My abusive husband blamed me for miscarrying our baby

‘You killed the baby,’ said my husband. ‘It’s your fault.’

It was February 2020, and I’d just learned that I’d lost the child I was carrying. I was devastated and now my partner was blaming me.

It was just the latest verbal blow in the long and varied pattern of domestic abuse I had been experiencing for months.

But the torment didn’t end there. When the hospital gave me medication, he threw it away, saying I was ‘showing off’ that I had this medication, and he wanted me to get pregnant again straight away. He didn’t care that I was grieving the loss of my first child, or that I needed to recover.

I managed to get more medication from my GP and during the appointment, I cried. I let it all out – that it felt like hell in my house, with abusive treatment and words all the time. ‘I’m living a miserable life,’ I sobbed.

The GP was very sympathetic and I grew to understand that I couldn’t stay with this man.

I met my husband in the Philippines – where I’m from – in 2018, while he was on holiday. He’s of Turkish descent, but had been living in the UK for 30 years.

A year after we met, we got married in the Philippines and I moved to London on a spousal visa. I wouldn’t have any recourse to public funds, as is the norm for spousal visas.

It made me completely reliant on him. 

I have since learned that it is not uncommon for Southeast and East Asian women like myself to suffer domestic abuse in the UK.

This Is Not Right

On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.

With the help of our partners at Women’s Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.

You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk.

Read more:

• Introducing This Is Not Right: Metro’s year-long violence against women campaign
• Remembering the women killed by men in 2024

Not only do we often have No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), but deep-rooted cultural stigma around family honour and silence often discourages women from speaking out, while language barriers make it harder to access services or understand our rights.

Immigration status often compounds vulnerability, as many women are tied to spousal or dependent visas that abusers can exploit.

Harmful stereotypes portraying Asian women as submissive or docile can lead to their experiences being minimised or dismissed, while economic dependence – often stemming from low-paid, precarious work or visa restrictions that prevent employment – leaves many women with limited options to leave abusive situations.

In my case, the red flags started the day I arrived, fresh off an 18-hour flight, when my husband asked me to clean the toilets at our house.

I couldn’t believe it.

I decided to clean anyway. I didn’t want to make a scene. We’d just started living under the same roof, and we were adjusting to each other.

I hoped things might improve; they didn’t.

My husband was always very busy with his job as a delivery driver, but he wanted to monitor me, so insisted I join him on his delivery rounds.

The whole time he was working, he spoke in Turkish to everyone around him; I didn’t have a clue what any of them were saying. I felt completely isolated.

It was the same with his friends and family – they constantly spoke in Turkish and at family gatherings, I worried they might be talking about me. I asked them to speak English so I could join in, but they wouldn’t.

During the winter he refused to fix our small electric radiator, so the house was always cold. He worked Monday to Saturday and spent Sundays out of the house, when I’d often be at home, shivering.

When Covid hit, he was angry all the time because he had less work, and he took his frustrations out on me.

He said I behaved as if I was living at a hotel, with everything paid for. He’d say things like, ‘You only want my money’ – because I had no job at the time, and I had to rely on him for food – and ‘You’re probably seeing other boyfriends’.

‘Why are you saying this to me?,’ I asked, perplexed. ‘We’re in lockdown – I couldn’t see anyone even if I wanted to.’

Luckily, I managed to find a job, centred on helping house the homeless. But this meant my husband levelled even more accusations at me – that I was seeing other men, because I was out of the house. 

I had to take a picture of my female boss and send it to him as ‘proof’ that I was working with a woman; and he’d often video call me, to check if my background really was either our house or my work.

Eventually, in summer 2021, I called the National Domestic Abuse Helpline and they sent the police to pick me up while my husband was out. I left in a rush, taking only two or three sets of clothes with me. But without recourse to public funds or friends in the UK, I was on my own.

The police took me to a hotel, which I had to pay for out of my own money, leaving me destitute.

Thankfully, a charity who’d been supporting me for a few months – offering advice and a listening ear while I was enduring the abuse – found me a safe place to stay. They had a network of family hosts who were willing to temporarily house victims of domestic abuse. I paid around £250 a month for this.

Because I still had no government support, I approached my local council who allocated me an Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA).

My IDVA helped me apply for what is now known as the Migrant Victims of Domestic Abuse Concession (MVDAC): a three-month visa that allows you to access public funds. Before this expires, you apply for ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain), which then gives you settled status in the UK.

Once I had the MVDAC, in August 2021 I was entitled to temporary housing provided by the council; but after staying there for a few months, I had to turn this accommodation down.

It was a mixed household where there was a lot of substance abuse – I could smell the drugs all the time – and some of the residents were struggling with mental illness, which was distressing as my own mental health was so poor at the time.

During this time, I approached the charity Solace Women’s Aid. They found me an immigration solicitor who helped me get my ILR, which was approved in November 2021.

At last, I could stay indefinitely in the UK and I had access to benefits. I began renting somewhere, and at first, I received Universal Credit, which helped. I found another job in February 2022, which meant I no longer needed to rely on benefits – and I’ve been in full-time work ever since.

I haven’t seen my husband since the night before I left; I don’t know what happened to him.

Due to financial challenges, I can’t yet afford a divorce, so technically, I’m still married to him. He sends me streams of curses and horrible words on Facebook, but I can’t block him; I’ll need his details for when I can finally afford a divorce. 

But life is otherwise good. I’ve had a brand new start in the countryside, and I’ve met a new partner who is my best friend. I’m also working closely with SEEAWA, a charity dedicated to helping Southeast and East Asian women who are in similar situations to the one I was once in.

We need more compassionate statutory services. Often, due to a lack of culturally appropriate help – such as multi-lingual statutory services –some public bodies won’t initially believe that Southeast and East Asian women are going through abuse, and can disregard what they’re saying. I’ve heard this from other women who are involved with SEEAWA. 

If there’s racism of this kind in the system, it will be impossible for women to get the help they need. 

Most of all, we need the government to introduce exemptions for domestic abuse scenarios when it comes to NRPF.

At the moment, for example, the MVDAC is not available to all victims of domestic abuse – people who are the partners of visitors, or who have student or worker leave in their own right, or who are in the UK without lawful status, such as victims of human trafficking, which falls under modern day slavery. This needs to change.

Now, I’m trying to give hope to the women who are in abusive situations. I know it feels like it will never end but it can. It does. 

As told to Izzie Price.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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