When I separated, it was a neighbour who helped me to see things more clearly. He helped me gain self-confidence. He took me in until I was financially and morally ready to find my own place. Now I know that I am independent and that I don't need anyone.

My ex-boyfriend had installed parental control software on my computer without my knowledge, so he had access to all my online activities: the websites I visited, my passwords, access to my bank accounts, my Facebook, my email... everything.

First, he didn't want custody of our son. When he found out that he would have to pay child support if I had full custody, he applied for shared custody and then accepted «extended access», long weekends and Wednesday nights. We spent almost two years in court because of the delays he caused in the proceedings. It cost me a fortune in legal fees. In the end, he was supposed to give me a small child support payment (less than 100$ a month), but he resented me for having to do so. Since the court, he hasn't respected the conditions of our child's custody. He comes to pick him up and bring him back to me whenever he wants, without telling me. He says he doesn't care if I'm not there when he brings my son back, and that it's not his problem if I can't be there for him. He keeps him with him, at most, 2-3 nights a month and therefore, doesn't pay me enough child support for our actual time. When I talked to him about it, he made death threats and told me that if I took him back to court, I would have to «forget» my son. I chose not to do anything about it for now, to protect myself and my son. Fortunately, an interviewer is helping me document my case for the day I want to move forward.

When I tried to leave the first time, he threatened to reveal sensitive information he had about me to my relatives. I had confided to him that I had been sexually assaulted by one of my brothers when I was young and that I was still affected by that experience today. He told me that he was going to tell my parents, now aging and both of them having serious health problems. I was flabbergasted... and basically frozen in the relationship. I broke up with him only a few years later, after both my parents had died.

He ridiculed my spiritual beliefs (personal growth classes), saying that I was going to a monastery to «get felt up» by the monks.

At first I was afraid. Then my partner started telling me that I always exaggerated everything, that I was dramatic, that I was making up stories, that I was inventing problems, etc. After a while... my fear just... shut up. One day, my partner threatened me with a knife and I felt nothing. Nothing at all. He had managed to disconnect my alarm system. The best advice I could give to a person who is afraid today... is to listen to their fear.

I had been working for three years with a family whose child had severe behavioural problems. Nothing was working. My usual methods weren't working. The mother was discouraged and seemed increasingly depressed. On one visit when the father was not present, I noticed that the mother seemed to fear the father's reaction if the child did not improve. I asked her about this and from her answers I realized that she was a victim of violence. I was uncomfortable because I wasn't sure how to intervene in this sensitive situation. I called SOS and was offered intervention support and tools to share with my team.

He offered me a cell phone. I didn't know it, but he had access to my messages and everything I consulted on the internet.

He was watching me like a hawk. He would check the odometer on my car and compare it with google maps to see if «it made sense». I wasn't allowed to have a Facebook or Instagram account or anything else. I had to change my personal email address to a «couple» email address that he had access to. It was a prison.

For me the most difficult issue to endure was his jealousy. My husband evaluated everything, my clothes, my activities, my choices according to my «potential» for infidelity. At the beginning of our relationship, he had warned me that he was insecure because his father had abandoned him and I understood this, so I tried to help him by avoiding doing things that would make him anxious... but it was impossible. He said that he knew me well and that I had a high «potential for infidelity». If I had the misfortune of talking about a male colleague, he would interrogate me about him and about our «relationship». If I bought a new dress, he thought I was trying to seduce someone. If my eyes had the misfortune to go to a place where there was a man, I was «on the hunt». As the years went by, my universe shrank and shrank... I felt imprisoned by his doubts about me.

It took me a long time to realize that I wasn't the problem. I thought for a long, long time that it was my behaviour that was causing my partner's violence. He always had an explanation for his violence, and that explanation was always me. He said that I was «bringing out the worst in him».

I'am a social worker and I always keep the SOS-INFO brochures in my office because it explains what intimate partner violence is all about. Since I am not a specialist on the subject, these documents allow me to receive ongoing training on the problem, but also to be able to better evaluate or explain it with the people I meet.