Born to suffer

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guys,pls read on,its too long, but interesting,i wil paste a lot cos its long:


Writer: Nompumelelo Manyaapelo
Mentor: Jani Meyer
Agenda 66 2005 111
Nompumelelo Manyaapelo Born to suffer
I am serving a 30-year sentence for my actions, substituting the prison of abuse for a prison of bricks.
A prison where even my thoughts and feelings are being held captive.My pain is for my children who
lost both their parents, and every day I am reminded of what I have done. I still clearly recall that final
act that made me snap.
He arrived home after 2am as usual. He was as sober as a judge when he opened the bedroom door and
greeted me cheerfully. I was half asleep but moved to the other side of the bed to give him space to sleep.
He took off his clothes and got into bed beside me. He started caressing me and telling me that he
wanted me to perform oral sex on him.
It was something I had never done before and I did not want to do it. Not like this, not when he came
home in the middle of the night and just demanded it. I tried to explain, but he said that there was
always a first time. I tried to explain my feelings that the first time – for anything – should not be in the
early hours of the morning.
I resisted his advances, but he grabbed my nightie, pulled me and gave me a heavy klap (slap).
I surrendered, but when I knelt down and saw the bits of toilet paper stuck to his penis, I
realised that he had had sex with another woman – again. Something inside me just cracked.
It could not go on.

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2.

I felt angry and humiliated, but also helpless. Finally, I cooperated after being beaten. I did it
crying. After cuming inside my mouth, he released me and he slept. I felt so used and
humiliated. He had been with another woman and then expected me to do this, showing off
the evidence with no regard for my feelings. Years of abuse had finally taken their toll, and it
had to end.
In the eyes of the community, he was a successful businessman, a caring doctor who looked
after his wife and children. I was driving around in top-of-the-range cars and with all the
comforts money could buy. But it was all an illusion.
His continued affairs humiliated me, and in our home I was nothing: a woman without a voice,
who was not even allowed to have her own friends. I was abused mentally and physically and had
no-one to turn to.
Immediately after our marriage, there were signs that it was not going to be a happy one. After six years
of dating, the caring, loving man I fell in love with, suddenly changed. After we got married we moved
to Mafikeng; closer to his family who were against our union from the start, because I am Zulu and he
was Tswana. As they did not approve of our marriage, it was impossible for me to tell them about the
abuse.

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4.
He convinced me that if we had a child, his parents would have to accept me into the family,
and a short while after we discussed it, I fell pregnant.His family came to pay the lobola (bride
price) just before I gave birth to my first baby on 9 July 1984. We got married on the last
weekend of October and moved to Mafikeng where we stayed with my in-laws before moving
into our residence at Thusang Hospital.
After my first fight with his mother, he started having an affair with a nurse at the hospital
where we were both working. This carried on for about six months. Because I decided to
return to work, my in-laws took my son away from me and forced me to wean him off breast
milk. I did not like that as I wanted to prove my womanhood, but to keep the peace I agreed
even though I was hurting inside.
My mother-in-law started interfering in my housekeeping. She fired my helpers and would sometimes
come into my house and demand that I move my furniture and rearrange it the way she wanted it.
Because it was her son’s house, she felt she could do as she wished.My husband’s father also came to the
house often, demanding money from him and he always obliged.
If I complained, his mother would tell him, ‘I told you that you should not marry a Letebele because
they cause havoc in the family.’

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When he started having his affairs I couldn’t tell his parents, because they did not want me in the first
place. I felt lonely and isolated: a grown woman, a mother, a wife, but in reality, a nobody.
After about a year, I couldn’t take it anymore. I phoned my mother and told her that I wanted to come
home. But it is taboo in our culture for a woman to leave her husband because she can’t cope with the
difficulties in a marriage. So, I stayed on. I had to do what was right in the eyes of my family and culture
even if it was torture. As the years went by, his affairs became so routine it was as though we reached a
quiet consensus about it.My mother developed a heart disease and was also suffering from hypertension
and diabetes. I did not want to increase her stress levels, so I kept my pain quiet and pretended that
everything was going well.
I used to blame his parents for his behaviour because they didn’t like me. But I realised later that this was
not an excuse. Later, they also complained about how he neglected his family and about his extra-marital
affairs, but he ignored their advice.

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In 1992 my father passed away. I went home to make funeral arrangements and my husband followed a
few days later. After the funeral he left ahead of me as I had some family business to attend to as well as
completing the funeral rituals. Our daughter, who was four years old at the time, stayed with me.
When I was about to return home, my daughter got measles and I phoned him to ask for
permission to bring an escort along who could look after her while I was driving. Looking
back I realise how cruel this was. This girl would have to take a taxi back to Durban after
seeing me safely home. His answer over the phone was, ‘Ga ke battle Letebele le lengwe le le
tla nkgela mo gaka le ntekanye le le nos.’ (Another stinking Letebele in his house! The one I
married is enough). It made me feel guilty and infected. This hurt me so much and when I
got home and asked him about it, he reluctantly apologised.
Despite the affairs, we had a third child in 1996. Immediately after the birth of this son, my
husband convinced me to have a tubal ligation for ‘health reasons’. I agreed on the condition
that he would not father children with any other woman.He promised me that he would not.
However, 18 months later, his girlfriend gave birth. How could he do this to me? Not only to
me, but also to my children.
Then my world came crashing down: my baby boy drowned in our swimming pool. He was
only two years old. Losing him was the most distressing thing that has ever happened to me.
After my baby’s funeral, I went through my husband’s cheque counterfoils. I can’t remember what I was
looking for, but I discovered that on the day of the funeral he signed a cheque for R5 000 for his
girlfriend. I asked myself whether it was in celebration of the death of my child, because they had a child
of their own.

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The birth of his other child was another turning point. The emotional abuse became worse.He made me
feel incomplete, inferior and stupid. I had no-one to turn to and the only people I could see were the
women who worked at the surgery or in our bottle store. I was not allowed to belong to women’s or
community organisations. He said people would laugh at my ideas and opinions since I was useless. He
succeeded in making me feel useless and inferior. I had such low self-esteem.
As my children got older their care was left to me, but when I wanted the children to change schools, I
had to get his permission first. I even needed his parents’ permission if I wanted to visit my family in
Durban. At the time, I really needed my family’s support to deal with the death of my child. I was
depressed and knew I needed professional help, but when I suggested consulting a psychologist he said
the only reason I wanted to see a counsellor was to expose his affairs. He said I was a professional and
could help myself. He started giving me sleeping tablets, something I then progressively started to abuse
to get away from the emotional pain.
In 1998 my mother passed away and after that I was no longer allowed to visit Durban because ‘you have
no family left in the city’. At that time, I had two brothers and three sisters in Durban. I felt like a chained
dog.

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There was a time when I was prepared to make peace with his affairs, especially the woman he seemed
serious about. But I could not bear the humiliation of living in the same town as her. Even though I did
not like the idea of polygamy, I was willing to try as long as one of us moved out of Mafikeng. His
solution was to buy her a house in Mafikeng. His cruelty was extended to his own children. He deprived
them of love and attention and never bothered to attend parents’ meetings at school.
Then the abuse became physical. He started beating me up. One incident in particular stands
out. I had just returned from our farm after taking a youth group (which included my own
children) for a camp. The youth group was my only outlet and the children were the only
people I was allowed to see.
When I arrived home, he was already there. He opened the door for me and my assistant and
then went to the kitchen where he picked up a butcher’s knife. His eyes were bulging, his
forehead was sweaty and he was biting his lower lip. No-one uttered a word. We started
moving backwards and then started running. He chased after us, but we escaped. When we
returned, he acted as though nothing had happened.

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My husband was a popular doctor who was loved by the community.He would see his regular
patients, even if they did not have money. He went to church regularly, and attended
community meetings and funerals. Even at home he would sometimes surprise me by being
so loving. Whenever we were away from Mafikeng on holiday, he was the best husband a
woman could hope for. Those holidays would take me back to the days when we were young
and in love. But the moment we got back home it all started again.
He was also a good businessman. Apart from his surgery, he bought farms and opened a bottle store. I
was the manager at the store, but in name only. Before the store closed in the afternoon, his father would
collect the money claiming that he was going to bank it. Although I was the manager, I was not allowed
to question this. I started to feel withdrawn and paralysed.

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During all this I continued taking sleeping tablets to try to cope with my baby’s death. Twice I tried to
commit suicide, just to get away from the life that was no longer my own. The first time, I stopped my
car on a railway crossing, locked the doors and waited for the train to crash into me. I felt scared, but I
kept telling myself that it would be quick and that my problems would be over. I would be liberated and
feel no pain. I would be with God. However, somebody stopped behind me and when he realised what I
was doing he pushed my car off the tracks with his own vehicle.My husband’s only response was to pay
for the repairs of both cars. My next attempt to take my life was in Durban. We planned to see the
dawning of the new millennium in Durban, although I knew nothing would change. As usual I had to
go before him. I had had enough. All I remember is that while I was at my sister’s house, I took a lot of
sleeping tablets, got into my car and drove off. I felt like the millennium was not meant for me. It
belonged to happy people. I deserved to die and be with my creator on the millennium. This time I did
not feel scared, I felt happy and fulfilled. I felt that it was necessary. Furthermore, I was going to die in
Durban, at home and be buried near the people who loved me. The next thing I remember were
policemen. Someone had found me and taken me to the police station. I was escorted back to my sister’s
home.

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The most painful part was the image I was projecting. He bought me expensive cars, gifts and clothes. To
the average person, I looked happy and had all the comforts money could buy. Nobody would have
believed me if I told them what I was going through, how empty I was inside.
Reporting the abuse to the police would have been futile as most of the police in the area
consulted him and many were his friends. Going against him felt impossible. I felt like I was
locked in a cage with a lion.
Divorcing him was out of the question, or so I thought.Whenever I mentioned divorce, he
would threaten me. To be honest, a part of me didn’t want to leave because deep down in my
heart I kept thinking that the following day he would wake up and be his old self again, the
loving man I fell in love with years ago. I also did not want my children to be from a broken
home. I refused to be the cause of that.
His closest friends were aware of the abuse. Once I confided in them and they promised
to talk to him. But they came back with the excuse that he threatened to terminate their
friendship if they interfered in his private life. Others promised me that they would try to
find me employment somewhere far away from him. Unfortunately, for me they did not.
The abuse – mental and physical – continued to worsen and I increasingly sought solace
in sleeping tablets, but it felt as though he was punishing me for taking the pills.Whenever
he came home late with a car that was supposed to be parked inside the garage or the
carport, he would leave this car outside the gate and wake me up to arrange the cars
correctly. After work we used to bring the business cars home as we had a double garage
and carport. The BMW and the Porsche were parked in the garage and the Chrysler Voyager and the
4x4 were parked in the carport. A delivery van used to be parked just behind these cars, next to the
gate.

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One day he came home late in his 4x4 and the delivery van was parked in its space. I had recently taken
four sleeping tablets and was in bed. He woke our helper, and told her to help carry me to the parking
lot. They took me, half asleep, from one car to the next to park them in their proper order.When it
was done he left me in the car and told our domestic helper that the cold would wake me up. I woke
up at about 7am, freezing in the van, not remembering how I got there.
Looking back I believe that there are three stages of abuse, whether it’s mental or physical in nature,
and certain choices that can be made. The first stage starts within a relationship. It may be a single
incident, but that is when rational people get out and irrational people remain. I was embarrassed
about what people and my family would say, and quitting a marriage is against my culture.He was my
first sexual partner and I felt that no other man would want a second-class citizen or damaged goods.
I even thought that maybe all men were like him.
The second stage, in my experience, is when the abuse increases. Some women will walk out at this stage.
Those who stay think that if they managed it up to now, they can continue to manage. Or you love him
and think that tomorrow he will stop. Or you think of the children and finally you start believing that
somehow you are responsible – that you actually deserve the punishment.You feel helpless, incompetent,
stupid, inferior, a second-class citizen.You believe him when he calls you names. It reaches a point where
after he has hit you, he calls you to explain why he had to do it and you just accept his reasons. You tell
him that you deserved to be punished, that you will not force him to do it again. Then he might tell you
that he loves you.

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The third stage is the point of no return. You feel you have reached the edge. You either then allow
yourself to fall over the edge by committing suicide or you fight the hungry lion by killing him. This
applied to me. I could not take it any more. The final straw was when he physically forced me to have
oral sex after being with his girlfriend. I knew then it had to stop.
I ended up doing what I did. I hired the killers who, even after second thoughts from me and an attempt
to stop them, killed him in his surgery. I am not proud of what I did and I will regret it for the rest of
my life. I have taken full responsibility for my actions and in court I publicly apologised to his family,
friends and the community.
I will probably never leave prison alive. My pain is for my children who are emotionally incarcerated. I
cannot be there for them and they are suffering. They have forgiven me, but they need me to help them
grow into responsible adults. I wish I could turn back the clock and undo what I did. Unfortunately, life
does not always grant a second chance. It seems like I was born to suffer.

Nompumelelo Manyaapelo is currently serving a 30-year sentence for the murder of her
abusive husband. She believes that spiritual healing helps to keep her positive about her
circumstances, and has been teaching biology and maths to other inmates.When she is released
from prison, she would like to return and continue to teach the inmates subjects they need to
graduate high school.

[mom24/7]

I'm in tears as I sit here at work....
I have a friend who is still in denial, and I can only hope she makes the right decision in time.

[Ang]

WTF? men .... !!!... !!!

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my response after reading was wow.............but really, i dont think somebody can be born to suffer, especially where there is a choice, my question is, why did she wait for so long,in a point that she have to kill?