Marrying at the age of 19 through matchmaking, Ms. Mai entered married life with many expectations. However, after only a few years of living with her husband's family, her life began to fall into tragedy.
According to the story, the reason stemmed from the fact that her mother-in-law asked her son to hand over all his salary to her for management. When Ms. Mai proposed to keep a part for spending, raising children and helping the family according to her ability, her mother-in-law did not agree. From then on, conflicts arose continuously.
She said that she was often slandered by her mother-in-law, accused of being rude, not knowing how to respect superiors and yield to subordinates. Many times, her mother-in-law and her brother-in-law rushed to grab her hair and beat her for very trivial reasons.
One of the memories that haunted her was cooking for the whole family. Even though the dish was seasoned normally, her sister-in-law still thought she was cooking too salty to "kill her mother" because she was suffering from blood pressure. Before she could explain, she was attacked by the two mothers and daughters.
What made Ms. Mai even more painful was her husband's indifference. Every time a conflict occurred, instead of finding out about the matter, he often stood on her side. When she recounted being beaten, her husband just coldly said: "Then give all the money to your mother, if you need anything, ask for it back".
Not only witnessing his wife being abused by her mother and younger sister, the husband also directly beat his wife many times for listening to her mother's story on one side. Proposals to move out to live separately to avoid conflicts were also rejected by him on the grounds that he was the eldest son and could not live separately from the family.
Throughout 29 years of marriage, Ms. Mai clearly remembers only once being trusted by her husband. That was when her brother-in-law falsely accused her of stealing money. Being scolded and beaten by the whole family, she presented papers proving that the money had just been withdrawn from the bank to take care of her child. At that time, her husband stood up to protect his wife.
I feel like I'm living in hell," she shared choked up.
According to her account, on average, she has to endure many arguments or be assaulted each month.
There were times when she was too desperate, she hugged her two young children and returned to her biological mother's house in An Giang. But because she loved her children, feared the family would worry and still hoped her husband would change, she returned. That patience unintentionally made the vicious cycle of violence continue to drag on.
Listening to the story, psychologist To Nhi A said that one of the reasons why Ms. Mai could not escape a toxic marriage was dependence and resignation. According to experts, many women, due to lack of economic self-control and fear of becoming single mothers, accept to stay in a traumatic environment.
Currently, when her children have grown up and her mother-in-law is old and weak, Ms. Mai's life is somewhat more peaceful. Looking back at the past time, the U50 woman said that if her daughter fell into a similar situation, she would never let her daughter continue to endure it but would be willing to bring her daughter home.
