Fatima Bhutto on secrets, lies and surviving coercive control

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, Fatima Bhutto on surviving an abusive relationship while living in the public eye.

0:24Fatima Bhutto was born into one of Pakistan's most famous families, a wealthy and powerful political dynasty marked by decades of bloody violence. This is Radio Pakistan. Zulfa Khamenei Bhutto was hanged to death at 2 o 'clock this morning in Rawalpindi district jail. They wouldn't even open the cell doors for me to kiss him goodbye. The blood of my husband will be the sacrifice we have made for Pakistan. The leading Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated. She was killed in a terrorist attack as she was leaving an election rally in the city of Rauhunga. She has been martyred, said Barbara Wan.

1:14Threats to the family were constant. And so the need to keep secrets became Fatima's norm. There were days, I remember, where my father would wake me up in the morning and say, you can't go to school, we've got to leave the house, you can't tell anyone where you are. And maybe we'll come back in a week. Fatma's father, Murta Zabutou, was killed in a police shootout outside the family home. She was just 14 years old. Her world turned utterly upside down. Not even a week after my father was killed, my stepmother came up to me one morning and said, we've got to send you and your brother out of the country because we don't know.

1:52People are saying you could be killed next. And she said, we're going to send you back to Damascus where I'd grown up. and she said, we're going to send you back to Damascus with your brother tonight, and you cannot tell anyone that you're going. You can't tell your friends you're leaving, and you can't say goodbye to them. That sadness and trauma, the sudden and silent disappearances of a childhood, it followed her as an adult. So when the man told me, oh, you know, don't say anything about this, I was perfectly well-trained to say, no, okay, I don't have to. I don't have to tell anyone. It's not as if she was a pushover.

2:29Fatima was independent, she had a glamorous career, and she travelled the world. But she became drawn into the orbit of a man who promised to fix her. I didn't have to be in grief, and I didn't have to be in pain. She entered a whole new world of pain, and she kept it secret from everyone in her life. Until now.

2:53I like to think of myself as fairly well-read. I took psychology courses in college. You know, I've seen movies. I know all this stuff. I just truly, truly, truly could not imagine that it would be something I put up with. And not only did I put up with it, but I put up with it for a very long time. From The Guardian, I'm Noshin Iqbal. Today in Focus, surviving coercive control and emotional abuse, Fatima Bhutto tells her story for the first time.

3:27A warning before we begin, this episode does talk in depth about the experience of being in a coercive, abusive relationship. Fatma Bhutto, I'm thrilled to welcome you here in The Guardian studio today. Now, your life, certainly your family's life, has played out in public for decades. The story of the Bhutto's is the story of Pakistan in some ways. It's the nation's history. in all its politics, its tragedies, the legacies still reverberate across the country. And it's something you wrote about really beautifully in Songs of Blood and Sword back in 2010. And now you're here with a second and, dare I say, perhaps even more personal memoir, The Hour of the Wolf.

4:12Can you tell me how it came about? Well, thank you for having me, Noshin. I am thrilled to be here. So The Hour of the Wolf is a book I didn't really want to write, but I had to write it, I felt. It came about the year after COVID and all those very odd lockdowns and upside down world that we all inhabited. And my dog, my very small Jack Russell, had a litter of puppies. and the experience of life was invigorating and it re-energized me and reanimated me in a way I wasn't really prepared for and I felt very I don't like the word but vulnerable and I sat down to write because I was moved and I began as a book about a dog and then it it changed and morphed until it became a book about me and all my longings and fears and little shames, I guess, as well.

5:20It is really beautifully written. You know, I inhaled it in one sitting, but it just also really knocked me for six in the sense that, you know, I've known you for years as a writer. We've met on and off over the last decade. and it's so personal and so private but more than that it reveals such a shocking chapter of your life which isn't just a secret from me but from all your friends in which you lay out this account of a relationship in which you endured coercive control emotional abuse and you refer to this man as the man throughout. Can I ask, when and how did you first meet him? Yeah, well, I met the man really when I was on a book tour.

6:12My first memoir had come out, Songs of Blood and Sword. It was the book about my father's life and his assassination. My father had been killed in front of my house when I was a 14-year-old girl. His killers had been promoted. And I thought that memory was the only thing I had to give me justice. I traveled around the world with that book. It was a sensation. It was a huge deal. So I was very broken down on that tour because I was every day getting up on a stage and reliving the worst moments of my life. And I met the man then. And what was so darkly and dangerously attractive about him was that he saw that I was broken and he told me he could fix it.

6:58Right. And I believed him and he did for a period. He had a confidence that not only could I be fixed, but I could be fixed fast. And it was a confidence that later on became sometimes frightening because he was never wrong. You know, he was never to be disputed or to be corrected. it. But at the time, he did fix it. He showed me how I could control my mind, how I could switch off the thoughts that hurt me. And really, that's what he did with me then. He taught me how to switch off thoughts that disturbed me. How would you have described him at the time if you were talking to your girlfriends?

7:41And we know later that you didn't, but in terms of how he looked, how he seemed. What was he like? Well, he was, I wouldn't call him charismatic or charming. And in fact, in the book, I describe him as kind of feral. He had none of the boundaries and the borders that the rest of us have, where we think we have to behave a certain way or we feel it's polite to do. And that made him very attractive because it made him, in the way I think solitary animals are very attractive, because they must know something we don't. How do they survive? It's a kind of power. And he had that, and he had it about everything.

8:28He didn't just have it about grief or about how to manage your thoughts. He just could do anything he wanted. And it was, you know when you read books as I have about people who follow cults I sometimes would tell him you could do that you could have a cult if you because you I had that awareness you saw that I recognized it yeah I did recognize that he was flattered by that actually wow but but because he had a persuasiveness and a confidence that brooked you know no dissent and that's that's very attractive in a way. It's very painful and hurtful and damaging later. But on the offset, when you're afraid and someone is not afraid.

9:12There's an appeal there. There's a definite appeal there. He seemed to be someone who could endure. He could endure. And I always wanted to be someone like that. I always wanted... Endure in what sense? Anything that happened. You know, if he found himself in a war zone or a hurricane or a tsunami or a street fight that somehow he would know how to get out of it. He had this aura to him. And when it was good, what was it like? What do those memories look like, that love story that you must have told yourself it was for a period? When it was good, it felt like being understood, which I think is what we all want in the end.

9:55He didn't think I was strange. He didn't think, what's wrong with you? You know, he also wasn't, I mean, it sounds strange to say, but he wasn't intimidated by me. He didn't think anything I was doing or living was interesting or special. Wow. And that also was kind of appealing in a way, you know. He absolutely didn't put you on a pedestal. Oh, no, very much the opposite. Very much the opposite. I was very much underneath the pedestal.

10:34It wasn't like a conventional relationship in the sense that you met, you got together and moved to the same place and, you know, hung out with each other's friends. Can you tell me about how it unfurled at the beginning? Yeah, well, to be fair to him, I'm not a conventional person. I didn't grow up in a conventional way. And I, in some way, I mean, as I said about him, I also think that I can have my own life organized by a certain kind of rules that I can move around as I like. Because I had to as a child. You know, when I was a teenager in Pakistan and I was going to French class and a gunman attacked our school.

11:13Like, that was not an excuse to miss French class. You know what I mean? There was not. We couldn't go in and say, sorry. There's a gun with a gun. I'm too traumatized to complete our exam today. We couldn't, we had to just get on with it. So because of that, I am unconventional. I am able to move and adapt quickly. And so when we got together, he was older than I am and we didn't live in the same place. And it didn't bother me for a while because I am independent and I had my own life, I had my own friends and I was okay with being in a relationship where I saw the person once every three months or once every five months even.

11:52Right. You know, where I talk to him on the phone because that's kind of how I live. But the way the relationship was cocooned, there was never any sense that he was going to meet your friends or you were going to meet his friends, let alone family. Yes. No, he didn't. I think he found the fact that I came from a public family uninteresting and he didn't really want to be a part of any of that, which I understood and I sympathized with. I didn't want to be part of it too sometimes. It's understandable that you found him interesting because he wasn't impressed by all of that and a lot of people in your life would have been and would have found it appealing.

12:26Yeah, or they would have treated me like I was special for it. And he just didn't think that was it. He didn't care. He never asked me if I felt unsafe or thought I was unsafe. But it almost went to the other extreme. I mean, you say he didn't care, but he was also just completely uninterested in your career. And let's just recap. You'd been nominated for the Women's Prize of Fiction. You were traveling the world as a journalist. You were on assignments. You were writing essays. Like, it's a lauded career. And he wasn't, he didn't engage. He didn't read. Well, that's where all what was kind of attractive about him was also dangerous about him.

13:02Because I know he overused this word. I'm definitely not overusing it in his case. But I do think he's a very extreme sort of narcissist. And I think that he is the kind of man, and unfortunately, these type of men exist widely in the world, don't like women to be strong and independent and have their own careers. I think he resented it. And the same things that I thought, wow, how unusual and exciting about him. As the relationship progressed, they became ways in which he controlled me and ways in which he put me down and ways in which he gaslit me. And so when I did get nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction, and it was my first novel, so it was really exciting, he didn't think it was good news or interesting.

13:56And when I said, oh, that's a bit hurtful, he told me I had no right to tell him how to feel, put the phone down and didn't speak to me again for two days. But what does that do? It's an incredible way of making someone feel frightened of their success or of their accomplishments or of their abilities. Because the next time something good happened to me, I didn't want to talk about it because I didn't want to be put down. When did you first get the inkling, really, that this wasn't right? hindsight is obviously 20-20 but I felt something was wrong almost from the beginning and I would say the second week oh my goodness because and I you know because I would talk to him on the phone and sometimes he would just stop speaking and I would be on the phone and I would see the phone is connected or we would be on a video call and I'm seeing him move I know he's there and he would just stop talking to see how long I would stay there for.

15:01And if I put down the phone, then there was a reaction. Oh, you put down the phone on me. I see. That's astonishing. And he wanted to test the boundaries. And I think when men want to abuse women, when they want to hurt you in whatever way that is, whether it's psychologically or emotionally or physically, they have to know how much you'll take before you react. And I think men do this in professional settings. I think they do this in emotional settings and familial settings and romantic settings. And so he would test how long I'd stay there for. And the lesson was, you don't put that on the phone.

15:42And that was in week two, week three. And I saw that and I thought, what is going on here? How did you endure it? I endured it at the beginning, Noshin, because when he told me he could take away that anxiety, he did. And I didn't want to have anxiety. I thought someone who knew how to fix that couldn't be wrong or they couldn't be cruel. And then eventually because I loved him and I thought if he's doing this, maybe he's in pain too. And I can heal him with my own care and tenderness, which he doesn't have towards me. Yeah.

16:30And then, of course, it progresses and it develops. And you're in your mid-30s and your own wants and desires, they change. I mean, you wrote in the book that you'd always wanted your own family. and I think had articulated that to him quite early on. How did those conversations go and how would he respond to those? Well, again, you know, the experience of being gaslit is a constant process. It denies you not just reality, but it denies you any firm footing in which to protect yourself and defend yourself. So I've always wanted children. I've always wanted to be a mother. And he knew that very much from the beginning.

17:17It's important to me. So it's something that comes up. And in the beginning, he told me that absolutely, he very much wanted children too. And that he really could see himself having a family with me and all the things that you want to hear, he said. And then very quickly, those things fell by the wayside. And it became, there's a right time for everything. It's too soon. don't rush me i don't know if i want to get married i don't know if i and then it became do you even know if you can have kids you know maybe you're infertile and then it became stop bothering me you know people can have kids people have kids all the time people have kids in their 40s people have kids in their 50s now you know have you heard of ivf and he could be cruel about it of course which he was often but he could also dangle a carrot when he had to he could say things like you know yeah maybe one day oh you know I thought the other day he could drop those kind of things so now I hate to do this because obviously I guess that's one of the reasons why you pull back from talking to friends about it but you do write about it yeah about some of the things that he not just said but did for instance the encounter in the electronics shop yeah yeah there were so many incidents in which he took a kind of pleasure or if it wasn't pleasure it was almost like he had a quota to fill you know it was just very bureaucratic about the need to put me down um and again i i wrote about them because i never never my wildest dreams would have thought that it could have happened to me or that i would have put up with it and even when i was with him i would hear friends talk about being treated badly and i would think god poor you you know not well there's that dissonance it was a total dissonance because I didn't think I was the same.

19:27And I think that's a tragic and dangerous form of thinking that women fall captive to, where someone treats you badly because they're in pain or because they need help with something, rather than just saying they treat you badly because they're sadistic jerks. And even if they are in pain. Who cares? Yeah. I'm in pain all the time. I try not to treat anyone badly. The scene in the electronics store that you mentioned is something that he would do kind of often, which is that if I wanted to go somewhere, he would show me that it was not important by dilly-dallying, by taking his time. So he would stop and say, oh, do you know, I really want to actually stop in this guitar shop.

20:13I mean, he doesn't play the guitar. And then he would spend an hour in the guitar shop, something he has absolutely no interest in. just to let me know that his interests came before my needs. The electronics shop was one of those incidents where we had to get somewhere. And he talks about me to a salesman that's standing there, a young man from Egypt, and he was helping him. And I was thinking to myself, God, I want to tell this guy don't bother because he's not going to buy anything. And as he's talking to this guy, he's friendly with him, And he says to the guy, where are you from, my brother?

20:50And the guy says, Egypt. And he says, oh, she speaks Arabic. And I don't read. I mean, I understand Arabic. I grew up in an Arabic-speaking country. And I sort of said, yes, a bit, whatever. I had a little bit of chit-chat with the guy. And the man kept asking questions. And the poor salesman is answering him. And at some point, he says to him, if you and your wife. And the man said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're not married. She's not my wife. and the guy you know corrects so he says oh your girlfriend you know your partner your and he says oh no no no no no you think we're together no we're not together we're not together you like her you ask around and then he walks off and the guy looked at me with a face of just I don't I don't even know if it was disgust or or shock or hurt or and in Arabic he asked me He said, is he being serious?

21:45And I really, I didn't know what to say. Just ground swallow me up. Really, every time I think about it, it makes me burn. But with rage, you know, not even shame, just rage.

22:04I don't think you've ever described it as a violent relationship. This is a lot of psychological torment and abuse. But there were a couple of instances where there were flashes of that. Yeah. I mean, you see, I'm still learning about what it means to be in a coercive relationship. And I don't know, I never know what to say about those other moments. Did he hit me? No. were there violent moments yes you know i think people who use power to hurt others are very careful to do it in such a way that does leave you confused that does leave you unsure um once he bit my finger he literally gave you nerve damage yeah it was a very slow day and you know he's playing chess and you know i was looking at my phone or something like that and And he just leaned over and bit my hand.

23:13And it really hurt. And he sort of giggled afterwards like it was funny, like he'd done something funny. And I actually couldn't move my thumb beyond a certain point without pain. And if I had said to him, if I said, you know, why did you do that? He would have told me I was being dramatic and didn't know how to take a joke. and it was no big deal. Right. You know? You're the problem. Yeah. That's also why he shouted, because I didn't listen if he didn't shout.

23:51Fatwa, you have had to keep secrets all your life and there was often peril, there was often danger. And I wonder if you could tell me a bit more about that experience and how you think it followed you through this relationship through later life oh it completely followed me into this relationship because of that I was able to keep it secret and I was able not to talk about it and I was able to protect the man and all his controlling deception and manipulation of me and what about when it came to the people in your life how did he manage to exert such influence you think that Like he, you know, when he said to you, don't tell your friends, don't tell your family about me.

24:38Yeah. That you didn't. Because he helped me as well. And that's, this is the extraordinary thing about it. Because I felt that he had taken away this shuddering grief that I had. And it was a shuddering, like I sometimes would have to get up, you know, and do a book talk at South Bank, let's say, you know. And I would be the night before unable to stop crying and unable to breathe because I thought I was having a heart attack from panic. And he just like this kind of took it away. And he did this magic on me where he showed me how to do it. And he said, you know, you replay the worst thing that happened to you in your mind over and over again.

25:27And you don't have to replay it. you can cut that loop and when you're not replaying it it's not going to follow you and I know he was teaching me how to deal with him too you know right when he humiliated me and um was abusive emotionally to me he he had already taught me how to cut the loop and I was so entranced by him because he had taken my anxiety but he as you've said he gave you presented new kinds I know I know That's totally, but this is the total dissonance of it. He told me he loved me, and he told me that he had to be tough sometimes because I'm stubborn and I'm very independent and no one stands up to me.

26:11And he had to stand up to me because someone has to. When he was his worst, I would think to moments where I had seen him in pain And I would think, I know he's not a bad person. And I wanted a family. And he told me, oh, I am the only person who can have a family with you because I understand you.

26:43Well, talk to me about that because you did try and flip the script on this relationship. You actually took steps to try and make that family happen. yeah well you know i mentioned earlier he said why are you bothering me about children how do you even know maybe you're infertile maybe i would check so i thought okay i'm gonna call your bluff and i made an appointment i went and checked and um a very nice woman uh doing the test said to me what's this all about you know if you want to have kids just try so i'd go back and i would tell him why i actually i can and he would say okay if you can then stop rushing me and back off okay wait till you're 33 okay then I'd be 33 and he'd say wait till you're 34 and I'd wait till I'm 34 and then he'd say wait till next summer and then I'd wait till next summer and then he'd say wait till the new year and I'd wait till the new year and there came a point where I was 36 37 and and he said you know what go find someone else now if I said okay he would say ah oh I knew you didn't have any loyalty and you you know it would always be turned out I knew you would do this to me as well yeah yeah i knew you would do this to me everyone is like this so he said you know if you're so desperate and you're so afraid not to have kids why don't you go freeze your ex and again i thought okay actually yes i will go freeze my ex i did a little bit of research i found a place and i went over and it wasn't in your home city you had to go and travel travel yeah hire an apartment yeah yeah i had to rent a place i'd buy the um injections do the whole thing and then you do the extraction right then you have to go you get put under anesthesia and and I remember in the days afterwards I was talking to him on the phone and I said you know I've done this you know I had to pay all this money for it and you know they're only going to keep the eggs for five years and he said to me oh that's all right you can just do you can just freeze your eggs again then my god and I thought oh my god has he not and has he not thought for a moment what this experience has been.

28:48It's so awful, you know, to have those hormones and to be alone and to be dealing with this idea that you may never have the thing you've always dreamed of having. You were panicked, you were scared, you were alone. Yeah. Yeah, I was. And yeah, after I'd asked if he would be there for the extraction because you're under anesthesia and you can't just hail a cab or get on a tube and go home. You need someone to take you home. and he'd been sort of offended by the suggestion that I would ask him to do this. And so my best friend came and another great friend of mine turned up two days later to cook and sit with me in bed.

29:29And I thank God for them, really.

29:36His behavior was so ugly. It was so cruel. At that point, your friends are there And I wonder if that was a real moment of clarity, thinking, well, I'm freezing my eggs from a man who's not even here. Yeah. It was and it wasn't. And part of how I dealt with the things that made me uncomfortable was not to think about it. Right. Which I had been trained to do. You cut the loop. I cut the loop. I took the uncomfortable thought out of my head. It did turn up every now and then. Every time I saw a baby on a bus, I would want to cry. And every time a friend told me they were pregnant, I was thrilled for them.