So there I was. Four children of my own. A stepson. A fiancé. A wedding being planned. A daughter we'd nearly lost before she'd even been born. A relationship that already had cracks in it. And yet, I was still looking at the whole thing and thinking: We can make this work. Because that's what I did. I tried. I forgave. I hoped. And I kept thinking the difficult parts were just that. Difficult parts. Not warnings. Not patterns. Not signs of what was coming. Then came the dent

So I'd left my husband. I'd moved into temporary accommodation. I'd spent precisely one night there by myself. Then somehow he was there every night afterwards. And eventually? I moved back home. Again. By this point, I can practically hear people reading this screaming: WHY DID YOU KEEP GOING BACK? And it's a fair question. It's one I've asked myself plenty of times. But leaving somebody you've built years of your life around isn't always one dramatic moment where you pack a

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