I am a mother of four children. I used to live with them and my husband. My husband was jealous and cruel but I did not realise that at the time.
He used to beat me up for nothing. I sometimes wondered if I was born to suffer. I cried every day and prayed for years, asking God to change my life for the better. Instead, my problems got worse.
I had given up on having any chance of happiness. He would strangle me and I would cry and he would tell me to stop making a noise. I tried to tell him that his behaviour made me feel inadequate and unhappy but that caused a big fight.
The violence continued for a long time. But on Sunday September 7 1996 things changed. Two days after a car knocked down my son, he was admitted to hospital with a head injury.
My husband was not around. When I was about to leave the house, he came in and locked the door, swearing and pointing at me. He pushed me until he threw me out of the fourth-floor window.
My legs and my spine were broken. I spent three months in a hospital, sleeping. When I was discharged, I opened a case against him but nothing was done because my husband was friends with one of the police officers.
I stayed with my younger sister and he kept phoning, telling me to come back. I was using crutches and could not move my body because the plasters were heavy.
He would come to the house knowing that my sister was at work and the children were at school. He would kick the door, open it and tell me he wanted me at home. All that I could do was sit and cry.
I moved back home and after three days he started swearing and pointing at me again. It was the beginning of the end. One day he hit me with a hammer on my head. I was bleeding profusely.
I saw that as an opportunity to get him arrested. I was still on crutches, so with the help of my neighbours the police were called.
I opened a case and they sent him to “Sun City” (Johannesburg) prison. He was on trial for three months. He asked for forgiveness and I forgave him. After the hearings, he did not sleep at home, only coming during the day.
I trusted in God and prayed all the time: “God help me because this man is going to kill me.” Nothing changed. I stayed in that horrible life.
He stopped eating at home, came home late and sometimes not at all. Life in that house was that way until he left.
I found out he was in love with my neighbour’s daughter and they have a baby boy. But I don’t care. He is unhappy and wants to come back. But there is no space in my house anymore.
I remember my mother’s words, before she died: “What are you doing with that hooligan, [he is] a thug and a monster.”
Now he doesn’t have a place to sleep. He wants me to assist him but I won’t. I have a choice to stop the cycle of abuse, a privilege that some women in my position do not have.
I am empowered and fully aware of my rights as a woman, a human being and a citizen. I now give advice to survivors of domestic and others forms of violence in my community because what I would like most is to have a good, normal life like anyone else.
This story is part of the I Stories series produced by the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service for the 16 Days of Activism on Gender Violence