'Love bombing ended with him holding me hostage'

After being held prisoner for a week in her flat, Esther finally escaped to her mother, who didn’t recognise her daughter when she opened the door, as Maya Oppenheim reports

-  Maya Oppenheim

Esther’s* relationship started with flowers, poems and letters. Her new partner could not afford to lavish her with expensive gifts but would keep telling her she was a beautiful person and send her romantic lines he had found on the internet.

Very quickly, he made huge promises, telling her he loved her and encouraging her to give up her entire life and move to join him in London. In hindsight, she now recognises his behaviour as love bombing – showering someone with grand gestures to win their trust and affection – but at the time, Esther was lured in due to previous failed relationships having left her vulnerable.

But her happiness soon turned to terror as her then partner launched an eight-year campaign of violence, abuse and manipulation, leaving her too afraid to call the police. On one occasion, he stabbed her with a screwdriver – on another, he smashed her head with a bottle. “It was great to start with,” she says. “It was amazing. Because of my upbringing, I think I just wanted to have the family dynamic because I was lacking love from some family members growing up.”

Esther tells her story to The Independent to coincide with the launch of the Brick by Brick campaign with the charity Refuge, which aims to raise £300,000 to build a safe house for domestic abuse survivors to find their freedom. Esther says she had always wanted to have someone who loved her and was fully committed as soon as he said those three words.

‘It was great to start with’

“It progressed quite quickly,” she adds. “I moved. I upped and left my whole life and moved to London with him and it was great.”

But as soon as she did that, everything changed. During her first night at his flat, she woke up to find him dancing strangely in the corner of the room. When she asked him what was wrong, he punched her in the face.