‘I loved him with all my heart. But that was not love.’
Celine*, 36, two daughters, 5 and 3.
The room is decorated in a million, mostly pink, things. Fairies, unicorns, flowers, princesses and rainbows.
A happy space . . . overwhelmingly happy.
Her five-year-old hugs me around the knees and digs in the piles of neatly organised toys to find her bucket of candy floss. She shows me her lipstick and glitter pots.
Celine says she had to create an exaggerated sense of comfort to make up for the dark years.
“I had to run away. My teeth were gone, I was blue all over and he had stabbed me with scissors. His mother brought me here. She told Bridget that he was going to kill me if I stayed.”
The abusive marriage she left after nine years left her an emotional wreck. She cries and laughs intermittently.
An orphaned only child, she thought as a 19-year-old that this was the way love was.
“I thought it was a life. He is a sober person, he never drank. He was just big and very aggressive.
“The day he hit me while I was carrying my baby, I saw the look on my elder child’s face and I broke. I knew it was not how I want to live.” That was a year ago. Celine says Bridget has helped her find work, an admin position. The girls are in school and she has been saving up. Soon she will have her deposit for a flat.
“My child loves to give hugs, but she will shy away from men. She does not call her father ‘Dad’, she says his name and she turns away when he talks to her. By law I can’t keep him away from them. He sees them for 10 minutes once a week.
“I lost so much of my life. The first person to love me and my kids, truly, is Bridget. I have depressing moments and mood swings, but she helps me through it,” Celine says, prompting another bout of tears.
She is learning to forgive her abuser.
“I loved him from the deepest of my heart but I realise what he did is not love. He did not love my girls.
“Now we know it, and we will be OK.”