The Repair Shop's Suzie Fletcher speaks to Lorraine Kelly about being trapped in an abusive marriage

The Repair Shop’s Suzie Fletcher appeared on Lorraine on Wednesday (14 June) and opened up about her abusive marriage following the release of her book ‘The Sun Over the Mountains.’ Suzie’s book was released on 8 June and looks back on her life in which she moves from England to Colorado and back again. 

Speaking to Lorraine, Suzie talked about the coercive behaviour she experienced while she was married to her late husband Rob, who died in 2013. She recalled moving to the US in her early 30s and being “swept off her feet” by Rob.

She said: "I just went with it. I'm a little bit spontaneous sometimes, and you can't plan how life is going to go. I was there for a two-year contract and met Rob two weeks after being in the country and my life just took a complete turn."

She then went on to discuss her husband’s controlling nature and the issues Rob had faced as a child. She said: "As I got to know him better, I realised he had been massively traumatised as a child and with that brings on some coping mechanisms which aren't exactly healthy and he was using alcohol to help to numb the pain.

"I did learn as time went on how massively damaged he was and a lot of his bad treatment towards me came from his own insecurities and his inability to cope with life. 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 as well within certain groups that he'd grown up in.

"If you can keep an open heart and love unconditionally, there's always hope and I'd rather have hope and help a person than just necessarily run away."

She also admitted that during the early days of their relationship, Suzie didn’t analyse some of the negative things Rob revealed about himself. This was, in part, due to the fact that she was in an unfamiliar country without the support of her friends and family. 

She said: “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."