New proposals will mean that bullying partners who cause psychological harm through non-violent behaviour could now face jail.

This includes “controlling behaviour” from emotionally abusive partners, such as threatening victims with the use of violence, cutting them off from friends and family, and refusing them access to money in order to limit their freedom.

Sabina (not her real name) suffered emotional abuse at the hands of her partner for many years and continues to do so.

She senses that despite the new laws few women will be brave enough to want to imprison their husbands.

“How do you quantify emotional abuse? How do you even know it exists? There are no bruises to prove it.

“I have suffered emotional abuse at the hands of my husband for my entire married life.

“It began with the small things.

“After we got married, he would gently suggest which friends he didn’t want me going out with. In order to avoid another argument, I just stopped going out with them.

“Then it was controlling what I wear.

“Now he will check my phone every day in the evening. He scrolls through and checks who rang me, who I rang, who texted me.

“If I resist, it escalates into an awful argument. For a more peaceful life I just relent."

He 'allowed ' her to have a Facebook page, but he knew all the passwords checked it all the time.

“He’ll be checking my bank account online regularly, and then he’ll text me during the day to ask me why I took out money from a certain bank machine.

“I know these may seem like trivial examples. But these things gradually escalated.”

Sabina revealed that her husband’s behaviour became more controlling and aggressive, despite the fact that he prided himself on never having raised a hand towards her.

“My husband is a heavy drinker. He only ever drinks at home though. And only after the kids have gone to bed.

“But he forces me to go out and buy his alcohol for him. On one occasion he told me that if I didn’t buy his alcohol, he would smash all my crystal candle stands. And then he would move onto the glasses.

“It is humiliating for me as a Pakistani woman to go and buy his alcohol. People know me around here.

“Yes, he has never hit me. He says ‘real men’ don’t hit women. And he never shouts. But when he speaks, his voice is so low and sinister.

“Another time I had gone to a mehndi. But I had l prepared dinner for my husband before I left.

“Whilst I was at the function, he rang me on my mobile and told me in no uncertain terms to come home, heat his dinner up and serve it to him, like a good wife should, and then I could return to the mehndi.

“He threatened to bang the doors in the house until I got home and even said that if the kids woke up as a result of the banging, it would be my fault, as I shouldn’t have left the house without serving him dinner first.

“He had even imposed a curfew time as to when my parents were allowed to call me at home. He told me if my parents ever rang me after 8pm, he would not let me visit them without his supervision.

None of his family or friends could see this side to him though.

According to Women’s Aid, a charity which works to end domestic violence, two women a week are killed by domestic violence.

The charity also states that coercive controlling behaviour is at the heart of the most dangerous abuse.

The charity welcome Theresa May’s proposals saying the change would give victims greater confidence to speak out sooner and that perpetrators of domestic violence would be identified and dealt with more effectively.

Sabina, however, has expressed her scepticism. “These new proposals are all well and good. But how do I prove that my husband’s behaviour makes me nervous or causes me anxiety, or that I feel depressed.

“If I can’t even admit this to my own family, how can I take further action?

“These laws or proposals don’t break down cultural taboos.

“I can’t leave my husband.

“And I don’t think any Asian woman would get her husband jailed.”