I feel cheated…The story of an abused spouse

May 19, 2013 News

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My name is Claudia and I have known Virat since 1986. I became pregnant with my first child, Sandiyha, 25, that same year. We were living in the lower flat of his brother’s house in East Ruimveldt. In 1989, I became pregnant with my second child, Ashiba, 22, and we decided that it is time that we should have our own home.
It is in this year that Virat and I ventured into Kaneville as squatters.
At that time the land that we had chosen was just a simple dam, which needed a lot of work and effort to make it habitable.
Together we worked day by day removing bush both manually and with the use of cutlasses, working morning till night most times.
My brother, Akeem, who is now deceased, helped in the removal of the vegetative cover.
Life at that time was a struggle as we prioritized ourselves in achieving goals that we had set out.
We first started off with what was just a mere two-bedroom wooden house; a structure that Virat and I came together and built.
Life was okay at first but things took a different turn (the beatings started) when neighbours became a part of my relationship.
Admittedly, Virat had hit me before but that was not as serious as what I would later go through from this point, day after day, night after night. I can remember nights of crying myself to sleep.
With eyes swollen, black and blue, body in pain, I can remember hiding because of shame and pride from family and friends.
I can also remember a harrowing incident just like if it were yesterday. I was seated on the verandah when I told Virat that I was pregnant.
As a woman I couldn’t have been more overwhelmed with joy, but it seemed to me that it was only me who was on that page; not Virat.
Later that same day, I remember clearly; I was in the room lying down when Virat came in and kicked me in my stomach. It pained so badly, it seemed like my blood circulation was blocked.
There and then I started to bleed; I lost my baby.
And there is so much more that occurred between us that was really cruel to any human being.
I put up with him because of my love for him. I prayed and prayed and held the faith for his behaviour towards me to change. Things cooled down for a while; he had stopped hitting me meaninglessly and I was happy; the change I had wanted and prayed for had occurred.
I became pregnant again with my only son Ranjee, now 17, and Virat too was excited.
Two years later I became pregnant with my fourth child, Shivannie, 15. Several months after the pregnancy, the quarrelling between Virat and me started again. I remember one morning I was dressing Shivhannie for clinic; she was barely a couple months old, when Virat asked me where I was going and I told him to clinic. For no apparent reason he got angry, real angry and picked up a cutlass to chop me across the neck.
I acted quickly and raised Shivhannie into the air, since I know he wouldn’t hurt me once she’s in my hands.
Another time I was ironing my clothes for church when Virat got annoyed and started to hit me .He took the iron from my hands and pressed it against my temple. To this day I really don’t know what prompted that act. The torture and ill treatment was all for some meaningless things.
This went on for quite some time until there was some calm again in our lives.
It was a Saturday; I remembered clearly sitting on the verandah when I had a vision to build my own concrete house. In that vision I saw a house, constructed with a wooden front and the rest of it in concrete. I told Virat about my vision and to my surprise, he liked it and wanted to work towards achieving that.
He bought cement and sand to make the blocks. At first we employed a young man to help make the concrete blocks but eventually it was hard upon us to pay for the workmanship and maintain ourselves at the same time.
Many days there was little to eat but we managed, knowing what the end result of our sacrifices would be.
I eventually took it upon myself to learn the art of making blocks and this was good since after that, I became the new block maker.
While Virat was out working, I was at home making blocks. Within time I moved from making blocks to tying steel, passing cement to Virat to make the post, digging foundations and fetching sand into the yard. Everything we did together.
At that time my children Sandiyha, Ashiba, Ranjee, and even Shivhannie, who was just about three years old, were also helping in every little way they could. We were in it together as a family, working hard to achieve this goal–my vision for our family.
There was some amount of balance in our life and we were happy. I became pregnant with my last child Deidre, now 13. By this time Virat had promised to marry me and I was happy, but when time came for the fulfillment of his promise, he started to back down. That is when the abuse started again. This time it lasted for several years.
A week would not pass without me having a black and blue eye or some parts of my body swollen. I later found out that Virat was having an affair with a younger girl, who later became pregnant for him and give birth to a baby girl.
All this time I have been faithful to him. I swear I have never cheated on him.
But Virat was not the Virat I first met; he was like a stranger to me from here on. He was hardly ever home, hardly ever supported his family and always complaining for everything, even things that warranted no complaints.
I decided to get a job as a domestic to help maintain myself and children since they were getting older and school expenses were great.
The job too became a problem for Virat. Within the midst of all this I had a miscarriage and had to be rushed to the hospital. I remember Virat taking me there and he never came back to check to see how I was doing.
My heart was broken but I was just a fool for love and just believed that someday a change will come.
As it turned out, while Virat was working on the house, I heard a strange bang; he had fallen off the house.
I rushed to his aid and took him to the hospital right away. I took great care of him while he was recovering in hospital for three months, making sure he had food, morning, midday and night, and even changed his dirty diapers since he was unable to walk.
While he was away, it was my first time knowing what it is to live in peace, not to have someone hit at you, call you names and make you feel unworthy. The tranquility was beautiful, but I missed him and just wished if things could have been different between us.
Virat came out of the hospital and I nourished him back to good health. Not long after, although he was unable to walk properly, the abuse started again. He told me to get out of the house, to leave him alone.
He said that I have no rights to his property. I had no idea that he had put the title of the property in his name alone, following the fire that destroyed the previous records at the Ministry of Housing on Homestretch Avenue several years ago.
He began telling me that his “child mother” has all the rights and he wanted me out of his house.
This was after all that I went through with him, after all I did, the sacrifices I made for him and our family.
“Why don’t I have rights? How can another woman who didn’t toil or sweat have more rights than a woman who did?”
However I refused to move out. The beatings intensified but I stayed put. “Where will I go? I have nowhere else to go. That is my home. I worked real hard to get there! Why shouldn’t I be able to live in peace in what is legally mine and my family also?”
My daughter became ill in 2009 and this kind of brought a little ease from the every night quarrelling and fighting. We came together as a family for the wellbeing of my daughter and here again Virat promised to marry me.
However this plan never materialized. Three months later Virat constantly nagged.
He went as far as getting the children involved, hitting, cursing and insulting me. His behaviour brought on disrespect from the neighbours who would curse, call me names and pelt stones at me when I passed them on the road.
One evening Virat came home drunk and started to quarrel. There was a scuffle between him and my daughter during which he dealt her a blow, knocking her unconscious. We ended up in at the police station. Virat was detained for a night, and one matter lead to another. He and I ended up in court and from then on, there has been no more peace, (as a matter of fact there was never ever any peace).
He went ahead to claim the upstairs while I was staying in the one room downstairs with my five children.
Virat went as far as throwing urine in my dwellings and stomping while walking upstairs. Many times he cursed me to go and look for someone else; it was a constant fight .His aim was to keep quarrelling with me until I became fed up and leave the house.
But like I said, where will I go? That’s my home I have toiled with him to get it to where it is right now. And to this date, he’s fighting me to leave with my children.
(NB) The court has ruled that the property be divided between Claudia and her reputed husband–one third for her and two thirds for him.
She has been given the first option to buy out his portion.

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