My husband and I got married in 2009. When we were dating and living together there were things which with hindsight should have made me run a mile, but I didn’t because he was at times charismatic, fun and loving.  What should have made me run was he could say some really nasty things to me, which he would later blame on drink.  He would sulk for days on end. If he didn’t want to help me with something he would watch me struggle to do it on my own rather than help, I don’t think any man should do this.

I have often referred to our relationship as going around in a circle.  We would have an argument, we would make up promises would get made to make things better, things would be better for a while and then bam! Back to the start of what made the row happen in the first place.  Sometimes the good parts last a really long time or I would forgive more easily as I’m ‘trying’ to make things work. Then I also realise its just me making this work.  The circles would get smaller and smaller until I realised I’m very unhappy.

Trying to talk about these things with him made things worse for me.  My husband was and is what is called Emotionally Abusive he was also incredibly Controlling.  The emotional abuse started with name calling like I’m ugly, I’m smelly, I’m not very nice to other people therefore no one likes me. All these things are designed to chip away at your self confidence and they do.  He would do this late at night, he would wake me up specifically to tell me these things which also makes you feel tired the next day.  When we had an argument he would ask me not to discuss our problems with anyone else. He would follow me around to make sure I didn’t discuss with anyone else this is all control to isolate you.  He would be discussing things with other people, as I found out later.  He took away both sets of keys to the car so I couldn’t use the only car we had.  If you recognise any of these things please do discuss with as many people as possible.