Wouter de Winther was a victim of domestic violence in his youth. He had a very violent stepfather, he says in de Volkskrant. “It could explode and beat you up.”
The parents of Wouter de Winther, a popular guest in both Eva and Today Inside, separated when the Telegraaf journalist was only three years old. Although his father was still madly in love, his mother ran off with someone else. He felt that as a little boy he had to choose between mom or dad with her new guy.
‘Things escalated’
His father fought for him, Wouter says de Volkskrant. “My mother retained custody, so I lived with her, but I was allowed to visit my father for a weekend every two weeks.”
It was hell, he says. “The man my mother got into a relationship with and married was not nice. He was dominant, aggressive, violent and an alcoholic. When I was about 15, things escalated.”
Beating each other up
There was constant tension in the house, says Wouter. “I remember writing in a diary: this is not normal, this is not normal, this is not normal. I always had to be on my guard, because he could just explode and then he could beat you up.”
He continues: “Yes, that was all bad. This is not fun for my mother to read, because she also suffered from it, of course. But yes, I can’t help it that it was that way. And that must have shaped me.”
Exit
Just before Wouter moved to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen, he turned away from his stepfather. “And I thought my mother should get rid of him too. An aunt spoke to me about it, she glossed over it all. So I also felt alone.”
He did not inform his real father, for fear of the consequences. What is the relationship with his mother like now? “I talked it out with her. A number of times. We really went to the limit. Because I did reproach her: you did not protect me from him. You let your own happiness take precedence over that of your children.”
Stepmother
Wouter now only has ‘a mother and a very sweet stepmother’. His real father and stepfather are deceased. Did he ever confront his stepfather about the violence later in life? “I wrote a letter during my student days. Eight or nine pages long. I wrote down all the misery, everything. I was furious.”
His mother was also affected by it, he says. “And at one point my mother called in the morning to tell me that he had died. He had had a heart attack. That was the first time in years that I had seen him again, dead.”
Has she always stayed with him? Even after she read the letter? “Yes.”