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China Elevator Stories
Surviving Domestic Violence: My Chinese Ex-husband’s Death Threats
My ex-husband repeatedly threatened to kill me or have me killed if he ever found me with another man or if I ever left him.
30/01/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
The following were threatening statements he repeatedly made:
- “If you ever leave me, you are dead.” (repeated multiple times)
- “If you ever try to divorce me, I will make sure you don’t live to see it.”
- “If you leave me and our children, I will have you killed.” (Then separating me from my children forever so I would never see them again.)
- “If you ever do that again, I will do something bad to you.” (frequently)
The following occurrences were situations in which he threatened or intimidated me:
In 2013, on the anniversary of when we first met, I attended a meeting of the Shenzhen Writers Circle while pregnant with my older son. I was a regular participant in this group, which met 2-4 times a month in the evening at a café in Shenzhen. The members—mostly expat writers—gathered to exchange feedback on each other’s work in an informal setting.
A few days prior, my former husband and I had already celebrated our anniversary with a dinner together. Before heading to the meeting, I specifically asked him if he was okay with me attending, and he assured me that he had no objections. That evening, I joined the group as planned. When I returned home about three hours later, he was sitting at his computer, working as a freelancer, just as he often did. Without warning, he turned to me and said, “If you ever do that again, I will make sure you are dead.”
After my older son was born in 2014, my former husband entered into a business collaboration with my brother in which my father was occasionally involved. However, issues arose and my ex-husband had a falling out with my father. One day, my ex-husband told me that he would take revenge on my father forever, that my older son and I would be forced to stay in Siping with him and his parents permanently, and that I no longer had a family—his family was now my only family. He further declared that my older son and I would never be allowed to travel to Austria again, nor was I permitted to contact or visit my father. His words were chilling: “If you ever try to contact your father again, I will make sure you are dead.”
After our children were born, my former husband’s mother frequently took them away from me and regularly interfered in our marriage. She would visit at all hours, ignoring my privacy and undermining my role as a mother. Often, her husband accompanied her. When they were in our home, I had no voice—they silenced me completely. I wasn’t allowed to express opinions, show affection to my children, or even speak to them. If I did, my former mother-in-law would immediately take them away from me.
I repeatedly asked my former husband to set boundaries with his parents (because they didn’t listen to me when I did), but he refused. Instead, he would respond with a disturbing remark: “Then I guess I’ll have to kill my parents.” He used this phrase repeatedly as a threat—designed to keep me silent, to force me to accept every intrusion from his parents without resistance, and to instill fear in me. This pattern of intimidation occurred frequently between 2016 and 2018.
In 2016, while I was pregnant with my younger son, my former husband suddenly demanded that I handle all issues with his mother myself. Unlike in the past, he refused to intervene, even though he was the only one she would listen to. Since she disregarded anything I said, I had no way to resolve the ongoing conflict.
There were also repeated instances in which my former husband threatened me regarding other men. He told me, “If I ever find out that you’re with another man, I will kill you.”
Whenever I confronted him about how unacceptable his words were—regardless of whether he truly meant them or not—he would sometimes laugh at me and act as if it were a joke. However, the way he spoke made it clear that he was serious. His threats were not empty; they were calculated to instill fear. I believe he wanted to intimidate me to the point where I would never dare to leave him, no matter how badly he treated me. He also wanted to ensure that I wouldn’t seek help from anyone—neither family nor friends—because if I did, I had to fear that he would follow through on his threats and kill me.
Have you ever received death threats?