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 I moved into my new house, the word new had started to feel like a bit of a fucking joke. New house. New relationship. New beginning. That's what it was supposed to be. Except I'd brought the nightmare through the front door with me. By then, he was tangled into practically every part of my life. My house. My car. My bank account. My phone. My location. My work. My time. And increasingly? My body. The violence wasn't one isolated incident anymore. It was becoming

By this point, he'd put rings on my finger to show people I was unavailable. I wish I could say that was the moment everything changed. That it somehow made him feel secure. That he finally believed I loved him. That the accusations stopped. That I didn't have to prove where I was anymore. But that's not how it worked. Because none of this had ever really been about whether I loved him enough. It wasn't about whether I'd given him enough reassurance. It wasn't about whether I