The Bath
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'd proved I wasn't cheating.
It was about control.
And by then?
He had almost complete control over my life.
My phone.
My money.
My home.
My work.
Who I spoke to.
Where I went.
How long I took.
And increasingly?
My body.
Even My Car Wasn't Safe
He damaged my car too.
At one point, he put too much oil in it and broke it.
And my car mattered to me.
Not because it represented independence at that point.
It didn't.
By then, he drove me to work.
If I wanted to go somewhere?
He drove me.
I had my own car, but that didn't mean I had the freedom to jump in it whenever I wanted and go wherever I fancied.
That freedom had already disappeared.
But the car was special to me for another reason.
She was mine.
And yes, she.
I've always loved my cars.
There was history behind why having one that actually belonged to me meant so much.
During my marriage, every car my ex-husband had bought me had come with what felt like an invisible condition attached.
If he was in a mood?
He took the keys away.
It might have been called my car.
I might have been the person who drove it.
But if he decided I wasn't getting the keys?
I wasn't going anywhere in it.
So finally having a car that genuinely belonged to me mattered.
Maybe more than somebody looking from the outside would understand.
Nobody had bought her for me.
Nobody could say:
Well, I paid for it.
Nobody was supposed to have the power to decide whether I was allowed the keys.
She was mine.
Except now I was with another man who controlled where I went anyway.
Different man.
Different relationship.
Different circumstances.
Yet somehow, having my own fucking car still didn't mean I was free to go anywhere.
And then he damaged her.
Another thing that belonged to me that somehow wasn't safe from him either.
Facebook Marketplace
At one point, he said I could make a Facebook account.
Not because I was suddenly free to reconnect with people or use social media normally.
No.
It was specifically so I could use Marketplace.
So while I was at work, I created one.
And because I'd already learned how these things worked, I immediately sent him the login details.
There.
Username.
Password.
Full access.
Nothing hidden.
Nothing secret.
Surely that would be enough?
Of course it fucking wasn't.
Somehow, even creating the account he'd said I could create turned into another argument.
And I had to delete it again.
That's what my life had become.
Permission.
Proof.
Punishment.
Repeat.
His TikTok Phone
Then there was his so-called TikTok phone.
Because apparently while I couldn't even have a Facebook account without handing over the login details, he could have another phone.
Again:
Different rules.
One night, through the back-door camera, I heard him talking to a woman.
And this wasn't some innocent:
Hiya, how are you? Haven't spoken to you in years.
I heard enough of the conversation to question him about it.
He'd been talking about having two reasons to go to Manchester.
One was to see family.
And the other?
To see her and make love to her.
So obviously I confronted him.
He denied it.
According to him, I'd completely misunderstood what I'd heard.
She was apparently a childhood friend.
Then came more explanation.
She was trans.
They were just having a laugh.
Nothing was happening.
Nothing to worry about.
Once again, I was being told that what I'd heard wasn't what I'd heard.
And somehow the conversation moved on.
But about a week later?
There was another call.
And this one was very different.
The Shower Call
He was in the shower.
On the phone to her.
And this time I could hear what was happening through the camera.
He was masturbating while talking to her.
I could hear him saying her name.
Telling her what to do.
There wasn't much room for misunderstanding.
So I confronted him.
And once again?
Apparently my own fucking ears couldn't be trusted.
He told me I'd heard it wrong.
According to him, it wasn't what I thought at all.
Apparently it had been his mate and his mate's girlfriend.
And the things I'd heard?
They were talking in code.
Of course they were.
Because apparently there was always an explanation for everything he did, no matter how ridiculous that explanation had to become.
Meanwhile, look at what I'd had to do to prove myself to him.
Photographs proving I was alone in bed.
Videos proving nobody was inside my house.
Screenshots of Life360.
Screenshots of Maps.
Pictures from work.
Deleted contacts.
Deleted social media.
Constant FaceTimes.
I'd changed the way I lived.
I'd been accused of cheating because of an old message I hadn't even replied to.
I'd been accused because GPS wasn't perfectly accurate.
I'd even been accused because of normal female discharge.
But when I could actually hear him?
Apparently:
I'd heard wrong.
Except I Had the Video
There was one problem with his explanation.
I had the recording.
The camera had caught it.
So when he kept denying what had happened and telling me I'd misunderstood, I sent him the video.
There.
Listen to it yourself.
I hadn't imagined it.
I hadn't misunderstood.
I hadn't invented some story because I was jealous.
The evidence was right there.
And his response told me more than any explanation ever could.
He deleted my entire chat history.
Not just the video.
The whole fucking chat.
Gone.
And with it?
The video I'd sent him.
The same man who demanded evidence from me constantly...
who wanted screenshots, photographs, videos, passwords, locations and proof of practically every minute of my life...
was suddenly very interested in making evidence disappear when it was evidence of him.
He could tell me I'd heard it wrong as many times as he liked.
He could tell me it was his mate.
His mate's girlfriend.
A childhood friend.
A joke.
Code.
Whatever explanation came next.
But one thought kept coming back to me:
If I'd really heard it wrong, why did the video need to disappear?
It Wasn't Just a Bad Relationship Anymore
By then, calling it a bad relationship doesn't even come close.
I was being tortured.
There were incidents involving a blowtorch being held to my legs.
A knife at my throat.
Repeated strangulations.
He made me change my phone number.
There were cameras inside my house.
He could even speak to me through the bedroom camera.
Imagine that.
Your bedroom.
The place where you're supposed to close the door.
Get changed.
Sleep.
Cry.
Lie in bed.
Have a little bit of fucking peace.
Except I could still hear his voice coming through a camera.
Even when he wasn't physically standing beside me?
He could still be there.
Watching.
Talking.
Checking.
My new house had been supposed to be my fresh start.
Instead?
It had become another place where I was monitored.
“Say You Cheated”
Sometimes, he would make me say I'd cheated.
I hadn't.
But by then?
The truth didn't matter.
He wanted me to say it.
And if I didn't, he threatened to come in and show me:
“his world.”
I knew what that meant.
Fear.
Violence.
Not knowing what he was going to do.
So eventually?
I'd say it.
“I cheated.”
Not because it was true.
Because sometimes saying the lie he wanted to hear felt safer than continuing to tell the truth.
That's something I don't think I would ever have understood before living it.
You'd think:
Why admit to something you haven't done?
Because sometimes telling the truth gets you hurt.
Sometimes:
“I didn't do it”
only makes somebody angrier.
And sometimes saying:
“Fine. I did it.”
isn't a confession.
It's survival.
If He Needed Me, I Was There
If he went to hospital?
I went.
I stayed.
Sat with him.
Looked after him.
Because despite everything?
That's still who I was.
If somebody I cared about needed me, I was there.
But when I needed hospital?
Things weren't quite the same.
Again, everything seemed to revolve around him.
His pain mattered.
His feelings mattered.
His insecurities mattered.
His past mattered.
His jealousy mattered.
His fears mattered.
Mine?
Mine seemed to matter only when they affected him.
And then came one of the worst things he ever did to me.
The Bath
He put me in the bath.
A towel over my mouth.
Then water.
From the shower or the tap.
Over my face.
Trying to drown me.
There's no funny line for that.
No sarcasm.
No joke I can stick underneath it to make it easier to write.
Nothing.
Because sometimes something is exactly as horrific as the words make it sound.
A towel over my mouth.
Water over my face.
Unable to breathe properly.
Trying to get away.
The person who supposedly loved me doing it.
He was trying to drown me.
And somehow?
My life continued afterwards.
That's the part that feels impossible when I write it down.
How do you nearly drown in your own bath because of your partner and then wake up the next day and continue being a person?
But you do.
You get dressed.
You go to work.
You answer messages.
You make food.
You do whatever needs done.
Because life doesn't stop just because something horrific happened inside it.
My Body Was Keeping Score
My elbow had been sore for ages.
The stairs.
The beds.
Being thrown about.
Being grabbed.
Being hurt.
It was painful.
But pain had become so normal that I was just carrying it around.
Then one night at work, he started sending me threatening messages.
Basically:
Wait until you get home.
And I was petrified.
Not irritated.
Not thinking:
Oh for fuck's sake, another argument.
Petrified.
Because I knew what he was capable of.
I knew what:
Wait until you get home
could actually mean.
And finally?
I told somebody something.
The Nurse
One of the nurses at work realised something was wrong.
I told him some of what was happening.
Not everything.
I still wasn't ready to unload the whole nightmare.
But enough.
And he sent me to A&E to get my arm checked.
That's when I discovered:
My elbow was fractured.
I'd been walking around with a fractured elbow.
Working.
Looking after other people.
Trying to keep him calm.
Trying to prove I wasn't cheating.
Trying to avoid arguments.
Trying to survive.
My mouth was still struggling to tell people what was happening.
But my body?
My body was telling the fucking truth.
There it was.
On an X-ray.
You can't gaslight a fracture.
You can't tell a broken bone:
You're imagining things.
Then Came Another Night
He went out.
Apparently, he was going to buy batteries for the doorbell camera.
Except he was gone for hours.
And somehow?
I was still the one being accused of texting people.
Eventually, he came home.
And it started.
Again.
He dragged me into the house by my hood.
It tightened around my neck so hard that it broke the skin.
He kicked me.
Then he started trying to drag me towards the bathroom.
And I knew exactly what was in that direction.
The bath.
I Held Onto the Door
I grabbed the living-room door.
Held on.
Because I didn't want to go into that bathroom.
I knew what could happen in there.
I'd already experienced it.
So I held onto that door.
He tried dragging me by my hair.
I still held on.
Then he grabbed my already injured arm.
My fractured elbow.
The pain was too much.
I let go.
And he got me into the bathroom.
Into the bath.
Again.
The Water
Water in my face.
I was choking.
And this time?
There was video.
You could hear me choking in the water.
There's something particularly haunting about that.
Knowing there's a recording containing the sound of you fighting to breathe.
I managed to turn around.
Tried to get away.
Then he lifted me against the wall.
By my throat.
And I lost consciousness.
Again.
Another blackout.
Another moment where my body simply couldn't keep going.
Another moment where the person who claimed to love me controlled whether I could breathe.
When it was finally over?
I asked him to take me to hospital.
He did.
But even then?
The control didn't stop.
“I Fell in the Shower”
He took me to hospital.
And waited.
Long enough to hear what I told the receptionist.
And what did I say?
“I fell in the shower.”
He heard me say it.
Then?
He left me there.
The abusive messages continued afterwards.
And there I was.
Sitting in hospital.
Alone.
Injured.
Terrified.
Having just lied about what had happened to me.
And looking back, I don't even think I was necessarily lying to protect him anymore.
I was protecting myself from what might happen if he found out I'd told the truth.
There's a difference.
And something finally shifted.
Not enough to suddenly make me fearless.
Not enough to undo everything he'd done to my head.
But enough for one thought to appear:
When I see the doctor, I'm going to tell them.
I Told the Truth
And I did.
When I saw the doctor?
I disclosed what had happened.
After all the lies I'd been forced to tell.
After being made to say I'd cheated when I hadn't.
After constantly trying to defend him.
Explain him.
Excuse him.
After telling the receptionist I'd fallen in the shower.
Finally?
I told somebody the truth.
And by then, I genuinely believed:
This man is going to kill me.
Not:
He's going to hurt me.
Not:
This relationship is toxic.
Not:
We need to break up.
He's going to kill me.
I believed eventually there would be one strangulation where he didn't stop.
One bath where I didn't get back up.
One attack where nobody came.
One time where my body simply couldn't survive what he was doing to it.
But even knowing that didn't mean I could simply walk into my house and say:
Get out.
Because by then, fear had changed the meaning of even the simplest words.
“Please Stay”
He constantly threatened to leave.
At first?
I'd panic.
I'd beg him to stay.
And anybody looking at that from the outside might think:
Well, she obviously wanted him there.
Eventually, though, one day he threatened to leave and I said:
“Okay.”
“Go.”
And his reaction taught me something terrifying.
Sometimes, when you're frightened of somebody, begging them to stay doesn't mean you actually want them there.
Sometimes:
“Please don't leave me”
really means:
“Please don't hurt me because I told you to go.”
That was the trap.
I wanted him gone.
I believed he could kill me.
But sometimes the words that felt safest coming out of my mouth were still:
Please stay.
Because I wasn't choosing between:
Do I want this relationship or not?
I was choosing between:
Which answer is least likely to get me hurt right now?
And those are two completely different things.
But something was about to happen that would change everything.
Eventually?
I walked into a meeting at work.
And instead of giving somebody another tiny piece of the truth...
I told my boss everything.
The control.
The cameras.
The accusations.
The injuries.
The strangulations.
The baths.
The fear.
Everything.
And once the truth existed outside my own head?
It was going to become much harder for him to convince me that none of it was real.
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