by Samra Zafar
* * *
I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I found my past easy to shed. My route out of marriage wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t linear. Even while I was trying my hardest to change direction, it was a painful little dance, the emotional steps so incremental that it sometimes appeared I wasn’t moving at all. Even when it seemed as if I had made a big leap, I could find myself pulled down.
Back in the early spring of 2013, before graduation, I’d been asked to give a short speech at the Pakistan Republic Day celebrations at the University of Toronto. The organizers wanted me to talk about winning the John H. Moss Scholarship and my journey to finish my undergraduate degree. Mindful of the audience, I donned a sari and did my hair and makeup with a modest touch. I was crossing the campus, checking my emails as I walked, when I noticed one from my lawyer.
My divorce had been finalized.
I stopped dead on the sidewalk. I was about to stand in front of a sizable audience as a divorcee—a flawed woman. Damaged goods. I managed to make it to the Students’ Union office before collapsing in a fit of wailing, as if I were keening for the death of a loved one. My worried friends rallied around me and managed to calm me enough that I could take the stage and give my very first talk.
Despite having pushed hard for this divorce and living as a single woman for almost two years, I continued to grieve for months after receiving those final papers, often finding that feelings of shame, defeat and regret swept over me in unguarded moments. Indeed, all my academic and career success couldn’t banish the sense that I was a miserable failure in my personal life.
* * *
While the shame of my failed marriage has been remarkably tenacious, as the years have passed my confidence has grown. Whenever that sort of negativity flickers through my mind, I remind myself that it is not what I really believe—it is only the remnant of flawed cultural conditioning. With that assurance has come something precious. I have begun to find my voice once again. The Facebook messages—and through them my connections with women—inspired me to join the boards of various women’s shelters and anti-abuse organizations. And I began to speak about what I had experienced with numerous media outlets, organizations and schools.
But then another opportunity came my way to help others and voice my perspective. In January 2016, John Rothschild and I were having one of our monthly breakfast meetings.
“How’s your time these days?” he asked.
“I’m busy, but it’s manageable,” I said.
“Would you be interested in applying to the Governing Council for the University of Toronto?”
My jaw dropped. I understood a little about the university structure. The Governing Council is U of T’s most senior governing body and oversees all the academic, business and student affairs of the university. The fifty-person council is involved with all major decisions at the university and provides guidance to the senior administration. Governors are either appointed by the Ontario Ministry of Education or elected by one of the university’s constituent bodies: staff, faculty, students and alumni.
John explained that he had been asked by the Alumni Association to approach me about applying to fill one of the three alumni governor positions open at the time (out of a total of eight).
I knew that all the alumni governors were extremely successful professionals and executives. I was just at the beginning of my career. I couldn’t imagine I had much of a chance. “It’s so flattering that they have asked me to apply, but I don’t want to make a fool of myself,” I told John.
“When has that stopped you before?” he asked. “You are one of the bravest, smartest women I know. I think you should put your name forward. Besides,” he added, “the alumni body has been following your career and volunteer work. They’re interested in hearing from you.”
The university had done so much for me over the years—the administration, the faculty and the students had all been instrumental in helping me turn my life around. I wouldn’t be sitting here, with my career and my independence, without U of T. If there was an opportunity to give back to the institution and to help other students, I wanted to take it.
* * *
The application process was extensive, but in contrast with the Moss application, I approached it with hopefulness devoid of anxiety. When the interview came, I was struck by how much more confident I was than I had been at the scholarship interview. Sitting at an enormous circular board table in the gold-decorated council chamber being interviewed by over twenty members of the university’s College of Electors, all a great deal more accomplished than I was, I realized that I had things I wanted to say, ideas I wanted to share. What’s more, I felt that my opinions had value and were worth expressing.
When one of the interviewers asked me what the biggest challenge facing the university was, I was quick to answer.
“I believe education is not a privilege but a right. I would like to help ensure that it is accessible to everyone—people of all economic backgrounds, genders and races. Education is what helped me change my life. It opened my world. I would like everyone to have that opportunity.”
A few weeks later, I got an email informing me that the College members had voted. Two of the three seats had been filled by governors who were up for re-election. I had been elected for the third spot.
* * *
As I walked into the impressive circular council chamber for the first meeting, I felt a small flutter of doubt. Do I really belong here? It was an odd thing: I had been one of the oldest students when I started my undergraduate degree, and now here I was, one of the youngest people ever elected to the Governing Council, surrounded by a cohort of truly impressive academics and professionals. And yet I did feel I belonged. The university needed to hear from people like me. My experiences were different from my co-governors’ but they were equal. And they mattered. My voice mattered. I was thrilled that I had been given the opportunity to use it. Five years ago I’d been afraid to raise my hand in class or approach my professors. But now I was ready to speak.
That realization—that I had at last found my voice—led me to take one more step, in many ways a much more daunting step, in my personal journey.
* * *
After that terrible afternoon at the Motel 6 five years ago, I had begun to let my marriage go, literally and figuratively. With each passing day, I found myself missing Ahmed and the social “security” of my married state less and less. By the time I was fully immersed in graduate school, my former state of mind seemed like the thoughts of some fictional character I had once read about.
As I healed and regained strength, Ahmed took up less and less space in my world, until he was simply the father of my children, the man whom I needed to deal with about visits with the girls.
And yet, those small points of contact refused to become easy or to feel benign. Whenever I had to get in touch with Ahmed, I did it by text or email. The thought of hearing his voice or catching a glimpse of him filled me with dread. That fear became muted over time but it was always there, quickening my pulse whenever his name popped up in my in-box or when I had to send him a message. And then, in the spring of 2016, at the age of thirty-four, just after I’d accepted my seat on the U of T Governing Council, something changed.
Around the time the divorce came through, Aisha had begun to protest her weekly visit to Ahmed, Amma and Abba’s house. She would cry and fume before she was picked up for the weekend and return sad and frustrated on Sunday nights. She admitted that Ahmed and his parents said nasty things about me, which angered her and made her feel defensive. She talked with me, but she also confided in her school counsellors. Eventually one of the counsellors advised that I not send her—even if legally I was supposed to. Aisha would be able to make that determination for herself when she turned thirteen, but in the meantime, the counsellor recommended, it was worth defying the separation agreement if it spared Aisha the weekly trauma.
Ahmed wasn’t happy when her visits stopped, but he never
took action. Now, at fifteen, Aisha seemed more open to the idea of seeing her father again. I didn’t want her to go through life without her father, and I knew he was desperate to renew the relationship. The only way to do so was for me to act as a liaison. And that couldn’t be done by text.
My latest accomplishment seemed to give me the shot in the arm I needed to face this personal challenge. I gathered my courage and sent Ahmed a message offering to meet him at a local coffee shop to talk about how he and Aisha might connect again.
On the day of our meeting, I arrived a little early and took a table near the window, overlooking the parking lot. A few minutes after I sat down, I saw Ahmed’s car pull in and park. It had been four years since I’d set eyes on him. As his door opened, I waited to feel my heart start its raucous tap dance. It didn’t happen. As Ahmed’s black hair and tall frame took shape outside of the car, I felt . . . nothing. The anxiousness I had wrestled with during the drive over seemed to have evaporated. I watched calmly as Ahmed crossed the parking lot. As he approached my table, my breathing was steady. I smiled easily at him as he took his seat across from me.
To my surprise, the first words out of his mouth were ones of sheepish gratitude. “I cannot believe after everything that you’re still willing to help me with this.”
“Of course,” I said. “Aisha deserves to have her father in her life. But there have to be some ground rules.”
And then I began talking. I talked and I talked. And Ahmed listened.
Through all the years of our marriage, it had been Ahmed who did the talking. I had had no voice in our relationship. But those times were truly past. I was no longer afraid, but what surprised me more, I was no longer angry. All the resentment, the hurt, the humiliation had somehow slipped away. And in its place—a peaceful confidence and the power of forgiveness.
As we got up from the table an hour and a half later, Ahmed thanked me. I waved it away.
I walked to my car smiling, my eyes rimmed with tears of joy. It was an extraordinary feeling.
I was free.
EPILOGUE
Over the years, reflecting on my journey, I’ve realized again and again that my story is not just mine. It is the story of millions of people, especially women and girls, from all around the world. Indeed, during the past five years, I’ve received hundreds of thousands of messages from people who have shared their heart-wrenching stories of abuse and survival.
The fact that my story is only one iteration of an all-too-common experience is borne out by the sad statistics. The US-based National Coalition against Domestic Violence reports that one in three women and one in four men have faced intimate-partner violence at some point in their lives. A 2014 Statistics Canada survey found that 4 percent of both men and women had been physically abused by a partner in the last five years, with the most severe types of physical abuse being reported by women. What’s more, the study found that in 40 percent of the cases violence continued after a breakup, and almost half of those reporting post-split violence noted that it had become more intense than previous abuse. Of these assaults, both before and after the relationship, only 30 percent came to the attention of the police. Furthermore, these statistics often represent physical violence only. When you add the unreported cases, as well as emotional, psychological, financial and other forms of abuse, the numbers are far worse.
* * *
Although I share my experiences with many others, one of the challenges of telling my tale is that the circumstances of my marriage and eventual separation can seem strange and exotic to the mainstream Western population. To be sure, any community that encourages women to wed when they are very young, forces arranged marriages on couples, and makes divorce taboo will likely create an environment in which domestic abuse is difficult to address. But I hope that people will not assume my story is representative of only a certain community, that it is about the flaws of a particular culture—that it is, in a word, unusual. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Victims and abusers come from all cultures, all races, all religions, all socio-economic backgrounds and all walks of life. Time and again, otherwise powerful, professionally successful men and women have found themselves in violent, dysfunctional relationships with no idea how to get out.
And despite my experience, and the experience of many of the women who write to me, the vast majority of domestic abuse occurs between men and women who began their relationships as love matches. And conversely, I know many couples who have found respectful and loving partnerships within arranged marriages.
Indeed, while physical and verbal abuse may be easy to identify, emotional and psychological abuse can be insidious—it can creep up on you, disguised by the trappings of love. And that is one reason why leaving can be so hard. On average, an abused woman returns to her abuser seven times before she is able to make the final split. And, of course, many victims never manage to leave at all, or die at the hands of their abusers.
That may be especially true of victims of non-physical abuse. Without the tangible evidence of bruises and broken bones, many are convinced by their abusers that they are overreacting or imagining harm where there is none. I’ve often heard people say that they wished they had been hit, so they would have a reason to leave. The memories that haunt me still are not slaps and kicks but the name-calling and all the demoralizing, demeaning comments that wormed their way into my head over the years. (Although the sound of a slamming door can still leave me rattled for hours.)
For victims, thoughts tend to follow a strikingly common pattern: I’m afraid of being rejected. No one will respect me. No one will want me. I feel like a failure. Almost all victims of abuse share the same fears—of rejection, of shame, of judgment and of financial constraint, and the biggest of all, fear of isolation.
* * *
Sometimes I wonder why I was able to succeed beyond my wildest dreams in the face of abuse. I know I’m smart and capable. But the messages and letters I get from women who have not yet found a way out make it clear that I’m not alone in that.
The real game changer for me was the support system I found: the friends who watched my children when I went to court, the professors who wrote my scholarship letters, the mentors who championed me and advocated for me. All the people who loved and supported me because they saw me as an equal who was working hard to build a better life.
The restraining order and my supportive university community helped me to avoid returning again and again to my marriage: helped me, in other words, to escape being part of the statistical average. I was lucky to have university—it gave me a concrete goal and a path out. More than that, it provided an almost instant community and support network when I needed it. If it hadn’t been for all those who rallied around me in the early days of my separation, I don’t know if I would have made it.
That is why the fear of isolation can be positively debilitating. After all, we are in this world for connection. As human beings, that is our basic need. Many victims stay in abusive situations because they fear losing their families and their communities. Women often leave only to find themselves intimidated, overwhelmed and alone. Walking out of a marriage with no community to join is akin to taking someone who has lived in prison for a long time, putting her in the middle of a big city and saying, “You’re free!” That person is likely to have no idea how to begin creating a new life. Some of those who try to leave lack life skills—knowing how to pay the bills, how to get a car fixed, or how to find a job. All lack the feeling of connection and support that invisibly keeps each of us going in our daily lives.
In my years of serving on the boards of women’s shelters and organizations, I’ve seen many women arrive at a shelter to start a new life, only to fall back a few months later into the same pattern with their previous abuser or with a new abuser. That world, after all, is what they know. It’s the same reason why some prisoners reoffend. The new is scarier than the old.
What survivors need—beyond shelters, police an
d counselling—is a sense of belonging. A community of support. Someone to hold their hand and say, “It’s okay, you can do this. I’m with you.” Someone to teach them how to walk so that they can eventually run and fly.
* * *
Amna is not the only abuse victim I’ve been able to reach personally. Since then, several local women have contacted me after hearing me speak at an event or watching one of my videos or TV appearances, or reading one of my posts on a friend’s Facebook timeline. I’ve had countless coffees with women from all walks of life.
One woman was working two minimum-wage jobs to support herself and her three children after her husband fled the country when she threatened to report him for abuse. She wanted to go to school but didn’t know how to balance her responsibilities and education. I helped her apply for bursaries and scholarships and then find ways to structure her classes so she could pick up a few campus jobs and be present for her children. Today she works at a major accounting firm, enjoying a six-figure salary.
After a TV appearance, I was put in touch with a nurse who had lost her entire community and social circle when she left her husband. Years of abuse had ripped her self-esteem apart. I started taking her with me to movies, networking events, even spa days. Within a few months, I could see her confidence blossom and her happiness in her single life grow. She started to build a bigger, more satisfying life of her own.
And after I published a magazine article, I met a very successful business executive who admitted that he had been the victim of abuse at the hands of his wife for over a decade.
There are many other stories, but the pattern is the same. All the people I met changed their own lives. But what they needed was someone to believe in them and to show them they were not alone.
That first encounter with Amna, and the others that followed, led me to an idea. If I could make an impact on women’s lives with my own, imagine how many lives could be changed by a network of support and mentorship for abuse survivors. At present, I’m working with a small group of dedicated people to create such a program. We’re hoping to build an organization that will match women who have come out of abusive relationships with a mentor, ideally from their own community, who can help them through the early years of their new life. Our aim is to help create a world in which no woman has to compromise her self-respect, independence and dignity in order to be accepted. In which no woman feels alone in her struggle.
