Dear Mary,

I have to way this is a sad letter for me to write. Since I spoke to you I feel a bit better. I am sorry I did not have the guts to ring you years ago. My wife has been beating me for years now but for the sake of the child and my home I have said nothing, also because of the embarrassment of people laughing at me. I am big and she is small. Nobody would believe it when she was pregnant she stabbed me with a knife but for the sake of the child I let it go. I don’t want to lose my child but she tells me that the judge will not believe me and he always takes the woman’s side. After speaking to a Garda and you I think I might have a chance to get my life back.

My wife had an affair. She is still with him and she stays out until four and eight in the morning. She is gone three and four nights a week. I asked her to come home early but she said that she was under a curfew to no one. In the morning my son asks me "Is mammy home yet?" It is so sad to hear him say that - we would be better off on our own. I always took my child to mass, now she won’t let him go with me.

When my son was about eight to ten months old I was feeding him in the sitting-room when Joan came in and said that she did not know why I was so fond of him as he was not even mine. I felt sick but I told her I did not care, that I loved him and I would mind him.

Last Monday night when I came home from work I asked her to get her dogs out of the house. She hit me across the back with the brush and she said that I would be gone before the dogs. I told a Garda about it and he was very nice and understanding about it. He told me to go to a doctor about it so in the morning I went to the doctor and he sent me to hospital. This is a sad life.

Jim