Although she got married at an early age, her marriage was short-lived: at the age of 16, Maram got married, but soon found herself divorced just four years after her marriage.
Maram's four years in the marriage nest were full of sadness, distress, and despair, and she was put into a difficult psychological state making her hate life and want to commit suicide.
How was Maram helped and removed from her difficult psychological state and brought back to normal?
The story's roots go back four years ago when a young man came to engage Maram and was married to him involuntarily, for he worked in a bank with a salary of more than 800,000 riyals a month.
Maram tried to accept it and adapt to her new life, but the first year of her marriage did not pass peacefully, it was full of problems, believing that the first year of marriage may always be accompanied by problems.
In the first year of the marriage, Maram did not get pregnant, so her husband accused her of infertility and shouted at her in front of others complaining about his bad luck. She insisted to go to the OB/GYN (gynecologist and obstetrician) against her husband's will. At that time she made sure that she suffered from nothing but infections only, yet he changed the accusation to her, to accusing her of taking birth control pills without his knowledge. He was determined to do so. However, when she became pregnant, he ignored it even though he seemed unwilling to be a father.
The husband continued to harass his wife Maram sending her messages, calling her in strange numbers, and watching her to ascertain what her reaction would be. Although he found nothing, he was looking for something to accuse her with. What made matters worse was that the husband's mother was standing on his side and supporting his ideas.
It went worse to the point that Maram was beaten by her husband, throwing anything in front of him on her (file, book, dish, cup), for trivial reasons such as lack of salt, cutting off his concentration, waking him up, or because she spoke while he was watching TV and other illogical reasons.
Maram continued to suffer silently. When her mother was visiting them, she knew what she had by looking into her eyes, and when she saw bruises in the visible parts of her body. Maram's mother advised her to obey her husband, not to be stubborn, and to avoid divorce because she became the mother of a child and pregnant with the other. Maram was confused about all of it, and she wondered if she was the culprit? And what did she make wrong? Or is she right and everyone else is wrong?!
One day the whole family went on a trip to Aden; although he did not want to take her with them on the grounds that she was pregnant, she insisted thinking that she might be less stressed. Her grandmother - her father's mother-, went with them, and she saw how bad her granddaughter was treated by everyone. For example, the husband asked her to take off the burqa (face veil), and when she refused, he took it off by force. The next day she did not wear the burqa so as not to repeat the tragedy of yesterday, and also to be like his sister, but when he saw her without the face veil, he went crazy and beat her, accused her of "al-Tabaroj" wearing makeup. Then he asked everyone to prepare for a return to Sana'a.
When the grandmother saw everything that happened, she told her granddaughter that she was enchanted and that she was suffering from the black eye. She gave Maram a necklace with a paper with no clear words on it. Despite Maram's rejection of this thing, the grandmother insisted on it believing that it is useful for her and her husband and in order to end the magic. The girl agreed and took it from her just to make the grandmother satisfied and wore it. One day she put it in the closet to enter the bathroom and forgot it. A few days later the husband saw that necklace, and he got mad and accused her of doing magic for him. He became crueler than before, so she tried to justify it, but that did not work.
At that time, Maram gave birth to her second child, and she remained in the hospital for a week, and when she returned home, her parents visited her and gave her gifts and all the juices and other things offered to the newly delivered mother.
He did not like it, especially after he confirmed that she was charming him, so he took what they gave her out of the house and continued to threaten her with divorce. In the end, he asked her parents to come and take her alone without her baby, although the custody is for her, especially since the girl is still a baby and not older than a month old. She was severely hurt.
Maram's condition worsened when women came to her to try to find out the cause of the problem with her husband because they thought they were the happiest couple.
The husband's accusations of Maram evolved until she was accused of witchcraft, theft, and having relationships with other people.
Maram found herself alone after being blamed by everyone. They thought she is the one who was creating problems to break up with him because she married him forcibly.
Helping the Case
Only crying was her way she used every day to relieve her pain, sadness, and suffering until she knew about the hotline service. She called 136 and was answered by a specialist. After they listened to her condition, she was asked to come to the Foundation, but she refused fearing of her social status, reputation and in order not to be said that she is really crazy and make the words of her husband true. Thus, in the beginning, she was communicated with only through the hotline.
The psychologist through the hotline raised her morale, listened to her, tried to raise her hope, and tried to convince her of the need to take medications in order to improve her sleeping and the state of convulsion and nervousness that she was suffering from. She came to the FCDF and met the psychiatrist and started to take treatment with the consideration that she was wet nursing.
Social Intervention
The focus was initially on discussing the issue of the custody of her children, especially her youngest child, as this topic is of the most important to her at least for the time being. So, solutions have been found, including social as well as legal intervention. Because the parents refused to talk to their daughter's husband for what he did, the treatment has sat down with the family of the survivor and talked to them about the importance of their support for their daughter, the need to demand the rights of her, and the need to stand with her in order to take custody especially for the newborn. One of the solutions discussed was to introduce mediators between them in a friendly and social way firstly. If this solution was useless, then the law would be used, and a lawyer would be hired for this case if necessary.
After the social intervention, the child returned to the survivor, but the husband gave her only two months to take the baby from her permanently. As for her 7-year-old son, the husband refused to bring him to visit his mother, so legal intervention was necessary and hire a lawyer, who in turn managed to take custody of the new-born child and the son to the mother. This made the survivor feel comfortable, confident and victorious.
During the second month, the survivor heard that her husband wants to get married. He got engaged indeed, and she went crazy. It was considered an insult to her, especially since he chose a woman older and less beautiful than her. Therefore, the survivor was helped to modify her wrong thoughts that affected her mood and behavior, and she became aware that there is a problem in amplifying things and that the problem may not be in events but in her interpretation of events.
Because the survivor became degraded to many things, including caring for herself and others, they interfered behaviorally with the schedule of activities in order to make her return to doing the behaviors she used to practice. The necessary, pleasant and routine behaviors were identified. Indeed Maram began to go back to these behaviors, and she started to feel better. She felt that she had returned to the life she had before.
The survivor was also taught some skills such as some (social skills and assertiveness) as well as she was taught problem-solving skills.
In addition, the specialists sat with the survivor's son, as he was suffering from involuntary urination and nightmares as a result of problems between his parents, depriving him of his mother, and being threatened that he would never see his mather. Psychological and behavioral sessions for him were held. The mother was taught how to help him overcome his distress. It was clarified how important to not make fun of him and she was advised to reduce giving him fluids, waking him up more than once, and other procedures.
The survivor became better, especially after she changed her mind and changed the thoughts of revenge by abusing him to make him regret. She became better by focusing on the positives she possessed and by developing herself. Thus, it would be an act of revenge form him.
Maram realized that she was a victim and that she was not responsible for what happened to her. She is more self-confident and more capable of coping with problems. Even when she got the divorce paper, she didn't break down as she thought; it was actually a celebration for her.
She simply claimed her right to custody and maintenance through going to court, and she did.
She also realized how important it was for her to have a good relationship with her ex-husband for her children, and the importance of not mentioning or cursing their father.
She was then motivated to complete her high school studies. And now she has entered university to study English.
Maram became ambitious, and her social relationships expanded until she herself started encouraging others to endure and hold out, and she positively protected them.
In doing so, Maram was able to face her fear of the future, and she was able to observe her thoughts and replace them with more positive thoughts.