Loose Women star Denise Welch has opened up about her past relationship, saying she was in an “abusive relationship” with her former partner, who was “very controlling”

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Loose Women’s Denise Welch has opened up about a heartbreaking abusive relationship(Image: ITV)

Denise Welch has opened up about a devastating confession regarding an “abusive relationship”. The Loose Women presenter revealed she was trapped in a “coercive” relationship “many, many years ago”.

The 67-year-old mum-of-two explained her former partner wasn’t physically violent but described them as “very manipulative”. She revealed her ex would “chip away” at her character through subtle remarks.

However, Denise acknowledged she was reluctant to reveal what was happening to her friends at the time, reports the Manchester Evening News. She explained she knew they would urge her to leave her partner, but felt she wasn’t “ready” to end the relationship.

Speaking on the Loose Women: Just Between Us podcast, Denise revealed: “I was in a coercively controlled relationship without physical violence, many, many, years ago. What they do is they’re very manipulative, they chip, chip away at your personality in very subtle ways.

“For example, say they’ve met you and when they’ve met you, you’re maybe out somewhere and you’ve got your make-up on and you’ve got whatever you normally wear, which is why they fancy you, why they approached you, which is your personality, but very slowly it’s, ‘You know, you don’t need to wear that make-up. You look much nicer without make-up.’

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Denise says her former partner was ‘coercive'(Image: ITV)

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“That’s because they don’t want other people to see what they saw. So you start doing everything you can to avoid the kick-off.”

When asked if she shared her struggles with her friends, Denise confessed: “I never used to tell them things because I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed because if I told them what was happening, they would of course say to me, ‘You’ve got to leave.’ But I wasn’t ready to, I kept thinking that I could change him.

“When we got to the point where I would break the relationship off, I got the flowers, I got the chocolates, I got the tears and the car.”

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Denise Welch(Image: Getty Images)

She says her ex would promise to “change” so she would give him “more time”. She previously explained: “You are so desperate to change that person and they make you feel like you’re the centre of their life. It’s very easy to say ‘why don’t you leave’ but they are incredibly manipulative.”

She continued by saying that “for years” people believed abusive relationships had to be physical. She added: “The difference is you can’t see the bruises. There are bruises and the bruises can often last for longer.”

The TV star revealed she “often had a dysfunctional family” with her former partner, alleging he tried to gradually isolate her from her own relatives. As an example of his behaviour, she said he once made eye contact with a couple in a restaurant, which led him to flip a table in anger out of jealousy.

After leaving the relationship, Denise eventually married actor Tim Healy, with whom she shares children Matty and Louis, before tying the knot with husband Lincoln Townley in 2013.