I never lied to my husband. We got married when I was twelve years old.

I never lied to my husband. We got married when I was twelve years old. Our relationship was as innocent as we were for each other. I had no idea how to survive without him. It was difficult to breathe in happiness. Sometimes I asked mercy from God, because I knew everyone has to cry as much as they laugh. Now I have no idea how many years had gone, how long I am living alone. The day before he brought his second wife I had a dream that I was drowning, I was very afraid that entire night. I could not sleep and waited to pass that dark night.

When my husband brought Aliya, his second wife, I did not ask him any question. Everyone was looking at my face, wanted me to speak or react. I was feeling my husband cut my heart open and left it in the street. And the world was justifying me. Then he blamed me not to be normal with him. Not to understand him. Yes, I could understand him, like any other hundreds women did before, I could try to live in my house by acting normal. For a few days I tried to do adjust too. I tried to adjust my forty years of honesty, love and faith. But when I looked at myself my soul was giving me shame. Shame for not respecting myself.

The house which was mine even a day before turned into a strange place, the man I love my entire life become a stranger. And then he blamed me because I was not smiling, I was not trying to be normal. It was very hard for me to leave my house. He was sitting silently when I was coming to my father’s house, leaving my home for forever. He did not try to stop me for once.

Since then I forgot how to smile, how to dream or how to live. I paid for all the laughter and happiness we once had. I am failed miserably. Sometimes, I heard he asks our children about me; ask them to care for me. But he never asked them to tell me to return to home. And sometimes without any reasons I wait for him, I heard him telling me that how empty he feels in our house without me. But he never arrives because his house and heart is not empty as mine.

• Hosne Ara Begum