she said, always negative, with no energy, someone who needed her to support him emotionally the whole time. She had found him a drain. He was someone who didn’t say or Harriet*’s face had been etched into a mask of anxiety and pain by the years spent putting herself last while she tried to make bad relationships work. She came up to me on the last day of the course I’d been running on Domestic Violence Recovery to tell me how far she had come along her journey.

She said she’d learned so much that she’d wished she’d known before. She also said that in recent years she had made better relationships. She’d been through domestic violence and wasn’t going there any more. Her latest relationship, which had ended during my course, had not been abusive, but her partner had been ‘difficult’, the kind of man who pulls you down.

He was, she said, always negative, with no energy, someone who needed her to support him emotionally the whole time. She had found him a drain. He was someone who didn’t say or d

on the last day of the course I’d been running on Domestic Violence Recovery to tell me how far she had come along her journey.

She said she’d learned so much that she’d wished she’d known before. She also said that in recent years she had made better relationships. She’d been through domestic violence and wasn’t going there any more. Her latest relationship, which had ended during my course, had not been abusive, but her partner had been ‘difficult’, the kind of man who pulls you down.

He was, she said, always negative, with no energy, someone who needed her to support him emotionally the whole time. She had found him a drain. He was someone who didn’t say or

e’d wished she’d known before. She also said that in recent years she had made better relationships. She’d been through domestic violence and wasn’t going there any more. Her latest relationship, which had ended during my course, had not been abusive, but her partner had been ‘difficult’, the kind of man who pulls you down.

He was, she said, always negative, with no energy, someone who needed her to support him emotionally the whole time. She had found him a drain. He was someone who didn’t say or

. Her latest relationship, which had ended during my course, had not been abusive, but her partner had been ‘difficult’, the kind of man who pulls you down.

He was, she said, always negative, with no energy, someone who needed her to support him emotionally the whole time. She had found him a drain. He was someone who didn’t say or

she said, always negative, with no energy, someone who needed her to support him emotionally the whole time. She had found him a drain. He was someone who didn’t say or do very much. He relied on her to lift his spirits and do all the caring. He didn’t lift a finger around the house, or even buy the occasional bottle of wine to ‘show willing’.

But still, she had been sad when it had ended because he was ‘a lovely person’; he was just a little depressed and depressing – her judgement not mine.

Then, as she continued to think about her lovely ex, Harriet’s face changed completely. She said, more to herself than me: “Actually, you know, he was abusive. It is abusive to pull your partner down and contribute nothing to a relationship, but take, take, take.”

She ran quickly through his behaviours and attitudes again registering h