‘I’d just be crying all the time’: Sydney mum’s coercive control torment

A Sydney mother-of-two didn’t think anything was wrong with her life - until her own best friend suddenly failed to recognise her.

At the start there weren’t many red flags.

But it was after the birth of Lisa’s* first child that things “started to go downhill”.

For many like her, it was the isolation from friends and family when they moved away, and her partner trying to keep them away from her that made the situation with her home life worse.

The NSW woman said her boyfriend expected to return home to a clean house, questioning what she’d been doing all day at home with a newborn baby.

“It got to the point where I had to hide my family coming over when he went to work,” she told news.com.au

“He’d say you’re a sh*t mum, you can’t cope. I’d just be crying all the time.”

On average, one woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner.

Almost 10 women a day are hospitalised for assault injuries at the hands of a spouse or domestic partner.

Every day in May, as part of Domestic and Family Violence Awareness Month, news.com.au will tell the stories behind those shocking statistics.

A NSW mum-of-two has spoken out about her experience with coercive control.

RELATED: Simple request that sparked years of financial abuse and coercive control

The 34-year-old said the only way for her to get out of a fight would be if their baby was crying.

“He would never go to bub,” she said.

“He hated the fact I would breastfeed. Bub would be crying and he’d tell me and the bub to get the f**k out of the house.

“It got worse because he’d say I work two jobs, you should have gone back (to work) three months ago, you’re a pathetic mum, you can’t do basics for your child, the house isn’t clean.”

Lisa said the emotional abuse chipped away at her soul until she hit rock bottom.

“I was too embarrassed to say anything to my friends and family,” she said.

“My best friend would come over and say I don’t recognise this person.”

Lisa said she felt like she was constantly walking on eggshells and being targeted “over and over again”.

A few times she locked herself away in their house and called the DVConnect helpline.

She was advised to get a safety plan in place and organised for her cousin to have her documents and necessary items ready for when she fled.

“It got to the point where we had a full, head on explosion fight and he grabbed my things and told me to get out,” she said.

“I thought f**k it and grabbed all my things.

“That’s when the whole family knew how serious it was.”

Lisa moved back in with her family but when her ex threatened to take her child and she “felt so guilty” about the situation, she relented and would agree to see him.

When she found out she was pregnant again, and he found out the child was a boy, she said he “did a 180”.

She convinced herself to give the relationship another shot for the children and try make it work, even though she knew it “wasn’t normal”.

“The fights were still escalating and he was like no, get the f**k out, me with a screaming bub, pregnant, on public transport,” she said.

“That would happen multiple times and I’d still go back to it.”

RELATED: Mum reveals DV reality ‘nobody tells you’

Lisa* said once her ex realised their second child was a boy he convinced her to return and give it another go.

Lisa said three months after the birth of her second child she was “done” and finally left, but her ex’s involvement in her children’s lives was still an issue and had remained so since.

“Eventually he got a new partner a few years down track,” she said.

“That’s when things started to get really twisted, the peak of the control.

“He wanted the kids to be dressed a certain way, make them wear things they didn’t want to.”

One Christmas he took off with the children without consent and made her go meet him to sign parenting papers in order for her to get the kids back.

“I didn’t know where the kids were, who they were with and I went home empty-handed,” she said.

“He pretty much weaponised the kids to get what he wanted.

“The kids came back traumatised. They’re still to this day a bit like that, asking ‘When are you picking me up?’”

After the matter went to court her ex was successful in having two nights a fortnight with the kids.

“Even with the court orders in place it still doesn’t change anything with how he is with me, and the kids,” she said.

“Domestic violence doesn’t have to physical, it can be emotional, it’s using the children against you.”

Coercive control can include controlling the family finances as well as emotional and psychological abuse.

Lisa attended Relationships Australia’s Women’s Choice and Change program last year and is speaking out to raise awareness.

“Coercive control comes in very subtle forms before you realise you’re in it,” she said.

“It can be as subtle as controlling finances. Having a really strong support networks gets you through but some people aren’t as lucky.”

Coercive control is a form of emotional and psychological abuse that for most people, is very difficult to realise is even happening to them.

Relationships Australia’s free program aims to provide women with the skills and understanding necessary to help them move forward in their lives.

This month, the organisation is driving awareness for more families of the warning signs of coercive control and for political action to legislate this behaviour as a criminal offence.

Coercive control and gaslighting (manipulation) is a collection of behaviours, sometimes slowly over time, designed to strip a person of their autonomy or self-worth (such as financial control, isolation, monitoring whereabouts, degrading a person, threats to harm themselves/children/pets) that in turn can make it impossible for them to leave the relationship even when it does become physically violent.

*Name has been changed