By the time he added me on Snapchat, I wasn't exactly in the strongest place I'd ever been. My marriage had collapsed. I'd left the marital home. I was trying to build a life in temporary accommodation. My relationship with my oldest daughter had fallen apart. Things with my sister were strained. My family felt increasingly distant. And the friend I'd come to trust was constantly telling me the same things. My husband was poisonous. He'd never change. I'd been unhappy for yea

After he'd dragged me down eleven stairs, I still went away with him. I know. There are sentences in my own story that even I read back and think: What the actual fuck? But we went to Glencoe. And do you know what makes everything that followed even more difficult to explain? We had a brilliant time. Glencoe It was amazing. I showed him the views. He loved it. We laughed. We talked. We had fun. For those few days, the man who'd thrown me onto a bed and dragged me down a fligh

After Glencoe, after the stairs, after the bed coming down on top of me, you would think there would have been some huge moment where I finally understood: This man is dangerous. There wasn't. Instead, there were more good days. More apologies. More laughs. More normality. And then another explosion. That's how my life started working. I wasn't waking up every morning thinking: I'm in an abusive relationship. I was waking up wondering: What version of him am I getting today?