"I kicked him out the house but he never left at all."

At first, I thought my neighbours were spying on me. I had finally got him out of the house but somehow he still knew what was going on in the house.

He knew who was visiting, when I was out with the kids, where we had been. Everything. He claimed neighbours were keeping an eye on us for him. I became paranoid, suspicious of everyone around us but it wasn’t a neighbour at all. It was him using my own devices to spy on me. Inside my own home. Watching us, listening in. I had kicked him out but he had never left at all.

When we met, I had my own house and a good, stable life. Within a year, he had stopped paying his rent and moved in with me and the financial pressure started almost immediately. “We need to buy this. We need to do that.” There were loans, cards, more loans.

Within months, he’d stopped paying child maintenance and quit his job. Within a few more, we had around £20,000 of debt in my name. I was working 12-hour shifts, eleven days in a row, trying to keep afloat. I was earning good money but never enough. I wasn’t making a dent on the debt and he never stopped spending. It took me a little while to realise he was hiding a drug problem.

He took my car, decided who I spoke to, smashed my phones so we had to share one. I couldn’t send messages, couldn’t speak to anyone. He isolated me from my family. If I tried to leave, it turned violent. The first time, he choked me. All I can remember was being hit off the fridge and off the cabinets and ending up on the tiles with his hand on my throat. After that, I stopped trying to leave.

He made me feel like everything was my fault or I was making stuff up, getting it wrong. “You’re overreacting. You don’t get it. You’re being stupid.” That was constant. Even when he crashed the car when he was high, it was somehow my fault. Constantly gas-lighting me.

I finally got him to leave and had put Ring cameras inside the house to keep an eye on the dog when we were out. We had an Alexa device on my Amazon account, and that was all linked to the cameras too. But he had set things up so he could access all of it. Everything was connected - same email, same passwords. He could sit and see us, inside our home, rewind, watch us all day, every day.

He did that for over a year. I didn’t know. I was living my life, thinking I had my space back, not realising he was still there. I only found out by accident. A friend was at my house when my ex phoned me and said, “I know he’s there. He’s sitting on the couch.” My heart dropped. That wasn’t a neighbour. It was him and he was watching. I finally got it, checked the app and he had been stalking us for months, checking in all through the day and night. There were live views from five, six, seven o’clock in the morning. He was sitting watching, clicking around, coming and going. It was hard to take in, to be honest. Made me feel sick.

It all started to make sense. How he knew all this stuff about our lives. When I confronted him, he said it was an accident that it had just showed up on his phone. Sure. And it wasn’t just Ring. He was inside all the devices and apps, email, Facebook, Instagram, Netflix. I had to change everything. New addresses, new passwords, remove apps. I shut it all down and started again.

Even then, I knew he was still trying to get in. He was nowhere near the house but when he was trying to access my devices it felt like he was right outside trying the locks. It makes you feel vulnerable. Looking back, it was always about control. When he felt he was losing control over me, things would escalate.

During one fight, he even said it out loud: “You’re supposed to fear me. That’s how relationships work.”

That sentence has never left me. When I raised it with him years later, he said it never happened, that I was making it up.

I’m rebuilding now. Financially, I have a plan. I’ll be debt-free in two years. All laid out. Emotionally, it’s harder. He had chipped away at the sense of myself, my confidence. I was constantly being told what to wear, what to say, who to speak to, what to think, how to behave.

Sometimes I don’t really know who I am any more, that I’ve lost something. But I’ll find it again. Whatever, he took from me, I’ll get it back. And more.

Mum, supported by Aberlour.

Stock image used.

This story was provided to The Herald and published on Sunday 31st May 2026.

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