OUT ALIVE AFTER 6 YEARS OF PAIN- HALIMA ABDULRAUF

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By Halima Abdulrauf

December 03, 2020

OUT ALIVE AFTER 6 YEARS OF PAIN…. The pain I endured…

Over the course of six years, he’s repeatedly unleash terror on me without any idea of my wrong doings. The last straw was on Thursday 12 November I left his house lamented Mrs Zuwaira (not real name).

For the past six years, I have endured different levels of pain, agony, regrets, confusion and so on.

The man I married 19 years ago was peaceful and loving until April, 2014 when he became sick with no diagnosis.

First, he lost his job and I have been taking responsibilities of the house afterwards and all he can pay me with is beating of my life at least once in a month.

Everything feels like a nightmare as my husband came in after being discharged from the hospital without any diagnosis, he sat for a while with an awkward look that I had never seen which prompted approaching him calmly, daddy hope all is well? Then the fury exploded and I received the beating of my life in presence of my kids ( 3 girls and a boy), my last baby was about two years, two months at the time.

I couldn’t sleep throughout the night, wondering what went wrong, why the anger? What happened to my man? What my offense was? All the questions begging for answer until day break.

With swollen eye in the morning, I watched as he acted like nothing happened and we moved on with our normal way of life without hesitation.

After a few weeks, the same scene repeated itself, after the beating this time he showed some remorse and ran to his family house without a word.

The situation went on and on for a while before I summoned the courage to report to his parents, they called us and he apologized to me and he said he doesn’t understand what went wrong with him.

We resorted to visiting the hospital after another beating to have him checked, all results including psychiatric tests was negative and doctors couldn’t pin point any ailment till date.

I work on contract base in my town and whenever I am out of where we live in the city to my town I feel some sort of relief ( we got displaced by Boko Haram Insurgency from Damboa and my contract job is there), so I work two weeks on and two weeks off.

I feel at ease whenever I will leave for work and once I am done with duty at work, depression sets in because I know what awaits me at home.

My children on different occasions advised that I leave their dad but the thought of what becomes their faith without a mother’s care always hold me back. Today, we are a happy family, tomorrow we are sad. Whenever we will have visitors, I always pray that they leave without them knowing what’s going on in our home.

I have also lost count of the number of times I was beaten to pulp.
Finally, I ran home after 4 years of enduring pains to let my parent know my situation. My father said “You won’t go back to that man.” after seeing my swollen face. Both family came together and we resolved to give him another chance. After a while, the beating continue and now family members are linking it to spiritual problem. Once he comes back to his senses after the act, he run back to his dad to plead with me to stay especially for our children.

I started job hunting for him, thinking working may be the solution to our problems but no job in sight yet. As a brilliant accountant before our predicament, once in a while he picks his old office records and do calculations.

No job, no solution to beating in place. I prayed 14 nights consecutively for God to end the relationship for I can’t continue with the sufferings and get killed at the end of it all.

Three nights before the last straw of beating on Thursday 12 November which I left the house, I spoke with someone about my situation and she advised that I get out alive to at least take care of my children from afar than die a mrs and then on the above date, he strike again and I took the bold decision to leave with my two last children and the older ones left for their grandparents house.

Our both families have met several times and my parents said no going back to pains and advised his parents to take care of their son. He is full of regrets and want us back but I made up my mind to be free.

I am free….

Remember, almost one in four women in Nigeria reported having ever experienced intimate partner violence according to Nigerian Demographic and Heath Survey (DHS). Staying alive with or without children in an abusive marriage is better than dying a Mrs.

Stay alive like Mrs Zuwaira did.

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