It wasn’t that Rick didn’t seem like a good catch. He was charming and smart and handsome – everything a woman might want in a man.
But Monica, a college graduate, was very passionate about her career as a broadcaster. She wasn’t interested in a relationship with him or anyone.
“I never thought about marriage, ever.”
Rick (not his real name) wanted her though. He pursued her for two-and-a-half years, bringing her flowers, cards and even sending his friends around to convince her to be with him.
The more she pushed him away, the harder he fought to win her heart.
During a heated argument one night, she told him she didn’t want to see him again. Rick drove off on his motorcycle and was seriously injured in a crash. He had, it turned out, intentionally sped into a wall.
Monica decided to give the relationship a try.
“I thought, ‘if somebody loves me so much…’ “
The two were married in 1997. Monica was 21. Her dad didn’t come to the wedding, saying he had a bad feeling about the union.
The couple’s first child, a beautiful baby girl, arrived shortly after, and while Monica wanted to return to work, her husband would find reasons to keep her at home. The insults also began, punctuated by regular slaps in the head. She was ugly, he’d tell her, making sure he chose the appropriate clothes for her to wear each day.
Growing up in the picturesque Andaman Islands surrounded by white sand beaches and the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean, the darkness descending on Monica’s life was unimaginable.
Within three years she was pregnant again. And though Monica would face three serious beatings before her son finally arrived, his birth brought some relief as it earned the young mom respect from family eager to welcome a male.
But the unbearable abuse soon resumed. Ending her life sometimes seemed the best option.
In 2005, after a tsunami struck Andaman Islands where they were living, the couple and their two kids moved to Canada. Monica didn’t want to go.
She knew no one and was painfully isolated. Something changed in her husband, too. He became even more self-centred and grew increasingly paranoid about Monica’s already limited activities, asking where she had been and who she’d been with.
She packed her bags and went to India with the children. Rick begged for her return and in 10 days, she was back.
Things were good – for a day. But her husband would make her pay for leaving. The torment peaked when she became pregnant for a third time. Forced into having an abortion, Monica was broken. She hated herself and would weep at night, imagining what her baby might have looked like.
While the baby was no longer growing inside her, resentment was.
By 2009, Monica was again pregnant. Her husband had found religion two years earlier and things had been better. An ultrasound showing she was carrying a girl put an end to the peace, however. Rick was enraged, threw out all the blue clothing he had saved and stopped speaking to his wife. He would disappear for days at a time and she would shamelessly plead for him to come home. He would return, beat her and cry at her feet, apologizing. It was a familiar cycle.
The next year, however, he left for longer. And this time, Monica didn’t ask him to come back. She decided not to be scared of him anymore.
“I could not change my situation, so I decided to change myself.”
Rick tried to gain custody of the kids and continued to stalk her. Eventually he was arrested, but the charges were subsequently stayed.
For Monica, now 38, it doesn’t matter anymore. She and her children are free. (Rick is not allowed to contact Monica or their children).
Even today, the mom of three is embarrassed to talk about what she views as her weak and dependent behaviour and her desperate thoughts of suicide. She’s only willing to share her personal story to help other women.
Hers is one of seven “faces of courage” being featured by Surrey Women’s Centre (SWC) this week to mark National Victims of Crime Awareness Week (April 22-28). Each day, a different woman’s journey will be posted on the centre’s website (www.surreywomencentre.ca) to raise awareness of the services available to victims.
Today, despite lasting physical effects from the abuse, Monica runs two businesses, including a thrift store. She donates a percentage of the proceeds to SWC to help others fleeing violent relationships.
Monica wants those living in abusive situations to know there is a way out. No relationship, she says, is worth keeping if there is no respect.
“The first time a man hits you, that should be it,” she says. “If he is capable of doing that, he’s bound to do it over and over again.”
Coroner studies domestic violence
One-third of murdered women are killed by spouse: Research
Murdered women are eight times more likely than men to be killed by their spouse or romantic partner.
The finding comes from new research by the B.C. Coroners Service, released last week in conjunction with Prevention of Violence Against Women Week.
The report examined 120 B.C. homicides between 2003 and 2011 which involved “intimate partner violence” or IVP. Almost three-quarters of the victims were female.
Of the 120, 36 per cent of women were killed by their spouse, while fewer than five per cent of men were killed by their partner.
The research showed that 80 per cent of the attackers were male and in every situation where more than one person died, a man was the assailant.
Females were more likely to kill in the heat of anger, according to the research, but males were more likely to kill when a relationship ended. The most common means of IPV homicides were stabbing, which accounted for a quarter of the female deaths and nearly two-thirds of the male deaths.
The full report can be read at http://www.pssg.gov.bc.ca/coroners/publications/index.htm
