A lucky break

Abuse can be seen in a different perspective depending on your gender, but the experience is mentally and emotionally crippling

happened in their life would become public knowledge and would be splashed across the newspapers a year later.

BY R A

Iam Serena. I am a woman first, and then a mother. As a woman, I must empathise with another woman’s sorrow. As a mother, I must defend my child’s rights.

Ours is a singular tale, but those who read this will see reflections of their own lives or will relive moments of their own personal horror: a tale that made me realise that when parents assault their children, they create a whirlpool that grows to finally drown everyone that comes in its path. It sacrifices the guilty and the innocent alike.

Theirs was a love marriage. My son met Sheila at a restaurant and called the moment ‘love at first sight’. They dated briefly before a rushed wedding. We thought it was because he feared losing her, but we learnt later that she was a child from a home where physical violence was a common event and verbal abuse was a daily practice.

The day my son saw Sheila being hit by her mother, he asked her to marry him. We were proud, more proud of him that day than any other moment. We had taught him well and he had learnt even better.

For two years we remained in the utopia of our perfect family. Totally unaware of the sham that was their marriage; the tragic tale that began on their honeymoon itself.

It was during their honeymoon that my son first realised that ‘his damsel in distress’ was not as weak and helpless as she appeared. They had bumped into a few of her relatives whom she did not like and told them in not so polite terms to exit her life. She excused her behaviour by claiming that those relatives had encouraged her mother to drink and then sat back and saw the ‘terror’ that followed. My son encouraged her newfound strength and supported Sheila in her move to exhibit her new freedom and power.

Yes, he encouraged her, until just two weeks later when that newly discovered strength was directed at him. She had got upset with him because he had thanked the waitress at the restaurant with what she claimed was a ‘smile that lasted longer than required’. She made the excuse of wanting to go to the toilet, and then disappeared with the car. After 20 minutes of frantic worry, my son rang home only to have her hang up on him. When he reached home, she had bolted the door. My son took a taxi to the nearest motel and spent the night there, too embarrassed to come to his family. The next day he returned home to find a weeping Sheila who promised him it would never happen again.

That ‘again’, happened three days later. A friend dropped in and my son joined him for a drink. As soon as the friend left, all hell broke loose. Sheila broke every bottle and glass in the house. Again the tears flowed. She said alcohol reminded her of her mother and all the pain she had suffered. My son ended up feeling guilty. The next day they went shopping and replaced everything. A week later he replaced them with plastic ones.

We thought it was because he feared losing her, but we learnt later that she was a child from a home where physical violence was a common event and verbal abuse was a daily practice.

The temper tantrums grew more frequent, as did her suspicions. She would smell my son’s breath for alcohol every day and go through his briefcase, diary and wallet when she got a chance. If something annoyed her she’d tear up all his paperwork. It got so bad that he ended up keeping a set of clothes and copies of important papers at our home. He said it was in case of an emergency. We learnt later what that ‘emergency’ truly was.

We knew nothing of what was really happening in their home, though we guessed that something was amiss. They would often cancel out on get-togethers. But we worried when several friends expressed concern over Sheila’s fear of my son. My niece confronted my son in the hope of finding out the truth, but he never spoke up, even to someone so close to him. Instead, he covered up all the ‘gifts’ from his bride as sports injuries and laughed off the rumours as idle gossip. He said later, a woman being abused raises sympathy; a man being assaulted meets with humour and ridicule. And so he silently bore what no child of mine should have, living in his own private hell.

Then one day she let down her guard and punched my son in front of all of us. She claimed it was in jest, but it was hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. That was the first time I spoke up against that act of violence only to be told by my own son, that it was their life and that was how she ‘joked’ with him. My own son ended any further attempt to stop what we now saw as ‘inappropriate’ behaviour.

My son’s visits became few and far between. My daughter-inlaw stopped coming at all. What

We learnt during the ensuing investigation that finally having had enough, my son asked for a divorce. The morning after that, he was questioned by the police in response to the charges laid by his wife. She had accused him of mental abuse and physical assault. She had produced doctor’s certificates to support the two injuries that she had received after their marriage.

It was during the investigations that a lot more lies surfaced. My son’s solicitor feared the worst knowing that her past with her family would win her more sympathy. I prayed as I had never prayed before. And then there was a lucky break. My son’s secretary found an invoice that proved that my son was away on an overseas trip on the night Sheila had claimed she had been assaulted, and the night she had seen her doctor. There was also a cassette from the answering machine. On it was a recording from Sheila asking my son to return home as her mother had attacked her again. The date coincided with her mother’s second attack.

Armed with this evidence, the solicitor ensured that all charges against my son were immediately dropped. Their divorce was expedited and she left the country soon after. We hear she has now remarried.

While I wish her happiness, I will not forget what she did to my child. She took from us a ‘perfect son’ and returned him ‘a broken man’. Once again my husband and I are walking the path of caring and nurturing. Once again, we are looking after our son. At 25, he is learning to walk again but this time we are wiser and we will not let go of his hand.

The truth is, I don’t blame her. I blame the person who struck her first. I blame the family that did not protect her against the assaults, and I blame our society that thinks it is funny when husbands and boyfriends are abused and assaulted by women. But most of all, I blame the celluloid world that encourages comedy to be reflected in these assaults. It is not funny. Why is it called ‘assault’ when a woman is hit by her partner, but ‘comedy’ when it is the man being hit? If we want equality in everything, then let assault be called assault!