Fighting is inevitable in any good relationship, and it is only through these fights that a couple learns about their differences, likes, and dislikes. What is not natural is when a couple’s or married relationship becomes one-sided. One partner has complete mental, physical, and emotional power over the other.
When the person you were looking forward to spending the rest of your life with turns into somebody you are most afraid of, it’s far worse than a nightmare. Catherine, 32, thought she was saying “yes” to the man of her dreams, Matthew Hartley, however she was too young to notice the warning signs in the beginning phases of their relationship.
Catherine met Matthew when she was only a youthful teenager; she was 15 and he was 25. The couple got hitched in October, 2006 and he didn’t waste any time in revealing his true colours. Matthew’s domineering personality even showed out on their wedding day. She expressed that she was quite young when she met him and something he did was to groom her. His controlling conduct began the second he said ‘I do”. After their wedding, he snatched her by the arm and informed her that they were leaving so she didn’t get to go to her own reception.
Yet, that was only a hint of something larger. Catherine was subsequently tormented and Matthew would not allow her to eat since he didn’t “want a fat spouse”. Matthew’s domineering manner eventually eroded his wife’s well-being, decreasing her self-esteem and, very literally, her physique, whereas she was a healthy size 12 when they married.
Ctherine explained he told her she was overweight, so he placed her on a diet. He desired a size 0 bride. If she ate before going to bed, he constrained her to rest on the couch as he didn’t like the smell of food on me. Her bones ached when she lay down on the mattress because she was so thin. She was famished until there was almost nothing of “Catherine” left, both genuinely and inwardly.
He began to vent his frustrations on her through violence, which gradually harmed Catherine. “One day, we were in their living room with my family, and I requested him to take me out for some food since I was hungry,” she explained. He lost all control and was really nasty with her.
Matthew’s drive to control his wife had gotten to the point where the continual scrutiny he placed her under made her feel unsafe in her own house. She explained he wanted to have control over her, so he put surveillance cameras in every part of the house, including their bedroom, so he could monitor her on his phone. He frightened her, and he relished tormenting her because he couldn’t think of anything else to do with his time.
Matthew, according to Catherine, would get worked up about the tiniest of details and make life difficult for her. “Like the horror film Sleeping with the Enemy, my life was a nightmare.” He’d go insane if the bathroom towels weren’t absolutely straight ” she stated.
Things possibly deteriorated when she was bearing his kid in 2012. When she was pregnant with his child in 2012, things only got worse. She experienced back discomfort during her pregnancy, and when she requested him to rub her back, he became enraged and labelled her “disgusting and overweight,” she said.
Catherine eventually had the resolve to leave her violent spouse in August 2017, and the couple divorced in April of the following year. A contract, however, cannot erase the nightmare memories her marriage had left her with. Even though he was found guilty of assaulting Catherine many times, she can’t believe he’s walking free from court with a community payback order and 12 months of supervision. Between December 2010 and January 2011, he was convicted of sexually abusing another lady and was placed on the sex offenders’ registry for a year.
Catherine, on the other hand, thinks that the pain she endured was nothing compared to Matthew’s punishment. “I was his prisoner for 12 years, almost serving a life sentence, and all he received was a slap on the wrists.” “It’s as if what happened to me is irrelevant,” Catherine explained. “People like him ought to be punished more severely.”
As far as she might be concerned, it wasn’t just about going through a separation, yet more about reclaiming her physical and passionate wellbeing from the beginning. Throughout the marriage, Catherine had lost such an excess of weight that she could squeeze into garments made for 7-year-old youngsters. Furthermore, alongside her actual wellbeing being impacted, what she likewise lost was her healthy self-appreciation worth. For her, the 12 years she had lived in a poisonous marriage with Matthew had been a living hell. She expressed her disappointment that he eroded her self-esteem and confidence. She was embarrassed by the insults. Her sisters would never have stood for something like that. She felt like she had failed. In the end, she went along with what he wanted because she believed it would make him like her more, but she was never good enough.
She asked individuals to escape connections like this since nothing legitimizes this sort of treatment. “These individuals don’t transform.,” she said. “Nobody has the right to live that way. You need to tell somebody. You need to get out.”
She advised people to leave these types of relationships because nothing excuses such behaviour. She stated that these folks aren’t going to change. In her words, “Nobody deserves to live in such a way. You must inform someone. You’ve got to get out of here.”
