Just because there's a law against it doesn't make it a crime.

It's a wide held belief that when a crime is reported to the police, that report will be taken seriously by investigators acting in a professional manner. This is not what happened to me. I begin my story with this experience (one that happened a mere few weeks ago) because it is vital that I get this story out to other victims. It's a story that will be hard for some others to believe. We want to believe that women's rights have come a long way since the suffragettes. We want to believe that women have the right to be listened to and not ushered back into the kitchen when one dares speak against a man. Unfortunately there are many men who haven't made it to the 21st century yet. Two of them are currently working for Police Scotland. I made a report online about some domestic violence offences. The police then made an appointment for an in person interview at a local police station. I had a bad feeling the moment I saw the two officers who were there to speak to me. I didn't realise it until later but neither one of them wrote anything down the entire time I talked to them. They weren't even holding a pen, ready to start writing. They had made up their minds before they even met me: men must be believed at all costs. Women can't be trusted. They are male hating witches, trying to turn all men into incels. We must all work together to get them back in the kitchen, ready to give us 20 babies. 

Read more »

I met my Scottish husband the way a lot of people do these days. We met online, way back in the noughties. MySpace to be exact. Looking back on this time in my life I can now see so many mistakes I made. I wish things had been different for me back then. I wish I could have been open and honest about my feelings. It would have saved me a lot of heartache. Regrets will get you nowhere though. So let's get back to the story at hand. This is when I met the wee boy who would ruin my life. I approached him on MySpace. I own that. That was entirely my doing. I flirted and I eventually won him over. He seemed sweet and he wanted to do nice things for me. I was taken in by his charm. We got married and applied for a visa so I could immigrate to Scotland. By the time I immigrated it was me and three children. Two children were from a previous relationship. The youngest child, a baby at the time, belonged to the abuser. Early on there were red flags in the relationship. He was already insulting the way my flat was decorated and talking about how he wasn't going to allow my "shit" in his flat. I had too much stuff and I needed to get rid of it all in his opinion. His idea was to rent a storage space and put everything I own in it. He was going to pay it every month. He promised. He was charming. I believed him. I had no reason to doubt him. He convinced me that everything he did was for me. Everything was going to be beautiful and magical in Scotland. I got my visa and left with two of my children for Scotland. At the time, the abuser convinced me he couldn't afford to bring my oldest child over. She was also in kindergarten at the time and it was the middle of the school year. So his decision was to leave my oldest child in the US with her gran, to finish out the school year and bring her over in June once school got out and he had time to save some money. He had me convinced he had everything under control. 

I am sure at this point, dear readers, many of you are thinking "I wouldn't have left my child behind", "how could you leave without your oldest child?". I would probably think the same thing if I was reading someone else's story. It's impossible for most to understand how an abuser can charm the victim into believing anything they say. A skilled narcissist can convince his victim that burning their house down is going to be beneficial.  I believed in burning my house down. This was going to solve all my problems. So I immigrated to Scotland with my youngest two children. My oldest son was 3 years old and my youngest at the time was just a wee baby. When we arrived in Scotland I found we would be living in a small two bedroom flat that my husband shared with his brother. The fact that his wife and children were living here now too made no difference. The brother "had nowhere else to go" so he stayed with us. The brother didn't like Americans or children. He was constantly complaining about the noise. I moved to Scotland in the middle of winter. I wasn't given any sort of introduction to Scotland or the area we lived in. The abuser and his brother both worked full time. I was given no money. All they gave me was responsibility over the brother's dog. I had to let him him out and clean up the piss and poop indoors and out. I didn't understand gas meters that needed topping up. I had no idea how to put "emergency credit" onto the meter. I didn't know anyone. I didn't know anything about where I was now living. I was left alone in the house with two children and a dog, day after day. Any time the brother was off work, I was expected to stay in the bedroom with the kids. The brother slept in the living room and he wanted peace and quiet on his days off. It was made very clear to me that the brother did not like me. This was his home, not mine. I never saw the neighbours. It was cold out. No one was outside socialising. They were all hiding inside just like us. I had no one to talk to. I had no friends and I lived with someone who didn't even try to hide the fact that he hated me and my kids. The brother started fights with me whenever he was home. Eventually threats of violence were made and I had to lock myself and the kids in a bedroom to stay safe. I hated my life and I (unfairly perhaps) hated Scotland. I told my abuser that the brother had to move out or I was leaving. I had only been in Scotland for three months but every minute of it I had been made to feel subhuman. The abuser was not going to send his brother packing just because his wife felt threatened by him. I should add that the brother was an adult with a full time job. He was just a couple years younger than my abuser. He could have easily gotten a house for himself. He didn't want to. The brother is a misogynistic pig. He wasn't going to let a woman take his house away from him. It was clear, I had to go back. I had to repatriate. The abuser of course didn't want this and he certainly had no money to fly me back to the US. All his promises of bringing my oldest child over, were never going to be kept. He just didn't have the money for it. He never planned on having the money for it. I was forced to borrow money to get us away from the dangerous situation we found ourselves in, in Scotland. I couldn't believe I had put us all in such a horrible situation. I couldn't believe I had been led to believe in someone who never cared about me. 4.5 months after I arrived in Scotland, I was back in the US. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of the ordeal. 

That is where I am going to leave the story for today. I have many more tales to tell. Do come back for more.


Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour that is often sudden and gradual over time. It has to be that way. Victims would fight back if their rights were being blatantly taken away. Coercive control is often falsely portrayed as love by the abuser. "I want you all to myself because I love you. If you loved me you would spend time with me instead of your friends". Often the victim is portrayed as being to blame for the abuser's behaviour. "If you weren't so reckless with money, I wouldn't have to withhold it from you" or "It's because of that expensive, elaborate recipe you wanted to make, that I now can't afford to give you money to go out with your friend". That one may sound far fetched but I actually heard those words from my abuser. I was shamed for wanting to take some control over my diet. So that brings us back to my story of how it all began. I was back in the US a mere 4.5 months after I had first immigrated to Scotland. I hadn't decided yet if i was back for good or just until my husband worked out our housing issues. I was back with my oldest daughter, the sun was out and I was free to do what I wanted again.  Just a few days after arriving back in the US I decided to get into my storage space to get some things out. My world was turned upside down when I found out my husband had stopped paying on my storage unit two months ago and everything I once owned, was gone. He stopped paying my storage space fees right around the same time that I started asking him for changes. I wanted to be happy in Scotland. I couldn't be happy living with a wee boy who wished me dead (the brother-in-law). I couldn't be happy couped up in the house with no contact with the outside world. I also asked him to move us into a bigger place. There were three adults and two children living in a two bedroom flat. I am sure it was just a coincidence that the two events happened concurrently. Why did I trust him you may ask. He was my husband. I wouldn't have married him if I hadn't trusted him. He promised me the world. He was going to take good care of me and the kids. We were going to have a great life in Scotland. I had no reason to doubt him.

After leaving Scotland, I had virtually no contact with my husband. He ignored my calls, texts, messages and emails. He was livid with me for leaving. I had accused him of things that he definitely did and he was having none of it. How dare she accuse me of prioritising my brother over her and my kids! How dare she complain about being a new country without a car, money, friends or knowledge of the local area, while I work 40+ hours every week! I really was being quite selfish for asking to have a family home for us and our children. It was rude of me to hope to be introduced to people and the new area I had moved to. I was clearly a horrible person for feeling completely abandoned. And now here I was in the US feeling abandoned and stupid for believing him. 

I wasn't having an easy time in the US now either. I was struggling to get a job. I had two small children, no money and a debt on the loan I took out to travel back to the US. Child care was also a huge obstacle. I couldn't work without childcare and I can't get childcare without money. I felt like I had been kicked while I was down. Yes it was poor planning on my part but once violent threats were made, getting out became a safety issue. The safety of my children was my priority. It took me over four months to get childcare in place and find a job. During those four months my husband got back in touch with me and was extremely apologetic. We started talking about a future together again. There was a lot of love bombing and many promises being made. Long story short, I was back in the UK after about 8 months in the US. 

This is where my last choices were made. That's a bit more metaphorical than literal but it was a point in my story where things took a turn and got even worse. 


Not long after I arrived back in Scotland, with all three children this time, I was pregnant. I was thrilled. We had talked about having another. He was absolutely livid. Claimed that I told him I was on birth control and all sorts. He didn't want to talk about it. He simply didn't want another child and he walked away from the relationship. I knew my visa expired near my due date and that made me very nervous. I had no idea what was going to happen. The first half of the pregnancy was miserable. I was 100% completely on my own. No partner, no friends, no ties to the local area at all. I can look back on all this and understand now that it was about control for him and nothing else. This wasn't his decision and he simply wasn't going to go along with it. He had other plans for his life. This was now the second time in just two years he had broken my heart to bits. I have never recovered from it and I suspect I never will.

When I was around 25 weeks or so he slowly started coming around to the idea that there was going to be a fourth child in the family. He was still angry but he made the decision to come back to the relationship. Again, looking back on this we never discussed anything. He made all the decisions. He did what he wanted. Nothing more, nothing less. He also decided that he didn't care about my Visa. It would have cost him quite a bit of money to extend it and he really wanted a new telly. Baby K was born just a few days after my Visa expired. I was terrified but he swore we would sort it somehow. His idea was to send me and the kids back to the states for a while and do the whole Visa process over again. It didn't matter if I wanted to go or not. I wasn't given any options. The king had spoken and that was what was going to happen. So I took out yet another loan to take 4 kids back to the US to wait for yet another Visa application to go through. 


BACK IN AMERICA WITH FOUR CHILDREN...

I arrived back in the US with four children in October. It was a difficult situation because I had no job and no place of my own to live. We stayed with my mother who struggled with the mess four small children made in her house. There was also no expected timeline for the visa that would allow us to go back to the UK. My children weren't in school in the US. The king did not think through this plan. He did not take anyone else into consideration. It was solely about what he wanted to happen. I was so upset about being back in the US and even more upset that the kids were missing school in the UK. I didn't get a say in the matter. I did what I was told like a good 1950's housewife. No one cared what I thought. No one asked. My abuser got a break from being a father, just like he wanted and I was a single mother of four young children. I was breastfeeding the youngest, who was about 8 months old at the start of our "American holiday". I wasn't sleeping much. I had chronic insomnia at the time and along with breastfeeding, it made a very tired, sad mama. I had no idea where my life was going. It wasn't up to me. We finally made it back to the UK in April, six months later, after another agonising visa application. That Visa meant my abuser was my sponsor and gave him control over my life. Of course I didn't fully understand that at the time. I have no doubt that my abuser understood it. It was all part of the plan.