TRUE-LIFE
I was being watched, 24 hours a day
Kath Foster, 43, Cardiff
As we strolled along a sun-drenched Mexican beach on my 30th birthday, my boyfriend, Christopher, dropped to one knee. ‘Marry me?’ he asked. As I said yes, I’d never been more sure of anything. It was June 2010, and we’d met six years earlier.
We worked at a security company, me in admin, him as a technology engineer.
Christopher was thoughtful and fun.
I eventually left for a different company, but our relationship went from strength to strength.
Life was blissful, and it only got better after we married in September 2012. Two years on, our baby girl Betsy was born.
I’d needed an emergency caesarean, and after, struggled to recover.
Christopher took charge, doing laundry and dinner, waking for every night feed. ‘I want to look after you 6 both myself,’ he said, batting away offers of help from our friends and family.
‘We’re lucky to have you,’ I smiled at him.
We were thrilled when I fell pregnant just after Betsy’s second birthday.
Then life got incredibly busy when we bought our dream home – a four-bedroom newbuild.
Selling up, we stayed with my parents while waiting for it to be finished.
We finally moved in that November 2017, with Betsy, then 3, and our baby boy, Eric, 3 months.
It was a hectic time and I noticed Christopher had become withdrawn.
Barely spoke, spent all his time on his phone.
It’s stress, I told myself. Only, unlike with Betsy, he didn’t help me with Eric. ‘What’s wrong?’ I pleaded. But he’d shrug me off. I went back to work after maternity leave.
Christopher remained distant, and didn’t lift a finger around the house.
When he wasn’t working he’d stay up late and sleep during the day.
I hoped it was a phase.
Then Christopher started constantly texting and calling me at work, asking what I was doing.
‘Trying to work!’ I’d hiss. ‘You’ll get me in trouble.’
Then, in November 2019, he presented me with a flashy new phone.
‘It’s a present,’ he smiled. He’d set it all up, downloaded all my apps, ready to use.
Well, he was a tech whizz. Straightaway it pinged with a message, saying I had an ‘access problem’. I handed it back to
Christopher to fix.
But as days passed, I got more notifications about access problems.
It dawned on me… Was Christopher doing it? Was he restricting my access to my own phone? I confronted him.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked. ‘Maybe you should see the GP?’
He refused point blank.
Instead, he accused me of being unfaithful.
‘When would I have time
