KEY POINTS:
Nine years of "walking on egg shells" being married to man who went on to kill twice, is a mistake 26-year-old Donna Curran, of Welcome Bay, vows never to repeat.
She spoke candidly yesterday about her life with a man who took two lives in the space of seven months in 2005 - the second victim, baby Aaliyah Morrissey, died while he was out on bail facing charges relating to the death of Natasha Hayden.
She remembers feeling surprised when her husband got bail on serious charges relating to the death of her friend in McLaren Falls Park.
Mrs Curran was adamant the court made a big mistake - even although she admits the family circumstances were used to help persuade the judge to free him.
She said she had been trapped in the relationship and her dependence on Curran was used to free him from custody.
Mrs Curran also wonders about the fairness of the jury hearing the Aaliyah Morrissey case being kept in the dark about the manslaughter of Natasha Hayden.
"It is sort of unfair in a sense that the jury did not know because there is a lot of ironies between the two deaths - he was having an affair with Tash and she died, and he was having an affair with Hoana (Morrissey) and her baby died."
Asked if the affairs were casual, she responded: "Casual is not Michael. If he has an affair, it is more than a one-night stand." With divorce papers served against Curran two weeks ago, she can only look back to a brief period when the future looked bright - they were married in Tauranga's picturesque Cliff Rd rose gardens in 1998.
But it did not take long for what was to become a familiar pattern to establish itself in their relationship - telling a different story to several happy family photos featuring Curran on the walls of her home.
While Mrs Curran said she become a "social phobic", hardly ever going out, her husband hardly spent any time at home, preferring the company of friends and sometimes staying out all night. The relationship soured and although they split a couple of times, they always got back together again - by that time there were two children.
She said she was constantly "walking on egg shells" with Curran, who would pick on her for stupid little things like how she vacuumed the floor.
"I did not notice the kind of mind games he was playing until I was out of the situation - he seemed to have power and control without even trying.
"I used to say to him, why do you treat other women better than you treat me? He would treat me like crap. I have never seen him hurt or hit another woman, but he would hit me - never seriously, the worst was a fat lip."
During the early years of the marriage, she said her husband could control his temper, but it all unravelled in the end when he was on a "downward slide".
Unlike the death of Natasha Hayden, she said her husband did not attempt to try to offer her any explanation for Aaliyah's death and it was left to Mrs Curran to try to draw her own conclusions.
Mrs Curran said she will definitely not be there when he gets out of jail.
"It is time for the kids and I to move on to better things. People still worry about me going back to him, but it is not going to happen."
Her fresh start includes leaving Tauranga and moving to Thames, where she first lived when her English father and Maori mother first settled to raise their family.
Mrs Curran said the scars from her marriage to Michael Curran meant she feared entering a relationship again in case it went sour again.
"That would be so difficult to cope with."
- BOP TIMES
