
Content warning: this post discusses domestic violence.
Sandy* was a single mother when she met John*. It was a whirlwind romance, and it swept her off her feet.
John is Canadian, so the pair quickly decided to move to his home country and were married within a month.
"No one knew for years that I was married, including my children, because I couldn't explain what this was," she says.
This is how the isolation started, Sandy just hadn't identified it yet.
"I look back and think, I should have been too old for this, but it seemed so right at the beginning."
Watch: It's not love, it's coercive control. Article continues after the video.
It wasn't long before John revealed another side to his personality. He'd become easily angry, sometimes punching holes in the wall. At more than six feet tall, compared to Sandy's short stature, his aggression was frightening.
"I exposed a lot about myself at the beginning, and he was everything that I was looking for. Except he wasn't.