Clare and Liam were together on and off for about six years before she became pregnant. He would disappear for a while “and then when he came back it was like a honeymoon phase all over again”.
He encouraged her to stay away from family and friends. “The way he put it was that these people were no good for me. It kind of makes you feel special, that he sees your worthiness,” she explains.
“He complimented my dress sense; that I never followed the crowd.”
Although they never discussed having a baby, Clare says, “I think subconsciously I planned it – thinking if I can’t change him, a child will.”
But their daughter was only a couple of months old when he physically assaulted Clare for the first time, just before Christmas.
“We were fighting over his gambling and I was getting the blame for his losing. We were just arguing and I ended up calling him ‘stupid’.
“He always said not to call him that, he hated being called stupid. When we got into the apartment block, he pinned me up in the elevator, his hands up against my throat. It did come as a shock. How did calling him stupid escalate to this?”
The physical abuse continued but was turned off after Christmas because he had two weeks’ supply of marijuana. “He was completely calm for those two weeks.”
As soon as that ran out, he began to get violent again. However, luckily for Clare they had to move out of their apartment not long after “and the only place for us to go was my mam’s; he disappeared again to stay with friends. And being away from him I was able to see what was happening. It took me a good year to completely break ties with him.”
Clare didn’t tell her mother or anybody else what had gone on. “I only came out to my family about what had been happening after I was granted a safety order from the courts.”
She had looked for a maintenance order first “but as I was breaking away from him I was getting very threatening messages that I would be buried alive, that he would kill my whole family, that he would take my daughter.”
She d contacted Women’s Aid at that stage, asking if the threats were made through messages, and he was not there physically saying these things, was it still classed as abuse. They were able to tell her it was.
Liam has been out of her life for two years. He disappeared after she got the safety order and he has not paid maintenance.
The last thing she heard about him was when a Garda station rang a few months ago her to ask if she had seen him.
Her daughter, who is now four, occasionally asks why she doesn’t have a daddy. “All I can say to her is he doesn’t know how to be a daddy. She is definitely better off without him.”
She was only a few months old when she saw her father abuse her mother but Clare is sure it has had an effect. “She has this fear of men, and even of boys the same age.”
The safety order lasts five years and Clare fears that when it is finished, Liam will come back.
“I am also afraid he is going to turn up with a partner and it will be her saying he’s entitled to access, because he would probably be in her head as well.
“There’s that part of me that still wants him to understand his abusive behaviour and that will give me closure,” Clare adds.
“At the same time, I have to cut my ties with that, as it will probably never happen.” *Names have been changed
