“I am just trying to put my life back together and move on. It was not easy and all the things I suffer, sometimes I don’t want to think about it. But the memories are just there, is not two cents I went through with that man. I did everything I could to save the marriage, but it just was not working.”
The words of a mother of one who was married for 18 months. She had moved to a Caribbean island in the hope of making life better but instead she was forced to escape with her child from a man she said was not only abusive to her but their baby daughter.
I met her through an acquaintance, and she agreed to share her story.
“I just want to share my experience in my marriage and my life for 18 months. You know sometimes you does read these things and you don’t really believe but is when you experience things then you does really realize how this life stay,” she said.
“I met him on my job and he always showed interest in me. I keep saying that I don’t like younger men than myself, but he showed signs of maturity and I went ahead with the relationship as he was very persistent. We got into the relationship and then there was a natural disaster on the island, and we ended up spending a few months in one house. We got engaged because he was supposed to leave for another country to study and I get pregnant around the same time.
“He wanted to get married but I was not one to get into marriage because I am pregnant. But then I felt I would have been an idiot not to do it when he wanted to marry me. And then growing up in the society where you know they say you must get married before you make children, I ended up agreeing.
“But when he told his parents, and they did not agree, the drama started. I then told him I was going to leave and come back home for vacation and he said he wanted to come with me, so he came. He told me we should get married before we go back but I insisted he tell his parents. He begged for it to remain a secret, so we got married. But one week after, his parents found out.
“His parents and other relatives started attacking me online and calling me and abusing me. There was this back and forth… They told him to annul the marriage and return home and I told him he could go ahead. With the stress of everything I got sick and I don’t know if it was because of that but he did not annul it.
“We went back, and he could not visit his parents and then he fell sick. He was young, but he suffered a heart attack. And I was blamed for his illness. They accused me of all kinds of things, and they told him to go back home. So there I was pregnant, working and having to go to the hospital to see him. He did not want to sleep alone, so I slept with him at the hospital. It was very hard, but I try to make do.
“We got past that and his parents started to talk to me again, but they did not agree with us getting married. His mother told me that she got all her children out of wedlock and she lived with her husband for 27 years. Things started to get bad again. I brought my mother over and he would just be on his game all the time playing and not helping me with anything in the house. I was pregnant and working and no help. Before the baby born we had an argument and he hit me, and I hit him back and we like fight, but I didn’t take it for anything.
“I finally got the baby, and you know everyone was happy for a while, they throw a shower and all for the baby and so. And he was working, but then his mother wanted the baby to go and sleep by her. The baby was not even a month old and I told him no because the baby was breastfeeding. She was upset and he got upset and one night he come, and he hit me and was kneeling on my belly. I was in so much pain and my mother had to come and scramble he off of my belly.
“And you know he threatened my mother and told her he would done she dance, and they wouldn’t even find her body. Girl, it was horrible. I later get to find out that he used to leave his watch recording in the house and then he would send the recording to his mother, all those things.
“My mother got scared and said she was going home when the baby was two months and the fighting and confusion continue. One day he pick up a chopper on me and it was just too much.
“I would get the pastor to come and pray for us because I really wanted the marriage to work, you know. I did almost everything. I paid the rent, the internet, day care for the baby, all the bills. I later get to find out that his mother was telling him to rob me and leave me. He took a loan in my name and it just getting from bad to worse.”
I asked her why she took on the responsibility of all the bills when he was working and why she allowed herself to be used.
“I loved him like an idiot. He was broke and I was trying to help. His mother told him how I done get my degree and he don’t have nothing so let me mind he. And he loved the luxurious life, every year is a new phone, and you know, I like the fool buying it…,” she answered.
“I was like a goodly wife trying to make everything work. Once I marry it was for better or worse; that is how I used to look at it,” she continued.
“But you know what made me really wake up is when he turn to our daughter. He was never bonding with her and when she cry and so is like it used to annoy him. One time I put her in his arms and told him to bond with her while I going in the bathroom. She was crying and while bathing I hear like he hit her. When I come out and ask him, he said no. I ask him about six to seven times then he confess that he put a little tap on her. Then it start with he hitting her and pinching her, and I say I not staying in this marriage. I don’t want me daughter come and tell me mommy you see daddy ill treat me and you ain’t say anything.”
Protection order
The sister said she told her husband she wanted a divorce, and he became even more abusive.
“I had to go and get help and when I told the woman, she was, you know, in the system, what was happening she tell me I have to take out a protection order. And you know I still did love him and didn’t want destroy he character but she tell me I have to do it, or I would end up dead.
“So I went ahead, and I live with him sweet until the order come out and as soon as he get served he violated it by calling me. I had to go and live in a safe house, but he would come at my workplace and buse me out and so. Long story short, police come and lock him up and is then I start getting threats from all his family, his mother and father. Even though I was in the safe home I was terrified. I use to be literally shaking and couldn’t even do any work. It was as if I was going mad and my supervisor told me to take two months off to recuperate.
“I wanted to come home but then they get a court order blocking me from leaving the country with our child.
“But later the injunction was lifted because they see I had a two-way ticket for both me and my daughter. I was not planning to go back but I come home, and I went back with me mother. Later, the court grant him supervised visit with our child, and it was like if it was nothing because he was not bonding with her or anything. And then COVID-19 come, and all those things stopped.
“I knew I could not stay there anymore I had to get out. So I bought a ticket for me and my mother and leave on a chartered flight. I know it was wrong, but I was going mad and I just ask my lawyer, he was representing me free, to represent me in court after I leave.
“I had to pick myself up and run with my child. Now I don’t have to be terrified and looking over my shoulders anymore. There is no arrest warrant out for me as far as I know, and I speak to him after I come home. One time he send two hundred US for my daughter,” she shared.
This sister has gone back to her studies and while it has been difficult she said she has the support of her parents and her siblings who are helping her to start over.
“I divorced him. I am trying to get my life back. I am just taking it one day at a time right now,” the sister said.
