'Nagging' wife who asked bodybuilder husband to do chores arrested and dragged to court for 'controlling behavior'
A "nagging" wife who forced her husband to help with household chores was reportedly placed behind bars and dragged to court for her "controlling" ways.
According to Valerie Sanders, she was prosecuted for "controlling behavior" after she asked Michael, 58, to vacuum the house, clean patio doors and not head to the gym so often.
Nonetheless, the case was thrown out just before a trial, The Sun reports.
Valerie, who hails from Catterick, North Yorks, called the case "outrageous" and said she was "treated like a criminal" for nagging her bodybuilder husband.
According to her, Michael spent hours at the gym or washing his car instead of helping out at home.
She said she left notes for her husband to do chores at the residence they shared with two dogs. But cops were soon called in.
Valerie said two vans and four officers responded to her address and charged her with “coercive or controlling behavior.”
While the case collapsed this week just moments before a trial was set to start, Valerie said she endured 14 months of "hell."
“It’s outrageous this ever got to court," said Valerie, who runs a cleaning firm.
In response, Michael hit back saying: “I’m not sure if she should have gone to court or not. That was not my decision—but she was controlling. She was constantly on at me. She used to leave the vacuum out or the polish and wanted me to clean every day because of the dogs.”
The couple first met in 2012 and tied the knot two years later. Michael got a job as a gym manager after retiring as a CCTV operator.
It was after joining the gym that Michael became obsessed with bodybuilding, according to Valerie, who has two grown-up daughters.
“He was training all the time. He was eating five or six meals a day and mushing up all his food in the blender," she recalled.
"We stopped going out for meals. I was working and he was at the gym from early in the morning until late at night. I just didn’t see him. If he wasn’t in the gym he was washing his car for hours. He started to do bodybuilding competitions. It wasn’t attractive. It was like cuddling an ironing board. He started to take Viagra because he said he couldn’t get an erection, blaming the steroids. But when he took the tablets it made him sniffy and snotty so I refused to sleep with him.”
When Jobcentre staff—who got him the new job at the gym—were carrying out a routine check, they realized Michael's mood had changed for the worse.
When asked about it, he said his home life was to blame.
The staff then lodged a complaint with the police in April 2018, who turned up soon after at their Catterick, North Yorks home.
“I was taken to the station and locked in a cell. I’ve never been in trouble. I was horrified. I felt like a criminal," Valerie recalled. “I had my house keys taken away. I had to stay at a friend’s mum’s," she said after being charged.
Furthermore, she denied ever being “coercive or controlling.”
“I’d leave a note asking him to vacuum parts of the house and clean the patio doors," she said. "We have two miniature dachshunds. But he would spend four hours cleaning his car—so, of course, I complained. Surely it isn’t controlling behavior otherwise every married couple would be in court.”
According to Michael, Valerie had initially encouraged his bodybuilding, but the complaints started soon enough.
“She said I was training too much and didn’t like the diet I was on," he said, adding he was congested from using Viagra due to a hormone issue. “She’d say I couldn’t go anywhere near her like that. That made me feel worse. She didn’t like me cleaning my car. She would leave notes to me about the cleaning. At the finish, I was feeling ill.”
Nonetheless, the case was thrown out at Teesside crown court just before a jury was sworn in.
Valerie pleaded not guilty in exchange for a two-year restraining order.
That said, the couple are now filing for divorce. “17 hours in a prison cell broke my love for him," Valerie said. "It’s such a relief it is all over.”
On the other hand, Michael is now free from the chores and plans to continue his journey on the over-55s bodybuilding circuit.
"There was no love anymore," he said. "She used to kiss and cuddle her two dogs, but never kissed and cuddled me.”
Meanwhile, the CPS said in a statement: “We prosecute cases where there is sufficient evidence of coercive and controlling behavior. In this case, after a key witness decided to no longer support the prosecution, we concluded there was no longer sufficient evidence."