I got out of my brutal marriage – then my ex found a new way to torment me through ‘mortgage abuse’: NADIA JEFFRIES tells what every person considering divorce must know

Sleep is hard to come by these days and, when it does happen, I have a recurring nightmare. I’m outside our local shopping centre with my three children, in front of a tent that a homeless person has put on the pavement.

The tent, however, doesn’t belong to someone I’d once have pitied from my privileged vantage point. It’s ours.

I wake, struggling to breathe, suffering from yet another panic attack because the dream isn’t a subconscious manifestation of a lesser problem – a temporary cash flow issue, perhaps, or a fear of failure.

Losing our home is a horrifying possibility that grows more likely with every passing day, thanks to my abusive husband.

When Greg was arrested for controlling and coercive behaviour towards me last December, 15 years of belittling and taunts ended. No more would I be called a ‘useless c***’ or watch in terror as he hurled crockery against the kitchen wall. He wouldn’t be able to open my post without my permission or make me beg for £30 to buy a new bra.

I thought the worst was behind me. Instead, I soon realised I was being subjected to a second reign of terror – one less talked about but arguably as damaging – because Greg still has an effective weapon at his disposal: our joint mortgage.

Since his arrest, Greg has refused to contribute a penny towards the payments on our four-bedroom, semi-detached house, and I can’t sell without his permission. He is unlikely to consent to selling until he knows how our assets will be divided when we divorce – a process he has only just agreed to start.

Even then, a judge at our divorce hearing may prevent the sale until we know the outcome of Greg’s criminal case. Given the Crown Prosecution Service has only just been handed the investigation to make a decision whether to charge, this could take years.

Greg is suspended on full pay from his job as, of all things, a police officer, but pays the bare minimum of £300 a month child maintenance. After covering our full mortgage, meanwhile, I don’t have enough money left from my salary – I also work for the police – to pay the bills. I am reliant on food banks to feed our children – Jemma, 16, Toby, 14, and Harry, 12 – and have racked up £20,000 in credit card debt.

The only concession Greg has made is to agree to a temporary, interest-only repayment plan. When that ends this month, I will fall into arrears and our house will be repossessed.

At 52, I feel frightened, humiliated, powerless and guilt-stricken at the prospect of failing our children – which is exactly what Greg wants. And he’s far from alone.

In September, research from the charity Surviving Economic Abuse found that one in eight women with a joint mortgage experiences abuse as a result. It’s a form of economic abuse, which is recognised under 2021’s Domestic Abuse Act and is estimated to occur in 95 per cent of domestic abuse cases.

Because contractual changes to a joint mortgage require the consent of both parties, they are rife for exploitation by abusers in various ways. Victims might be forced to pay more than their share, or all of their mortgage.

They may have their ability to meet monthly payments sabotaged because their abuser is refusing to contribute to other costs, or be prevented from making decisions regarding their mortgage, which are in their best financial interests.

All of this can lead to ‘a lifetime of housing and economic insecurity, and even repossession and homelessness’, says Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who is calling for a cross-government task force to better handle cases of mortgage-based abuse in conjunction with the financial services industry.

I have sent the charity’s findings to my MP, along with my story, in the hope of effecting change.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one. Queen Camilla has campaigned for years to remove the stigma around domestic abuse and help victims tell their stories – a documentary on her work aired this week. I am speaking out now in the hope it will help other women in my situation.

I found Greg funny, self-deprecating and slightly shy when we met through work in 2006.

Both of us were then employed by the same retail company, where I was a director and he, five years my junior, was an account manager. He lavished me with attention, not in the form of expensive gifts, but the way he’d write, ‘I love you’ in the condensation on my bedroom window, cuddle me endlessly and thank me for making him a better person.

Looking back, signs of controlling behaviour were always there, I just didn’t see them as a problem. This was partly because the issue of coercive behaviour was less well known, and partly because I was in love. He moved into my rented flat after four months and started opening my post, compiling a spreadsheet of the bills that arrived to ‘help’ me.

When he criticised me for showing too much cleavage I took his possessiveness as a sign he cared.

Within a year, I was pregnant with Jemma and we bought a two-bedroom house in Nottingham. I earned more than him, but when he suggested we share a bank account, from which the mortgage payments were made, I agreed. It seemed a sensible sign of commitment.

Only after Toby was born in 2010 did Greg’s need to control morph into meaner behaviour, my weight being the apparent trigger for his cruelty. Feeling self-conscious as I struggled to regain my figure, I’d dress as flatteringly as I could in my favourite jeans and blouse, but he’d say bluntly, ‘you look fat’.

When I told him I was upset he’d retort that he was only joking – didn’t I have a sense of humour?

Perhaps he was right, I concluded. After all, to everyone else it seemed he couldn’t put a foot wrong.

We married in 2011 and Harry, was born the following year. In 2014, we bought our current, £400,000 home, with a £230,000 mortgage.

Life was hectic and finances tight. Greg took a role with the police, while I left my high-flying job and found part-time work in a supermarket to fit around looking after the children. I was run ragged all day, cleaning and caring, but when Greg came home to the meal I’d prepared, he’d tell me the house was a mess and I was lazy. I left for an evening’s work, shattered.

The only effort he made was with our finances, forcing me to sit with him while he combed through our outgoings, calling me ‘spendy’ and chastising me for buying shoes for the children.

When I wanted anything for myself I had to plead my case, while he continued to use ‘humour’ to make me feel inadequate. When I walked into a room, he’d ask ‘what’s that funny smell?’ or, ‘are you sure you can fit through there?’ as I walked out of the door. If I didn’t laugh, I was weird.

Not that he pretended every insult was a joke. I learned to dread his simmering moods, which erupted into volatile outbursts over something as innocuous as a tea towel left on the kitchen counter. ‘You f***ing c***,’ he’d swear at me.

He was never physically abusive but, in a rage, would hurl anything to hand across the room, storming off to bed without saying sorry.

Of course, I knew this wasn’t rational behaviour. I suspected Greg had a narcissistic personality disorder, but I was too embarrassed to tell friends or family, unsure, in any case, what I could do about it with three small children – and completely unaware he was breaking the law.

Even after I joined the police as an investigating officer in 2016 and learned that controlling or coercive behaviour – carrying out acts to harm, punish, or frighten a partner – had been criminalised the year before, I didn’t relate it to myself.

Greg was so good at making me feel that I was at fault. And, of course, the fact he was also working for the police only increased his image as an all-round good guy.

Yet, as the children grew up, he started insulting them too, calling them ‘f***ing idiots’ if they couldn’t find the remote control and mocking our younger son, who has learning disabilities, for being ‘special’ if he struggled with homework.

Often the four of us were reduced to cowering wrecks in my bedroom. He’d walk in, see us crying, laugh and walk off.

By 2020, my self-esteem was shattered. When I looked in the mirror I saw a blob, not a face. I ate more because food was the only thing I could control, which made Greg’s insults about my weight more vicious. I started self-harming, stabbing my thigh with scissors and disfiguring my arm with a shard from a pint glass he’d thrown during yet another outburst.

One morning last December, when I arrived at work red-eyed after Greg called me a ‘fat f***ing c***’ in front of the children, a colleague asked gently if I was okay. The kindness made me cry, and years of insults came tumbling out. Worried for our safety, my senior officer reported Greg to the CID, who arrested him the following day. That was the last time I had any direct contact with him.

Released on bail, he went to stay with his family. He’s not allowed to come to our house or contact me or Jemma, who made a statement against him, although he still sees our sons, unsupervised, twice a week in a local park – an arrangement made via our solicitors.

Shock slowly gave way to relief and I dared to think we could start afresh. But then the payback began. Although the £1,100 mortgage payment left our account as usual the first month, logging into our account – my only bank account – around six weeks after Greg’s arrest, I discovered he had transferred his salary out, along with several hundred pounds of my money.

I was shocked. Naively, it hadn’t occurred to me he’d do something so cruel – nor had the police offered guidance on protecting myself from this sort of revenge.

Panicked, I realised there wasn’t enough money to cover another month’s mortgage. I contacted our mortgage lender, who asked Greg to agree to reduce our payments to interest-only, so I’d be paying around £250 a month.

They said he ‘wouldn’t give consent’. I realised, to my horror, that he knew his refusal would bleed the account dry. Yes, he risked losing his stake in our house too, but his desire to make me suffer was greater than fear of financial ruin. I was just getting back on my feet – I had so much more to lose.

‘There must be something you can do,’ I begged my mortgage provider. They said their hands were tied – my only options were to take him to court for non-payment and get him taken off the deeds to the house, or to ask the court to order a forced sale.

Going to court would take months and cost thousands. My £2,000-a-month salary meant legal aid wasn’t guaranteed and, after the mortgage and bills, I had around £200 a month for food and fuel.

I used credit cards and my daughter’s savings to tide us over, selling furniture and jewellery for extra cash. It was June before Greg relented and ‘allowed’ me to make interest-only payments for a six-month period.

Since then I’ve paid £250 a month interest-only, but with my other financial commitments – school uniform, school trips, and so on – I barely scrape by.

Using food banks for basic toiletries as well as groceries feels as discombobulating as it is embarrassing. To have my financial security threatened by my husband, before I’ve even had a chance to process the trauma of his abuse, has been devastating.

Only in the past couple of months has Greg acknowledged receipt of the divorce paper. Our divorce could take months to finalise, and even then the judge might stall the decision as to how the £150,000 equity in our house will be divided until after the criminal case, which could take years more to be heard.

The maximum sentence Greg could receive is five years. The only reason I don’t want to see him imprisoned is because I worry about the impact on our children. 

Meanwhile, every day brings me closer to the end of the six-month, interest-only mortgage period. If I’m not granted an extension, I will default, our house will be repossessed and I’ll lose my credit rating, making renting difficult.

Which is why those nightmares of ending up homeless feel so vivid. If we lose the roof over our heads, it will be the ultimate revenge from a man who has already made our lives hell.

• All names and some details have been changed. As told to Antonia Hoyle.