Jess Hill: Domestic violence has gone from a dirty secret nobody talked about, to a national emergency we can't afford to ignore.

Karen Willis: We have a massive problem in our society, and we absolutely need to be doing something about that as a matter of urgency.

Jess Hill: Last year, just in Victoria, police were called to more than 65,000 family violence incidents, a figure that's doubled in just five years. The courts are overloaded, and women's refuges are turning away half the victims that come to them for protection. Beyond the human toll, this is also imposing a huge financial cost on society.

Danny Blay: In 2013, family violence and violence against women cost the Australian economy $14.7 billion. That's a hell of a lot of money.

Jess Hill: And it's a phenomenon that many people don't really understand, including those found guilty of it.

Nick: I could assure you that the true meaning of family violence is misunderstood by 95% of men.

Jess Hill: Domestic violence is a crime that, in the vast majority of cases, is committed by men. But what do we really know about men who abuse their partners?

Karen Willis: We do have this concept that those who use violence in their relationships are all big, hairy, ugly, monstrous, mentally ill, drug addicted, horrible oafs that have got 'offender' stamped all over their forehead, and everyone is going to be able to notice them. Of course that's not true.

Jess Hill: The truth is, perpetrators exist on a spectrum; from family men who don't even realise they're being abusive, to master manipulators who terrorise their partners, to drug addicts caught in a spiral of violence.

Today on Background Briefing, we enter the lives of perpetrators and their partners, to investigate the cycle of violence. I'm Jess Hill.

I've just arrived at a beautiful house on a quiet street in north-western Sydney. I'm here to meet Rob and Deb Sanasi.

It's a Saturday afternoon, and their adult children are milling around the kitchen. Deb puts the kettle on, and Rob brings out the biscuits, then we sit down at the dining room table to talk about the couple's history of domestic violence.

Rob Sanasi: Deb and I were…when I say Deb and I were fighting, I was fighting more, but it looked like we were fighting. And I remember driving along on the M2 and I was in a bad way…actually, that day, I thought about; this is probably going to be my last day.

Jess Hill: Rob begins his story in 2006. It was a bad time; his business was failing, his family life was falling apart, and he felt like he was about to lose everything. On that day, he was thinking about driving his car into a tree. Then he put a CD on of a church minister addressing a large auditorium.

Rob Sanasi: And he just said something, it was, 'Do you love your children?' And I answered in the car, 'Yeah, of course I do.' And then he said…and he was speaking to a crowd, he said, 'Would you die for them?' and I said, 'Yeah, I would.' And he said, 'Well, this is Australia, and you'll probably never have to die for your children, but if you're willing to die for them, why won't you change for them?' And when I heard that, I just thought, wow.

Jess Hill: Rob says he realised that he had to seek counselling for the sake of his children. But Deb says Rob had a breakdown because he was losing control over her.

Deb Sanasi: The reason that Rob went into counselling was I went into the workforce. So the control had been very strong in our relationship, but actually neither of us really realised to what degree Rob was controlling me, until I did something that he couldn't control. And within weeks of me starting that job, Rob had a nervous breakdown. So within three weeks, he lost 15 kilos, he was having anxiety and panic attacks, he became addicted to Xanax, he was suicidal, as he just mentioned. At that point, that's what drove him into counselling. He was a mess.

Jess Hill: In their first session, Rob's counsellor asked him a series of questions.

Rob Sanasi: Do you raise your voice, do you yell, do you throw things, do you call your wife names, do you swear, do you bash things—not her, but bash things—and it was kind of tick, tick, tick. And then he went to a filing cabinet in his office, and he pulled out an A4 piece of paper with a pre-printed 'Cycle of Violence', and he whacked that on the table and he said, 'That's what you do.' He said, 'This is what we call domestic violence.' So that was the first session. And he said, 'Take that with you, and discuss it with your wife.' So I was like, I don't think that's a very good idea, right?

Jess Hill: Rob wasn't physically violent, but his abuse was typical of domestic violence perpetrators: he constantly criticised and bullied his wife, tried to stop her from working, made it hard for her to see family and friends, and kept total control over their bank accounts. After that first counselling session, Rob initially kept the piece of paper to himself.

Rob Sanasi: And then eventually, I thought, oh, I'll just bring it out casually, you know, but when I brought it out, things got a lot worse. Because then Deb realised what was going on...it's kind of like the scales fell off our eyes, both of us.

Jess Hill: So what was it like for you, Deb, when you first saw that piece of paper showing this cycle of violence? What did you think when you saw it?

Deb Sanasi: I remember actually what Rob said to me. He said, 'What's going on in our relationship is domestic violence, and the type of violence that I'm using on you is called emotional abuse, which means I don't bash you with my fists, I bash you with my emotions, to keep you under control.'

So I actually sat in shock, initially, and went to good old Google to google 'emotional abuse', and then up came this list of behaviours, and I just actually saw my whole life in a list on a computer. And after going through that first initial shock stage, I became very, I think, angry. I thought, you know, I'm a high functioning, intelligent person, how could I have been in an abusive relationship, and not even known? I mean, how ridiculous is this? And it's got to stop.

Jess Hill: What were you thinking in terms of how you hadn't realised that for so many years?

Deb Sanasi: I actually had a perception of domestic violence as being the guy that goes down the pub on a Friday night and comes home and beats up his wife, and it doesn't happen in suburbs like where I'm from.

Jess Hill: Deb Sanasi had spent years believing she was to blame for Rob's behaviour. It's a common story.

And just as victims can be shocked to discover they're living with domestic violence, for many perpetrators, the first time they discover they're an abuser is when they first come into contact with police.

That's what happened to Nick.

Nick: I didn't know what it was. I actually didn't know what family violence constituted, and a lot of people don't.

Jess Hill: Nick is in his mid 30s, and lives just south of Melbourne. He's been with his wife, Steph, since they were 19, and they have two boys under five. A year ago, Steph called police to their house after Nick assaulted her in their bedroom.

Nick: She was in bed, and my son was in bed as well, and I basically picked her up and threw her out of bed. And there was screaming, yelling, all that sort of thing as well, of which he witnessed. My wife crying when she was on the floor and things like that, him coming running into the room and things like that, that's all pretty upsetting, you have to work pretty hard to undo that.

Jess Hill: It was the first time Nick had been physically violent, but it followed years of verbal abuse and intimidation. Nick had no idea that it all counted as domestic violence, and he struggled to see what happened in their bedroom that night as a crime.

Nick: I said to the police when I got picked up, I said, 'I'm not a criminal', that's what I said to them. And got put in the back of the divisional van, all the rest of it. But I suppose I was a criminal, because I'd done a criminal offence, in a way.

Jess Hill: Do you remember what was going through your mind when that occurred, when it escalated beyond where you had gone before?

Nick: Yeah, I think I was just frustrated and angry, and annoyed, and I wasn't being listened to. So it was a reaction that was perhaps not...you're just not really in control.

Jess Hill: But it is all about control. Experts are adamant on this point: domestic violence is not an anger management problem. When perpetrators feel like they're being defied, they feel like they're losing control, and they use violence, verbal abuse or manipulation in order to regain control. And that is a conscious choice.

Nick: Yes, absolutely, I see what you mean by that. You're trying to force dominance over the other person, without a doubt.

Jess Hill: Perpetrators don't need to use physical violence to keep their partners under control; bullying, threats, manipulation and financial control can reduce a victim's self-esteem to such an extent, she relies entirely on the perpetrator to define who she is and how she should behave. That's why, in the eyes of the law, domestic violence includes emotional and psychological abuse and, in some states, even financial abuse. To some perpetrators, this can come as a real shock. It did to Nick, and to the other men attending his men's behaviour change program.

Nick: I think everyone sees family violence as physical, and there's a lot more to it than that. That's the bit that probably really woke up most of the men in the program. I think we all know that if we hit a woman, that's family violence, or it's violence, but there was a lot of other things that men just didn't really know. Probably the biggest one was language, the derogatory language.

Karen Willis: If I had a quid for every woman who said to me over the years, 'Give me a black eye any day, the bruise is gone in a fortnight. It's the words that hurt, it's the words that stay.' And in fact, all of our counselling work and our trauma work, 99% of it is about reversing the impacts of those words.

Jess Hill: Karen Willis is the head of Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, and has worked in the sector for more than 30 years. She says psychological and emotional abuse can take many forms.

Karen Willis: Constant undermining and criticism, it can be loud and overt in arguments or, yeah, it can be the little whisper in the ear. At a party with some friends, laughing and joking and having a good time, and there will be a whisper in the ear, 'They're not laughing with you, they're laughing at you because you're an idiot.' And that being done over a period of time by the person who says they love you and the person who cares about you, will tell you they know you better than anyone else, and yet they're quite happy to be telling you how useless and stupid you are. The psychological impact of that can be quite extreme.

Jess Hill: Usually this doesn't happen straight away. Behaviour that can at first seem affectionate and attentive, becomes jealous and controlling.

Karen Willis: The sorts of things that we hear from women all the time is, 'He was so wonderful. I never thought I could have a boyfriend who was so interested in me, who wanted to know where I was and what I was doing and who my friends were. How lucky am I to have a boyfriend who wanted to come shopping with me and help me buy my clothes.' But six months later it might go from, 'He's so interested in me he wants to know where I am and what I'm doing,' to, 'I can't move without getting his permission. He totally controls and dictates who I can talk to.' Or it might be, 'I've got a boyfriend who goes shopping with me,' to, 'I have to wear what he tells me. Otherwise he will think that I'm out to catch other blokes and do those sorts of things.'

Jess Hill: These are all common tactics of control and isolation. Isolating the victim is key to a perpetrator's success: it makes him the most powerful and influential person in her life.

This is something Rob and Deb Sanasi can now talk about openly, ten years after Rob's abuse was first exposed. Deb Sanasi also now works as a counsellor to both victims and perpetrators.

Deb Sanasi: They all have the same tactics. They may not outrightly say, 'I don't want you seeing your friends, or having hobbies, or being around your parents,' but they'll just make it hard. Like, 'What do you want to see them for? I don't think they're good for you.' And eventually what women do is they go, it's just all too hard, because they don't want the fight. So that's how it starts over time…

Jess Hill: And then your world gets smaller and smaller...

Deb Sanasi: And then your world gets smaller. And then if the perpetrator then becomes your main frame of reference, which is what happens, then it's very much like a cult, because then you're getting essentially your main input from him.

Rob Sanasi: It's like you go to abuse school. They all do it.

Jess Hill: One of the most confounding things about domestic violence is that outside the home, most perpetrators appear completely normal. Even those who act in the most depraved ways—who kill the family pet, stalk their partners relentlessly, or even end up killing them—the vast majority of these men are high-functioning, often professional men, who don't have mental disorders.

Experts are also adamant that although alcohol and drugs can make domestic violence worse, they don't cause it. Perpetrators who drink or do drugs have two problems: their substance abuse, and their addiction to power and control.

There's also a common perception that if there's no drugs or alcohol involved, perpetrators must have grown up around violent parents themselves. While that is true of many, it's not always the case. Danny Blay is a domestic violence prevention consultant.

Danny Blay: I've worked with men in men's behaviour change programs. There'll be one man who will describe a very dysfunctional and violent upbringing, alcoholic parents, poverty, all those kinds of things, sitting next to another man who grew up in the leafy suburbs who had a very functional, loving, warm, and respectful family experience, all the family were educated and professionals, but they were both using the same kind of behaviours.

Jess Hill: So what could be the common factor driving these men to abuse their partners?

Danny Blay: The most consistent predictor of the use of violence among men is their agreement with sexist, patriarchal, and sexually hostile attitudes and standardised gender norms.

Jess Hill: Danny Blay isn't saying male perpetrators are all sexist misogynists who hate women. Patriarchal attitudes also condition men into believing that a real man is someone who is strong and in control, both in the home and at work.

Kay Schubach: It works really well in a big corporate entity, that you've got men who are exerting power, exerting control, are narcissistic, are audacious, they're not willing to compromise on their ideals, they're used to having their way, they bark orders, they expect to be listened to, they show no remorse. You know, that's what makes a successful man in a corporate world.

Jess Hill: That's Kay Schubach, author of the memoir A Perfect Stranger, and herself a survivor of domestic violence. Her abuser was the type who rarely shows up at a men's behaviour change program. He's the kind of man that's sometimes referred to as an 'intimate terrorist'.

Kay Schubach: It's crazy, it's like being in a house with an assassin. You know there is someone there, who's out to get you and you don't know how, when, or where, but you're sure it's going to happen.

Jess Hill: Kay Schubach met her abuser when she was having lunch with a friend.

Kay Schubach: And this guy walked into the restaurant, he was the only other person in the restaurant, and he sat down next to us, a little bit too close, and there was something about his energy, that when he walked in that restaurant I swear the molecules in the room changed.

Jess Hill: His name was Simon Lowe, and he was charming, insightful, and wildly charismatic. Simon struck up a conversation with the two women, and left Kay his card. She texted him later that day and pretty soon they started dating.

Kay Schubach: So it was incredibly romantic, it was whirlwind, we'd go to the Conservatorium and he would go in and start playing jazz piano. He'd sing to me, we'd go to restaurants and all of a sudden cocktails would appear. It was like being in Breakfast at Tiffany's or something, it was just like this otherworldliness.

Jess Hill: But it wasn't long before Kay started to notice a darker side to Simon. At first it was just little things; a sharp look, a mean comment. Then he started going through her phone, asking why she was still in touch with her ex. Pretty soon he was fighting Kay to get into her handbag, just so he could get to her phone. But then Simon would go back to being the romantic, charming man she'd first fallen for. This is what domestic violence experts call the 'cycle of violence'.

Kay Schubach: It was this cycle already starting to appear, the classic cycle of, you know, the wonderful romance and then the chink in the armour, and then a bit of criticism, and then all of a sudden you're walking on egg shells and you're very afraid, but then it goes back a couple of steps and all of a sudden you're warm and basking in his glory again, so you get comfortable again. So you're off-balance, and then it kind of escalates.

Jess Hill: The control escalated when Simon moved into Kay's apartment. Not only was he criticising her over the smallest things, he also started deleting male contacts from Kay's phone, and was so difficult with her girlfriends, they just stopped coming over. Simon was doing what so many perpetrators do, isolating his victim so he could become the dominant influence in her life.

Kay Schubach: It was amazing how quickly my self-esteem just not only got eroded, it just left me completely…I was just a shell of myself within a month.

Jess Hill: Kay became increasingly disturbed and confused, so Simon suggested she go to see his doctor.

Kay Schubach: So the next thing, I've got this doctor, he's saying, 'Oh, you're pretty stressed, you're pretty anxious, how about some antidepressants?' And, 'Oh, I've got these, I prescribe them to half of Double Bay, they're great, they just seem to take the edge off.' And so, you know, I was just at my wits end and I thought, oh, this will help. You know, it's really strange, you think now how could you ever let anyone prescribe medication for you, but at the time I was just so bamboozled and unsure of what was happening.

Jess Hill: With Kay on medication, Simon began to establish a public narrative that he was the victim of a violent, disturbed woman. One day, for example, after a fight over Kay's handbag, he walked outside to show tradesmen working next-door the scratches on his hands, and told them Kay was physically abusing him.

Kay later discovered that Simon was actually building a case against her. ­The anti-depressants, enlisting potential witnesses, this was all evidence he could use to undermine any case Kay might make against him.

He was especially skilled at this, because he'd done it many times before. Simon was a serial abuser, the type of perpetrator who chooses women he thinks he'll be able to abuse. Simon targeted single, successful women in their early 40s who were in a hurry to settle down and have kids.

Kay Schubach: So he said, oh, you know, I really want to have kids and a house on the Sunshine Coast and we can have horses and dogs and, oh, we're going to have the most beautiful baby. And he built this narrative up really, really quickly, and I just fell for it hook, line and sinker, I think probably because my hormones…I really think my hormones were just crying out for it.

Jess Hill: So when did you actually decide that you were going to leave?

Kay Schubach: There was one time in the apartment where we had a fight, I think I'd received a phone call from a friend, it wouldn't have mattered what it was, he escalated it to fever pitch. And he started to become violent with me, and push me around and scream at me. And I tried to call the police on the landline, he ripped the landline out of the wall, out of the socket. He already had my phone and my handbag by that stage. I tried to get out of the door, it was deadlocked, and the next thing he had me on the ground. He was sitting on my back, and he had his hand over my mouth and was pulling my head back and kind of cutting off my nose and my mouth, my ability to breathe. And there was this moment of absolute clarity where I thought I'm going to die, this is it, this is what life has come to. [emotional] And I knew I had to do something at that point. I had to save my life.

Jess Hill: The following night, after another fight, Kay fled the apartment, ran to the Rose Bay Police Station, and told them she was in fear for her life. Simon came flying in the door after her, claiming she was hysterical, and that she had actually assaulted him. But the police paid him no heed. Kay was not the first woman in the area to report him as an abuser.

Their relationship had lasted just two months. Kay got an intervention order against Simon, moved out of her apartment and went into hiding under police supervision. Years later, when she was writing her memoir, Kay heard that Simon Lowe was due to appeal a conviction for raping and bashing another girlfriend, who the court referred to as JR. Kay decided to sit in on the appeal.

Kay Schubach: I was listening to everything that JR had gone through, and I was sitting there and I was thinking how…this stupid girl, how did she let this happen? You know, like, oh God, and she got pregnant to him twice, and she went back to the house and kept going back, and this went on for months, and how could she have been so stupid? And then this penny dropped, and it was exactly my story. It was exactly word for word, his MO was exactly the same. It was telling her that she was ugly, old, stupid, past her used-by date, that he was building a case against her, trying to discredit her mental health, getting witnesses to witness any scratches or marks on him. It was exactly the same, and she and I were a type; independent, successful, blonde women of a certain age, in the eastern suburbs, whom he could leverage off, because he's a parasite and he needs a host.

Jess Hill: Simon lost his appeal, and is now serving a 12-year jail sentence. Only his name isn't Simon Lowe anymore.

Kay Schubach: He changed his name from Simon Lowe to Simon Bonito Montero, which is Portuguese for Beautiful Hunter.

Jess Hill: The domestic violence rate in wealthy areas like Sydney's eastern suburbs is nowhere near that of Australia's poorer areas, but domestic violence expert Karen Willis says statistics can be misleading. Wealthier women are less likely to report, she says, because they feel they have more to lose.

Karen Willis: We often see very big differences between people from different classes. We know that people where there's socio-economic disadvantage, there is higher levels of physical violence in domestic violence relationships. The more socio-economic advantage, the less physical violence there will be, but far more psychological, social and financial violence. Finances will often be used as a control factor, and cutting off of finances will be a punishment.

Jess Hill: It's not just the perpetrator that keeps them quiet, other women also discourage victims from speaking out, says Kay Schubach.

Kay Schubach: Because her mum and her sisters and her friends collude to keep her in that situation; why would you complain, because the kids are at a great school, you're driving the Audi, the house is beautiful, you don't have to do all that much during the day except make sure that he's got the perfect steak.

Jess Hill: And when the pressure gets to be too much, there's always self-medication. Kay Schubach got a sense of the extent of this problem when she had to spend some time in the local hospital.

Kay Schubach: I was talking to the nurses about the book that I was writing about domestic violence. And she said, 'Oh, that's really interesting, I have to tell you that these wards are absolutely full of women from beautiful homes, from lovely suburbs, from so-called wonderful marriages, perfect marriages, and they're medicating themselves to within an inch of their lives because they're so terrified at home.'

Jess Hill: On the other side of the city, in the maternity ward of Blacktown Hospital, there's quite a different domestic violence story playing out.

Constables Anita Glebiowski and Jenna Butler are visiting Katy, a young woman who's just given birth to a baby girl. Katy tells the police officers that her partner, John, came to the hospital yesterday to meet his new daughter.

Katy: He gave her her first swaddle, and he was the first one to make her cry, she came out and she didn't even cry, she was mad. As soon as he held her, she started crying...

Jess Hill: The two constables have come to see if Katy's okay. Her newborn daughter has just been removed by Family and Community Services.

Katy: She's in special care now, downstairs. None of us can see her, without their authorisation.

Jenna Butler: Is that with the lady from FACS present or…?

Jess Hill: The policewomen know Katy well. Blacktown police are called to the unit she shares with John virtually every night.

Constables Anita Glebiowski and Jenna Butler are domestic violence officers with Blacktown's special domestic violence unit. They deal with one of the highest rates of domestic violence in New South Wales. Outside the hospital they describe their constant visits to John and Katy's unit.

Anita Glebiowski: When they argue, we get phone calls from neighbours because they are in a unit block, where they go, 'Someone's screaming, come help me,' or, 'We can hear loud things, a female/male arguing, smashing things.' We get there, they don't want to dob on each other, so they don't really like to tell us exactly what's going on.

Jenna Butler: Not violent, not overly aggressive, but just flat-out refuse to tell us anything.

Anita Glebiowski: They're happy to have a chat to us and talk to us about how our day was, and all this, but as soon as we go, 'What's going on here?' 'Oh, it's just standard.' That's the response. We're like, 'Well, what's standard?' And it makes it really hard.

Jess Hill: Katy and John are both drug addicted, and violent towards each other, which sometimes makes it difficult for police to determine which of them is the primary aggressor. Police have put AVOs on both of them.

Jenna Butler: [to Katy] As of today those AVO conditions are fully enforceable. As of now, so he can't come up here, he can't contact you. So any breaches of that, just give us a call.

Jess Hill: The two constables now need to pay a visit to John to tell him that he is prevented from seeing Katy, and to serve a court order on him for a previous AVO breach. This could land John back in jail, and he knows it.

John's apartment is dark and messy and cluttered with old, disused fridges.

John: I've been a houso, I owned me house by the age of 22 and that. Yeah, I boxed and I've been everywhere, up and down in life, and here I am today, living like this, yeah.

Jenna Butler:  What's your plan today, is it to go and see DOCS?

John: Yeah, I'm getting myself ready to go and see DOCS, cos we're going to fight for the kid mate. I've never hit a woman in my life. I used to box professionally, never hit a woman in my life, and all of a sudden DOCS has put me down as some sort of a...look, I picked her up from the gutter. She was getting flogged by her ex. I picked her up, and she was getting kicked in the gutter, broken jaw, she got bashed to pieces. I picked her up and housed her and that. You know who's paid for it? Me. Look at how I live!

Jenna Butler: We'll let you get organised for your DOCS appointment. This is your paperwork for court. If you want a copy of the facts just pop into the station I can print them out and give them to you, that way you've got the reasons as to why you've been charged with these things. You'll be able to then take it with you to court next Wednesday.

John: I don't understand, how can I get charged when I'm in me own fucking house, mate?

Jenna Butler: And this one here is just if you want to plead guilty, you can fill out that form there. It's an easy way of pleading guilty if you want to plead guilty, otherwise you need to go to court next Wednesday at 9.30 at Blacktown.

John: This is putting me in jail mate, you know what I mean? I've got two beautiful kids, I've got a daughter now that I'm going to have fucking trouble getting. I'm old school, I love that daughter, I bonded with her before three months before she was born.

Jess Hill: In cases like John's, it's unlikely anything will break the cycle of abuse, apart from jail. If he does end up in prison, he may encounter Andre van Altena, who heads program development for men's behaviour change programs in New South Wales jails.

While community-run programs see the low-to-medium risk offenders, Andre sees the worst and hardest cases.

Andre van Altena: And for these guys, if there's no blood and teeth, then that's not violence. So when you get an offender who says, 'Well, do I really need to come into a domestic violence program, because check my records, I've never hit anybody,' you need to have that discussion around, well, the reason you're here is because you've breached your AVO, there was threats to kill, there was stalking, there was a whole range of other behaviours that are abusive behaviours towards your partner. 'Yeah, but I didn't hit her.' Well, this isn't just about hitting.

Jess Hill: Andre van Altena says that in terms of stopping a man from coming back into custody, his programs have about a 1-in-10 success rate. But success in behaviour change programs isn't just about recidivism. A recent review of his program found some interesting results.

Andre van Altena: Those who completed the program, if they did return to abuse or violence, it was a longer period of time before they returned to that. And often the type of offending that they committed was a lot less violent. So, they'll tell you coming back into custody, 'Well Andre, I didn't beat her up this time, I stood at the front door, kicked the door in...I mean, I've made some sort of progress, haven't I?' At the end of the day, you're back in custody, but the reality is that if we can assist them to reduce the impact on the victim, and this is all about the victim and safety and risks for the victim, if we can assist in that way, then you're making some mileage.

Jess Hill: For many of these offenders, attending a men's behaviour change program may be the only opportunity they'll ever get to talk about their abuse.

Andre van Altena: It's not a topic that people like to talk about. You don't go to the pub and go, how was your day, oh all right, I had to serve it up to the missus, but other than that it was okay. People don't want to hear that. So what they do tell you at the end of the program, when they have completed the program and you talk to them, they'll say, 'I really valued the opportunity to deal with this stuff with people who've been through what I've been through, who've done what I've done, and some people who run the show who actually understand what we're talking about, because I've never been able to deal with this stuff anywhere. It's the first time I've actually been able to talk about what I'm like. And I don't like the way I am.'

Jess Hill: Many perpetrators will never truly deal with their behaviour. They abuse their partners because they want to be in control. But for the men who do decide to change, the process is long and difficult.

It's been almost 12 months since Nick assaulted his wife Steph. Since then, Nick's seen a psychologist, and been to a men's behaviour change program. Steph has agreed to reconcile, but Nick says this is a long work in progress.

Nick: Yes, this issue is really difficult, and I suppose the thing is even recently she said, 'I'm scared of you.' And that's really hard. You think you're...even last week, I said I thought we were going really well, but there's still a part of them that will potentially always be scared. It really hit me for six, I got really upset. I suppose it gave me a reminder to say, hang on a minute, it could take you ten years to…it could be never. She could be always scared of you. And that really eats me up.

Jess Hill: Can you think of anything that might change that? Is it just time, is it just trust?

Nick: It's just reassurance, and demonstrate through actions, that's all you can do. And it does work, I've had the comments that 'you don't get angry anymore', and hearing comments like that are like gold. Because you do, you get angry, everyone gets angry, it's just how you're showing it, that's all.

Jess Hill: It's rare to hear of domestic violence perpetrators who have totally reformed. The behaviours are deeply entrenched, and very hard to shift. Even as Rob Sanasi was seeing a counsellor twice a week, he was still trying to manipulate his wife Deb into doing what he wanted.

Deb Sanasi: He tried many different tactics through those months to regain control of me.

Rob Sanasi: I did escalate, as you said...

Deb Sanasi: He did escalate, it was very intense.

Jess Hill: Like what? What was the sort of thing…?

Deb Sanasi: Threatening to kill himself, cos really for him, in his mind, if she would just quit her job, and come back home where I can control her, I'll be happy.

Jess Hill: When Deb refused to quit, Rob became increasingly manipulative.

Deb Sanasi: He was starting to say to me things that every woman just has longed to hear who's in this situation, which is, 'I'm wrong, I've treated you badly, I'm so sorry for what I've done to you, you didn't deserve to go through all those years of me doing that to you.' So I'd start getting hopeful, but then he'd slip in a, 'I want to make up for it, Deb. So if you would just quit that job and come home, I want to now make up for all the years we've lost.'

Jess Hill: Every time Rob tried a different tactic, Deb called him on it. Eventually, he realised that it was all or nothing. His counsellor had been trying to get him to take responsibility for his abuse, and to develop some empathy for Deb. To do this, Rob had to go back to the roots of his need for control, which started in childhood. Rob was one of those people who grew up around domestic violence and chronic neglect. He says he can remember the day when he didn't need to control his wife anymore.

Rob Sanasi: I went into the bedroom and I think I cried for like four hours. And literally from that day, all the work, all the counselling, all the memories, everything that had been done, kind of hit a peak, and it was like a volcano that just erupted. And from that day really, it just hasn't been in me at all to do. Then I had another process with the counsellor, where he said, well, now I've got to teach you how to be normal.

Deb Sanasi: Rob went from a person that was quite narcissistic that didn't have empathy, to a person that did. He really had that moment where he realised that I can't control anything, and I can't even control whether she stays with me or not, but the least I can do is be there for her when she needs me to be or wants me to be, whilst she heals.

Jess Hill: Now, almost 10 years after Rob's abuse was first exposed, Rob and Deb both counsel domestic violence victims and perpetrators, Deb as a counsellor in private practice, and Rob more informally, with men who now come to him for advice.

Rob Sanasi: Usually the only time I've seen guys start to realise anything at all is when they've just about lost it all. I've never had any guy come to me and say, you know what, I'm really doing the wrong thing, and I want my relationship to be better. It's always…you know, it's always like a country song, you know—my wife's gone, the car's gone, the kid's gone, the dog's gone—you could write a song about it. And they're all the same. And I was the same, I'm no better, I'm exactly like that, or was.

I think they think like I did, you know, what if I do all this work and then my wife still leaves me. Yeah, that still may happen, but you know what, the best thing about coming through this journey…I think there are three good things. Number one, it stops any more pain going to your wife. Number two, if you have children, it will stop them from hopefully passing that on and going through counselling themselves. Number three is you get to wake up in the morning yourself and be free.

Jess Hill: Background Briefing's co-ordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Lawrence Bull, technical production by Leila Shunnar, the executive producer is Chris Bullock, and I'm Jess Hill.