Mental health

My mental health is very weak because I have no wife

I just wanted to share some of the things that happened behind the scenes because I feel like people only know bits and pieces of my story. Very few people actually know what I’ve lived through, and honestly, even writing this brings me to tears.

When I was 13, I moved to Pakistan with my family. From that age onwards, my life became something I never imagined a little girl would have to experience.

My father subjected me and my sisters to years of physical, mental and emotional abuse. He also used to physically abuse my mother. I remember seeing her with bruises. She came from a poor village background and didn’t want to return to her family, so she stayed. Unfortunately, she never really stood up to him or protected us from what was happening.

My father often tells people that he gave us everything because he educated us up to A-levels. And yes, he provided us with an education. But what about everything else? What about the childhood we lost? What about the fear we lived with every single day? What about the emotional damage that no amount of education or money can ever undo?

He controlled practically every aspect of our lives, especially what we wore. I could wear leggings with an ordinary kurti over them and still get slapped. He would slap me for wearing makeup to college, if a little bit of skin showed, or if my dupatta wasn’t positioned exactly how he wanted it. He would accuse me of talking to boys even when I hadn’t done anything.

I remember being so frightened of my own father that I would go pale whenever he called me. Imagine being 13 years old and feeling scared of the very person who is supposed to make you feel safe. Imagine constantly having to think about what you wear, what you say and how you behave because you’re terrified of what might happen if you get something wrong.

He would call me and my sisters disgusting names, including prostitutes. These were the words coming from our own father. The person who was supposed to love us unconditionally.

He would complain that his children never spoke to him or respected him, but how could we? We were frightened of him. We weren’t children who felt comfortable approaching their father. We were children who had learned to walk on eggshells around him.

And this went on from when I was 13 until I was around 20. Those were supposed to be some of the happiest, most formative years of my life. Instead, I spent them being frightened, controlled and emotionally broken down.

Eventually, my father arranged my marriage when I wasn’t ready. I remember asking the prospective husband to reject the proposal because I genuinely didn’t want to get married. But he was frightened of my father and his own father, so he didn’t refuse. I eventually felt I had no real choice but to accept what was happening.

I was still so young, and I just wanted someone to understand that I wasn’t ready.

After the marriage, I struggled immensely with physical intimacy. I didn’t want my husband touching me, but he repeatedly told me that I owed him because I was his wife. He would also ask me for money and threaten to tell my family if I didn’t have *** with him. I felt pressured and blackmailed into allowing unwanted physical contact, although the marriage was never consummated.

I cannot explain how traumatising that was. Imagine already having years of fear and trauma behind you, only to enter a marriage where your boundaries and feelings aren’t respected either. I wanted to feel safe, but I didn’t.

There was another incident that I still find difficult to think about. My ex-husband and I were arguing because he was frustrated that I wasn’t being intimate with him. He physically threw me onto the floor. His mother then came into the room, grabbed my arm extremely tightly and started shaking me. I kept asking her to let go, but she continued threatening to tell my father how disrespectful and badtameez I was.

At one point, I cried and told her to be quiet and just leave me alone. She told me to grow up, that I wasn’t a child anymore and that women have to do what their husbands want.

I remember crying and telling her, “No, I am a child.”

That particular moment has stayed with me. Because deep down, I still felt like that little girl who just wanted someone to protect her.

I had always been brought up to respect my elders. I had never spoken to an older person like that before. Telling her to be quiet was completely out of character for me. But I was so frightened, distressed and emotionally exhausted that I had reached a breaking point. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. I just wanted her to leave me alone. I wanted someone to understand that I was hurting instead of telling me what a wife was supposed to tolerate.

There is a whole separate story about how this marriage came about, the involvement of my mother-in-law and the ways in which both she and my father hurt me. There is so much more that I haven’t even spoken about.

Eventually, the marriage broke down. But even after everything that happened, my father wanted me to return to Pakistan.

Return to what? To the same house where I was beaten? To the same environment where I was controlled, humiliated and made to feel frightened of my own existence?

And please don’t misunderstand me. I miss my mother and my siblings more than I can put into words. I miss having a family. I miss the idea of being able to sit with my mother, laugh with my sisters and have a normal family life. I wish things could have been different. I wish I could have had a father I could run to when life became difficult instead of someone I needed protection from.

But how do you go back to an environment that has caused you so much pain? How do you pretend everything is fine when you still carry the memories of what happened behind closed doors?

I honestly feel like the men who were supposed to protect me throughout my life have been the ones who hurt me the most. A father is supposed to be a daughter’s first sense of safety. He is supposed to be the person she can turn to when the world hurts her. I never really had that. Instead, I spent years wishing my own father would treat me with kindness.

People tell me to forgive my father, but I genuinely wish they could understand that this wasn’t one argument, one disagreement or one mistake. It was years of physical violence, emotional abuse, humiliation, control and fear. Forgiveness isn’t something you can demand from someone without understanding what they have lived through.

I’m only 21. Sometimes I look at other girls my age and wonder what my life could have been like if things had been different. I wonder what it would have felt like to grow up without being frightened, to have parents who supported me, to experience a marriage that I actually wanted and to have memories that didn’t hurt to look back on.

I didn’t get those things.

Instead, I feel like I’ve spent most of my life trying to survive. And now, when I should be looking forward to my twenties, building a future and enjoying life, I am trying to pick up the pieces of everything that happened to me.

Sometimes the pain gets so overwhelming that I question why Allah has allowed me to go through so much. I wonder whether I’m being punished for something, even though I never intended to hurt anyone. I’ve even experienced suicidal thoughts because there are moments when the emotional weight of everything feels unbearable. I’m not saying this for attention. I’m saying it because I genuinely don’t know how to explain how much pain I carry.

I don’t want a perfect life. I never did. I just wanted a normal one.

I wanted a father who loved me without conditions. A mother who could protect me. A home where I wasn’t frightened. A marriage where I felt loved rather than pressured. I wanted to be someone’s daughter without having to be afraid, and someone’s wife without feeling that my body and boundaries didn’t belong to me.

Is that really too much to have wanted?

I’m not sharing this because I want people to hate my family or feel sorry for me. I’m sharing it because I am tired of people making assumptions about situations they know absolutely nothing about. There is so much that happens behind closed doors, particularly in our South Asian communities, that nobody ever sees.

Sometimes the girl people judge for leaving her marriage, distancing herself from her parents or choosing to live independently has a story they know absolutely nothing about.

Please remember that there are two sides to every story, and sometimes there is a whole lifetime of pain behind a decision people are so quick to judge.

I didn’t deserve any of this. I was just a little girl who wanted to be loved, protected and allowed to grow up without being afraid.

And I wish someone had protected that little girll

Teach your heart to accept disappointment, even from the people you love. Love them sincerely, but don’t let their actions take away your peace.

Green flag: Someone who can admit they're wrong without making excuses. Agree?

Everything u love will one day kill u, whether it’s cigarettes, drugs, or the girl with pretty eyes, they all will kill u in the end 🎃

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