When he was angry with me in the car, he started driving fast and hard. He hit the steering wheel, he kicked the gas pedal... it was terrifying. I was always afraid that he would eventually lose control of the car and cause us to have an accident. When the kids were in the car with us, it was even worse for me... I still have nightmares about it.

That moment of grace, of liberation, of serenity felt when one realizes that the violence is over and that this ordeal has made us truly stronger. That moment will come, and it depends only on our determination to say no, to turn our backs, mentally and physically, on the person who dared to abuse us. The decision to leave and the legal, psychological and physical turmoil surrounding the separation sometimes make us doubt. Don't doubt. Push it out of your head and move on. The turmoil will end and peace will come. It's so worth it. A woman at peace, at last.

We were on our way to my parent's house on New Year's Eve. He didn't want to go and made that very clear to us. He drove fast and dangerously, was ranting against my family... the children were crying... 45 minutes of hell. When we got there, it took everything I had to pretend to be happy. The next year, I didn't insist on going...

Girls' night out. I finally talk about my former relationship. I understand - because of the looks of my friends - that what I'm saying is just not normal. It's unhealthy, it's horrible, they have tears in their eyes. I understand the magnitude of what I have been through. I start to cry right there in the restaurant. Later, my friend sends me the link to the SOS violence conjugale's questionnaire. It was so revealingI read the testimonials. I could have written at least half of them. That's what made me call them. Thank you. Thank you SOS violence conjugale, I was referred to gentle, empathetic, kind and so human.

He was constantly making negative comments about my appearance, my manners, my voice, my facial hair, etc. He claimed to want to help me "pass", whereas I thought I was just fine the way I was. He finally admitted that he was ashamed of me... as a trans woman, it destroyed me.

He forced me to prostitute myself. It happened gradually... he had debts, they became our debts... He convinced me to do it once... then twice... then every day or almost every day. I never thought it would ever happen to me.

I found out that he had put a tracking application on my cell phone to monitor my movements. When I stumbled upon the application by chance, and realized that he was monitoring me, I confronted him. He tried to make me believe that I had given my consent and that I didn't remember. I didn't believe him... but I almost did. How can you be sure in a situation like that????

While we were together, if I disciplined our child, he would intervene over me to say things like «don't listen to her, she doesn't know what she's talking about». After our separation, he would tell him about our fights and denigrate me to my son. As a result, it was my son himself who told the social worker and other professionals (including a judge) that I was unreliable and that I didn't know how to take care of him...

He started to make comments when I went shopping, telling me that I didn't "respect the budget", for as little as 10 dollars (and we could afford it), until finally telling me that I would not go shopping anymore and confiscating my credit card. In my exhaustion, I said to myself "very well, one less thing to deal with" a well-deserved break...no need to go shopping with three children yay....

I woke up in the middle of the night and he was... he had started «making love»... if you can call it love. It happened several times. He said that I had asked him «in my sleep»... I found out much later that it was rape.

I've never been physically abused... or even verbally abused. Everything was subtle... angry stares... sighs... silences... absences... infidelity... extreme tension as soon as I didn't «submit». It was heavy, so heavy. The children also felt it, I saw them «crushed» in front of their father... it broke my heart. It lasted 28 years. I had 3 «depressions» which I understand today as exhaustion in the face of all the heaviness I carried day after day. I sometimes hoped that he would hit me... at least then I would have been certain that it was violence.

It was winter, in the evening, I went out to put the garbage bags on the side of the street without putting on my coat. When I came back home, the door was locked.. I was really cold. Half an hour later I saw him in the second floor window with my 12-year-old son... he was laughing. I ended up digging in the snow to find the emergency key... I got severe frostbite on both hands. I never left the house again without my keys in my pockets after that. Years later, when he was an adult, my son told me how guilty, he felt for not standing up to his father that night. At 38, he was crying out in rage and fear.