I thought that bad relationships only happened to people who featured on Jeremy Kyle, doing a lie detector to see if he’s a cheat or big, rich gangster men smacking their wives around. One thing I didn’t think, was that I would ever be subject to one. Well, I was. When I had just turn 18 years old, someone I would see out every weekend finally added me on Facebook and said hey. I couldn’t believe my luck, I always spoke about him to my friends when I saw him out but I never knew his name or anything about him.
Skip forward a week and a half, he had invited me out to a rave with him in London, something we both enjoyed and I had a fairly good night, at this point I still thought he was about my age, 20 at the most. We was both a bit wavy and he asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend, we had only started speaking 10 days ago but I said yeah anyway because it’s not like we would last, right?
We would see each other a few days every week and on NYE I stayed at his house and after that I was there at least 5 days a week, he would make me ring my work and get people to cover for me, GREAT, he wants to spend more time with me! Then we would play fight, we were only a month and a half into the relationship and the bruises would sometimes cover the whole of my thigh but it was only play fighting...
Soon, he got very serious and physical with me but we had booked a holiday for in a few months to Greece... Skip forward 3 months into the relationship and I am pregnant and he’s been slapping me and punching me a bit but nothing too bad so far, because ‘it’s only a slap’, right?
The day after we find out we’ve been blessed with a child, we go to a rave and he punches me in the face for hugging my friend of 3 years, I can’t understand what I’ve done and I just want to leave but I can’t. So for the next 3 weeks he hits me, slaps me, punches me, kicks me, verbally and financially abuses me, even though we have to pay for a baby now and I’m the only one with a job. May I add, he’s 25 and I am 18 and I’ve worked more in a day than he had in his whole life. So after being together 4 months, I find out he’s cheated, I wake up with a text from the girl telling me everything (which I sort of suspected anyway) and my heart shatters because now I have to leave him, right? Well, no. I wait for him to wake up and I just ask him if it’s true, that’s when I got punched in the face and stomach 11 times, he then cried into my lap and said he was sorry. It was fine after that.
We had a holiday to Greece booked, he promised he wouldn’t drink on holiday because when we got back to the UK he was going to give up drink and drugs and focus on me and the baby, I couldn’t wait! My dad drove me and my two friends to the airport and we met my partner there, he was agitated because he was hungry so we got through all the airport parts we needed to and stopped for lunch and in his case, an alcoholic drink. I was fine with this because it was to ‘calm his nerves’. We’re waiting to board the plane and he’s screaming at me that he doesn’t want to come and I said I would ring his Mum to pick him up because really, I didn’t want him to come either. That lasted all of about 20 minutes before we actually got on the plane and off to Greece we went!
Pinched and elbowed, all the way to Greece I just sat with my headphones in whilst he was nasty to me and the entire holiday he was drunk and violent towards me and one day I just had enough, he punches me in my face and I run to my friends room crying and we locked him out. That’s when, I called my mum. I told her he had punched me and she asked if he had done it before and that’s when I told her everything. I know it broke her because the past 6 months has broken me, I felt like nothing anymore. I had to carry on the holiday for the next few days, AFTER he had been in the reception area screaming he was going to kill me and himself. Brilliant.
FINALLY, I’m on my way to the airport and going home, I can’t wait. My mum will be able to help me get out of this relationship and I will be free! We’re sat on the plane and I suggest we call the baby Reece for a boy, because our holiday was to Greece and I loved the name anyway. After that I got elbowed in the stomach 3 times. I ask the hostess to move me away from him and they move me alone to the back of the plane, my two friends stayed at the front but didn’t talk to my partner. In the toilet break, I was asleep and I felt someone punch me in the temple, you can guess who it was. The staff let us off the plane together first and my dad was on his way to pick us up, suddenly my partner runs past us all to get his luggage, we just ignored him because he is doing this for attention now. Whilst I’m waiting for my luggage he walks past and spits in my face, lovely gentleman. We ignore it, we’re in England now and it’s a public place with armed police, I’ll be fine. No one is that stupid, right?
Outside I sat on a bench and my two friends stood up and had a cigarette, we can hear someone hurling abuse but we just ignore it. Until, he comes up to me and stands in front of me calling me all sorts of disgusting things and then he punches me so hard in my stomach all I can do is scream in pain. He ran about 10 meters and stopped, everyone around was checking me, phoning the police and an ambulance and he was arrested, my friends went to the police station and I went to hospital, alone.
My dad had to wait at the police station for my friends and I had to make a statement in a hospital bed, not knowing if my baby was going to be ok. I didn’t cry in the ambulance or when I gave a statement of every incident I could remember or when the doctors were stabbing me with needles. I cried when the police officer walked away, when I had signed my statement, when it was finally over... I cried. I felt guilt, I felt heartbreak, he had broken me down every day for the past 4 months and yet all I wanted was him there.
It’s been two years, I have a daughter. She looks identical to me and she is so clever and amazing. I think of my past a lot, but I’m getting help. I didn’t know help was available, I thought I was alone but I’m not. I’ve met so many women just like me, all from different backgrounds, all from different ages and races and I never knew so many people had gone through the pain that I had to endure. All the black eyes, blood, cuts, bruises, calls to 111, names I was called, money he stole, 2 phones he smashed and the vile things he done to me, they don’t matter. I am a survivor and I remind myself every single day how amazing I am. God blessed me with my daughter for a reason and every day I thank him.
He got a suspended sentence and probation for 2 years and an order not to come near me or anywhere I MIGHT be! You’re not alone. The nights might seem dark but there will always be a brighter day.
Thank you for reading my story.
Anonymous