How many men get married in the morning, spend all afternoon in the pub with his new wife because its what HE wants to do, takes her back to their new flat and looks at her in disgust and states "What have i done, i only went out with you for a bet", then promptly lays down and goes to sleep, leaving his new wife sat on the end of the bed in utter shock, too shocked even to cry.

Well that's the man i married. And he changed that day, I cant remember many good times ,although there must have been some, but getting married certainly changed him. How could somebody be so cruel ? i thought you got married because you love one another and want to be together, how wrong could i be. Why did i do it ? why didn't somebody stop me?. Why did i go on loving this man who obviously didn't love me, and go on believing all the tales of " Sorry I'll never do that again", more to the point why did i go on believing it for the next 30 years. These questions were never answered.

Within 3 months i was pregnant with the first of four children and absolutely overjoyed, i felt enormous love for this child even though it wasn't even born. As the months slipped by i hadn't noticed the jealousy creeping in until it was too late, i didn't have long to go and was more interested in getting all the baby things ready, than in keeping him out of the pub, what happened was a lesson i was to remember for the rest of my married life.

I'm not exactly sure what had happened, or i don't want to remember all the details, i could hear screaming, it wasn't me ,it was him " All you're interested in is that fucking baby, well i don't want it" i could hear as i was dragged off the bed by the hair, thrown on the floor and was kicked in the stomach over and over again. When he'd finished i was left on the floor curled up into a ball trying to protect my baby, i don't know what hurt most the beating or the sudden realisation that the man i loved, who i thought would love and protect me didn't, couldn't ,to be so cruel, i was broken hearted. Needless to say this was the first of many visits to the hospital with bruises, broken bones, all sorts of injuries, but the fact he didn't love me hurt the most.

After I'd lied to staff about my injuries i had to stay for 6 weeks until my child was born, I was absolutely thrilled at my little darling. and couldn't wait to shower all my love on him as i have all of them, they all became my total life. Unfortunately those 6 weeks gave him the opportunity to convince me it would never happen again, and i believed him ,because i wanted him to love me like i loved him. It wasn't to be.

As time passed i wasn't allowed to eat food he'd brought because he had earned it, i had to get a job. Which i did and was then beaten for not being at home when he wanted me there. He then began throwing me out in the middle of the night , in my night clothes winter or summer ,sometimes with a baby in my arms and i had to stand and wait for him ti let me in. One afternoon when he was drunk i caught him rubbing my one year old child's nose into wooden floor boards shouting " you want to behave like a dog, be treated like one" because he had wet on the floor , then knew i had to protect them as well. I then had to learn to drive because he needed me to drive him around, that proved to be a massive aide to me, i soon learnt to put the spare key under my pillow ready to grab if i needed it ,and to keep my other keys within reach in case i was thrown out , at least i could sleep in the car. Over the years the children grew up and my first child moved out. I spent many nights asleep in my car outside his flat, sometimes with my youngest child who was only a baby, when we'd been thrown out in the middle of the night yet again. I wanted to tell him what was happening to me ,but i couldn't. I was frightened of the repercussions that would go with it . How could i tell him what was going on, i didn't want them to think any differently about their father than they did. But just to be close to him was enough. Id spent all their life protecting them and wasn't going to stop now.

As the children grew up and did their own thing, the drinking got worse, so did the rows and hitting and i was finding it even more difficult to protect my young child than i had before, when i protected the other ones from all this, i couldn't do it any longer. I only had one child at home now and didn't know what to do. I had no one to turn to, so i just buried myself in my work and tried to cope.

I dint know what i wanted but after 27 years of abuse i had an affair, after three months i realised it wasn't what i wanted, so it stopped, i didn't even know what i wanted but i knew i had to get away. So i took my child and left. Id only been gone a few days when he died. The children had thought i was seeing someone else and probably though it was still going on, although it wasn't. When i told them i had seen someone else they thought that was why he died, but it wasn't. You can blame the drink all you like, but its in some men to bully, hit and abuse women, and he was one of them. He knew what he'd done , how he'd treated me ,all the abuse, he wasn't even ashamed of punching me in the face in front of his family which he'd done many times, they thought it just the norm to be like that. Ultimately by protecting their feelings, and not letting them know the truth i hurt them the most and its too late to tell the truth now.