Her journey through physical and emotional abuse ended in violence so severe it forced her to flee for her life.
Now, looking back, she realizes how many warning signs she ignored that ultimately put her and her children in grave danger.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, recounts the many years of suffering, starting with the constant threats her husband made.
"He would always say, 'If you leave me, I’ll follow you and finish you and the kids because I can't live without you,'" she recalls.
Despite these chilling threats, Mary (not her real name) stayed in the marriage, hoping things would improve.
“I thought by staying, I would fix everything, and he would change. I convinced myself the violence was somehow my fault,” she says.
Her husband’s abusive behavior escalated over time, and Mary began to notice several serious red flags she had ignored.
One of the most alarming was the increasing presence of weapons in their home.
"At first, he never brought weapons home," she says. "But after I found out about his affair, he started bringing knives, machetes, and his gun into the house.
He would display them on the table and tell me he knew how to use them very well."
She brushed off his remarks, thinking he was just making empty threats. "I thought he was only talking, but I now know it was a serious warning," she admits.
Another red flag that Mary ignored was the way her husband attempted to isolate her from family and friends.
“He didn’t want me talking to my brothers or even our neighbors," she says.
"He told me that if anything ever happened to me, no one would help me because I wouldn’t have anyone left to turn to."
This isolation made it harder for her to seek help when things got worse, and it made her feel trapped.
The abuse continued to worsen, and in June 2023, things took a violent turn.
Mary had asked her husband to make his second marriage official, but he saw this as a betrayal.
“He thought I was planning to leave him, and that night, he stabbed me with a kitchen knife,” she says.
Thankfully, Mary managed to escape and get help from her neighbors, who contacted her parents.
Her family took her and her children in, and although her husband came begging for forgiveness, she chose to stay away.
Despite the advice of her brothers to never return to him, Mary decided to give her husband another chance.
"I went back because I loved him, and I wanted to fix our marriage," she says.
However, she quickly realized that her husband’s actions were about control. "He didn’t want me to have anyone to rely on.
He tried to make me dependent on him so that when things got bad, I wouldn’t have anyone to run to."
The final straw came when her husband shot her. "It was only after he shot me that I realized I had to leave for good," she says.
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