Martha - DV affects you in so many ways

Martha left her partner of thirteen years because of domestic violence. For years she had tried to work around his violent moods, finally deciding to leave because of the toll this was having on her children.

Martha knew that she would need to work at her relationship with her children, because they weren’t used to seeing her in charge. She was surprised to find that the biggest challenge was managing the family budget. Her family support worker Annie helped her make the connections between the way her husband had controlled the family finances, and her lack of confidence.

Together they worked out a budget, so that she could plan ahead to meet her commitments. They also worked on strategies for managing her children’s requests that she buy them things that they hadn’t been able to have before.