When Resh­ma Kan­chan was vi­o­lent­ly mur­dered by her abu­sive ex-lover on Tues­day morn­ing, her death once more start­ed con­ver­sa­tions about do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in T&T.

Resh­ma, a di­vorcee and moth­er of two, had moved back in­to her moth­er's home and got a job, try­ing to pro­vide for her young daugh­ters. But de­spite her ef­forts, she was not al­lowed to move on in peace. She was con­stant­ly at­tacked, of­ten phys­i­cal­ly, at her moth­er's home.

But her sto­ry is not unique.

Every time a woman is killed by an abu­sive part­ner, those who have sur­vived abu­sive re­la­tion­ships speak out, shar­ing their sto­ries and ad­vice to save an­oth­er woman from a death sen­tence.

At­tor­ney Kan­dace Bharath-Na­hous is one such sur­vivor.

Her calm de­meanour and gen­tle laugh­ter be­lie the tor­ture she en­dured at the hands of an abu­sive boyfriend when the two be­gan dat­ing in 2013.

Bharath-Na­hous was a young at­tor­ney out with friends when she met a man she had known be­fore. The two hit it off that night and by the next day, she said, the man was pro­fess­ing his love for her.

"He bombed me with love, we limed the night and by the time we met up the next day, he told me he loved me. I didn't love him but I said it back be­cause I didn't know what else to say. By the next day we were ba­si­cal­ly in a re­la­tion­ship," she said.

She was 27 at the time and the man was sev­en years her se­nior.

The man was "self-em­ployed", she said, which meant he did odd jobs in com­put­er pro­gram­ming. He man­aged an apart­ment com­plex for a rel­a­tive and lived in one of the apart­ments. She was rent­ing an apart­ment in Barataria at the time. Bharath-Na­hous lat­er found out that the man drank a lot and would spend most of his days in var­i­ous bars across the coun­try.

He had no ve­hi­cle and the young at­tor­ney said she was hap­py to lend him her car so he could move around while she was at work.

She said he would drop her to work and any oth­er place she need­ed to be dai­ly. He would al­so pick her back up.

With­in sev­er­al weeks, she was spend­ing more time at his apart­ment than at hers. Ea­ger to sup­port him, she pur­chased a desk and a chair so he could work from home.

'I felt I could fix him'

Bharath-Na­hous said ear­ly on in the re­la­tion­ship, there were sev­er­al red flags with the man's be­hav­iour but she felt as though she could "fix" him.

"There were small out­bursts of ag­gres­sion with­in the first six weeks of the re­la­tion­ship, times when he would just go off on me but when it would hap­pen, I would try to fig­ure out what was mak­ing him lash out, what was mak­ing him an­gry. I thought if we could re­solve those is­sues, we would be fine."

But his anger con­tin­ued to wors­en and soon, he would keep her up all night, curs­ing and be­rat­ing her. She would of­ten beg him to stop, telling him she was due to at­tend court the next morn­ing.

"He would tell me that my job meant more to me than our re­la­tion­ship. I would not an­swer him or say any­thing back be­cause I was not used to that kind of treat­ment."

She would of­ten leave his apart­ment in the wee hours of the morn­ing and go to her apart­ment so she could get some sleep be­fore work.

De­spite the warn­ing signs and her fam­i­ly's ap­pre­hen­sion about her new re­la­tion­ship, with­in the first six months the cou­ple de­cid­ed she should give up her apart­ment and move in with him.

Up un­til that point, the abuse was ver­bal. But that changed one day when the two were at the su­per­mar­ket to­geth­er and she met a for­mer high school teacher.

"I said hel­lo and we spoke for a minute, I didn't in­tro­duce him...I felt the in­tro­duc­tion was un­nec­es­sary. He didn't say any­thing in the su­per­mar­ket but by the time we got to the car, he start­ed scream­ing curs­es at me, telling me I was man­ner­less and rude for not in­tro­duc­ing him."

Her ex­pla­na­tion did noth­ing to calm the sit­u­a­tion and by the time the two got back to the man's apart­ment, he was en­raged, throw­ing things and curs­ing, all the while drink­ing scotch as she pre­pared sand­wich­es to take to his rel­a­tive's wake.

When she was done, they set off to his cousin's home, Kan­dace said, with him dri­ving and con­tin­u­ing his tirade. Just be­fore they ar­rived, she said she begged him to for­get the in­ci­dent.

"We got there and he was drink­ing and smok­ing like noth­ing was wrong. I was not feel­ing well and I want­ed to leave but I didn't want to in­ter­rupt his con­ver­sa­tions, so I sat in­side the house while he was talk­ing to a rel­a­tive. Every­one else had al­ready left and I had court the next day but I was just wait­ing on him. Around 1 am, I fi­nal­ly asked if he was ready and he said to let him just fin­ish the last drink and we would leave."

He was drunk, Bharath-Na­hous re­called, but still drove her car. Con­cerned with his reck­less dri­ving, she said she asked him to dri­ve more care­ful­ly.

"He just pulled the car over, got out, walked over to my side and cuffed me di­rect­ly in my face."

With blood stream­ing down her face, Bharath-Na­hous said she got out of her car and tried walk­ing away. He fol­lowed her, apol­o­gis­ing pro­fuse­ly. She even­tu­al­ly gave in and got back in the car with him.

"When we got to his apart­ment, I asked him to come out and told him I was go­ing home to my place. He kept apol­o­gis­ing and say­ing he want­ed to help me put ice on my face, but he let me leave."

The next day she reached out to him, con­cerned about how he was cop­ing with his cousin's death. They at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al to­geth­er, but Bharath-Na­hous said her mind kept go­ing back to the sud­den at­tack.

"By the week­end I told him I need­ed some space and he asked, 'Why? You were the one who lunged at me, I was just de­fend­ing my­self.' "

Af­ter a few days, she went back to him.

"From that point, our fights be­came much more volatile, he knew he had hit and I had come back, so he did not hold back. He used to slap me across my face, hold me by my shoul­ders and slam me in­to walls, door­post, he was throw­ing things, break­ing things...it was very bad."

She hid her bruis­es and the true ex­tent of her abuse from every­one in her life and of­ten made up poor ex­cus­es to ac­count for bruis­es on her face that she couldn't hide.

The pair broke up at least once a month but each time, she would take him back. Then af­ter about a year and a half of the hell­ish re­la­tion­ship came the break­ing point.

Af­ter yet an­oth­er ar­gu­ment, the man drove her car around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah while scream­ing ob­scen­i­ties at her. She said just as he slowed down around a cor­ner, she opened the car door and dashed off in­to the night, leav­ing her phone, purse and be­long­ings be­hind.

"I hid in the Sa­van­nah for a long time, then I start­ed to walk, look­ing for some­one I could trust to ask for a phone call."

By the time she found a group of strangers, Bharath-Na­hous spot­ted her fa­ther's car dri­ving around the Sa­van­nah.

"He had called my dad and told him I was act­ing crazy, I had jumped out of the car af­ter at­tack­ing him and they should go find me cause I could be get­ting raped and killed by some­one. That night I told my fam­i­ly every­thing, all of what was hap­pen­ing to me."

'Too much pres­sure to make re­la­tion­ships work'

With the truth fi­nal­ly out, she nev­er looked back.

She did try to get some of her be­long­ings back from the man but af­ter a two-year run around, all she got was some cloth­ing.

"I had left every­thing and I want­ed to get back the things my par­ents had gift­ed me, di­a­mond ear­rings from my fa­ther, things like that. I nev­er got them back."

She has moved on with her life and is now hap­pi­ly mar­ried to a man who is "the com­plete op­po­site" of her abu­sive ex-boyfriend.

Al­though she es­caped with her life, Bharath-Na­hous said many oth­er women will die at the hands of their abusers be­cause she be­lieves T&T puts too much pres­sure on women to make re­la­tion­ships work.

"We need to start speak­ing out, abuse is not just for the big bel­ly In­di­an woman, bare­foot with five chil­dren and nowhere to go, it hap­pens to every­one."

She shared a snip­pet of her sto­ry on her so­cial me­dia ac­count last week and said she want­ed those who are still in abu­sive re­la­tion­ships to know that there is no shame in speak­ing out.

"There is no shame in what has hap­pened to you, there is noth­ing for you to be em­bar­rassed about, you can't fix men like these, they don't change, life is too short to not be hap­py and if you stay, life can be so much short­er be­cause some of these re­la­tion­ships end in death for the woman."

She said it is im­por­tant for women and girls to know and recog­nise the signs of abuse: con­trol­ling be­hav­iour, gaslight­ing, pos­ses­sive­ness. Bharath-Na­hous said a man who loves a woman would nev­er abuse her.