< Translator’s note: The original formatting of the stories has been preserved. The translations aim to remain as close as possible to each author's original wording and expression.

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Immediately after finishing school, at 17, I got married.

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Our family life didn't work out at all. He drank constantly. I would run away from home.

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Once I decided it was time to enrol in a college in another city. But he wouldn't let me go, promised he'd stop drinking if only I'd stay. And I stayed. Especially since I hadn't received a letter saying I'd been accepted.

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Then he started not only drinking but also hitting. I wanted to leave him, but every time he brought me back home. A year later, I got pregnant. Another year later, we had a small child. But that didn't stop my husband. He kept on hitting.

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I tried to leave again. But again, he got down on his knees, begging tearfully for me to come back. This went on for another year. Almost every time he came home drunk, my child and I would spend the night at the neighbours'.

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One day, he came home drunk, and I grabbed my child and ran to my grandmother's house. He came there too. He broke down the door, locked my grandmother in one of the rooms, and beat me again. That time, I found the courage to file a report with the police. They spoke to him. He never touched us again. We divorced.

Years later, I found out — it turned out I had received that college acceptance letter after all, but I hadn't gotten it. It turned out he had hidden it from me.

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Anonymous author; story told in 2019 as part of the "16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence" campaign