Sonia's personal story

My boyfriend has a friend who was casually seeing a girl when she accidentally became pregnant with his now 3-4 year old daughter. He stepped up and moved in with the girl to make a proper go at their relationship for the sake of the child. One afternoon when his daughter was still a baby he was meeting friends (including my boyfriend and I) for a few drinks to catch up. His (now ex) girlfriend showed up at the pub raging at him and proceeded to physically assault him, hitting him in the face and shoulders, while carrying their baby under her other arm. It was scary and I have no doubts that if she had been a man and he had been a woman the police may well have been called. Apparently the girl also woke my boyfriend's friend up one night holding a knife to his throat (unsubstantiated but believable given her violent behaviour in the pub). They have now separated as a result of her controlling behaviour and she has full custody of their daughter.

My boyfriend also dated a girl who in my opinion was emotionally and physically abusive. Among other things she would berate him if he was 5 minutes late for a date or answering a text message - to the point where when we started dating over two years ago my boyfriend would apologise profusely to me for taking 10 minutes to reply to a message, expecting me to go off at him! He also was not allowed to go out with his friends or spend a night apart from her. A couple of his other friends have had similar experiences dating certain girls.