No matter what I say, no matter how fiercely I try to claw back my self-respect, my voice is swallowed. Retaliation is pointless. My words evaporate, unheard, dismissed as noise, or worse - they come back at me in the form of blows, bruises, and venom. For this isn't just about an argument.
This is about a man who has mastered every shade of abuse: emotional, mental, physical, psychological. A man who uses me as the outlet for his anger, his failures, his demons.
It isn't the first time. It never is. The cuss words, the unprovoked fury, the rage that isn't even mine to bear - it all spills onto me like acid. Sometimes I wonder: am I his wife, or just his punching bag, his emotional landfill where he disposes of all the filth he cannot face in himself?
I became his thrill, his experiment in cruelty, his scapegoat, his object. A living object he could shatter brick by brick - my spirit, my body, my will - and feel a sickening relief in watching me crumble.
And why wouldn't he? I never told anyone. I never screamed loudly enough for the world to hear. I never raised my hand back. I let him win. Again and again.
But here is the truth that burns me more than his blows: why didn't I fight? Why didn't I walk away the very first time? Was it fear of his strength, his rage, the possibility that if I dared to strike back, he would unleash a storm so violent it would disfigure me - leave my body battered, my soul barren, my very existence unrecognizable? Was it the terror of lying in a doctor's office, naked under the fluorescent light, while judgmental eyes scanned my wounds and silently asked, Why did you let this happen?
Or was it something darker? The invisible chains of society that wrapped tighter than any bruise? That voice that whispered: If you leave, you will be branded weak. If you return to your parents, you will be told you've brought shame. If you walk away, the neighbors will feast on your story, your failure, your brokenness. They will whisper in doorways, laugh behind curtains, hush their daughters with your name as a warning.
I can almost hear it now: "This is how marriage is. What made you so bold that you thought you could just leave? Did you not think of the gossip? The stares? The whispers that will haunt you in every marketplace, every gathering? Did you not think about how your family will be dragged into your shame? Suck it up. Smile. Endure. That's what women do."
And so I stayed. I stayed until the mirror itself became my enemy. Until the woman staring back at me was not me anymore but a bruised, hollowed-out version of myself, stripped of identity, stripped of dignity.
I could not even meet my own eyes without flinching. I felt naked, exposed, violated - not by strangers, but by the man who promised to protect me.