Ancuta, a young girl barely 18, met Lucian in October 2003, through Mirc, the first social network, very popular in the early 2000s. In 2005, on the day of the police school graduation ceremony in Campina, the future husband, along with his father, made sure she was assigned to Ialomițta County and took her with them, without letting her go home. Everything happened so quickly that the young woman didn’t have time to realize what was happening to her.

In 2006 they got married, and although she mentioned that she did not want to live together with her parents, she believed when she was told that his parents would move to their grandparents’ house.

At first, everything was fine, and to strengthen their family, they decided to have a child. In December 2008, near her birthday, their daughter was born, a cause for great joy. Ancuta went on maternity leave and dedicated the first two years to caring for and raising their daughter. Even before Marina’s birth, Ancuta enrolled in college, attending part-time courses.

Ancuta noted and immortalized the most important moments since her daughter, Marina, was in her belly. Marina easily and well integrated into both kindergarten and school, being a very well-behaved child.

Around the same time, her mother-in-law, a former lab assistant, retired due to illness. She didn’t give many explanations about her condition, only implying that it might be a thyroid gland disorder. Later, Ancuta learned, also from her mother-in-law, about several episodes of depression she had suffered in her youth, the real reason for her retirement.

Her father-in-law, also retired, consumed alcoholic beverages and became verbally aggressive, swearing loudly at everyone, from priests, policemen, to passers-by.

The quarrels between the mother-in-law determined almost daily arguments between Ancuta and her father-in-law. These arguments escalated to the point where her father-in-law would disappear from home for a few days. Often, with no one knowing where he was, her mother-in-law was forced to call the police. They either found him in his workplace accommodation or picked him up drunk from the edge of the village. To prevent him from reacting, when she wanted to scold him, she would go to his workplace and nag him until she received confirmation that it wouldn’t happen again. Even in these circumstances, such episodes occurred at least monthly.

The mother-in-law went so far as to file for divorce when Lucian was 20, but she changed her mind when her lawyer warned her that as a result of the partition action, she would have to compensate her husband for the time spent together.

In times of maximum tension, the mother-in-law deprived her father-in-law of the right to see his son, forcing him to ask the neighbors when Lucian went out to play so he could come and see him.

Furthermore, the mother-in-law had a restrictive attitude towards her father-in-law, never leaving him any money within reach, and rationing out cigarettes, claiming that if she left him the money, he wouldn’t stop until he had drunk them all.

Lucian’s grandmother also lived in the house. She also always had something to say to everyone in the house, constantly reminding them of her life experience.

After Ancuta resumed her job, her mother-in-law agreed to take care of the child while she was at work.

Gradually, Ancuta began to become more aware of her mother-in-law’s control over her son. All the plans agreed upon with Lucian were changed or canceled by her mother-in-law for various reasons.

Her husband consulted his mother on all matters. Their social life consisted only of occasional visits to a few of Lucian’s relatives. Any attempt at socializing with the families of Marina’s schoolmates was thwarted by her mother-in-law.
In order to avoid arguments, Ancuta had to accept this situation. However, her lack of reaction caused unjustified demands and abuses from her mother-in-law and husband to increase, making the situation increasingly difficult. If she bought something for Marina, she was scolded, reproaching her for not buying something bigger that she could use the following year. The same went for toys, no matter what she did, nothing was pleasing to the mother-in-law and son duo.
The pressure from the others in the house was so great that Ancuta found it increasingly difficult to know whether what she was doing was right or not.

Slowly, it became increasingly clear that the man she married was in a relationship of total subordination to his mother. Although initially he promised Ancuta that he would help her adapt and integrate into the new family, he did nothing to protect her from the psychological abuse she was subjected to by her mother-in-law.
His dependence on his mother also emerged from an episode from his youth that Lucian shared with his wife. According to him, during high school in Bucharest, he suffered from depression due to the inability to adapt to life away from his parents, an episode that made him wish to end his life by jumping from a height. In the end, he gave up this plan of suicide.

In 2010, Ancuta’s husband underwent eye surgery, intended to help him avoid wearing glasses. Although the costs of this intervention were around 10,000 euros, being a health matter, Ancuta unconditionally supported him.
Postoperative medical recommendations required him to avoid exertion, stay away from dust, not to bend suddenly, etc. The corneal readjustment was supposed to occur gradually over the course of two years.
Although a year after the surgery everything was going well, a visit to Dr. Monica Pop, for the reimbursement of the surgery, left Lucian, according to what the doctor said, believing that the operation performed in Hungary would leave him blind. This information triggered a new episode of depression.
Ancuta tried to encourage him and convince him to wait for the two years to pass in order to fully evaluate the results of the surgery, especially since his vision was improving and certainly not progressing towards blindness.
To overcome the depression, he consulted a doctor, followed a treatment, and gradually, as his vision improved, apparently recovered from the depressive state.

In 2013, the Ostapiuc family decided to build a new house. The mother-in-law made sure that the new construction was attached to the old house and transferred the ownership of the house to her name.

Ancuta contributed to the construction with money received from her mother. Before her death, her mother wanted to see Ancuta settled in her house so that her brother could peacefully inherit the house in Campina.
As the money was far from sufficient, Ancuta was forced to borrow from her mother-in-law’s godmother. The only condition was that the 10,000 euros would be returned when her own children started work on their house. At one point, this happened, and since her husband was unemployed in the same year, 2013, Ancuta had to take out a loan from the bank in her name. From then until now, she has been paying a monthly installment of 900 lei from her neighborhood police officer salary, even though she hasn’t lived in the house she substantially contributed to building since October 2017.
For 3 years, her husband couldn’t find work, trying to justify his situation by coordinating the construction site. After the separation, work on the house was halted.

Half of Ancuța’s salary remained the main source of income. Initially, although forced to justify every penny, Ancuța would sometimes forget small expenses. The monstrous scandals she endured compelled her to note every sum spent, keep the receipts, and demand the change down to the last cent.
She was entitled to 1 leu per day for a coffee. To ensure that neither her daughter nor her family lacked anything, she had come to eat only bread with zacusca.
Every step of hers was monitored, and she had to be accountable for every second from the end of her shift until she entered the courtyard.
Blamed for everything going wrong, Ancuta’s self-confidence was completely shattered. Starting in 2015, she became both literally and figuratively a shadow.

Psychological violence against Ancuta included verbal abuse and psychological manipulation, intimidation, and constant blaming. Ancuta’s ideas were never recognized or accepted, and she had no right to make any decisions. She was always told what to do, her husband, although unemployed, doing nothing around the house. Any household chores were beneath his dignity as a man, citing the same paternal behavior.

In this situation, psychological violence, given the particular relationship between her husband and his mother, came more from the mother-in-law than from the husband. Her threats and commands established dominance over Ancuta.

Ancuta’s mother had noticed these irregularities in behavior from her in-laws and her son-in-law, but Ancuta would always find excuses or explanations. Ancuța tried to protect her mother and shield her from worries, as she was terminally ill with cancer.

Although haunted, Ancuta didn’t let anyone close to her even suspect the nightmare she was going through.
That is until, confronted by one of her husband’s relatives, she was forced to reveal what was happening to her.
Following a quarrel, Ancuta was forbidden to talk to Carmen.
Intrigued by Ancuta’s sudden silence, Carmen began to inquire about her situation, and to her surprise, she found out more than she expected.
From that moment on, having been through a similar experience, Carmen and her husband Vasile mobilized all their friends and other relatives and despite being blood relatives with Ancuta’s mother-in-law, they decided to help her.
A neighbor in the village provided them with an old house, and they renovated the bathroom and kitchen, providing running water so that Ancuța and her daughter could have the best conditions.

On October 13, 2017, she informed her husband and moved to the new house. They only allowed her to take her uniform. All her personal clothing items are still at her husband’s house. Various kind-hearted people from the village and their friends brought her everything she needed, from clothing to pots and curtains. Someone even provided her with a car.
She took her daughter with her, but due to the abuse she had suffered and Marina’s request to sleep in her own bed at home, Anca relented and brought Marina back, intending to take her the next day.
From then until now, she can hardly manage to see her daughter, and that’s only with the help of the bailiff.
Not even a month after moving, one night, while Ancuta was sleeping at Carmen’s, a fire mysteriously broke out, engulfing the newly renovated house. Experts found that the fire was deliberately set, but no culprit was found, although she pointed out her husband’s father as a possible suspect.

Left once again with nothing, Carmen and Vasile took her into their home. Here they even set up a room for the daughter.

Regarding her daughter, after the separation, her relationship with Ancuta was subjected to criminal attacks by the mother-in-law. Even during the relationship, she tried to distance the girl from her mother, emotionally blackmailing her, subtly manipulating her, and sometimes attacking Ancuta openly. There were not a few cases when the mother-in-law told Marina that her mother left her in her grandmother’s care when she was born, to go to college (see above – part-time courses started while pregnant). Even before the separation, the girl was told that if her mother left, she had to stay home, where she was born, near them, near her sick father, whom she must not leave alone and whom she must take care of.
After October 2017, Marina is only spoken to badly about her mother, upon whom all the negative feelings nurtured by her grandparents are projected.

Through behavior bordering on profound imbalance, Ancuta’s former family is unable to distinguish between a divorce between two mature people and their relationship with their own child.

Throughout this period, her husband had only two notable reactions. The first reaction was in 2015 when Ancuța caught him napping, with his phone in hand, engaging in mature but inappropriate conversations with various women.
The second reaction occurred in 2016 and 2017 when, having access to the detailed bill, he searched through Ancuta’s call list and called her childhood friends, asking them not to talk to her anymore because they negatively influenced her. He even made advances to one of them. As they were not victims of an abusive relationship, they rebuffed him, to the point of not wanting to see him.
Apart from these two episodes and almost constant depression, Ancuta’s husband is practically nonexistent, although he should be one of the three protagonists of this dramatic story.

Although the court decided that Ancuta should be brought her child for visits, neither the bailiff nor the social welfare assistants can convince Marina to accept to visit her mother. Coming with the lesson learned from her grandparents, the girl only repeats, ‘I don’t want to, and you can’t force me.’ Only the fear of financial sanctions makes the girl’s father accept, starting in August 2018, to go out in public with the girl and invite Ancuța as well. Child protection workers helplessly witness both the girl’s alienation from her mother by her paternal grandparents and the violation of all recommendations for the girl’s psychological counseling, recommendations that the father ignores or postpones without hindrance.

Due to an unfavorable circumstance (lack of staff) but also because of the delays imposed by the lawyers of the opposing party, the divorce process is about to turn one year old.
As a mother, when you have your child by your side, you have the strength to endure even a torturous divorce, just as you endured a torturous life alongside an absent husband and an abusive mother-in-law.

Without her child, in a torturous waiting state, after an abusive relationship, Ancuta’s life is torture.