Suzie Fletcher from The Repair Shop has opened up about the emotional abuse she endured from her late husband, who once told her a ‘cruel lie’ that her brother Steve was terminally ill. Speaking on the What I Wish I’d Known podcast, Suzie recounted how her husband attempted to isolate her from her family by falsely claiming her sibling was dying.
She said: “He tried (to turn me against my family). He did try and that was not going to happen. He also was very cruel. On one visit we came back to the UK and I’m incredibly close to my brother Steve.
“And he and Steve were spending a lot of time together. We’d got back to the US and he said: ‘I’m going to tell you now, your brother is seriously ill, probably terminal. He’s told me this in confidence so you can’t tell anybody.”
Suzie continued to describe the impact of the lie on her relationship with her brother: “So that’s my brother, who is terminally ill. It wasn’t (true). He was frightening me, he was testing me, so for a long time, every time I talked to Steve I’d say: ‘Alright. How’s your health?'”
She also reflected on the confusion and self-doubt it caused: “I do remember saying to him: ‘Well Steve’s fine.’ And he’d say: ‘Well that’s good. What a relief.’ So you begin to lose your remind sadly and it gets reflected back on you.”
Suzie’s world was turned upside down in 2013 when her husband James passed away from undiagnosed pancreatic cancer. The family was stunned, having been unaware of his illness, reports Birmingham Live.
Suzie Fletcher
(Image: BBC)
In the aftermath, Suzie became a familiar face on BBC’s The Repair Shop, joining the programme in its second series in 2018.
Reflecting on her late husband and their conversations together, Suzie recalled him questioning whether their marriage ‘wasn’t all bad’. As she looks back, Suzie observes that the signs of abuse are more apparent now than they were then.
Opening up on a podcast, she discussed the dynamic of their relationship: “He had made me very dependent on him. It’s one of those things I do question, whether it was intentional or just the way he operated.”
Jay Blades, Keithly Brandy and Suzie Fletcher
(Image: BBC / Ricochet)
She continued to share her new understanding of certain behaviours: “We know so much more about gaslighting and these terms of grooming, and codependency, and coercive behaviour. These are terms I now know. I didn’t know then.”
Confronting her past perceptions of love and harm, Suzie said: “I couldn’t rationalise this behaviour before. This is a man who loved me so I must have deserved that. Obviously I didn’t deserve that, no way.”
Fans of The Repair Shop can look forward to its return on BBC One tonight (Wednesday, January 15) at 8pm.