I was in a relationship for just over three years and all was great at the start, he was lovely, I couldn’t have met a nicer guy.. I’d been single for quite a while before I met him and obviously I had to consider my daughter in this relationship so I didn’t plunge in to begin with.
I was with him for about six months and I moved in with him. As soon as we got engaged that’s when he started lifting his hand. It was the night after we got engaged. He just went mental, kicked me down to the floor, booting in to me, ripped all the units off the kitchen walls, calling me all sorts of names.Luckily my daughter wasn’t there, she didn’t see that incident.
The next day he got up and basically didn’t understand why I had a problem with what he’d done, didn’t recognise that he’d done anything wrong . He just went down the pub and met his pals and left me, basically battered and bruised and I just had to get on with it.So, that was the first incident when he lifted his hands, there were many, many more after that and the police were involved but I never charged him because I loved him.
It came to the point where he locked me out the house, in my pyjamas, told me it was his house. He just left me there with no money, no keys, no phone, and that’s when I decided that something had to be done, I couldn’t keep living my life like this.
And so it was my doctor that told me about Women’s Aid because at first I just assumed it was like a counselling service, I didn’t realise that they actually provided accommodation and helped you to actually remove yourself from the situation.And that’s when I contacted Glasgow Women’s Aid and I’ve not looked back since I have contacted them, they’ve been fantastic.