He didn’t hit often. He just erased me — one no-show, one silence, one betrayal at a time.
It’s easier for people to blame the in-laws.
That way, the husband stays clean — the silent observer, the poor man “torn between wife and family.”
But let me tell you this: silence is a weapon too. Silence Isn’t Passive. It’s Permission
He Didn’t Raise His Hand at First. He Just Dropped His Spine.
When I was groped during a sacred tarpan ceremony, I begged him to intervene. He said: “Papa hai… samajh jao.”
When I was forced to shift homes during pregnancy and miscarried days later, he said: “Papa said it was necessary.”
When I was stripped of my jewelry, my earnings, my dignity — all “for the family” — he said: “Papa handles the money.”
But what he didn’t say was this:
“No. Enough. She deserves better.”
He’s just caught in between. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s not doing the damage, he’s just overwhelmed by it.
That’s the story I told myself for years.
He didn’t slap me in the beginning. He didn’t shout in public or lock me in a room. He just stood still while things happened. He didn’t stop them. He didn’t protect me. He didn’t say my name when it mattered.
That was his weapon — silence and distance. And it worked.
And so for the longest time, I told myself it wasn’t abuse.
Because he didn’t drag me out of the house or break a glass or raise his hand in public.
Instead, he stood still.
While I was stripped of my voice, my savings, my dignity — he watched.
And that was enough.
No one warns you about that kind of violence.
The kind where the man you love doesn’t do anything.
He just lets it happen.
And for years, I let myself believe that he was torn.
That he was stuck.
That he was neutral.
But he wasn’t neutral.
He was silent.
And silence — when someone is being hurt — is not innocence.
It is participation.
He didn’t protect me.
He didn’t defend me.
He didn’t even say my name when it mattered.
Not even when his family muttered ” she is too too dark to carry the legacy forward,” not even when they said “her miscarriages are well deserved.”
And that’s the thing no one tells you:
A man doesn’t need to hit you to hurt you.
He just needs to vanish while you’re bleeding.
People still think he was “nice.”
Because he never cursed me in public setting.
Because he was always calm and made me coffee on occasions.
But what we often forget is how much damage silence can do.
How it erases you.
How it tells everyone around you that you’re not worth protecting.
So if you’re still waiting —
for him to speak up,
to choose you,
to finally say “enough” —
I want you to know:
You are not wrong for wanting more.
You are not dramatic.
You are not overreacting.
You are just finally seeing things clearly.
And once you do — once you really see it —
you don’t wait for words that should have come long ago.
You start writing your own.
Love,
Another woman who stayed too long,
waiting for a man who thought saying nothing made him good.
