It’s Christmas Eve. She is almost nine months pregnant, and her toddler is snuggled in bed, warm and excited for Christmas Morning.

Everything is done and prepped for tomorrow, looking magical. From the outside, a young family is right in the throes of the busiest, most exciting time of year.

Lights flash outside in the dark and an unfamiliar car pulls up. A stranger comes to the door, knocking too loudly.

She rushes to open it, conscious of the sleeping eyes down the hall which would take hours to close again and settle back to sleep if opened.

As the door opens, her husband falls into the hall.

The taxi man looks sympathetically at her bump but has a family of his own and asks for the fare her husband wouldn’t pay.

She is embarrassed, handing over cash from the cupboard. Cash she will have to replace.

She gathers him onto the sofa, steeling herself to avoid any noise. If she can convince him to just go to bed, it won’t be too bad.

As he stands up, he staggers and knocks over the tree, tossing the sand across the carpet. Sand in a bucket from a real tree he insisted they get.

She is instructed to get it sorted before morning. The state of the place with her.

The words are spat at her through gritted teeth and accompanied by a grip on the wrist that hurts more than you would think. Squeezing a wrist with only a thumb and a forefinger sends a clear message.

She gets him to bed and phones a friend to borrow a carpet shampooer.

Her friend doesn’t say too much, only comments that it doesn’t have to be perfect. The friend doesn’t realise that the consequences of anything less than perfection are terrifying.

Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, she will have been assaulted, have given birth and be back home again. This is an all-too-common scenario in the weeks ahead.

We tend to want to understand a person’s behaviour and explain the incomprehensible. Rarely are his actions the centre of our investigations.

Instead, we look to the external environment or to the victim herself to explain and change in his behaviour.

It is no secret that reports of domestic and sexual violence increase over the festive period and it is in our nature to want to understand why.

Why is this a complicated question?

One which doesn’t necessarily have a clear-cut answer, but rather a series of risk factors which collide at this time of year, resulting in escalated violence and increased chances of significant harm.

Conversely, the removal of each of these risk factors would not in and of themselves prevent or stop the violence.

Their absence might improve safety and reduce harm but that would not result in a loving, healthy relationship.

In our curiosity to understand, we must also be cautious not to stray from the path of explanation into the wilderness of excuse.

I must also stress, that these factors are not unique to Christmas – the same explanations are given for increased reporting during COVID, during a key football match and any other flashpoint where domestic violence incidents rise.

Alcohol

The curse of the drink. Drinking more is often offered as the explanation for increased incidents of domestic violence at Christmas.

Violence and control are not a consequence of alcohol consumption. Alcohol can and does lower our inhibitions, which can escalate an already dangerous situation by increasing the risk of serious violence.

There is a large body of evidence supporting the correlation between alcohol and severe physical domestic violence, but no such correlation between alcohol and emotional, financial abuse or coercive control.

Removing the alcohol will not remove the abuse, it may, however, reduce the likelihood of serious physical harm, at least in the short term.

The pressure, between the cost-of-living crisis, a young family and Christmas, it’s a pressure cooker of financial distress which can spill over into the relationship.

The short answer to this again is no. Poverty and poor economic prospects in general are correlated with domestic violence and increased harm.

However, this is primarily because financial abuse is one of the many tools in an abuser’s toolbox and access to finance is one of the important factors in escape.

Generally, poverty and limited access to funds will prolong women’s exposure to domestic violence, and knowing that such violence gets worse over time, prolonged exposure leads to increased harm.

Mental Health

There are just no support services. He needs support to manage his anger and deal with his past.

Mental health issues in abusive men are broadly the same as in the general population.

There are a small number of mental illnesses or personality disorders which can increase the risk of abusive patterns in their relationships and other areas of their lives.

However, mental ill health impacts every aspect of a person’s life.

This does not fit with the profile of the abuser.

The person who targets their attacks and changing goalposts to one person or to that person and their children.

In the same way, pregnancy is an increased risk factor.

A time when women’s priorities and attentions turned within. A time when abusive men lose control.

More and more people come into their world asking questions.

His needs are no longer the priority.

Escalating violence is a means to an end, a way to re-assert power and control and to send a clear message that he must be prioritised and to re-establish the rules of play.

Break the rules and suffer the consequences. Violence both begins and escalates in pregnancy, but make no mistake: it is a targeted tactic in intimate terror. In the words of Evan Stark – coercive control is the abuser establishing in the mind of the victim, the price of her resistance.

As we approach the festive period, our team at Fermanagh Women’s Aid will be thinking of all those women working hard to keep their families safe and to keep their abusers at bay.

If you are in danger, please call 999. If you cannot speak, press 55 on your phone.

Alternatively, contact the 24-hour Domestic and Sexual Violence Helpline on 0808 802 1414.

Support is also available locally on 0286 632 8898.

Importantly, there is hope for a better future. Let’s talk more about hope in 2024.

Kerrie Flood is the Development Manager at Fermanagh Women’s Aid.