By Vanessa Cort
THERE is hardly a week that goes by in this country without a report of domestic violence hitting the news. Often the stories depict extreme violence and sometimes end with the death of the victim.

Although there are isolated cases of men being physically abused, victims are generally women and statistics tell us that most of the women who die in their own homes do so at the hands of abusive partners.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, when a mental health expert announced recently that since the start of COVID-19 pandemic, domestic violence has been on the rise. Men feel pressured and take out their frustrations on their mates.

And the subject gained international attention just a month ago when it was revealed that Alexander Zverev, the Russian semi-finalist in the US Open tennis tournament, was being investigated for allegations of psychological and physical abuse.

In a series of statements, his girlfriend and former tennis star, Olga Sharypova, ending her silence, told of the years of torment and pain she suffered during their relationship and of her many failed attempts to leave.

Her harrowing tale took me back to the days when I too was in abusive relationships. Yes, there was more than one. I have re-lived these memories over the years and still find myself wondering why.

I got involved with a man who was violent and still married him. I somehow thought that after we got married things would change, that marriage would bring stability to our relationship. I was wrong. The abuse continued and got worse over the years.

I was constantly ‘on the run’, leaving my home at all hours to escape the onslaught. He would eventually find me and I allowed myself to be persuaded to return home.

By the time I had children it was more difficult to get away because I then had to consider who would take me in with one and later two children – a toddler and the other just a baby. A working mother, I also worried about who would take care of my children while I was at work and whether I could even afford to pay someone to do so.

However, after years of an unending circle of abuse, when things would get better for a while, then the violence would return worse than before, I finally drummed up the courage to get a divorce. I could no longer ignore the fact that, along with me, my children were at risk.

Years later, after two more abusive relationships, the last one leaving me blind in one eye, I began to ask, ‘What is wrong with me?’ It seems I had learned nothing from my failed marriage.

Looking back, I can see how my self-confidence was eroded and how I actually began to think that I was somehow responsible for the beatings. During the most abusive relationship and before the damage to my eye, I was repeatedly told that I brought about the violence because of my ‘hot mouth’.

I vividly remember my last child (his daughter) now 23 years old, getting in between us and shouting, “Mummy don’t answer him!” On more than one occasion when I was knocked to the ground she would try to cover my body with hers, put her hand over my mouth and tearfully beg me to be quiet.

I left more times than I care to remember but kept on going back, wooed by the promises that it would never happen again and the thought of the many years we had already spent together.

But the abuse did not stop and it took the loss of vision in my left eye, caused by a blow, for me to finally decide that I had suffered enough. I also had to face the fact that my daughter was an innocent witness to all this unspeakable violence and would often exhibit nervousness and agitation the moment she sensed an argument brewing.

And there are days now where I berate myself for not staying away and grieve the loss of vision in my left eye. But even at times like this I still cannot quite believe that all of this happened to me and that I allowed it to happen.

The scars, both visible and invisible, remain so many years later along with the burning question, ‘Why’? I do not have the answer and next week turn to the experts to shed some light on this cycle of abuse which has enmeshed couples from all walks of life and plagued societies the world over, and which is apparently getting worse.