In June 2017 I finally left. Well, managed to get him to leave. We got together in February 2013 and everything was AMAZING! I fell in love with the sweetest, kindest, most loving and generous man I’d ever met. I really fell for this guy hard really quickly! I’d only moved to London a few months before to start a new job and create a new life after ending a pretty rough relationship! So to then meet someone and fall In Love too was amazing!
I fell pregnant pretty quickly with our first child! But he was amazing throughout the pregnancy! And it made me love him even more! He lost his job just as I found out I was pregnant but he seemed to be trying to find something else! Then my daughter was born. And then everything changed. I wasn’t on my pedestal anymore. I didn’t have my kind loving man anymore. And that’s when it started. At first it was just the words. I was fat, disgusting, saggy, a slag, and a whore, thick, stupid, it was my fault he his life was a mess.
He punched a hole in the bedroom door one night and I had to clean it up. It was my fault so I should clean his blood off the carpet and door! My daughter was around 6 months old when he first hit me. We were arguing and I was feeding her a bottle milk. I can picture him now walking towards me and smacking me round the face! I don’t remember what we argued about but I remember arguing and being smacked. And that smack was the beginning of the end!
I left him! I was never going to be the poor pathetic weak minded girl that stayed and let myself be treated like that! I packed my things and I moved back to Cambridge shire to my family and friends. Over Christmas we spent some time together and I was promised it was all going to be okay and he would change! He knew his temper was bad and he didn’t mean it and he was just really stressed and dealing with a lot right now and I wasn’t helping! I wound him up and I did it on purpose. I needed to stop. We got back together! He would change! I fell pregnant again.
When I was 32 weeks pregnant with our second child he pushed me so hard against the kitchen cabinet during an argument that I had a black bruise that covered my whole shin. I would get kicked out of bed because it was my job to go and see to our daughter not his. Physically kicked out of bed. Sometimes I stood up to him and refused to move. That never went well. When our son was born things calmed down in that new baby honey moon period! I genuinely thought things were getting better! When he was a few months old I realized I was wrong.
The names started getting worse. I was the saggy fat bitch that no one else was going to want. Why did I always do everything to wind him up! Why couldn’t I just stop stressing him out! How fucking dare I feel sorry for myself! I’m no fucking victim! IT’S MY FAULT! I kicked him out. He came to the house and broke my back gate because I wouldn’t let him in the house. He moved into a flat a few miles away. He would have the kids at weekends and I’d get phone calls and texts of abuse, telling me I wouldn’t ever see my children again. Or telling me what a whore I was. If it wasn’t that then it was him saying he was going to kill himself if I didn’t take him back.
Again we overcame this and he even went to the doctors his time. Told them he was depressed and wanted help. I went with him. He even told the doctors what he had been doing to me, how he has treated me. I thought this was it! A real change, a breakthrough! We could make this right! I fell pregnant with twins! We got married! And then my world really fell apart! It was the worst year and a bit I think I’ll ever go through! He was....he was someone else! I didn’t recognize him! The spiteful words and the really not very pleasant actions to say the least. I was spat at, I had my hair pulled, and I was punched, kicked. Pushed around. I was pregnant!
My children were watching this man, their dad, bully me! Bully their mummy! Then the twins were born! Something changed in me! I genuinely thought I had post-natal depression! I was miserable! I’d never felt so low! And it was all me! My own fault! But I couldn’t tell him I’d been to see the doctor because I didn’t want a weakness for him to pick on! (Which of course when he found out he did!) That’s when I started to call the police for everything that went on! The first time I shit myself phoning them. But I was sat in the car with my kids in a lay by round the corner from my house and I knew something had to change so I called them.
Every time after that got easier. Unfortunately the job my husband previously had was a detective in the Police so he knew just what to say and do! And he was never charged once! Eventually though they made him give me his house keys and not come back to the house. I was so lucky and managed to get an occupation order and non-Molestation order against him! So now he can’t come near me or my home. He has his kids every other weekend and meets one of my parents to collect and drop off and a public location. But do you know what hurt me the most through all of this? The way he made me feel!
He made me feel like I was really losing my mind. Like I was going crazy and it was all my own fault! Like I deserved everything I got and I wasn’t a victim of domestic abuse BECAUSE I deserved it. I was disgusted with myself and I hated myself. I still do a little bit to be honest! And my poor babies! My little girl and little boys. What they had to see. What they had to hear! Because of me. Because I wasn’t strong enough! But now I know I am! And he can’t hurt me anymore BECAUSE I know I am strong enough!
H. Piper