An Israeli woman, who has been fighting for divorce for over 30 years, says she started getting violent threats and quarrels soon after the marriage began.
He punched her in the jaw, knocking out several front teeth, she said. On another occasion, he twisted her left arm so hard it broke, and sometimes he forced her to have sex. She made no official complaints. "I was too embarrassed," she said.
In 1967, after a third child, she filed for divorce after her husband disappeared for long periods, sometimes leaving bills unpaid so the house had no water or electricity, she said.
Her husband refused to divorce, and she said he then drove her from the house at knife-point. "He said he would kill me if I came back,".
She the effects of divorce on children was very noticable as she only saw the children through surreptitious visits to neighbors’ homes until social workers gave her de-facto custody of the children in 1974. She said that her husband never paid child support and that they survived on welfare and her meager salary as a maid. Getting over divorce, or in this case, the lack of it, really tore her apart.
