It's been six months nearly to the day since I posted on here and i thought I would write an update for anyone interested. It is long and I'll do a TLDR at the end x
Once you start talking openly about domestic abuse, you expose parts of your life that you've spent a very long time trying to hold together.
And if I'm completely truthful, there's another reason I'm writing this. I'm angry. I'm incredibly angry about what happened to me, what it cost me and, perhaps most of all, the fact that after finding the courage to speak up and involve the police, I have been left feeling that there has been absolutely no justice.
I'm 37 years old. I'm a mother of two, an experienced HR professional, independent, outspoken and perfectly capable of standing up for myself and other people. I'm not somebody who most people would imagine finding herself in a controlling relationship, and if you'd asked me years ago whether I would ever tolerate the things I'm about to describe, I'd have told you absolutely not.
Yet somehow, behind closed doors, I found myself living in fear of someone who was supposed to love me.
That's the reality of domestic abuse. It doesn't care how intelligent you are, how independent you are, how successful your career is or how convinced you might be that you'd never allow yourself to end up in that position.
It doesn't necessarily begin with something dramatic. It begins with little things that, individually, might seem insignificant. A question about where you've been, a comment about who you've spoken to, an argument because something took longer than expected. You start adjusting your behaviour to avoid disagreements, carefully choosing your words and anticipating reactions before they've even happened.
Gradually, without really noticing it, you begin organising your entire life around somebody else's moods.
You stop asking yourself whether you're happy and start wondering whether today is going to be a good day or a bad day. You rehearse explanations for perfectly innocent things, avoid conversations that might cause suspicion and find yourself apologising simply because it's easier than dealing with the consequences of not doing so.
Eventually, things that should never have been acceptable start to feel normal.
For me, normal became having my whereabouts tracked and being questioned about how long the school run had taken. It meant explaining where I'd been, who I'd spoken to and why something had taken longer than expected. It meant having my husband turn up at client sites to check that I was actually where I'd said I was.
Imagine being a grown woman, trusted by businesses to advise them on complex employment matters, yet having somebody turn up at your workplace to verify your whereabouts because your word apparently wasn't enough.
It meant having my phone searched and my communication with my children's father interfered with, despite the fact that co-parenting requires ordinary, ongoing communication. It meant being unable to have an innocent conversation with another man without the possibility of accusations or interrogation afterwards.
There were times when my car was physically blocked into the driveway, and I was expected to be home at particular times while he remained free to come and go whenever he pleased. The rules that applied to me simply didn't apply to him.
And perhaps one of the most humiliating things to admit is that I reached a point where I had to ask permission to have a shower.
A shower. Something so basic and ordinary that most people wouldn't even consider it something another adult could have control over.
Yet there I was, a grown woman and a mother, asking another adult for permission to wash myself.
Even what I ate became another opportunity for criticism. If I fancied chocolate or ice cream, I could find myself being shamed for eating it, made to feel greedy or guilty for enjoying something as insignificant as a treat.
On its own, somebody making an unpleasant comment about a portion of ice cream might sound trivial. But when that comment exists alongside constant monitoring, accusations, restrictions and criticism, it becomes another reminder that even the smallest pleasures in your life are open to somebody else's judgement.
I didn't have freedom. I had to negotiate my way through ordinary life.
My relationships with friends and family suffered enormously, and looking back, I can see how his dislike of the people closest to me became something that I was expected to share. If he didn't like somebody, there was an expectation that I shouldn't like them either, regardless of my own relationship with that person or how long they'd been part of my life.
People I'd known and loved for years became subjects of criticism, and I found myself increasingly caught between maintaining those relationships and keeping the peace at home. It wasn't enough for him to have his own opinions about people; those opinions seemed to have to become mine too. And when they didn't, I was left dealing with the tension, the disapproval and the inevitable arguments.
Over time, I started distancing myself from people, not necessarily because I wanted to, but because maintaining those relationships had become emotionally exhausting. I was constantly conscious of who he disliked, what he might say about them and how he would react if I chose to speak to them anyway. I began making decisions based not on who I wanted in my life, but on which decisions were least likely to cause problems in my marriage.
On the extremely rare occasions I did go somewhere without him, I knew that I would return to an atmosphere that made me wish I hadn't bothered. Sometimes it was silence, sometimes an argument, and sometimes simply the unmistakable feeling that something was coming. The anticipation alone was exhausting, and eventually it became easier not to make plans at all than to deal with the consequences of enjoying myself.
That's something people don't always understand about isolation in an abusive relationship. You don't necessarily wake up one morning to find that you've been forbidden from seeing your friends or family. Instead, somebody gradually makes the people you love feel like a source of conflict, until you begin withdrawing from them yourself. From the outside, it might even look as though you've chosen to distance yourself, when in reality you've spent months or years being made to feel that maintaining those relationships comes at a price.
And perhaps one of the cruellest consequences is that the people who might have helped you recognise what was happening are often the very people you've been pushed away from.
Even my dogs weren't safe from his behaviour. Seeing animals I love being hurt added another layer of distress to a home in which I was already spending far too much time trying to manage somebody else's reactions.
And then there were my children.
As a mother, one of the hardest things to come to terms with is recognising that the behaviour I was experiencing didn't just affect me. There were occasions when I witnessed comments and behaviour towards my son that I considered completely unnecessary and inappropriate, and I found myself constantly trying to manage the atmosphere at home so that the children weren't exposed to more conflict.
I'm deliberately not going into every detail because their privacy matters, but no child should have to experience the consequences of an adult's inability to manage their own behaviour.
Then there was the financial side of the relationship. Month after month, I found myself bailing him out financially, picking up the pieces of his financial difficulties while carrying the responsibilities of the household, the bills and raising my own children.
I was expected to keep everything functioning financially while having so little independence in almost every other part of my life.
And one of the things I still struggle to comprehend is what happened when it came to his own children.
There were extended periods when he didn't see them or maintain regular communication, with the explanation repeatedly being that he couldn't afford to travel. He couldn't afford the fuel, couldn't afford the journey, couldn't make it work.
Because I wanted him to maintain a relationship with his children, I tried to help. I offered him my car and even offered to pay for the fuel so that money wouldn't be an obstacle.
And still, he wouldn't go.
At the time, I couldn't understand why somebody who said they wanted to see their children would refuse practical solutions that made it possible. Looking back at the wider pattern of control in our relationship, I now find myself wondering whether leaving me at home, free to spend my time however I wanted, was something he simply couldn't tolerate.
I can't claim to know what was going through his mind, but I do know that I offered to remove the financial barriers he repeatedly described and that those visits still didn't happen.
The possibility that keeping an eye on me mattered more than spending time with his own children is something I find incredibly difficult to comprehend.
And the contradiction of trying to support his relationship with his children while having my own communication with my children's father interfered with is not lost on me.
Looking back, I realise just how much of my life was spent trying to solve somebody else's problems, manage somebody else's emotions and prevent somebody else's behaviour from affecting everyone around them.
It's exhausting in a way that's difficult to explain unless you've experienced it. The constant calculations, the anticipation of arguments, the financial pressure, the responsibility of keeping a household together and the relentless effort of trying not to do anything that might provoke a reaction.
And the worst part is that you don't necessarily recognise how much of yourself you've lost until you're finally out of it.
Domestic abuse isn't always one dramatic incident. Sometimes it's a thousand smaller moments that gradually strip away your independence, your confidence and your sense of who you are.
People on the outside don't always see it. They see the woman who goes to work, raises her children, pays her bills and somehow keeps everything moving. They don't see the mental calculations before she walks through the front door, the friendships she's stopped maintaining or the ordinary decisions she's become frightened of making.
They don't see how difficult it is to admit that the person you married has become somebody you're afraid of.
And then comes the part nobody really prepares you for: asking for help.
In April this year, the police became involved in my life in a way I never imagined they would. My husband was arrested, bail conditions were imposed and there were safeguarding discussions involving other agencies.
I found myself having to talk about things that were deeply personal, humiliating and frightening. I had to revisit experiences I would rather have forgotten, explain situations that are incredibly difficult to put into words and expose some of the most painful parts of my private life to complete strangers.
I did it because I believed that telling the truth and asking for help was the right thing to do. I believed that if I was brave enough to speak openly about what had happened, the system would take those experiences seriously and there would be some form of accountability.
What I wasn't prepared for was how badly let down I would feel by the very system I had turned to for protection.
In August, I was informed that no further action would be taken.
After months of uncertainty, the criminal investigation was over. No prosecution, no criminal accountability and, from my perspective, absolutely no justice.
I understand that criminal cases have evidential thresholds. I'm not naive about that, and I understand that an arrest doesn't guarantee a prosecution or conviction. But understanding how the process works doesn't make the outcome any less devastating.
The experiences I'd reported hadn't disappeared. The effect on my children hadn't disappeared. The emotional damage, the financial consequences and the years spent adjusting my entire existence around somebody else's behaviour hadn't disappeared.
But the investigation was finished, and I was left trying to make sense of what had happened.
There is something profoundly difficult about finally finding the courage to tell people what you've experienced, only to come away feeling unheard, unsupported and unprotected.
And what makes it even harder is that the end of a police investigation doesn't necessarily mean the end of everything else.
On 1st October, a Facebook Messenger notification appeared on my phone. It was an entirely ordinary day, with the usual collection of notifications from work, shopping and everyday life. And there, amongst them, was a message from my estranged husband.
He complained that he hadn't had any contact from me since April and that he was tired of being left in the dark. April being the month he was arrested and bail conditions were imposed preventing contact. The message went on to accuse me of having an affair, refer to damage to his vehicle and dispute money paid towards rent.
The message was subsequently withdrawn, but I'd already seen the notification, and I've attached the screenshot to this post because I think it illustrates something about the aftermath of a relationship like this.
Life carries on. You work, raise your children, go shopping, laugh, fall in love and begin to feel like yourself again. And then, in the middle of an otherwise completely ordinary day, something appears on your phone that reminds you of everything you've spent so long trying to move beyond.
I cannot adequately describe how angry that message made me. After everything I'd experienced, everything I'd reported and everything I'd worked so hard to rebuild, I was once again confronted with accusations and the familiar feeling that I was expected to account for myself.
And it made me think about how often people talk about leaving an abusive relationship as though leaving is the end of the story. It isn't necessarily. You can leave, rebuild your life and find happiness, yet still have to deal with the consequences of what happened.
You can be completely finished with a relationship and still find yourself furious about the way you were treated.
And you can do everything you're encouraged to do, including reporting your experiences to the police, and still be left feeling that there has been no meaningful accountability.
That is the part I am struggling with.
We tell victims of domestic abuse to speak up, to preserve evidence, to ask for help and to trust the process. But what happens when they do all of those things and the criminal justice process ends without prosecution?
What happens when someone has relived some of the most humiliating and frightening experiences of their life, only to find themselves carrying the consequences while feeling that nothing has been resolved?
I don't believe that a decision not to prosecute automatically means somebody's experiences should be dismissed, and I don't believe that victims should be made to feel that they have to wait for something else to happen before their concerns matter.
We tell people to leave. We tell them to report abuse. We tell them to speak out. But we also need to ask what support and protection they are left with when the process doesn't deliver the outcome they hoped for.
And perhaps that's why I'm so angry.
I'm angry about the freedom I lost without even realising it was disappearing. I'm angry about the friendships that suffered, the financial burden I carried, the atmosphere my children experienced and the amount of time I spent worrying about somebody else's reaction to perfectly ordinary things.
I'm angry that I was made to feel guilty for enjoying chocolate or ice cream, that my professional life was subjected to suspicion and that I reached a point where asking permission to have a shower had somehow become part of my everyday existence.
And then there's the anger I feel towards the people who have chosen to believe his version of events, who have listened to whatever narrative he's presented and decided that he's the one deserving of their sympathy and support.
I've watched people continue to stand by him, including providing him with somewhere to live, while I've been left dealing with the emotional, practical and financial consequences of everything that happened. I don't expect everybody to know every detail of my marriage, and I'm well aware that people will hear different accounts of a relationship breaking down. But it is incredibly difficult to accept that, after everything I experienced and everything it took for me to speak up, there are people who appear perfectly comfortable accepting his account without questioning what mine might be.
Perhaps what hurts most is the feeling that the person who caused me so much distress has been offered understanding and practical support, while I've had to work incredibly hard to rebuild the life that was affected by his behaviour. I've been the one trying to put the pieces back together, reconnect with people, regain my independence and make sense of the outcome of the police investigation, yet somehow I still find myself feeling as though I'm the one whose actions need explaining.
I'm not suggesting that anybody should be left without a roof over their head, and I'm not asking people to take sides simply because I've written this post. But I am entitled to feel angry when people appear to have made their minds up about a situation they haven't lived through, particularly when their support seems to come with an unquestioning acceptance of a narrative that bears little resemblance to my own experiences.
One of the hardest things about speaking up isn't just wondering whether people will believe you. It's discovering that some people have already decided not to.
I'm angry about what happened, and I'm genuinely disappointed by how unsupported I have felt following the police investigation.
But I'm also incredibly happy with the life I've built since leaving, although I've discovered that old habits die hard, particularly when those habits were once the things you did to avoid an argument.
Even now, I sometimes catch myself asking whether I can have a shower, despite there being absolutely no reason why I should need permission. I'll find myself explaining which route I took home, why I chose that particular road or why the journey took as long as it did, even though nobody has questioned me about any of it. And occasionally, without being asked, I'll instinctively offer up my phone to show a conversation, as though I still need to prove that an entirely innocent exchange was exactly what I said it was.
The strangest part is that I don't always realise I'm doing it until I've already started explaining myself. These behaviours became so ingrained that my brain still occasionally defaults to them, even though the circumstances that created them no longer exist.
Now I can go wherever I want, speak to whoever I choose, spend time with my friends and family and enjoy myself without dreading the atmosphere waiting for me when I get home. I can eat whatever I fancy without judgement, make decisions without seeking approval and take a shower whenever I damn well please.
But every now and then, one of those old habits slips out, and I'm reminded that you can leave a controlling relationship long before the conditioning it created has completely left you.
I've rediscovered the woman I was before I started questioning everything about myself. I'm loud, opinionated, ambitious, occasionally ridiculous and perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I laugh, I make plans, I enjoy my life and I no longer spend my days anticipating somebody else's moods.
But please don't mistake my happiness now for evidence that what happened wasn't serious.
Being happy again doesn't mean I wasn't hurt. Being strong doesn't mean I wasn't frightened. And moving forward doesn't mean I've stopped being angry.
I'm not writing this because I want sympathy, and I'm certainly not writing it because I want to be told how strong I am.
I'm writing it because I know how easy it is to look at somebody like me and think that she'd never put up with behaviour like that.
I thought that too, until I was living it.
And if somebody reading this recognises their own relationship in any part of what I've described, I want them to understand that being tracked isn't love, being isolated isn't protection and being constantly questioned isn't concern.
Having your movements monitored, your friendships restricted, your privacy invaded or your ordinary decisions subjected to somebody else's approval is not what a healthy relationship should look like.
You do not have to be physically injured to experience abuse, and you do not have to wait until you've completely lost yourself before asking for help.
I know some people will question why I've chosen to share all of this publicly, particularly when the criminal investigation ended without prosecution.
The answer is that I'm tired of feeling that my experiences should remain hidden simply because there wasn't a criminal conviction. I'm tired of the silence surrounding coercive control, and I'm tired of the idea that moving on means you must stop being angry about what happened to you.
I have a wonderful life now, and I'm enormously grateful for it. But that doesn't erase what came before, and it doesn't make the absence of the accountability I'd hoped for any easier to accept.
I can be happy with my life now and still be furious about what it took to get here.
Those two things can exist together.
I will not be ashamed of what I experienced, and I will not pretend that the absence of a prosecution means the absence of harm.
Domestic abuse awareness shouldn't just be about encouraging victims to speak up.
It should also be about asking what happens to them when they do.
TLDR: Six months after speaking out about domestic abuse, I'm rebuilding a wonderful life, but I'm still angry about the control I endured, the damage it caused and the lack of justice. Despite my husband being arrested and investigated, the police decided to take no further action. No prosecution doesn't mean no abuse, and moving on doesn't mean forgetting what happened. I'm happy now, but I still deserve accountability.