‘It felt so good to talk to someone’
John did not want Martine to start taking birth control pills again and they had many rows.
When Aoife was five months old, Martine discovered she was pregnant.
“I was very tired all the time and found it very hard to look after Aoife, keep the house and have everything in order when John came home,” she said.
John refused to help out in the house, saying he did his bit by bringing home a good salary. If things were not right at home he got really annoyed and started shouting.
“I didn’t like him shouting as it frightened Aoife and it frightened me too as he used to get right up in my face and then when he stopped he wouldn’t talk to me for days,” she recalled.
Martine went into labour nearly a month early on her second child, Michael. She ended up having an emergency Caesarean.
Staff at the hospital said she could not get an injectable contraceptive until her six week post-natal GP appointment.
“This frightened me as John came to all my doctor’s appointment saying he was really concerned and wanted to see I was well looked after.”
When Martine arrived home with Michael, the house was a mess. She found it difficult to climb the stairs and lift Aoife out of her cot. John said she was bone lazy when she asked for more help.
Martine arranged for her sister to stay for a few nights to help her. John would not speak to Martine and was rude to her sister.
“At night in bed he would just talk out loud and say things like ‘I have a wife who is bone lazy; she is a really bad mother; she won’t even lift her own daughter for a cuddle.’ It was so upsetting to hear all these things and not to be talked to. When I tried to talk to him he would just turn away from me.”
When Martine went to her GP for her appointment, John told the doctor his wife did not like to take contraception because she was afraid it would make her infertile. “The GP asked John to leave us alone for a few minutes while she examined me but he refused and told her he was staying.”
When they returned home John started shouting at Martine. He pulled her into the kitchen by the arm and slammed the door shut.
“He came flying around in front of me so fast I nearly dropped Michael. I could hear Aoife outside the door crying and calling me. It was so horrible.”
Martine told her sister about John. Her sister later arranged for Martine to contact Women’s Aid from her house.
“It felt so good to talk to someone who understood and who didn’t expect me to do anything. It helped me to really understand what was happening and how I felt about it.”
