Hello,
I have been married for 6 months now, I am a US Citizen living in Tunisia with my Arabic husband, and he slaps and hits me very frequently.
When he is tired or in a bad mood he can slap me for anything, if I voice my opinion that doesn’t agree with his or if I stress him, he slaps me, pulls me by the hair, tells me to shut up when I’m crying, holds me down, puts his hands around my neck and shakes or squeezes, puts his hands around my mouth if I cry or yell for him to stop. He’s even slapped me very hard and pulled me by my hair out in public, thank god 3 men stopped him and took me away from him, but at the end of it all, he still got me with him and made me go into his house.
I was reading online for advice and it said with husbands who hit their spouse, the woman should voice about how hitting is wrong, and distance after they had been hit. I tried to do this, and he just hits me more. I cry almost everyday about my situation, and I have nowhere to escape to, I don’t have the money to fly me and my daughter back to the US and my parents cannot help me.
I gave him all of my money, $12,000 dollars to help start up a plastic recycling business, and I tell him I want to go back at first he tried to stop me by cutting the internet wires, and take away my phone, but after learning no one in the US can help me, he doesn’t do this anymore and just laughs and says “go back to the US then, it’s easy” and I cry and say, “ I don’t have the money to go back, let me have my money back I gave you, or pay for my airline ticket” and he will just say “no, I don’t have to” with a smug face on.
I’m so tired of my marriage because he has little regard to my feelings, always asks me to do things for him, and hits me or makes my life hell if I don’t do them. And if I ask small things for him to do, like clean up the poop from his puppy he just bought, that I have to care for, and I just once ask him to help me because I’m so tired and im early pregnancy, he says okay later, then I ask him again later, and he will say I’m so tired, after he did nothing but fool around on his phone for hours. Then he slapped me for troubling him about it while in bed. I gave up, and then he said he’d do it in the morning, in the morning I had more energy and decided I would do it. But I asked him and he said he would do it later, and then I told him I would just do it. That same morning, he slapped me multiple times for crying out of sadness. I was crying alone in the kitchen on the floor. I was trying to be quiet but he came looking for me, and told me to shut up and stop. Then he left for work, his face has no tenderness or caring for me. I really don’t think he loves me.
His friends and family don’t do anything when he slaps me in front of them, they just watch or be quiet or tell him softly to stop. I have no one here to help me. I’m so sad. I’m so sad. I hate my life, I dream of escaping everyday, I dream of having a little cabin in the woods, far from people, with just my children, farm animals, dogs, and the nature for my company. I’ve lost faith in fellow humans to understand me and I just feel like hiding so no other people can hurt me more in my life.
When I talked to his best friend about it, he just told me it’s normal. Am I the one that is in the wrong? Should I be slapped when he’s angry with me or annoyed with me? Should I not voice my opinion or ask him to do things for me?
