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Discovering A Hidden Past
episode • Insight • news and current affairs • 51m
episode • Insight • news and current affairs • 51m
This article contains references to domestic and sexual violence.
Three days after Susan Francis’ husband Wayne died, she received a phone call from an intoxicated man who was distantly related to him.
“He was saying really disturbing things, questioning me about why I’d married my husband,” Susan told Insight.
She dismissed the conversation as a drunken phone call and focused on the immediate aftermath of his sudden death.
“I had to organise the cremation. I was absolutely stricken with grief and I just put that conversation to one side. The important thing was getting my life back together.”
But the phone call played in the back of her mind over the next two years until she finally asked her mother-in-law about the conversation.
“[My mother-in-law] burst into tears. She was really upset and she needed to go and lie down. I needed to leave the house. She told me that when my husband was 22 years old he had killed his de facto wife,” Susan said.
She was told the charge was initially murder, and then reduced to manslaughter. He served three years in jail in Papua New Guinea, which is where he lived at the time.
"I found out that he had either pushed his wife down the stairs deliberately, or that he'd pushed her and she'd fallen down the stairs," Susan said.
Susan struggled to reconcile the man who had loved her unconditionally with the man who committed this act almost 30 years before meeting her.
“Together, the two men couldn’t merge as one.”
Susan Francis says years after her husband's death, she struggles with all the questions she has about his dark past that she will never know the answers to. Source: Supplied
Not everyone changes with time
Karen Jones, Associate Professor of philosophy at the University of Melbourne, says while the passing of time is often a good indicator of how much someone has changed, this is not always the case.
“We’ve got a responsibility to recognise that people can change and grow. When that person has genuinely changed, their self-presentation is as a person who has changed."
But by refusing to own up to our past, our behaviour may suggest that we haven’t actually changed at all, she adds.
Susan said that while she recognises the possibility of change, she doesn’t think anyone who killed a woman then marries another can have a completely clean break from their past.
“Wayne had every right to come to Australia and start a new life, but there were certain people that needed to know,” she said.
“I needed to know that part of his history before we got married."
Susan Francis' husband Wayne went to jail over the death of his first wife, almost 30 years before Susan met him. Source: Supplied
“It’s all to do with intent. If somebody doesn’t tell you something to advance their own purpose, then there is deception involved in that."
“My decision might have been not to go out with him or not to marry him if he had chosen to tell me. I feel that my identity was impacted because he took away the agency.”
I feel that there’s a separation between us that didn’t exist and I don’t know how to fix that.Susan Francis
Associate Professor Jones studies trust in relationships. She says that finding out about a loved one’s past can impact our sense of self as well as our present relationship with them.
“It can make us worry that the foundations on which we think our current relationship is built aren’t actually firm.”
She believes it is not relevant to determine whether someone lied about their past or simply omitted to tell the truth. Rather, the question is whether failing to disclose information violated the assumption of shared values in a relationship.
'I feel so removed from him now'
Susan’s anger stems from Wayne’s betrayal of the values she assumed they shared.
“I wonder about the conversations that we would have about domestic violence or women in the news that had been killed by their partners, how he must have been feeling when we were having those discussions,” she said.
“For him not to tell me what happened was very deceitful. He chose to keep me in ignorance about something that was really important to me at a personal level and would be to any woman.”
One in six women in Australia have experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or previous cohabiting partner, according to the
It has been five years since Susan found out about Wayne’s hidden past, and she continues to struggle with her negative feelings towards him.
“I feel so removed from him now, finding out what had happened. I feel that there’s a separation between us that didn’t exist, and I don’t know how to fix that,” Susan said.
One in six women have experienced intimate violence by a previous or cohabiting partner, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Source: SBS
“I really wish we’d had those conversations. I would very much like to sit down with him and for him to tell me word by word, in his own voice, what happened.”
Hear more from Susan and others who’ve uncovered a loved one’s buried past on .
If you or someone you know is impacted by domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit In an emergency, call 000. , operated by No to Violence, can be contacted on 1300 766 491.
