(Part 2/2) “My fear was real. He was a different person than he had portrayed to be. I felt cheated. I felt deceived. I told him, “I will return to my parents if he continued his ways.” He said that my parents would not take me. For some time he was okay. And we got married. But he started behaving like a mad person. He would be violent towards me. There were many occasions when he threatened to kill me. There were many times I bled. There were many times my heart was broken. But I stayed with him, hoping he would change someday. Soon I got pregnant. It wasn’t my wish. There was no food for me. I borrowed from neighbors and somehow managed. Life was growing inside of me and its safety was my responsibility. I endured. After my son was born, he did not change. He became more violent. He did things to me that a normal man would not do to a woman. I took my son and ran away to my parents. It was too much to bear. After some time, he came. He pled with me to come back. He said he had changed. He said that from then onwards he would love me and my child. I have a soft heart and I was foolish to believe him. As I left my parents home with him he started threatening me again. He said he will kill me and bury me in the forest along the way and no one would find me. Luckily, a samaritan in the small teashop understood that I was in trouble. He made a phone call to my father and called for a vehicle to take me back to my parents. I was lucky. I was safe. My child was safe. Today, I am at a safe place, away from him. I have become strong because I have met with girls and women who had similar stories to mine. I have realized that I am not alone. But why does this happen to women? Does this kind of injustice also happen to men? I do not know about that.”

SON X Apeiron in Nepal