He said I left home. He said I packed my things and left after the fight. I didn’t leave home; I ran away from my matrimonial home. I didn’t have the luxury of time to take anything. I dashed out, stood outside, and watched him rant. He said, “You think you can run? You can run but not hide. You’ll come back here again, and you’ll see.”

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I didn’t want to see the worst of him, so I went to my parents’ house. I couldn’t even go inside for my daughter. I had to stand outside until my girl ran to me, and I left with her.

I know you’re asking what happened. He didn’t tell you because the guilty always run away from their own story.

It’s about an Indian lady he works with. One day, he came home with Indian stuff. I asked him about it, and he said, “Oh, Aditi gave it to me.”

He would come home with provisions, T-shirts, the watch he currently wears, Indian fabrics, and even a bouquet of flowers. “It’s Aditi who gave them to me,” he would say. I didn’t say anything until Aditi started calling at ungodly hours. When I complained once, he went outside to receive the call. He even changed her name on his phone so I wouldn’t know.

That was the reason for our fight. I screamed, “Everything is Aditi. Even the sun in your sky was made possible by Aditi, but you want me to believe nothing is going on? Are you the only man in the world?”

I screamed that day because all my quiet whisperings had gone unheard. He retorted, “So now you believe I’m cheating with an Indian? An Indian?” I responded, “Yes, you are.”

He held my lips together and pulled them. While trying to break free, I threw my hand to hit him so he would let me go. He dodged and held my mouth with my chin between his two hands, screaming, “Shut up. If you don’t shut up, I will shut it for you.”

I was struggling to breathe, but he didn’t care.

But you see, that wasn’t the first time he did that to me. The first time, I was pregnant. He held my mouth and squeezed it because I was talking too much. I had never seen him that angry before, so I thought it was my fault. But we talked. I told him he scared me and pleaded with him never to touch me that way again. I was expecting an apology, but it never came. All he said was, “You talk too much.”

Even when it happened again, I had no plan of leaving the house until he stood on the veranda, looked down on me, and threatened me with fire in his eyes. Of course, I told my parents about it, and they got angry. That very night, my dad called his phone several times, but he didn’t pick up. My mom tried the next day. He still didn’t pick up but was texting me, saying I should tell my parents to stop calling him and instead tell them to give me proper home training.

That was the root cause of my parents’ anger.

If you read his story carefully and analyze it, I’m not the one he wants back home. He’s scared the business would collapse if I keep staying at my parents’ house. He’s looking for me, not for my sake, but for the sake of the business he said he established for me. I don’t want to go into details, but that business…you know, it’s OK.

He finally had the opportunity to talk to my dad, and instead of being remorseful, he blamed my dad. He said it was my dad who enabled me because he should have sent me back the very day I arrived. My dad let that pass and still gave him the chance to come and talk to me. He came looking like a king who had been forced off his throne: “Do you know what you’re doing? You’re killing the marriage. Don’t you think what you’re doing will destroy our daughter’s life?”

Again, it wasn’t about me. It was about our daughter’s life. I asked him to carry her away if that was who he came for. He responded, “Carry her to where? And for who to take care of her?”

That man doesn’t need me except for the benefits he gains from me.

He came back trying to guilt-trip me into returning home. That has always been his weapon anytime he wants something his way. He would make you feel guilty about what doesn’t exist. He told me, “I heard you’re doing all this because of an old rich man your parents want you to marry.”

Even when you know what he’s saying is untrue, you’re tempted to do what he wants because you don’t want him to believe what he believes. But I’ve grown past that. I’m not falling for any of his tricks. His sleight of hand no longer fools me, but instead of coming down from his high horse, he prefers shouting at the top of his voice, thinking that would make me tremble.

I love this marriage. When I got pregnant, I was the one who ran to my parents and forced their hands to make things easier. I’m the one fighting for this marriage. I’m the one thinking about our future. I’m the one accepting defeats from the jaws of victory just so this marriage would work. I stopped, and he can’t seem to make things work, so he ran to Silent Beads seeking validation. He thinks he’s the only one who knows Silent Beads. Funny.

Every move he makes in trying to resolve the problem chips away a piece of us. Look at me defending an anonymous story, but I’m the one always bashing people who run to the radio to air their marital issues. This thing we call marriage won’t work. It never has and never will.

— Nelson’s Wife

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