The Phone Call I Never Thought I’d Make
He’d been arrested.
After everything that had happened, after months of living in a world where practically every move I made had to be explained, proved or defended, he was finally somewhere he couldn’t get to me.
And I was still sitting in the police station.
For once, nobody was demanding anything from me.
The police asked if I needed a break.
They got me juice.
They gave me time.
Nobody shouted because I couldn’t remember something immediately.
Nobody accused me of lying because I got confused.
Nobody demanded to see my phone to prove what I was saying.
They just...
listened.
And after months of living the way I had?
Even that felt strange.
Then they started asking questions about the things he’d had on him when he was arrested.
And that was when I got the first little glimpse that there were still things I didn’t know.
The Keys
One of the officers asked me about my house keys.
Did I have them?
Yes.
I had both sets.
So why had they found keys on him?
I didn’t understand.
Then came another question.
“How many phones does he have?”
Two.
As far as I knew?
Two.
Except he’d been arrested carrying three.
Then they brought his belongings out.
And there they were.
My Audi keys.
Why did he have them?
I still don’t know.
The Audi couldn’t even be driven at that point.
But he’d taken the keys anyway.
Then I realised he’d taken all my back-door keys too.
And the third phone?
I recognised that.
It was a phone I’d bought him.
The phone he’d supposedly wanted because he was going to change his number, clear everything out and start fresh.
Another thing I’d believed.
Another thing that suddenly didn’t make sense.
Even with him sitting in police custody, I was still discovering there were parts of his life I knew absolutely nothing about.
Then the conversation turned to something else.
My family.
“Phone Your Sister”
The police asked who I had.
Who could support me?
Who could I phone?
Family?
Friends?
And I had to explain:
I wasn’t speaking to my sister.
We’d fallen out.
By then, the relationship between us had become so damaged that we weren’t even talking.
And the man who’d just been arrested had played a massive part in destroying that relationship.
One of the officers told me:
“Phone her.”
So I did.
Or tried to.
No answer.
Then I tried WhatsApp.
And that’s when I realised...
she’d blocked me.
That probably tells you everything you need to know about where our relationship was by then.
This wasn’t two sisters having a wee disagreement and not speaking for a couple of days.
We were properly broken.
So I sent her a normal text instead.
Eventually she tried phoning me back, but by then I’d gone back into the police station.
I messaged:
“I’ll phone you when I get out.”
Then I went back inside.
Back to talking.
Back to telling the truth.
Back to saying things out loud that I’d spent months either hiding, minimising or being too frightened to tell anybody.
Eventually?
It was over.
After Two in the Morning
It was after two o’clock in the morning when I finally walked out of that police station.
And I made the phone call.
I phoned my sister.
I don’t know how you’re supposed to condense months like that into one conversation.
How do you phone your sister and explain:
While everybody thought I’d disappeared with another man, that man was strangling me.
He was controlling me.
Monitoring me.
Hurting me.
Trying to drown me.
How do you explain why you didn’t phone?
Why you didn’t tell anybody?
Why you’d become distant?
Why you’d seemed to choose him over everybody?
Why you’d allowed relationships with the people you loved to fall apart?
But I told her.
Not another excuse.
Not another watered-down version.
The truth.
What had actually been happening.
And she listened.
Then she told me she would speak to the others.
My older children.
Dad.
My ex-husband.
The people who needed to know what had actually been happening to me.
Then I went home.
Alone
My neighbour chapped the door to make sure I was okay.
And for the first time in months?
I was alone in my house.
Properly alone.
No voice coming through the bedroom camera.
No FaceTime call demanding to know what I was doing.
No questions.
No accusations.
No listening for his footsteps.
No trying to read his face.
No wondering which version of him was about to appear.
You’d think I would have felt instant relief.
Safe.
Free.
Maybe I’d have climbed into bed and slept for about three days.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t settle.
The door stayed locked.
I knew he’d been arrested.
I knew where he was.
Logically?
I knew he couldn’t walk through that door.
But my body didn’t seem to understand that yet.
I’d spent months listening.
Watching.
Waiting.
Checking his mood.
Checking my phone.
Wondering what I’d supposedly done wrong this time.
Suddenly there was silence.
And instead of immediately feeling free?
I felt guilty.
I Felt Guilty He’d Been Arrested
Even writing that sounds fucking ridiculous.
This man had strangled me.
Tried to drown me.
Threatened me.
Controlled me.
Injured me.
Monitored me through cameras in my own home.
I had literally told the police that I believed eventually he was going to kill me.
And somehow?
I still felt guilty that he’d been arrested.
The next day?
I took clothes to the police station for him.
Of course I did.
Even after everything.
I was still thinking:
Does he have clothes?
Does he need anything?
That part of my brain hadn’t switched off yet.
The police could physically remove him from my house.
They couldn’t instantly remove months of conditioning from my head.
They couldn’t remove the version of him I’d loved.
They couldn’t erase the habit of looking after him.
He was in custody.
And I was still worrying about whether he had clean fucking clothes.
Meanwhile?
My sister had started telling my family.
And suddenly, the secret I’d been carrying wasn’t mine alone anymore.
My Family Found Out
My sister told my older children.
She told my ex-husband.
She told Dad.
And every reaction was different.
I think that’s important to say.
Because my family hadn’t been frozen in time while I was away.
They had feelings too.
They’d been confused.
Angry.
Hurt.
They’d watched me disappear from their lives without understanding what was actually happening behind that front door.
Now suddenly?
They were finding out.
My Ex-Husband Cried
My sister told me that when my ex-husband found out?
He cried.
Apparently, he didn’t want to watch the videos.
And I don’t blame him.
I don’t blame anybody for not wanting to see them.
I don’t particularly want those memories living inside my own head.
But there’s a difference.
Other people could say:
“I can’t watch that.”
I didn’t have that option.
I lived it.
I was the woman choking.
I was the woman being strangled.
I was the woman in that bathroom.
I was the woman trying to breathe.
There wasn’t a pause button for me.
And after everything that had happened between my husband and me...
after fifteen years...
after the affairs, arguments, marriage, children, grief, separation and everything else we’d somehow survived together...
he was now finding out what had happened to me after I left.
My Oldest Daughter
Then came my oldest daughter.
My first baby.
The little girl I’d once watched sitting at her gran and granda’s window waiting for a dad who didn’t turn up.
The daughter whose relationship with me had become so badly damaged after I left my marriage.
Her first question when she was told?
Were she and her children safe?
Hours later, she asked if I was okay.
That hurt.
I’m not going to pretend it didn’t.
Part of me wanted:
Mum, are you okay?
to be the first thing she asked.
But she was a mum too.
She’d just been told that somebody was dangerous.
Her instinct was to protect her own babies.
And maybe I understand that better now.
But understanding something doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt at the time.
Both things can be true.
My Oldest Son
My oldest son was different.
He isn’t somebody who does massive emotional phone calls.
He’s not somebody who spends his day sending texts.
That’s just him.
I know him.
So there wasn’t some huge dramatic conversation.
And I’m not going to rewrite him into somebody he isn’t just because it would make a better blog post.
He knew.
And we dealt with it in our way.
My Youngest Son Was Angry
My youngest son?
He was angry.
But not because it had happened.
Not angry at me for being abused.
He was angry because:
I hadn’t told him.
He’d been inside my house.
He’d been around us.
Why hadn’t I said anything?
And I tried explaining.
Because how could I?
How could I sit beside the man who was hurting me and secretly tell my son what was happening?
What would my son have done?
Come round?
Challenge him?
Try to protect his mum?
And then what?
I knew what this man was capable of.
The last thing I wanted was one of my children becoming another target.
So I told my son:
I was protecting you.
Because sometimes protecting my children meant not telling them what was happening to me.
That wasn’t because I didn’t trust them.
It wasn’t because I didn’t love them enough to tell them.
It was because I loved them enough to be terrified of dragging them into it.
My Youngest Daughter
Then there was my youngest.
That conversation was different.
I didn’t want somebody else telling her.
I wanted to tell my daughter myself.
So I went and picked her up.
We went to Starbucks first.
Then we went back to mine.
And I sat down with my thirteen-year-old daughter and told her what had actually been happening to her mum.
She cried.
Then she said something that absolutely broke my heart.
She blamed herself.
She thought maybe if she’d stayed with me more...
it wouldn’t have happened.
Absolutely fucking not.
No.
That was one thing I didn’t need time to think about.
“You Were Never Supposed to Protect Me”
I told her straight.
If she’d been at my house more often, it might not have stopped anything.
It could simply have meant she’d witnessed it.
Or worse.
Maybe eventually he’d have turned that violence towards her too.
And as painful as it had been when she wasn’t coming to stay with me?
Looking back?
I’m glad she wasn’t there for the worst of it.
I’m glad she didn’t watch him strangle me.
I’m glad she didn’t hear me choking in that bath.
I’m glad she wasn’t standing between us trying to protect me.
Because she was thirteen.
She wasn’t supposed to protect her mum.
She was the child.
I was the mum.
None of what happened was her responsibility.
I needed her to understand that.
They Hadn’t Known
For months, I’d felt like I’d lost my children.
There was a period where I barely saw them.
From my side?
It felt like everybody had disappeared.
But now I had to start understanding something uncomfortable.
From their side?
I’d disappeared too.
They didn’t know what was happening behind my front door.
They didn’t necessarily know that constantly being on FaceTime wasn’t me choosing a boyfriend over them.
They didn’t know there could be consequences if I didn’t answer.
They didn’t know why I couldn’t talk freely.
Why I’d become distant.
Why I’d changed.
Why I seemed to be allowing this man to consume every part of my life.
They saw what I was doing.
They couldn’t see the fear underneath it.
And now?
For the first time, they were getting the missing part of the story.
That didn’t magically repair everything.
Of course it didn’t.
There was too much hurt for that.
But at least now there was something we hadn’t had for months.
The truth.
And Then There Was Dad
My sister told Dad too.
And this is probably one of the parts I still don’t know how to write properly.
Because five weeks later?
I still haven’t spoken to my dad.
I haven’t phoned him.
But Dad hasn’t phoned me either.
He hasn’t called.
He hasn’t texted.
He hasn’t checked on me.
Not once.
Not even a simple:
Are you okay?
And I don’t really know what to do with that.
I know I could pick up the phone.
I’m not pretending I couldn’t.
But after everything that’s happened, I genuinely don’t know how to start that conversation.
What do I say?
Hi Dad. Sorry I disappeared for months. By the way, the man I was with was controlling me, strangling me, hurting me and making me believe I was going to die.
Where the fuck do you even begin?
But there’s also this little part of me — probably just the daughter in me — that keeps thinking:
Why should I have to be the one to begin it?
Because Dad knows now.
He knows what happened.
He knows what I was living through.
He knows that when everybody thought I’d disappeared with another man and walked away from my family, there was a hell of a lot more happening behind that front door.
He knows his daughter was being hurt.
He knows I was frightened.
He knows I genuinely believed that man might kill me.
And five weeks later?
My phone still hasn’t rung.
No message has appeared asking:
Are you okay?
Do you need anything?
How are you coping?
Nothing.
And that hurts more than I know how to explain.
Maybe He Doesn’t Know What to Say
I don’t know what’s going on inside Dad’s head.
Maybe he doesn’t know what to say.
Maybe he’s angry.
Maybe he’s hurt.
Maybe he’s waiting for me to contact him.
Maybe he’s frightened he’ll say the wrong thing.
Maybe there are things he’s been told that I don’t even know about.
I can’t tell his side because I don’t know it.
I can only tell mine.
And from my side?
My dad found out what had been happening to me, and he hasn’t called, texted or checked whether I’m okay.
That’s simply where things stand.
And it fucking hurts.
Especially because while I’m sitting here not knowing how to speak to my own dad...
he’s spending time with my ex-husband.
The Two of Them
That’s another thing I’m struggling to get my head around.
Because before all of this?
My ex-husband never seemed to have much time for Dad.
During our marriage there was plenty of moaning about my family.
Plenty of reluctance.
Plenty of times when spending time with the people who mattered to me seemed like a chore.
Now?
I’m no longer there.
And suddenly he seems to have time for my dad.
Maybe everything that’s happened has brought them closer.
Maybe they’re supporting each other.
Maybe they now have a friendship completely separate from me.
I don’t know.
And I can only tell it from how it looks and feels from where I’m standing.
But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t sting.
Because underneath everything else is one very simple fact:
I’m his daughter.
And five weeks after finding out that his daughter had been living with a man she genuinely believed might kill her...
he hasn’t called.
He hasn’t texted.
He hasn’t checked on me.
And maybe that sounds childish.
I’m a grown woman.
I don’t need my dad to come charging in and fix everything.
He couldn’t fix this even if he wanted to.
But sometimes?
You still want your dad.
I don’t need some huge conversation.
I don’t need him to have the perfect words.
Maybe I just wanted my phone to light up with:
Are you okay?
That’s it.
Three words.
And it hasn’t.
Maybe That’s Why I Haven’t Called Either
Maybe that’s part of why I haven’t contacted him.
Because now I’m scared.
Scared of what he’ll say.
Scared of what he thinks of me.
Scared of what he’s been told.
But maybe most of all?
Scared of what he won’t say.
Because after losing Mum, this feels different.
Mum isn’t here for me to phone.
I don’t have the option of fixing things with her.
Dad is here.
And somehow, five weeks after he discovered what his daughter had survived...
neither of us has spoken.
The difference is that he knows what happened now.
And I suppose there’s still a part of me waiting for my dad to be the one who picks up the phone and asks:
“Are you okay?”
So far?
He hasn’t.
The Arrest Didn’t Fix My Life
That’s important.
Because I don’t want to write this part of the story as though the police arrested him, my family discovered the truth and everybody immediately came running back to me.
That isn’t what happened.
Real life isn’t that fucking tidy.
The arrest stopped him being physically inside my house.
It didn’t repair my family.
It didn’t undo what my children had experienced.
It didn’t magically fix my relationship with my sister.
It didn’t make Dad phone.
It didn’t undo my marriage.
And it certainly didn’t undo what had happened inside my own head.
Some relationships started coming back together.
Some became more complicated.
Some were still hanging by a thread.
And while everybody was processing what had happened to me?
I started finding things out too.
Then the Information Started Coming Back
Once I could speak freely again, information started travelling in both directions.
I was telling people what had happened to me.
And people were beginning to tell me what had been happening while I’d been gone.
Things about him.
Things about his past.
Things he’d lied about.
Things he’d been doing while accusing me of doing exactly the same.
And things about what had been happening back home.
With my ex-husband.
My children.
And the woman I’d once called my friend.
The woman who had encouraged me to leave my marriage.
The woman who’d told me what an arsehole my husband was.
The woman who’d told me I deserved better.
The woman who’d encouraged me to go on a date and have some fun.
While I had been trapped in a relationship that nearly destroyed me?
Life back home hadn’t stopped.
Neither had she.
And neither had he.
But before I could even begin untangling what had happened between my former friend and my ex-husband?
Something else happened.
Then the Women Started Appearing
I spoke publicly about what the man who’d just been arrested had done to me.
And women started appearing.
One.
Then another.
Then another.
Messages.
Stories.
Names.
Screenshots.
Things I had absolutely no idea about.
And suddenly I was about to discover something almost unbelievable.
The man who had spent months torturing me over the possibility that I might cheat...
The man who demanded photographs.
Videos.
Locations.
Passwords.
Proof.
The man who accused me because of GPS.
Phone calls.
Messages.
Normal fucking female discharge.
The man who made me say I’d cheated when I hadn’t...
hadn’t exactly been faithful himself.
Not even close.
Because eventually?
The number of women who came forward would reach:
Fifty-three.
Fifty-three women.
And suddenly all those accusations started looking very different.
For months I'd thought:
What am I doing that makes him think I'm cheating?
Maybe I wasn't looking in the right direction.
Because while I'd spent months desperately proving what I wasn't doing...
I was about to start discovering exactly what he was.
And that?
Was going to open another whole fucking nightmare.
Comments