidoes have, by the way, a lot of stuff on YouTube about this subject.)As a society, we need to prioritize the damage done to children if wewant the cycle to end.

My next project is acompendium of stories about abused partners who managed to leave. Iwant the abused and those who truly love them to know that theyshould—and can—leave.

To end my part of thisinterview, Norm, I hope folks understand that My Silent Prison is theresult of blood, sweat, and tears. It’s not just my story. 

It’shappened to many others, but it doesn’t need to continue. I believemy story stands on its own; it needs no sequel from me. It needs onlydissemination and the voices of other victims added to it.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors.