I decided to visit a friend to get my head back together and escape my marriage troubles. It would be a while before he would even communicate with me…this became part of our normality now and at the time I didn’t realise that this was part of his punishment towards me.

The silent treatment became his weapon against me unless I complied with his never increasing demands to keep him happy.

When I eventually felt like I wanted to go home I went back without informing him. As I got out of the taxi, I just headed indoors seeing that our car was not in the driveway so obviously he was out and about somewhere else. I carried my bags and headed upstairs to our apartment. Everything seemed odd and very quiet. The electrics had been switched off in the apartment and I made sure I switched them on again.