Kerry Lambourn (30)

THE BACHELOR SA CONTESTANT AND AUTHOR

Kerry Lambourn has always been drawn to arrogant, attention-seeking men. After a particularly bad relationship ended in 2015, she wasn’t sure if she could trust again – until she met a man who swept her off her feet. ‘I thought that this time it would be different,’ says Kerry. And for the first three months, everything seemed perfect – she shared everything with Gary* and really felt she could let her guard

down. Then it changed. ‘Suddenly he used everything I said to put me down, or he’d straight up accuse me of lying.

‘When I confronted him he’d threaten to leave me, and when I went to pack up my stuff, he’d say: “See, you don’t care about me; how could you be such a bitch?” He made me feel like I was always in the wrong and the worst person alive.’ If Kerry questioned something he said or pointed out that he was contradicting what he’d said earlier, he’d deny ever having made the statement in question. ‘He’d even make it seem like I was the person who had started the fight when it was him.’

Kerry now realises that he was projecting his issues onto her. ‘But at the time I thought I was going insane.’ She eventually stopped questioning anything he said; there wasn’t any point.

Gary was also a pathological liar. ‘He would make up lies that didn’t even make sense, and would lie to everyone around him.’ On one occasion he told his boss that he’d lined up meetings and had several presentations to do, but instead he spent the day with Kerry. When his boss called to ask how his day had been, he spent an hour giving him a blow-by-blow breakdown of the meetings that had never happened, says Kerry. ‘It was terrifying how he didn’t even hesitate. I think back on it now and I realise that I had no idea who he was.’

When their relationship started, Kerry was extremely close to her family and would visit them all the time. At first Gary didn’t seem to mind, but soon he made it clear that it was a problem. ‘He made it seem like spending time with them meant that I didn’t want to be with him.’ She started to distance herself from her family, not going to family gatherings because she was scared of how Gary would react.

Once Kerry went to a wedding without him, and when she called that evening to tell him how she had run into someone he knew, he asked if she was trying to ‘get into the guy’s pants’. ‘The next day he called me to say that he knew a girl who was at the wedding and she’d told him how I’d been acting like a slut,’ Kerry recalls. ‘It was obviously a lie, but I felt so embarrassed because that’s not who I am.’

Gary eventually became physically abusive and Kerry started to fear for her life. ‘Once he grabbed me by my arm so tightly and refused to let go,’ she says. ‘I had to push my fingers into his throat so that he’d release my arm.’

The following day she left for her mom’s house and told her everything. ‘This was not how I wanted to live my life and I knew this was not how a woman should be treated.’ While he was out Kerry and her sister packed up all her things, all the while terrified that he might come home. ‘I left him a note telling him that I deserved better, and I’ve never looked back.’

Kerry now wants to share her experiences and is working on a book about her past relationships. ‘I believe that South Africa has a huge problem with abuse, and we need to raise awareness.’

Gary eventually became physically abusive and Kerry started to fear for her life.