My first divorce was because I wouldn’t have sex with him, but there were a lot of things I didn’t understand. My family didn’t tell me anything, I didn’t know anything at all, to the point where I wasn’t quite sure what the bridal cloth was for.
My mother was going to have a stroke after 10 days of marriage when I asked what it was for. They all couldn’t believe it and sent my cousin to ask, “Does he sleep with you or not?” There were certain things in marriage I was supposed to do, but I was full of’.
Take off your clothes, ‘No’. The lights, ‘No’.
Well, rub my back, ‘No’.
It’s just that my aunt told me if he’s stubborn with you, use sex against him. For men, sex is like water, if you deny it to him he’ll do whatever you want so I would deny it to him and I didn’t know this was sinful. We got divorced because of the stubbornness with which I demanded fairness/ equality and he couldn’t have even a centimeter more than me. Whenever he heard something he didn’t like, he’d take it out on me and when he would hit me, I would become possessed and talk back.
The second time was my fault, my mistake was being silent. The problem was I did the right thing with the wrong man. He did drugs in front of me, next to me on the bed, while I was pregnant, and I said, okay. I worked as a maid for his sister, fine. I found out his brother was in jail for 15 years and said nothing and I found out he was in jail for 5 years before we got married, and I was shocked but still I said nothing.
My daughter, when she was a 9-month-old baby, ate half a roll of hashish! He had put it in a matchbox on our dresser, I saw the girl wasn’t acting normal. She was dizzy and her eyes weren’t focusing. I thought maybe it was because she’d just woken up.
He woke up and of course, his highness wanted to get high, so he asked me, “Where is the hash that was here”. I told him I didn’t know, he said, “What do you mean you don’t know”, I said, “What am I going to do with it, smoke it?!”
He looked in the matchbox and found it all crumbled up. He figured out quickly that the baby had eaten it and opened her mouth, finding her teeth covered in brown bits. He knew she’d eat en half a roll of hash but he didn’t want to tell me.
When I saw he was calm and started playing with the girl, I said, “She ate the hash, didn’t she? “You think she ate the hash don’t you?”, he said, “Oh relax, it was only a small piece!”. I told him, “No, don’t you lie to me. I had a child before this and she died in a fire. “And I was the one who pulled her from the fire with my own hands, only to have this one die too from hash?!”
I told him I was going to take her to the hospital, he said I’d get him sent to jail. I said it didn’t matter if either of us went to jail, it was important that the girl lives. Of course, he started cursing and insulting me, beating me, saying, “Is she my daughter or yours! “Go make breakfast!”. I went to go make breakfast, he went to the bathroom, then I went back got the girl and left.
My first daughter was burned around 3 AM, her leg, her hand, and half her stomach was burnt. Every time I went to a hospital they’d tell me they couldn’t treat her condition, so I took her to the emergency entrance of Kasr El-Ainy hospital. As soon as I entered with her the doctor said, “Pray God helps her” and she lived a week before dying.
I entered the same door with my second daughter, and lived the same experience, and knew that she was dying. His uncle’s wife caught up with me when she saw me running out of the house. She came with me and called him to come after us. She told me, “We’ll say she took a blood pressure pill so he doesn’t go to jail”.
I met an older looking nurse who kept consoling and calming me down and then she said, “Tell me exactly what the girl took “Tell me because I can feel you’re dying and your daughter is too”. After she found out, she swore at me and confronted me, saying, “You’re disgusting and he’s disgusting”. The person who was in my corner was now against me, all of a sudden I saw machines and they drew blood from her and gave her oxygen. It was then I knew that my world had been destroyed.
They told me she would have to spend the night, of course, as soon as he heard this he became rude, having a tantrum on the bed. He didn’t want her to spend the night because of the legal consequences. I took out my ID and told him to take it and file a case against me. We spent the night without money or food or diapers. You see when his highness came he took my wallet and changed the SIM card on the phone and he gave it to me without any contacts or credit and left!
I didn’t have enough diapers, I would make sandwiches and trade them with people for diapers. Those were the hardest 3 days of my life, I was like a beg gar. What’s important, thank God, we left the hospital and she was okay, then he told me not to tell my family so I didn’t!
I spent about two months acting dumb, he would leave the house and I would snoop. He would hide stuff in the last drawer of the cupboard, I’d open the drawer and find money, I’d look through coats and find pills and hashish.
One time he hid something behind the bed, I looked and found cartons of Tramadol and Abatril and other similar drugs. I’ll tell you how scared I was, him with a knife this big under his clothes and about 10 rolls of hash.
That night I woke up and found I’d pissed myself, I didn’t say anything until the police came to the house with a warrant. There was a knock at the door, I opened it and found two men, tall and wide, leaning on their guns. They grabbed me and removed me from the apartment. I looked at the stairwell and found people upstairs and downstairs standing and cursing us, and “Is this your house, or are you just whoring/keeping him company for a couple of days” All this while I’m grabbing at my robe, crying because my daughter is still inside.
Every time they asked me a question I’d say I don’t know, I don’t know, I couldn’t speak, I had never had the law in my house. What I found out later was that they’d come with two tanks. After these people left, I went to my family’s house and never came back.