The Repair Shop star Suzie Fletcher has opened up about the abuse she suffered in her marriage to her late husband Rob.
The saddle maker appeared on ITV's Lorraine on Wednesday to promote her new book, The Sun Over The Mountains: A Story of Hope, Healing and Restoration, in which she discusses her complicated relationship.
Suzie first met her husband in Colorado after moving to America to work as a master saddler in Illinois. The Oxford native intended to live in the states for just two years, but after meeting Rob three weeks into her stay, ended up living there for 22 years.
Speaking about Rob, the TV star told Lorraine Kelly: "It's really difficult with some people as everyone has their faults, but as I got to know him better I realised he was massively traumatised as a child.
© Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock"With that, brought on some coping mechanisms which are not exactly healthy and he was using alcohol to help numb the pain, and I did learn as time went on how massively damaged he was."
Suzie went on to explain that a lot of Rob's "bad treatment" towards her came from "his insecurities and his inability to cope with life".
© Guy Levy"We all struggle from time to time and we have choices to make, but for him, I think he was just caught up with a lot of negative feedback within certain groups that he had grown up in," she added.
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"I think sometimes if you can keep an open heart and love unconditionally, there's always hope and I'd rather have hope and try and help a person than necessarily run away. My circumstances were quite different as well because I'd moved to another country, I didn't have the support of old friends and the family and things like that which can make a huge difference."
© Guy LevyShe continued: "We were good together, weirdly, but we had this element which was not healthy and I'm really interested in looking into why this occurs and try to find a solution."
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Suzie described a time when Rob choked her and lifted her off the carpet with his forearm under her throat. "I honestly thought I was going to die," she explained. "He was choking me and could easily have killed me. I don't know why but eventually he let go.
"I was profoundly shocked. I'd always thought it could never happen to me. Not that. He would never hurt me. Now I knew what my husband was capable of."
© Guy LevyRob passed away in 2013 following a battle with cancer. Suzie described her husband's diagnosis as "one of those bolts out of the blue that you never expect is going to happen to you" while appearing on an episode of the Relatively podcast last year.
In a separate interview with Holly Willoughby and Josie Gibson on This Morning last week, Suzie revealed how writing her book has been a cathartic experience.
© BBC"It unlocked so many memories that I'd closed down because we go into protecting ourselves, don't we? And I have come through it the other side feeling much like my old self when I took myself off to America on a whim.
"Life is just rocking and rolling and it's just amazing. I feel very happy and content today, so it was great."
