Even when she was in intensive care and seriously ill with pneumonia, Mahoney Wicks was happier than she had been in her relationship.
And that was months after she left her abusive partner of eight years.
When she did leave him - after he pushed her eight-months-pregnant daughter Grace through a door - she was given a Housing New Zealand house with a bathroom she could barely use and bad heating.
It was damp and cold, but still the women would wake up every day wondering at the peace.
"Grace would say to me, 'It's like we're dreaming, Mum,' because we weren't used to being so happy."
Ms Wicks (42) was 32 when she met her former partner, Nigel, at a bar.
She was desperate for a relationship, to find a father-figure for her daughter and be like "that" family.
She found Nigel attractive and pursued him "hard".
Not long into the relationship, things started going wrong.
He would do little things like hide the television remote or books or put them where Ms Wicks, who has a debilitating condition called scleroderma, could not reach them.
He would hide food from Grace and throw things across the room.
His behaviour worsened when he was drunk or using drugs, she said. He would pick up Ms Wicks, who at times weighed little more than 40kg and suffered from hardened skin and stiffened joints and organs due to her condition, and pull her until her bones cracked.
Other times, he would spit on her, call her names and tell her and others she was putting on her illness.
Always, he would blame her for causing an argument.
She knew his behaviour was wrong, but, so desperate for the security of a relationship, she would turn a blind eye.
For many years, she adjusted her own behaviour to avoid upsetting him.
"I always tried to be a better person. I thought if I'd just stop being such a bitch, stop nagging him about the drink, the drugs, the loud TV, everything would be all right."
After he suffered a serious head injury about five years ago, Nigel's behaviour got worse.
"From the minute you got up, you'd be waving the white flag all day, just trying to keep the peace."
In the last year of the relationship, during which pregnant Grace had moved back to Mahoney and Nigel's house, Ms Wicks was forced to summon the police more than 10 times.
But that had not helped either.
When officers, usually male, came around they would be "blokey" with Nigel, and call him "mate", she said.
"I even heard one say, 'It's only a push.' If it was only a push, why would I call the police? It was a dozen pushes - it had got that bad I needed to call the police."
To those outside the home, Nigel was charming, she said.
"Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He could be yelling abuse at you and calling you a b**** and if the phone rang he would be as nice as pie, like nothing was happening. I think he fooled people.
"You feel like you're not believed. The police didn't believe me, my doctor didn't believe me, I even called psychiatric services about him, and I think they thought I was the one with the problem. It got so I was feeling really isolated."
His family thought she was the problem, her family was out of town. Her friends slowly stopped coming to see her.
When Women's Refuge rang her several times in that last year, she was not interested.
"I thought, I wasn't one of those women."
Grace had been fiercely protective and supportive of her mother, and when Nigel pushed Grace through a wall when she stepped in to defend her mother during an argument, it was the last straw.
"He made it easy in the end. There was no grey area, I decided firmly we were leaving."
But she had nowhere to go.
"I was totally financially reliant on him. I did not see how I was going to be able to get us out of the house and keep us safe. I felt trapped - he had made me very dependent on him."
It wasn't until Dunedin police officer Jan Craig got involved, after Ms Wicks' brother in Auckland contacted her, that she finally felt some hope.
Sergeant Craig got Nigel out of the house and organised a meeting with representatives from the different agencies that could help.
She learnt she was eligible for benefits, Housing New Zealand found her a house, and Women's Refuge also could help her.
"It made me feel like I had some choices."
After she left the house, she "finally" did a course with Women's Refuge, where she learned about abuse and how to recognise it and met women in similar situations to her.
She does not leave the house these days, scared she will run into Nigel or his family.
"I'm still very judged by them all, but I feel like the luckiest woman ever because I'm out of that situation.
"I think I was easy pickings back then, but I've learned a big lesson. It's about looking after myself and caring for myself."
"I didn't think I was one of those [abused] women; I think that's a big barrier for a lot of people, thinking you're not one of them, but I was just like them.
"I know I'll never end up in anything like that again."
Her advice to others would be that "normally, your friends are right, and you can be happy", she said.
" I am now. I love my life and I'm really pleased with myself and how things have turned out."
Who to contact
Agencies to contact in Dunedin:
Age Concern (03) 477 1040
Barnardos NZ (03) 471 4330
Child, Youth & Family 0508 326 459
Family Court Dunedin (03) 471 5100
NZ Police (03) 471 4800
Stopping Violence Dunedin Inc (03) 474 1121
STOP Adolescent Programme (03) 477 8090
Rape Crisis Dunedin (03) 474 1592
Relationship Services (03) 477 6766
Te Roopu Tautoko Ki Te Tonga (03) 477 4670
Te Whare Pounamu/Dunedin Women's Refuge (03) 477 1229
