I just keep looking at everything thinking I hope I don’t wake up and it’s a dream because everything is just perfect.

We fled from my husband who abused me in every way possible which included financial abuse. For me to be able to buy what we needed for our home would have meant me taking out a bank loan with the highest interest rate.

I left everything. Everything that I worked long hard hours for and all of my children’s memories. I can remember just going round and round in my head how they wouldn’t even have a bed or somewhere to sit, any way of cooking them food.

I have spent the past 10 months living in a refuge with my 3 children, my youngest spent her 1st birthday in the refuge and it wasn’t the birthday I had planned for her. 

I was wrong, all what I thought was love and him caring for me and my safety, was far from love. He was studying me to mould me in to what he wanted, he knew what I loved and little by little he took it away from me.

I met my partner just over 4 years ago. At the beginning everything seemed to be fine, but now looking back the warning signs were there.  

This past 10 months have been the scariest months of my life. I had adapted to the violence, the hits, the bruises, the verbal abuse and the constant putting me down.

I was a victim of domestic abuse and this time last year my life was in such a mess and I couldn’t see any way to make things better. I was trapped with no family and friends no job no money or anybody to turn to who could help me escape.

​I was unable to receive any help in terms of furnishing our home. I felt worthless & in a hopeless predicament, the worry of how I was going to furnish the house gave me many sleepless nights.

When me and my daughter fled my ex-partner in January 2020 we left our home with absolutely nothing other than a little bag I packed with a few of our clothes. ​We just had to go quickly at the first opportunity, we didn’t have time to plan or pack anything.

Hearing about the coronavirus pandemic with the news of lockdown and isolation made me feel physically sick.

Them times when I did have to go to a&e because he nearly killed me he never left me to be on my own with a doctor or nurse it were like he were a complete different man he would be in tears holding and kissing my hand saying come on love your going to be alright so course people would think he were a caring man.

To the outside world my husband appeared to be this friendly man, an amazing dad with the perfect family life, the successful business, driving a nice car, always smartly dressed and living in the nice house but that was all so far from the truth.

I’ve spent 11 months in refuge and my ex said that I could go back to the house and get my things that I left behind when I do have my own house.
This week I was given the keys to my house and i moved in with a bed, 2 lamps a tv stand and a sofa.

I was given the date we was moving into our new house but I had only a little bit of money to spend on furnishing it, that’s when reality really hit home.
How will I wash our clothes, What will I cook on I don’t have an oven.

As long as he had his cans of strong cider he didn’t care. He would shout and go mad when our baby cried and tell me to shut the brat up or else. Every day I lived in fear, never knowing what kind of mood he was going to be in.

Slowly he took away my confidence then my friends, family, my Job, my independence, all my rights, my worth, my strength, my mind and then he beat me.

I started thinking “is it me”Could it be this or could it be the way I said something, had he found someone else and honestly at one point I actually thought I was going mad, but I wasn’t.

It’s been hard for my children who have gone through this with me, they saw how their dad abused me and beat me up, they’ve seen and heard all of it.

I remember the very first time he hit me like it was yesterday and the only thing that stopped me was thinking of all the plans that we had made together for our future and the thought of letting go of those dreams of our perfect life, crushed me.

Today I moved out of temporary accommodation in to my own home. In the past couple of hours I’ve laughed, cried and sang. It’s a strange feeling and I’m not sure if it’s normal but it’s overwhelming and not long ago i had to pinch myself and thought is this really happening, this is it now I’ve actually done it.

My ex treated me like something he stood in, he was just the nastiest horrible most evil person you could imagine. But to outsiders he was the total opposite and not the same person to who he was with me.