I’m writing this from personal experience unfortunately. If your husband slaps or kicks you once, even for something small, especially for something small, he will do it again. No matter how much he promises and claims he’s sorry and will never do it again. He definitely will!
I received mine when I was doing sajda, in front of Allah, because his mother was fighting with my mother (both sisters) about why I wasn’t pregnant yet, I wasn’t even married a complete year and the first half year of the marriage I remained living in Holland to finish my last year at lab school as was promised to me before the wedding and he remained in France where his parents live and he had his job (now dvd/games shops). So of course we weren’t together often, so of course I wasn’t pregnant yet. It was 1996, my parents visited from Holland, just for a few hours. By then I had given up school and driving lessons for Sajjad and his parents and moved to France without diploma nor driving lesson, just to make their fighting stop and make them happy. And there the arguments came, his mother always argued about something ridicilous and unlogical and out of selfishness, apparently she instilled these values of her in her son. So while our mothers were fighting, I was sad and went upstairs and did two raka’t nafl to ask Allah for help, Sajjad came upstairs, saw me praying in our bedroom and kicked me on my bottom while I was still doing sajda in front of Allah! He had his heavy boots on and that really hurt.
Just 2-3 months later I was pregnant, because since I had given up school for him in my final year and my driving lessons for him too, I was living with him now in France, naturally I was pregnant quickly… His parents were fighting for no logical reason at all…
The physical and mental abuse never stopped. Many times Sajjad and his parents had said, they were sorry and it wouldn’t happen again. Even our Uncle claimed many times Sajjad would treat me better from now on and then he never did, o afterwards he was nice for say a few days, once even a few weeks, but then it all began again.
When your husbands beats you up once, do not believe his lies that he will never do it again. No matter if he swears by Quran and Allah. He will definitely beat you up again. Divorce him, it’s your Islamic right, if your husband beats you up, Allah does not forbid you to leave him and marry someone else.
I’m no longer with Sajjad, in 2004 I was finally separated Islamically from him (in my opinion it was sooner, but my family disagrees, there are many different Islamic ways to divorce, I have a different opinion from my family), yet our European divorce was sooner, but that one doesn’t really count for you nikkahnama. Read books about what you’re allowed to do, read books about your haq as a Muslim wife. Do your own research in Quran and ahadith and you’ll find out that no matter what other people say, you can always divorce an abusing husband.
There are even ahadith from people who divorced while there was no abuse, in one case the husband wasn’t providing enough income for a decent living and I read about another case where they were just unhappy. Mohammed (saww) allowed them to divorce and sometimes even gave them advice on their second marriage. So it’s not forbidden.
Of course we must keep in mind that divorce is only last option when nothing else helps.