However, by the time their third child was born in 2004, he was not only back to his drunken ways, but had also become abusive and lost his job as well.
In late 2006, she saw him dripping hot wax on their third, and at that time youngest, child - a 2 1/2-year-old daughter - because the girl had wet herself. He also clipped the girl's nipples with a clothes peg for up to 45 minutes and then tied her legs, and later her hands, together with his wife's nightgown.
Last week, her husband was sentenced to one year in jail for ill-treating the child.
The parents' identities cannot be revealed in order to protect their children.
During their marriage, he would also bring his friends back to the family's three-room flat in Clementi to drink. He fed them food meant for his four children and made the kids run errands such as buying snacks and drinks for the group.
Even then, the housewife, now 28, did not report her 36-year-old husband to the police, thinking all the while that she would be able to 'change' him.
'I just ignored his behaviour. The children were still young and, at least, they had a father at home,' she told The Straits Times.
Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.
