The Fear Ends Here

For years, I told myself “he never hit me, so maybe it’s not really abuse.”

But abuse isn’t always about bruises. Abuse takes many forms — and I have lived through more than one.

💔 Verbal Abuse

Being called useless, stupid, brain dead, a waste of space — over and over until you start to believe it. When it’s said in front of children, the damage is doubled: you shrink, and they learn that disrespect is normal.

💔 Emotional Abuse

It’s the ignoring, the stonewalling, the refusing to talk for days. It’s making you question yourself until you start to wonder if maybe you really are the problem. It’s being told the relationship is over, that he wished he never met you — only for him to later deny it, acting as though you imagined it.

💔 Psychological Abuse

It’s walking on eggshells every day. It’s never knowing what mood will come through the door. It’s the yelling, the sulking, the objects thrown, the tension that fills the house until even the children are afraid. It’s the exhaustion of living in permanent fear of the next explosion.

💔 Financial Abuse

It’s having to explain every penny you’ve spent and why. It’s being interrogated over receipts, made to feel guilty for buying even small things for yourself. It’s control through money — keeping you anxious, accountable, and dependent.

💔 Lifestyle Abuse

It’s refusing to work, sleeping the day away, leaving you to carry everything — the bills, the home, the children. It’s creating instability so you never feel supported, never feel secure, never feel like you can count on him.

💔 Coercive Control

It’s the invisible chains: making you feel like you have to rush home, have dinner ready, keep the house spotless, manage everyone’s moods. It’s not said outright, but it’s demanded in the silence, the stares, the punishments when you don’t comply. It’s shaping your whole life around his moods until you lose sight of yourself.

💔 Gaslighting

It’s being told “I never made you do that” when you know you did it to avoid his anger. It’s being told “I didn’t mean it” after cruel words have already cut you down. It’s being told “I didn’t see the divorce coming” when he spent years telling you he wished you’d never met. Gaslighting makes you doubt your own memory, your own feelings, your own truth.

💔 Manipulation

It’s the guilt-trips, the “I love yous,” the promises to change. It’s going to counselling not to grow, but to prove to you that he had changed. It’s using the grief of losing your daughter as an excuse for cruelty, while you carried yourself every day for the girls. Grief doesn’t excuse abuse. Anger doesn’t excuse abuse.

I see it now: abuse doesn’t have to leave bruises to leave scars. Abuse is any behaviour that makes you feel small, scared, worthless, or trapped. And I have lived through them all.

The hardest part was realising that what I thought was “normal” was actually abuse. The truth is, love should never make you afraid of the person you share your home with.

To anyone questioning themselves like I did: abuse isn’t just physical. If your voice has been silenced, if your worth has been stripped away, if your peace has been stolen — you are not imagining it.

You deserve better. You deserve freedom.

The Fear Ends Here. I Choose Me.