I stayed for 18 years until I almost died

I married at 29. In ten years, I had six children. For the first year, everything seemed normal. Then, he slapped me. It was the first time, and I didn't react. I was so in love that I immediately found excuses for it. I told myself it was a mistake, a moment of stress. But that first blow was just the beginning of eighteen years of escalating violence, insults, and control.

The abuse wasn't just physical. It was psychological, verbal, and sexual. When he touched me, I felt a deep disgust, a need to wash myself clean. He made me feel like I was the one who was dirty, the one who was at fault. He controlled my every move. I wasn't allowed to go out alone. If I went out with my children, he would accuse me of being a prostitute. He would wait for me to come home, and if I was late, the accusations would start.

I felt completely anesthetized, emptied of all feeling, as if I didn't exist, until the moment I realized I had to choose between dying or finally living.

Most of the violence happened in the evenings. I learned to manage my time carefully. I would feed the children and put them to bed as quickly as possible before he returned. If he was late, I would pray he didn't come home angry. But he always came home, often drunk. The drinking started slowly, but over the last eight years, it became constant. He drank more and more regularly, and with the alcohol came the rage.

Why did I stay so long? I had hope. I wanted to save my family. He was good at making me feel guilty. After every incident, he would twist the narrative until I believed I was the one who had caused the violence. I was the one who was wrong. I was the one who was responsible. I had six children and no job. I was terrified of leaving. I worried about where we would go, how we would survive, and how the children would be uprooted from their school and friends. I was trapped by the fear of the unknown.

After the first slap, there was no remorse. No shame. He lived in total denial. It was as if nothing had ever happened. He would look at me and act as if the violence was a dream I had imagined. I didn't talk to my friends or my family. I kept it a secret. I felt a deep shame, a shame that I was a victim of domestic violence. I felt like I was the one who had failed.

In 2007, things got worse. One night, he came home late, drunk. He started insulting me and then hit me. I managed to escape. I ran out of the house. He chased me in his car, caught me by my hair, and tried to strangle me. I screamed so loudly in the street that a neighbor, a friend, came to my aid. I finally filed a complaint. He was brought to court immediately. The judge gave him a suspended sentence with a requirement to undergo treatment. He promised me he would follow the treatment. I believed him. I let him come back home. I still had that hope that he would change, that he would realize the damage he was doing.

He stayed calm for a little over a year. Then, in 2009, the violence returned, and this time it was different. We went out to dinner and then to a bar on an island. He was in a state of extreme intoxication. He started insulting me, calling me a whore, saying he was going to see other women. I had the car keys because he was too drunk to drive. When he went to the bathroom, I decided to leave. I drove straight home, knowing that if he arrived, it would be terrible.

I heard the front door break. He had smashed it. He had taken a taxi and arrived faster than I expected. Inside, it was a massacre. He punched me, humiliated me, and insulted me. He poured oil on me, trying to burn me. He put a knife on the bathroom sink, threatening to cut me. The children were in their room, screaming. I could hear them crying.

I think it was thanks to them that I survived that night. My daughter, who was the oldest, told her siblings and brother to count to three and then scream. She said, "If we scream, Papa will come." They started screaming. I used that moment to escape through the garden. I ran through the field, trying to stop cars. My face was covered in blood, swollen and bruised. The cars didn't stop. I ran to a highway ramp nearby and found maintenance workers. I begged them to call the police. I told them I had been attacked by my husband.

I had a broken nose and two black eyes. The children saw me like that, my face covered in blood as I entered the house. He was sentenced to twelve months in prison. He served six months of that sentence. He is out now.

I am not afraid anymore. It is over. But the road to recovery was long. I felt completely anesthetized, emptied of all feeling. I felt as if I didn't exist. He had dictated my life, my thoughts, my actions. I had to learn to exist as a person again. It takes a long time to rebuild yourself after such violence. You have to learn that you are not nothing. You have to learn that you are not responsible for his actions.

I am proud of who I have become. I am not ashamed of what I was or what I suffered. It wasn't my fault. I wish I had left at the first slap. I wish I had known that I didn't have to stay. I wish I had known that I was not the one who was broken. I am not a victim anymore. I am a survivor. I want my daughters to know that their mother is no longer a victim. I want them to know that they can stand up for themselves. I want them to know that silence is not the answer. The silence is what kept me trapped for eighteen years. The moment I stopped being silent, I started to live again.

I hope one day he will say thank you. I hope he will realize that he was a violent man. That is the only thing I can hope for. But for me, the most important thing is that I am free. I am no longer the woman who was afraid to leave. I am the woman who ran, who screamed, who survived.