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I know a lot of women who have been in abusive relationships, including myself, and one thing I have noticed is that we all come out the other side stronger. At least we seem like strong women. I was 14 when i met my, now ex-husband, he was my best friends brother, and he was 10 years older. I look back now at 39 and shudder to think of it. He was older, had a car, had money and gosh he whistled at me. I came from a home where my little sister was the favourite and mum and dad spent everyday at the pub. Looking back now Jack the Ripper could have showed me attention and I would have broken my neck to get to him.

Things started off ok, then my dad died and my mother went to work full time, leaving us alone all the time. I became even more dependent on Jeffrey for attention. After a year, things changed and he started to show his jealousy and controlling manner. As all abusers, he made me believe that he would not get jealous if he didn't love me so much. The first hit was a punch to the jaw, I lay there after he hit me thinking, if I lie here long enough he will feel bad and not do it again. That did not happen, when I got up he told me I should not have pushed him so far, it was my own fault. His mother saw him hit me and told me i should have just shut up.

That was just the beginning. I could not go to visit friends because in his mind, I was going to meet other men. He refused to allow me to take the car to visit my mother. But by that time she had married a man who was as bad as Jeffrey and he didn't want us visiting anyway. Jeffrey never told me I looked nice, he never said he was proud of me, he never supported anything I wanted to do. I had four children with him and was married to him for twelve years; to my everlasting shame.

The beatings used to wake the children up. In the end, he allowed me to take a university course, because then I would work and he could stay home, but while at university, I met someone else and while I am not proud of what I did, I had an affair. I told Jeffrey I wanted him to move out and during the argument, he held a knife to me and told me he would tell the police, if I rang them, that he was just wiping it up. On the pretext of going to pick up university stuff, I put three of the kids in the car, drove to my new mans house and we went to the police.

My eldest son refused to leave his father when the police took me back to get things from the house. During our marriage, I lied about how much things cost because I didnt

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