A Woman’s Story

Abused , Depressed, Suicidal

Mary was like any other young lady in her early 20s who dreamed of a blissful wedded life with the man of her dreams, who dreamed of success and a household of happy little feet and a man who loves her for all she’s worth.

One day, Mary met Jack and they fell fast in love. Jack was much older than she was, and after four years of courtship, they decided to get married and start a family. At the time, Mary was working for herself and earning a decent wage, while Jack was a businessman having a knick knack stall in the night market. Mary thought he had a good future if they both work hard together. However, one thing she wished he would change, she wished he would kick his gambling habit.

Jack came from a family of gamblers, where even his mum gambled her time away, be it poker, mahjong or a trip up Genting. Easily he picked it up from there and spent his free time and extra money gambling, thinking that was the only way to strike rich. When accepting his proposal, Mary blindly thought Jack would change once married, once they have kids, that he would realise his responsibilities.

Soon after the wedding, Mary got pregnant. She gave birth to a baby girl. She had to quit her job and started taking care of the child. Being advanced in age, Jack was impatient to have a boy, so he pushed Mary to get pregnant again. Just 6 months later, Mary was pregnant again, and this time she really had a boy. By this time, the marriage had become rocky. Jack had yet to kick his gambling habit and he frequently skipped putting up his stall just so that he could go up to Genting to gamble. Mary didn’t know how serious his addiction had become. She was all busy taking care of her two little ones.

Financing their lives soon became a huge problem. Mary couldn’t even afford a packet of instant noodles that cost 25 sen at the time, what more milk powder for her babies. Jack never offered her any money and never helped out. He was frequently never home and lied about going out to work when he was at the gambling den. He only brought back money if he did win any. Eventually, Mary found out that Jack had borrowed money from the loan sharks, up to RM20,000. She only realised when the loan sharks came knocking on their door and demanding payment, taking away whatever things of value in the house.

Mary couldn’t take it anymore and confronted Jack. Jack turned violent on her. Once he slapped her so hard at the top of the stairs that she rolled down the stairs, injuring herself all over. By that time, she was only 30 and her kids were only toddlers age 3 and 4. By the second time he struck her, she decided to pack her bags and run. She went back to her parents’ house only for her mother to tell her to leave. Her mother wanted nothing to do with her kids and her baggage of problems. Her mother wanted her to leave Jack and the kids behind, get a divorce and start a new life. As a mother, it was impossible for Mary to just leave her kids behind, she hated her life but her children were her only source of joy.

Mary started moving from house to house, each time she would get kicked out when she couldn’t pay rent. There were times when she and her kids had to sleep in the streets. Eventually, a relative offered to take care of her kids so that she could go and find work, but not for free, the relative actually charged her RM1400 just to take care of two kids. That was more than 15 years ago. At a dead end, Mary took up the offer and started doing all kinds of odd jobs just to pay the relative.

Eventually, one day her ex-husband wanted the rights to one of the kid. Even her parents advised her to let go so that she would not as burdened with the expenses. Once again, she had no choice but to follow suit. At the lawyer’s, they agreed on visitation rights and that the ex-husband will take the daughter.

However, one day when the husband took the son during one of his visits, her mother found that the son came back dirty and hungry. From then on, her mother wouldn’t allow the ex-husband to take the son, so eventually the ex-husband also disallowed visits from her to her daughter. He and the daughter moved away from their hometown and today, she didn’t even know where they had gone to. Once she managed to establish contact with the daughter, but the ex-husband started harassing her for doing so. Now 15 years had passed and her daughter would be 19 this year, and Mary never knew how she had grown.

A few years after the divorce, Mary was introduced to a man for a possible life time partner. Mary was not entirely attracted to this man, but he had a house and that was all that mattered. She needed a place to live without having to pay exorbitant rent so she followed him. Then one day she got pregnant, and they started planning their wedding. Mary continued to be doubtful of men due to her first marriage and her insecurity got the better of her. Things took to a bad turn when a big argument broke out and in the heat of it, Mary decided to get an abortion. Due to this, the man was bitter of Mary but they continued to stay together without getting married. When her son got older, Mary started doing jobs that took her away from home so that she wouldn’t have to face this man and the possible arguments they would get into. Today she is doing well in her business, but the scars of her past continued to haunt her. Will Mary ever find hope in life, will she ever be reconciled to her long lost daughter again?

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