“We talked for an hour. I said, ‘I hope you heal’, and I walked away,” Clare said.

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What she didn’t know was that she would be with Peter nearly every step of that 15-year healing process – through the good and the bad.

The pair began dating in 2000 and, though neither of them realised it, Peter was already in the midst of a breakdown.

“He had an electrical business and he’d tell me even doing a simple job would take three times longer than it should, and then he’d have to come home and sleep all afternoon,” Clare said. “He wouldn’t go into a supermarket, he couldn’t fill out paperwork.

“We were one year in, two years in, three years in and he wasn’t getting better.”

Peter had a lot of assessments, including a brain scan to rule out a tumour, and tried several medications.

“The neuropsychologist told us Pete’s intelligence was intact but it couldn’t get to the outside world. In electricians’ terms, it was like a blown circuit.”

During this period Peter told Clare he had been a victim of clergy sexual abuse as a child, but she wasn’t shocked as some of her relatives had also been assaulted.

In 2006, after the couple were living together and had their first child, Clare persuaded Peter to talk to someone about the abuse just to make sure his past wasn’t affecting his present.

In his first session, he ended up in a fetal position on the floor, dry retching.

“Finally, we had a diagnosis of delayed onset post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said.

But Clare said life with PTSD was extremely tough.

“He had severe depression, anger. Self-loathing emanated off him – you could almost touch it. It was like having eight years walking around next to someone neck high in mud. I was trying to keep him moving, keep him living but trying not to drown in the mud myself.”

Peter couldn’t carry out simple chores like shopping or mowing the lawns, and couldn’t get through a day without going back to bed.

So what made Clare carry on as a survivor’s wife?

“Even through all this, I could see fundamentally what a good man he was.”

Clare said she was also good at “not being a martyr” and made sure her own needs were met.

“It’s true to say I’ve been resentful at him over the years. Our whole life has to be structured around what keeps Pete going, his exercise, his music, meditation and sleeping.”

However, she said the family of four has had incredible support from both her family and Peter’s mother and sister Leanne, with both mothers living nearby to help out when Clare has to work in Melbourne.

Clare also said the saying that it takes a village to raise a child was just as apt for survivors.

“Both of our mothers are a big part of why we’re still married.”

But Clare said there were two main issues that nearly destroyed her.

When the couple took civil action against the church, the church’s lawyers made life very difficult.

“Three times we thought we had a date for something to be resolved and we’d pay a barrister an exorbitant sum to appear, and at the last minute the church’s lawyers would find some obscure reason to get it postponed. We felt like we were little ants taking on this elephant.

“One day, I just threw a glass across the room and it smashed everywhere, and I think Pete could see that I just couldn’t do it any longer.”

The couple eventually accepted a settlement, but it was a “fraction of what we’d lost”.

The other issue was when Peter lost his business in difficult circumstances.

“Losing the ability to earn a living, when you’re a man, is particularly hard,” she said. “One day, I said why don’t you go and hire an office or something so you’ve got somewhere to go each day. And he said, ‘But I won’t be a part of anything. When I had the business at least I could go there and even if all I could do was sweep the floors, I was still part of a team. I could still have a cuppa with the boys. Now, I’m just useless’.

“It broke my heart.”

Clare said she is particularly infuriated when people infer survivors just want big payouts.

“We had an independent assessment done and the financial impact on us is that Pete has lost in excess of $2 million in lost earnings and assets.

“Not in a million years are we trying to get that amount back, but would I like the church to help us not lose our family home, which may well happen? Of course.

“And would I like the church to continue to pay for Pete’s counselling? Of course.

“People who think like that are being close-minded because it’s clearly not about that.

“That’s the defence when you don’t want to deal with the offence.”

Clare said the couple had their ups and downs each year, with the downs mainly in November – when the worst of the abuse occurred – December and January.

“It’s like he has a body memory of what was awaiting him when he got back to school.”

She said Peter once told her she and their two children would be better off without him.

“I told him I’d rather our children had a damaged father trying to work through something than one who abandons them. How are they supposed to learn how to deal with life if you teach them to give up?

“He told me he’d made up his mind to commit suicide that day and I’d basically stopped him.

“There are a lot of families who haven’t been so lucky though; when someone takes their own life they really must believe that everyone is better off with them gone. My heart goes out to those families.” 

Clare started working in Melbourne for both financial and emotional reasons, as she rationally knows she needs to look after herself, too.

“It’s our children that have struggled the most with this, paid the price. But I know they are OK. Pete’s such a great dad,” she said. 

“He teaches them to listen to their feelings and go into their inner world.

“He’s also taught them, just because someone is older or in authority, don’t do something they tell you if you think it’s wrong.”

When their daughter, aged 10, was told Clare was talking to The Courier she said: “Can you tell them something from me. He’s the best daddy in the world.”

fiona.henderson@fairfaxmedia.com.au