Rochelle Rees was 14 when she got into political activism and met Rob Gilchrist, an older activist. They were friends until eventually starting a relationship when she was 21.
Rob seemed committed to many causes - from animal rights, to peace, to the environment – and was well-respected amongst the activist communities.
So when Rochelle stumbled across information that suggested her partner was spying on her, and others, for the New Zealand Police, she was shocked.
But rather than confront him, the computer programmer put her emotions aside and used her IT skills to beat him at his own game.
“I tried to just carry on pretty well as normal. At one point I suggested he and his daughter go out shopping so I could search the house,” she tells Insight’s Jenny Brockie.
Rachel Carling-Jenkins is a state MP in Victoria with Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives. When her husband started acting oddly she searched his computer while he was at work. But Rachel was in no way prepared for what she and her teenage son found. The explicit images and videos of children being sexually abused remain imprinted on her mind more than two years on.
“I went into hysterics to be honest. I just did not, I did not understand, this did not gel with the man I had married. This was just beyond my comprehension, beyond anything I had ever anticipated viewing and I was quite hysterical.”
But almost as shocking for Rachel have been the reactions of some of Gary Jenkin’s family and friends after she reported his online activity to police and cut all contact with her husband of 10 years.
Nijole Lucinskaite has been accused of being too supportive when her partner of eight years was found to have viewed and distributed images of child sexual abuse.
Nijole had to share a house with her ex until she could organise alternative accommodation, and continued to return to help him wind up their business.
She also wanted to keep up communication to try to delve into what had happened. But eight years on, she still struggles to make sense of it all.
Insight explores the stories of five women who speak about discovering their partners’ other lives, and how they dealt with that deception. | His Other Life, Tuesday, 8.30pm, SBS.
