This post is an anonymous guest post
I honestly don’t know where to start. It’s so hard for me to get this all out there after keeping it quiet for almost 3 years. My soon to be ex husband first hit me a week after he came home from hospital after fighting pneumonia and having his heart stop twice. He’d been through so much and I’d sat by his side through the entirety of it. I put it down to him being stressed. We’d been together 6 months and know each other or 3 years before we got together.
I had never thought he would have done that to me, so when that punch to the face came because I was late home from work; I struck it off as a one off and down to him being poorly. These one off became a weekly occurrence. We were planning our wedding in February and I clung to that thinking he must love me or he wouldn’t be marrying me. A week before we were due to be married he bit a chunk out of my arm.
My mom had suspicions that he was violent towards me and now she knew for certain. His parents, of course, quickly shh’d me (they were very controlling towards me and made no secret that they hated me, made me feel like I needed to please them). My mom begged me not to marry him but I was delusional. I just couldn’t see sense.
I kept telling myself he loved me
Our wedding day came. As I stood in the waiting room at the registry office I started to shake. I blurted ‘I don’t want to get married’ to my dad and my maid of honor. My dad just dismissed it as cold feet but my best friend knew I meant it and a argument started between me and dad about how I was being daft and all those people had turned up, before he finally dragged me down the aisle. As I walked down it all those smiling faces told me I had to marry him. I had to make everyone happy.
This was the worst day of my life
It’s so hard saying that now, especially after I’d convinced myself it was one of the happiest. I had no choice in the wedding, he even choose y dress which I hated. I wasn’t exactly small back then and it made me look like a prize pig. The wedding night wasn’t much better. I was exhausted and just wanted to go sleep. My ex insisted that we had sex as it was traditional. I eventually agreed. The day after our wedding I went into a bit of a panic. I had never been the marriage type and I was now tied to someone.
He punched me in the face and split my lip when I told him truthfully how I felt
The beatings became and almost daily occurrence until 3 months later. He smacked my daughter and I lost it. He went into a full on assault on me. He fractured my eye socket and split my lip. He then calmed down and went upstairs to phone his parents. They arrived and caused another argument then watched as he pinned me to the floor, holding me down by my hair and kicked me repeatedly in the stomachs. They then dragged him away and I rang my mom in tears. My 2 year old daughter saw everything. My mom rang the police and he was arrested.
The kids were put on child protection. 2 weeks after the assault I miscarried. I didn’t know I was pregnant but I was 14 weeks and had to spend a lot of time in hospital afterwards which I’d rather not go into. I dropped the charges on him. I wanted him home, I needed him home. As soon as his bail was over and he was cautioned he came home. He jumped through the social service’s hoops and I fell pregnant.
He didn’t touch me again until I was 34 weeks gone. He punched me in the stomach causing a severe bleed and pushed me on the stairs. My 3 year old daughter rang 999 and told them mommy was poorly and had blood. The pain was excruciating. At the hospital they struggled to find the babies heart beat. As the midwife frantically moved the sensor over my bruised belly another midwife burst in and told me a policed officer had arrived to question me. My ex had told them, egged on by his parents, that I had assaulted him.
Luckily the bleed was nothing too serious and I was discharged the following morning. He was already home and refused to leave. His father turned up shortly afterwards and convinced me to forgive his son. There were numerous incidents after that. He proved he didn’t care about our baby and I wanted out but my daughter was so happy to see him I did my wifely duty and put up with it. This year, about a month ago.
I found out he had been cheating on me. Enough was enough. He treated me like a slave, hit me when it suited him (every other day) now this. I tried to throw him out. He flew into a rage. I tried to run he hauled me back by may hair and tried to choke me. I bit him in his arm as hard as I could. The baby was screaming .
He suddenly flew the baby
There was no way I was leaving them with him now ( my plan was to get out and ring the police) he smashed my face into the floor and strangled me again. By this time my eldest daughter had heard the commotion and was stood at the top of the stairs screaming for me. I tried to crawl up the stairs but he kicked me in back and strangled me again. I thought I was going to die with my children watching.
I threw my elbow back into him and bit his arm again (it was around my neck). He left go and I managed to run up the stairs. He stood at the bottom of the stairs hurling abuse at me. My daughter clung to me screaming. He then shouted he was going to take the kids to which I screamed over my dead body. He flew up the stairs. I stood between him and my daughter. He rugby tackled me onto the landing and flipped me on my front where he strangled me again. My daughter was screaming and pleading with her daddy to let her mommy go.
He put all his weight on me and I couldn’t breath
I can remember thinking ‘this is it’. My vision started to blur then he loosened his grip. Pain shot through my back and I screamed. I later found out he’d ripped a chunk out of my back. He then leapt off me and snatched My 3 year old. The scream she let out haunts me. He dragged her to the bedroom. She was hysterical. I was terrified for her safety. The pain was agony but I dragged myself up
And ran into the bedroom. He was laid on the bed holding her. She was screaming and flailing but he refused to let go. For the first time in the past half hour he seemed calm. I moved his arms from my daughter and carried her down the stairs. I ordered her to get her shoes on whilst I sorted out the baby. I could hear smashing coming from upstairs and was desperate to get out. In my head I was telling myself to go to his parents, but as I ran out of the door my neighbor intercepted and rushed me into hers.
The police arrived 15 minutes later and arrested him. He assaulted the arresting officer. In those 15 minutes he completely trashed my house. Upon his arrest he dealt a fatal blow to my heart. He told the police that the house had been like that (the mess he made) for a couple of days and that I was abusing the children. I then had the pleasure of being arrested and spent 4 hours in a cell, bleeding from so many places and in absolute agony, before they called me in to be looked over by a Dr and have my wounds photographed. On my way back to the cell I was beckoned by another police officer, told I was being released without charge but had to make a statement first.
By the time I had given my statement it was 1am and I was taken to my mums who had luckily taken the kids. I am so thankful for this. All the time I’d been locked up I had visions of my girls alone and terrified in foster care. The next day I returned to the house. There was broken glass everywhere. The nappie bucket had been emptied in my living room and bin bags split open. So many of the kids clothes were destroyed ether by broken glass or hacked at with a knife. I spent 2 days cleaning the mess.
When I returned to my mums on the second night my eldest daughter told me something that made me physically sick. She told me her daddy had been hurting her. After I vomited I phoned the police. Over the month since the attack she has told me, my mom and my friends more horrifying things including that he’d shot her with a bb gun, bitten her and lifted her up by her head. She has come out with a lot more and still is. The social service helped me go to court and get residency and a non molestation order.
I had to sit in a court room with a man who had been hurting my daughter and me
He tried to get residency of the youngest but the judge literally laughed at him. Later that day my eldest told me he’d been hurting the baby too. The police are investigating and my eldest has done a video statement where she came out with more abuse that wasn’t know about before then. What makes it worse is I didn’t know this was happening to the girls and I trusted him not to hurt them.
I stupidly assumed he wouldn’t hurt them because he was hurting me. That was so hard to write. It’s taken me almost 3 days to type it in bits. But not all is bad. Because we can’t return home because it’s too close to his bail address we were taken in by former friends of his. This amazing couple and their lodger have helped me so much over this past month. I have even started seeing a old friend. All this time of only having negative attention and no love and now I have the complete opposite.
It’s not what I went looking for but it happened and I’m glad it did. Even if it doesn’t last it has given me happiness in this hell. This story is far from over, however, my ex pleaded not guilty to his assault on me so I have to give evidence against him next year and the child abuse investigation is still ongoing. Me and the girls are finally free and we’re happy. I have my moments where I lock myself in the bathroom and cry, but once I’ve cried it’s all over and I’m smiling again.
