A memoir

It was not as if he suddenly transformed after the wedding. I had known him four years before that and he had been a violent and manipulative person for a long time. It's just that I didn't see it that way back then. In fact I saw it clearly only after I had escaped and read experiences of other women trapped in similar relationships. Most abusers follow the same pattern. They wear a mask of a loving, caring and gentle person in front of the rest of the world. Inside the house they are hideous monsters, the keeper of hell responsible for punishing its residents. They take this responsibility very seriously and perform it immaculately.

He was sent to Australia in January 2008 by the organisation he worked for. Meanwhile I got frustrated staying with his family in India who were outright mean and selfish towards me. We had shifted with them against my wishes after the wedding. I left their house to stay with my parents. Right after that he started pleading, begging, sending flowers and letters, calling numerous times a day to convince me to come to him in Australia (looking back, he actually made me call him most of the time). I had refused to go to him because he had been violent several times before. Anyways, I fell for his tactics for the nth time and quit my job in India to join him there in April 2008. The first ten days in Brisbane were very pleasant but something struck me - he's an outdoors person but he wouldn't take me out anywhere. The first argument ensued when I questioned him about it and wanted to go out. It ended with him tossing me around, dragging, pushing and hitting me on the arms, back and head, in the living room, bedroom and then bathroom. This was accompanied by the most vicious verbal abuse I had ever encountered. I was shocked out of my wits. When we went for grocery shopping he would not allow me to buy fruits, doughnuts or any stuff that I wanted. I would argue and pick up some of the things anyways. He had told me it never gets cold in Brisbane and I made a big mistake of not checking out the weather conditions myself. I landed there without any warm clothes and had to fight with him for more than two weeks to buy me a sweater. His reason for everything was that he couldn't afford it. Thankfully I had kept enough dispensable savings apart from my investments and used my Indian credit card further to this. For every dollar I spent I had to hear a million times what a spendthrift I was. This, when I was spending my own money and was also spending for his groceries and other daily needs. Note that I had no job at that time. He would ridicule me in front of his friends even when I was buying a ten dollar shirt. I decided to look for a job ASAP and thankfully found one in less than a month after reaching Brisbane. After that he would keep asking me to buy him gifts.

He would constantly lie to me and try to cheat me off my money. A lot of times I thought I was going crazy because of his lies and tricks. For example he would hit me and on asking why he did that he'd deny he'd done anything at all. He'd ask me to transfer money to him and when we would sit down to calculate our finances, he would assure me he'd given it back and cite a story of when and how. I always wondered how bad my memory had become - must be due to all the stress I live under! He always kept trying to convince me to open a common bank account which thankfully I never bought into.

Our arguments continued. They were mainly about why I wanted to do what I wanted to do, and why I didn't do exactly what he wanted me to. In addition I was supposed to read his mind about that, he wasn't supposed to express it. They would also be about his family. On mentioning anything negative about his family he would erupt like a volcano. Sometimes I got away with hours of arguments and sometimes when I wasn't that lucky he would threaten me, scream at, hit, push, or simply throw me around. Sometimes he would break some of my belongings like a piece of jewelery or hairbrush, my laptop which was his favorite target and once his own mobile phone. On a few occasions he strewed all my belongings around the house - clothes, books, jewelery, shoes, cosmetics. He of course never helped me put them back. After most violent episodes he would come begging for my forgiveness, touch my feet, cry, swear about never ever doing it again and how much he loved me and I would end up comforting him. Family issues would always earn me bruises. Here I must mention that I had spoken with his mother about his behaviour back in India. I was insisting that he's a sick man and needs a psychiatrist. She said she'd arranged one and that we should discuss the matter before we 'all' go to visit him. After that discussion she never spoke about the issue or the psychiatrist with me but for every violent act of my husbands would blame me or create a drama - waving her arms around, screaming and wailing about what a ridiculous person I was (for not tolerating the insults and violence showered on me). His sister was six years younger to me but would treat me like her personal maid, ordered me around, bully me, would (try to) snatch anything I picked up for myself while shopping and make me pay her shopping bills, internet bills etc. I quickly learnt to ignore her.

About ten days into my job we had an argument regarding his family's values when we were lying in bed. He suddenly got on top of me and strangled me with his bare hands. I choked and pretended to pass out. That night I quietly wept and went to sleep. The next morning he awoke merrily and started getting ready for work. I tried to talk to him but he just ignored me and pretended to be in a hurry. Then I showed him the marks around my neck and declared that he had to either go to a counselor or I'd report him to the police. His face instantly lost colour and the age-old dramas started again - begging, pleading for forgiveness, assuring me he'd never do it again, that this time he would surely change. He only had a 'rage problem'! The counselor was shocked to see my marks and stated that I must love my husband to bits to have not reported him to the police. Only now I realise it wasn't him but the mask he wore that I made myself believe I loved. The counseling ended in Oct/Nov that year with the counselor trying to figure out what was wrong with me. He had lied to the counselor about everything right in front of me and had manipulated the sessions to direct the focus on what all was wrong with me instead! He also tried to make the counselor tell me to do all house chores by myself which the counselor did (but I didn't heed to). Fortunately the counselor refrained from forcing me to go out with my in-laws when they came to visit us, as attempted by my husband, but that the in-laws manipulated me into themselves anyways.

Two to three weeks after I joined work, his family came over for a vacation (they had booked their tickets even before I had agreed to come to Australia). They spent lavishly on shopping and trips, my husband included, and when I would spend even five dollars he would nag me like crazy about it. He would pinch, hold my arm tightly and pull or push me, and verbally abuse me in public. At times even hit me slightly. On reacting to it, his mother would resort to the same kind of histrionics there and then - wailing, screaming and asking me what wrong they had done to deserve the way I was behaving. After they left I did not make any attempt to communicate with them.

With time he grew smarter, he only hit me on the head or hurl me around on the bed. That never left any marks and I couldn't prove anything to anyone. He sure did drill that fact into me - about not being able to prove anything to anyone. He set me up in social gatherings where people would go to the extent of openly abusing me. All the while he was the 'poor henpecked husband' who needed their help. I was the really nasty bad guy! At times when I was hurt badly and we had to go to meet friends, he'd make a very worried, innocent face and ask me to handle the situation. So, I'd call them up and tell them I was unwell, had sprained an ankle or some other excuse. They started believing I was avoiding them and wasn't letting him meet them either. He knew a lot of 'my' friends wouldn't buy all this and in front of them he showered praises on me. He was a master at being the perfect guy wherever he went. He wanted to have sex with me all the time and would try it even when I was deep asleep. He'd tell me I was 'cold' or not much of a woman or lacked any desire or capability of doing it. He tore my clothes and punched me on a wound and went off to party at a friends gathering, then came back home and sent his mother a text message that I was threatening to tear his clothes and was hitting him. The verbal abuse, belittling of myself and my family, public humiliation, lies, tricks and manipulations continued till the day I left him.

My only regret to this day is why I did not report him to the police when I had the chance.