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My Personal Story of Domestic Violence
When you’re in a relationship of domestic violence, you believe them when they say they won’t do it again, when they say that they’re so sorry and that they love you so much, when they describe themselves as utter c**ts for ever having done
But this time was different.
This time wasn’t ’just’ a shove or hands around my throat, it wasn’t ’just’ clenching my wrists until they felt the were on fire or telling me that nobody would have me and my bastard children (I had 3 from a previous marriage), that nobody loved me and the proof of that is that even my own mother didn’t (abusive partners store snippets of your insecurities and use them against you whenever the mood takes them, my biggest one being
My kids were never in the house when the violence happened (they lived with their dad half the week), but, this time, when the penultimate punch landed, they were asleep in their beds upstairs.
This was the turning point, my limit. I would have taken all the abuse if it meant not having to put my kids through another divorce. I would have taken anything to save them more pain and this gave him even more confidence and freedom to do whatever he liked, he was safe in the knowledge I was going nowhere.
I
When I talk about my DV story I still can’t believe it happened to me. I am a strong, very independent women. I’ve taken on bigger twats in my life than this one and yet?! We had a big house, he worked in a great company in the city I worked in the accounts department for a local company. On the outside we had it all, the picture of a happy family, a couple deeply in love, a couple who had a great life. I think I had even convinced myself of that, it didn’t happen to women like me, did it?
At the time I hid the abuse. It didn’t fit into
Me and my sister fell out that night and I went home to
I couldn’t bare the thought of anyone thinking I was in any way allowing someone to treat me this way? Why would I? I’m not stupid, I know that you don’t take crap from bullies, and yet?
But that night, with a single blow to the head, something clicked and I realised that I could have died, that if I stayed it could potentially have ended with my kids being left motherless. That was the moment I chose to see that I did have a choice to make, and I chose to leave.
He was arrested and pleaded guilty to ’assault by beating’; he got a
I had to re-home myself and 3 kids, I had to fess up to my family my ex-husband (who thankfully never mentioned Karma, at least not to my face) and my inner circle, that I had in fact been a victim of domestic violence. I had to deal with all the practical and emotional shit whilst ensuring my kids never knew why. I didn’t want them to ever know why! The
He moved back home with his mum and dad, under their wing whilst they continued to spit venom at me.
My life was broken; his carried on, with room service, curtesy of mummy and daddy.
Domestic Violence can happen to anyone, I know that now because it happened to me. We were living a middle classed life that from the outside was enviable. The whole time I was at war with the man I had invited in mine
Now I’m out of it and in a good life, it shocks me that I ’allowed’ the abuse to continue for all the years that it did? Hindsight is a beautiful but often cruel thing.
My kids are now much older and I have spoken to them individually about how that relationship ended and how now, I feel it’s time to share my story with other women, by way of supporting them, empathising with them, empowering them, showing them that DV isn’t EVER about them but about their abuser and that they ALWAYS have a choice.
To follow my story