Woke up this morning feeling quite empty; still the first thing to enter my head was Carl. Seems like life has little direction today but life goes on, it has to, with my  5 children and my 7 month old nephew needing my attention I tried not to dwell on things that could have been, maybe even should have been.

Mine & Carl's love for our respective children and the feelings felt for each others meant that we had to take the decision that neither of us could cope with the guilt of the prospect of hurting our children in all of this.

Not going into detail about the situation as I want to respect

Why do I stay? What could be wrong woth me so bad that I let a man hold me down for 14 years? He lies, cheats and Drinks.... and I accept it. We are always without decent funds although he makes decent money. I know I don't spend it I sometimes don't leave my house for weeks or more. Not because he won't allow it but because i'm so depressed I don't want to. He doesn't physically abuse me but does hold our son over me, if I leave with him he will call the police for kidnapping. His family actually apologizes to me for his behavior, somewhat encourages me to leave. I took care of his sister

I'm not really sure how I found myself in this position, nor am I sure of what exactly to write or how to structure my story. One thing I know is that everything I put into this story will be honest and accurate according to the best of my knowledge. I was married for 15 years and my divorce was finalised in January of this year.

I first met my ex-wife when I was 18 years old and she was 16. I was going out with a friend of hers but when she walked into the pub where we were on night I thought 'Wow!'. I thought she was gorgeous. We became good friends and were very close but the relationship