A court has turned down a woman’s request to annul her loveless marriage to a man she wed just to escape the despair and abuse of her parents’ home.

I never loved him but I had wanted him to be my saviour and refuge

Judge Robert Mangion, sitting in the Family Court, heard the harrowing story of a woman who saw marriage as the only way to leave behind an “unbearable” life in which her father abused her siblings – only to marry a “savage” man who treated her badly.

Her testimony was backed up by that of her mother who said her daughter wanted to escape because her father used to sexually abuse her siblings.

“At first I didn’t want to believe that my husband would actually do these things,” the mother said.

She had at first she thought her children were lying – especially after one daughter retracted her statement when threatened by the father.

However, years later, the children told the truth in front of their father and she believed them.

The court found that the couple knew their duties and their rights and what married life entailed.

The woman’s unhappy life before and after her wedding day did not make the marriage null, the court ruled before turning down her application for an annulment.

She had met her husband at a wedding. Immediately, the thought occurred to her that marriage would be a way to escape from the mess that was her family home.

“I was 18 years old and I saw him as a good and hard working man… At that time, marriage was the key to my freedom,” she told the court.

However, even before getting married, the couple would fight, break up and get back together over and over. “We disagreed on everything but I didn’t want to lose him.”

Everyone – family, friends and psychologists – told her that her boyfriend was not suited to her but she stubbornly persisted in her desire to leave home as soon as possible.

She increased the pressure on him to get married after he bought a place and started to do it up. “He never understood exactly what was going on and when I told him, he left me instead of supporting me,” she said.

Dumped once again, the woman felt “lost and abandoned”. He then took pity on her when she told him that, in informing him, she had only wanted them to draw closer to each other.

But this was a lie, she admitted in court – and he had probably believed it.

“It was humiliating to speak about my father but, naturally, I wasn’t going to tell him why I wanted him at all costs.”

As they started preparing for the wedding, the arguments went on. “I can’t even count how many times I cancelled bookings for the wedding because we had fought”.

At the beginning of 2002 she found out she was pregnant – a “great shock” and “shame” for her. Later that year they got married and she thought it would “make me forget everything”.

But the situation only got worse. Her husband, she said, would call her crazy and swear at her. She left him days after the wedding but returned. “I would pray to God every day to take me,” she said.

She reached breaking point when she got drunk at a hen’s night in Paceville. Depressed, she called her husband, telling him she was leaving him and asking him to take care of their daughter.

“I never loved him but I had wanted him to be my saviour and refuge.”

She then turned to the courts and the couple were separated in 2007.

She described him as a savage man who believed that women’s place was in the kitchen with a hot meal waiting for the husband. “I was nothing – null”. She admitted that she pushed him to get married and he eventually agreed because she got pregnant.

Her mother testified that her daughter was afraid of her father because he might commit the same abuse on her.

“It was highly traumatic for her and she just wanted to leave home.”

Sometime later, her husband admitted the abuse and committed suicide, “and we found some peace,” the mother said.