After we moved things went bad very quickly. Peter started drinking more and more. He started complaining that I was fat, ugly, stupid and so on. Nothing I did was ever god enough, there was always something I could have done better or another way. I started withdrawing from people. First my friends, then my family...from everyone. The only people I was in contact with was my family(sporadically) and his family, no friends , no one else. I missed my family terribly. It didn't get better form the fact that my mother was dying from breast cancer. Three days before she passed away she asked me if Peter was good to me. I lied and said Yes. She passed away on Christmas Day.

My whole life soon became a struggle to keep things calm and afloat. We were always short of money. Peter drank constantly and went out to the bars a couple of times every week. I had to drive him there and then pick him up after the bars had closed. He arranged for me to have a cellphone so that he could call me whenever he needed a ride home. That was usually if he was too intoxicated to drive. Most of the time he drove drunk though. I used to pray to God that he would drive off the road - that way I would be free.

So one morning the washing machine broke. This morning I was supposed to drive up to the city to pick up his son (from a previous relationship) whom were were supposed to have for the weekend. I asked him if he could drive up there and pick up his son so that I could arrange for a repair man to come and fix the washing machine. He didn't want to and we started arguing. The argument got heated. We started arguing about money. I asked him if he could possibly hang out at the bars less since we hardly had enough money for food this month. That's when he hit me the first time. He hit me with a closed fist right on the side of my head. I fell down on the floor. He just turned around, walked out the door and jumped in the car and drove off.

I ran to the phone and called home. I couldn't say anything, I just cried and cried. Dad is the one who took the call. All he said was " I'm coming". I suppose he must have understood what had happened. He made the drive down to us in less than 40 minutes. I packed a small suitcase and then we left. Dad never asked me what had happened, I guess it was pretty apparent.

In the afternoon the phone calls began. Peter called every 5 minutes. Dad picked up the phone and told him that I didn't want to talk to him, that it was over and so on. Finally we had to unplug the phone just to get some peace and quiet.

That night Peter came to the house. He was standing outside, yelling and screaming until we had to call the police. I was so scared and so ashamed.

The next day the phone didn't ring that often, maybe just every 30 minutes or so. Dad always answered. After one of the calls Dad looked kind of pale. All he said was that we should pack some clothes and that all of us were going to spend the next couple of nights at a friends place - me, Dad and my brother. We all wondered what Peter had said but Dad didn't want to tell us.

So we fled form the house and spent the next couple of nights at friends.

Dad never told me what Peter said to him that time. I don't know what could have scared my father so much that he chose to take his family and flee from the house. Dad had a bad heart and after this happened he was in constant angina pain. That Christmas (it was the year after Mom had died) we decided to go away from Christmas. Me, my sister, brother and Dad went abroad for the holidays. I talked a lot to Dad during the next few days. I know he was worried about me and he was trying to pep me into starting my life over by myself sort of - without Peter.

Then the unbelievable happened - Dad died. He had a massive coronary and died on Dec 22 that year. We were devastated. I felt that it was my fault all together. I was living like in a dream. I blamed myself for Dad's death, after all I was the one who had caused so much trouble.

Peter continued with his phone calls after we came back. He sent flowers and so on. Stupid as I was I started talking to him again. Of course he was so regretful about what had happened, and of course he would never ever do something like that again. So......I took him back.