Little by little, each day a little more tension built... interspersed with days that I took as gifts where he was smiling, felt like the man I loved was back, the loving father... Until that fateful day when he called me a piece of shit and a slut in front of my children, and I saw my six year old with big tears in his eyes asking me why daddy was talking to me like that, that it wasn't true, that I wasn't bad... Those tears in my children's eyes and the incomprehension in my oldest's eyes were the first trigger. The fury and disgust in the eyes of the man I loved when he looked at me and threw me on the floor were the next. I couldn't take it anymore, it had to stop. Now. Right now...

The holidays are hell. If I'm too happy, he finds a way to make me cry, or to make me angry. If I'm looking forward to seeing my loved ones, he expresses jealousy or creates conflict with them. If I'm too eager to go somewhere, he finds a way to cancel the outing... but if I'm not happy enough, he blames me too.

He gave me a beautiful little puppy for our 3rd wedding anniversary: a little Australian shepherd whom I named Jack. Poor Jack... he became my double... instead of threatening me or hitting me, he hit Jack. I don't remember how many times he left with Jack telling me that he was going to get rid of him, or have him euthanized... then he would come back saying that he couldn't do it, that he wasn't going to «let me turn him into a monster»... (because of course it was always my fault). I wanted to go to a shelter but I didn't have a place to leave Jack safely, so I stayed.

I had the impression that my husband had a huge «bubble» , that took up all the available space, and I was stuck underneath, with almost no room to move. And when I moved too much... it «burst» his bubble and I paid the price...

The few times we went to the restaurant together, he would barely look at me during the whole meal. He ate in silence with a scornful facial expression. I was just an accessory in front of him. Sometimes he would even sit diagonally opposite me when there were two of us at a table for four.

He manipulated me repeatedly in such a skillful way. One minute he told me I was the woman of his life and the next he was insulting and degrading me. He took out his rage on me and took pleasure in seeing me suffer psychologically.

One evening, after a particularly difficult week, I asked my abuser to drive me to a hotel room. He was laughing, certain that I would call him back the next day to pick me up. When the door closed on his burst of laughter, I looked my assistance dog in the eyes to reassure her. I was so glad that she was there with me! I stared at the arms of my wheelchair for a long time, vowing to myself that my multiple sclerosis would not make me call him back because I needed his help. I chose to take a big leap into the void to change my life. This moment is forever etched in my memory, it is the turning point in my life.

During the lockdown I was forced to work from home for a year and a few months. It was hard though, I never got a break from what was going on at home. When we started to go back to the office, he told me that my job "clearly" didn't require me to be on site and that I had to find a way to convince my boss to let me continue to work from home... but I wanted to go back. The worst thing is that I risk losing my job if I insist too much... I feel so stuck.

"When we first met, I hadn't yet come out to my family. He told me that he wasn't planning on «gaysitting» and that if I wanted to go out with him, I had to tell my parents. I had decided not to go out with him for this reason, but he kept coming on to me and we ended up going out anyway. A few months later, my mom called me and she was crying...she had received an email from him, telling her about our relationship. A little later, he told me that he had warned me that if I was going out with him I had to tell my parents... and since I hadn't, he was within his rights to do so...

We had been married for a few years when I realized that I was being abused by my spouse. She was constantly insulting me no matter how much I cared for her. It was especially complicated because I worked in her father's business. The first step I took to get out of it was to talk to a counsellor. After a few months, I quit my job for another one, which helped to sort things out a bit. A few years later, we separated.

As soon as I disagreed with him, as soon as I didn't do a thousand contortions to get into the mold, I became a «fucking bitch». He said it softly, between his teeth, with an air of disdain. It was imprinted in my mind and even today, long after we broke up, I can still hear it in my head. He did many other things to me, including physical violence on several occasions, but what struck me the most were these two little words «fucking bitch».

I learned at 28 weeks of pregnancy that I had placenta previa and that I had to stay in bed but my husband refused. He forced me to do the housework and the meals under the pretext that it was my job and that I was a coward. On his birthday, he invited several friends to dinner and I had to prepare a large meal despite the instruction to stay in bed. After dinner, I had to do the dishes before I could go to bed, even though I had an extreme stomach ache. The next day I had a hemorrhage and was hospitalized for the rest of my pregnancy.