For more than four decades, an East London woman endured abuse behind closed doors — in a marriage that ended not only in violence, but in the ultimate betrayal.
Now 73, the Nxarhuni resident has broken her silence in the hope her story will help other women escape before it is too late. Married in 1972 while still at school, she says the relationship began with gradual control and emotional harm, escalated to physical violence, and ended after her husband sexually abused their daughter.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, she recounted the years she had spent making excuses for his behaviour, the pressure from her own family to remain in the marriage, and the long-term damage that shaped her children’s lives.
Speaking about the decades she spent trapped in a tumultuous marriage, the women recalled how she had met the man while she was in standard 8 (grade 10).
“It was not love at first sight for me, but I grew to love him,” the elderly woman told the Dispatch.
At first, their life together went smoothly, but after her husband was fired from his third job in four years, his behaviour began to change and things started spiralling.
“He started revealing himself, but every time I would make excuses for him.
“I was 22 and pregnant with my now late firstborn son,” she recalled.
When she fell pregnant again just five months after her son’s birth, she hoped her patience and understanding would win back the man she thought she knew.
“During my pregnancy, he would not come home and refused to account for anything.
“I lost parts of myself fighting for a marriage I knew did not exist.”
Raised by both parents, she yearned for the love she had grown up witnessing — a longing that kept her in the marriage even as her sense of self-worth faded.
“I always justified his actions because I thought, as he was the man and head of the house, not being able to provide made him angry,” she said.
“He would say the things I longed to hear; promise to change — and I believed him.”
He would hit me in front of the children. That is when I realised I had to leave, for the same reason I had stayed: the children
By 2001, and four children later, the abuse had escalated from emotional to physical.
“He would hit me in front of the children. That is when I realised I had to leave, for the same reason I had stayed: the children.”
But when she finally confided in her family a year later, their advice was to stay. They warned her that leaving would bring shame to the family name.
“Even though they told me to stay, I refused,” she said.
The relationship had taken a toll on her psychologically.
“I was depending on sleeping pills and could no longer be there emotionally for my children,” she said.
To support them, she left to find work, leaving the children in their father’s care.
What she returned to shattered her.
“My eldest daughter had been assaulted by the man who is my husband and her father. That broke me — it hurt more than all the abuse I had endured in a loveless marriage.”
Her daughter was forced to repeat grade 10 and change schools.
Now an adult, she is independent, but the emotional scars remain.
The trauma was still evident in how she responded to certain situations, her mother said quietly.
The 73-year-old’s story, she hopes, will help other women recognise the signs of abuse early on, and find the courage to leave before it is too late.
Daily Dispatch
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