Married at just 20 because she was pregnant Rita hoped for the best.

But she soon found out the ?charming man? she had chosen to spend her life with had a cruel streak bubbling just beneath the service.

Rita, (not her real name) said: ?The first time he slapped me it came out of blue and took me by surprise. I felt perhaps I did something wrong, maybe I just annoyed him.

?I needed to think about how to handle myself in the future to avoid this.?

But the embarrassment of having a child out of wedlock in the 1970 helped convince Rita, now in her late 50s to stay. So she soldiered on, puzzled how a simple disagreement had got so out of hand.

A month later it happened again and she began to see the trend.

?He would come home, want to pick a fight, annoyed at something that happened outside my world and wanted somebody to take it out on.

?He realised he had me very intimidated, taunting me.?

It escalated and soon he was lashing out every week.

?It was definitely sparked by me disagreeing with him or if I ?talked back?.?

Too embarrassed to tell her family she explained away the bruises by making unlikely excuses.

?For the longest while I didn?t say anything. But I did leave the relationship twice.

?Only to go back when he came around and said it?s not going to happen again ? all the usual cliches.?

Shattered self-esteem saw her trot home.

?When a woman does that it?s because she no longer believes in herself so someone just coming back and saying ?sorry? makes her feel like everything is going to be all right. And you desperately want it to work out.?

But after so many broken promises she toughened up.

?Forgiveness comes with the responsibility to change but I saw no change. That?s when I got out of the marriage all together.?

Recalling those says she said: ?It?s a real rollercoaster ride in terms of emotion.

?You are thinking do I stay in this marriage because I have a child and I want to save this marriage or do I get out before I lose my life.?

Rita never once had a glimmer of why her husband did it.

?Any suggestion that we go for counselling or help was not received. On hindsight it could be he had something to hide.?

Although she no longer has any interest in why her ex-husband attacked her she has a great deal of awareness about batterers and says studies show they were often abused themselves or were in a family where abuse took place.

?They took that as how you treat a woman.?

Summing up two and half years of hell she said: ?The chief emotion was fear ? fear of being alone, fear of saying the wrong thing, afraid any little thing would spark his temper, afraid he would abuse me in front of my child.

?The other emotion was how can I get out of this, I feel trapped.?

Ironically she prides herself in being one of the lucky ones.

?I can?t say I was ever hospitalised with broken bones. I am still here, I am a survivor.

?I learned when I left that relationship that there is no reason on earth for a man to assault a woman.?

After finally making the break she became extremely withdrawn and mistrusting.

?I was very unsure of men, I had my daughter to raise and stayed out of a relationship for years.?

Her next serious relationship came 14 years later and turned into another disaster ? even though her spouse never once laid a finger on her.

?That?s when I encountered emotional abuse. I stayed alone for all those years later and then saw this gentleman as ?nice guy?.?

She said the emotions around non-violent abuse are totally different.

?The wounds from physical abuse heal.

?It may leave a scar but unless you look at it you don?t even think about it. But the wounds of emotional abuse run very deep.

?That?s when you begin to question who you are yourself. You question your own self worth.?

A lack of affection and security was at the heart of it.

She carried the whole burden of paying the bills while her partner could barely summon the energy to talk to her.

?I worked, he didn?t. He had no drive or ambition, everything was left to me.?

Seven years into the marriage, and totally shut out, she was told by one of his relatives he had ?never been one to talk?.

?I would simply being talking to the wall.?

?It very nearly put me in (the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute) because I became so broken.

?I remember looking at him and saying ?Who are you? I don?t even know who you are!?.?

She asked herself what she was doing in the marriage.

?I didn?t like who I was becoming. I went from an outgoing person, upbeat to someone always in tears, hardly ever smiled, walking around with the weight of world of shoulders.?

Not quite suicidal she had definitely lost the will to live.

?I just didn?t want to be here anymore but I stayed in that second marriage for ten years.

?I didn?t leave or get divorced not so much because I really wanted to make it work ? I didn?t leave because I was just plain embarrassed.?

Feeling the second marriage was failing she again doubted herself. ?What is it about me ? why can?t I stay married?

?That?s what emotional abuse does to you ? it makes it look yourself, at what?s wrong with you.

?Yet in actual fact guys who do it just plain, out right don?t know how to treat women. They haven?t taken the time to learn what women need.

?Again I hid my circumstances. I put my smile on every day with my clothes.

?People look at your outward appearance but they don?t know you are dying on the inside. But that?s what emotional abuse does to you.?

Finally counselling reaffirmed her own self worth, even though her partner tried to heap the blame on her.

She concedes her husband may have been suffering from depression. ?He may have a problem but it is directed at the woman.

?In my case no amount of reasoning or talking or suggestions from counsellors, of which we had three, got his attention.?

One day she got a grip of herself, realised she had tried enough and it was time to move on.

?I just said ?So, you get divorced again. So what???

Her two marriages of misery have given her some perspective on what needs to be done.

?Women need to raise boys to one day be good husbands and fathers ? a lot of women miss that.

?Women are not love-toys to be used for sexual pleasure, they need to be respected.?

But spotting the bad guys is not so easy.

She had ignored the signs she had picked up before her second marriage, shunting them back in order not to miss out on perhaps the final chance to get married.

?The first time came out of left field. But the second one I realise it was always a struggle to get him to talk.?

She recalls a situation when she wrongly stood accused of something while her husband, who could have cleared up the confusion, stood aside, ever the un-aggressive ?nice guy?, not wanting to interfere.

?To me nice guys shouldn?t get married. Nice guys should stay at home with their mothers.?