She was crying when I saw her that day. "I can't live like this anymore. I am waiting for the right moment to go ahead and tell him I need a divorce" she told me when I asked her what happened.
Rowena is in her late 20s, has a perfect married life when I see her from outside. She is a midwife and her husband David is an educated man, with a PhD in Metaphysics from a reputed university in USA. They have a son Dave who is five years old. He is a smart little boy, all thanks to his father who is always seen teaching him and guiding him.
David is a well respected person in his community. For a outsider, David loves his wife and is seen helping her with every minute decisions in her life. Like when she was lost in a new country, frustrated and depressed with her career, David guided her to a direction that changed her life forever. She is so happy working as a midwife and each time a new healthy baby and happy mom leave the hospital, she feels like she has the best job in the world and she is proud of it. She is thankful to David for helping her get back in her track.
They have been married for six years and have known each other for nearly eight years. "When we were still dating, David was a different person, the person I looked upon to" Rowena was saying while she was sipping her coffee, "Now after our marriage he has become a different person altogether. I would have never married him if I had known he would turn out to be like this" . As a matter of fact, David was actually abusing his wife ever since they got married and lately his violence had peaked like nothing. She was mentioning how David treated her, "One day he came home drunk and showed me a knife and told me to take my clothes off" she was saying in a hurtful voice. "I could do nothing but do as he told me to do. "I took my clothes off and off he went into me like a mad man and I was hating me more and more". Each time she resisted him, he would threaten her with a knife and would time and again use knife to play with her vagina and her nipples. As he was doing this, she was hating herself for being so pathetic and stupid and wanted to kill him for his deeds. Later that night she wanted to go to police, but after seeing her son, she changed her mind.
I was just sitting there listening to her in disbelief. There are so many obstacles in life, that humans have to pass through and this one she was facing was very devastating for a young person like her. Later that day when I came back home, I was still not over her traumatic story. I was thinking, how many young people just stay with their abusive partners for the sake of their children and parents and the society. It is not a new story, thats why this kind of situations have motivated people to work towards widespread feminism movement and activism. Upcoming few months (or years) are going to be challenging for Rowena, for even though she knows the solution, she does not have that 'strength' to pursue the right direction.