Amanda’s story: I was in an abusive relationship for 14 years, but I’ve built a great life for my family

Amanda* spent 14 years on and off with her first partner, who was very abusive. She was only 16 when they met and says she didn’t know any different. Despite everything, she graduated and leads a fulfilling life. At present, she’s been with her current husband for 20 years, has two graduate children and a lovely grandchild. 

I met my ex-partner when I was 16 and I got pregnant with our first daughter at 17, with the abuse getting worse during my pregnancy. He’d been quite caring and worried when I had severe morning sickness which I now know was hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of the sickness where you can’t keep anything down. He was concerned and even offered to get the night off from work as he worked shifts. 

Come to think of it, there had been signs of abuse even earlier than that. The first incident happened before I was pregnant and I was going to a funeral of a male friend and he tried to stop me from leaving, he grabbed me by my top aggressively and shouted, “you’re not going.” 

Once I was five months pregnant, the abuse started to get worse. He’d accuse me of chatting to male friends and deliberately looking at men.

He also gave me an STI while I was pregnant, and I hadn’t been sleeping with anyone else, but he blamed me. 

The first time he hit me my eldest child was 2. I’d gone out with a friend, and he couldn’t bear me having fun and when I got back, he was full of rage, and he punched me in the face. 

There are six years between my children as I was very poorly with pre-eclampsia, and they were both premature. 

I split up with him during my second pregnancy and even though the baby was in special care for 8 weeks, my ex didn’t come to see the baby. I got back with him when my youngest was 2 and ½years and there’d been a few years of no physical abuse, but the emotional abuse was ongoing. When I got back with him, he would monitor me from our flat window. I would be having conversations outside with neighbours and friends and he treated every conversation as suspicious. 

Eventually, I was living back with him as his Mum passed away and he moved into his mum’s address, as he was supposed to care for his younger brother who had additional needs. 

On the day where I was meant to be moving back in with the children, he was supposed to bring a van, but he wasn’t there. He rocked up a couple of weeks late but without the van. 

After some time when I was in my final year at university, at age 30 – I saw a letter ripped on the floor. I asked him what it was, but he didn’t answer. I looked and pieced it together and it was an eviction notice. 

I couldn’t believe it as I’d been giving him 75% of the rent. He must have been spending it on other things but not the rent. Ironically enough, on the day we left, he got a letter through saying we’d be entitled to £100 a month housing benefit although that wouldn’t have touched the sides. 

The housing found us all in a room in a hostel for my partner, two children, me and his younger brother. The conditions were very crammed – a complete recipe for disaster. He woke up angry one night as his brother had urinated the bed. I took the sheets off the bed, but my ex-partner got really angry and accused me of drenching him in them. He punched me and chipped two of my teeth and this was in front of our children and his brother. 

This was the catalyst that I needed to leave him. I just thought, enough’s enough! He’d hit and punched me before, but never in front of the children. 

Once I left, I realised not just about the violence but about the constant gaslighting – “I didn’t say that”, insults such as a “fat whale” and how during our relationship he’d go missing for days and I never knew where he was. Also, he’d never really been a proper parent and often didn’t pick up our children from school. I realised he was jealous of the life I’d been trying to create for myself. 

When I first left, it wasn’t easy. I was still doing my university degree and he would want to find out where I was living, and he even turned up at my window one night when I had my children in bed with me. I felt frightened and completely unsettled. He would invent stories about making someone else pregnant and tell the children to try and rattle me.

Because he kept being inconsistent, the children decided they didn’t want to see him and I’ve not seen him for years, only bumping into him in the street once. 

I’ve worked in housing and domestic abuse, and I always tell my clients that things are hard to begin with, but that they will get there, and a better life is possible. 

I’ve been in my current relationship for the past 20 years to my now husband, I have two graduate children and a lovely grandchild. 

I’m proud of the life I’ve built for myself, the fact I finished university and went on to help people in my work. If you’re experiencing domestic abuse at the moment, I’m here to tell you, another life is possible. 

*not her real name