'He held the manuscript hostage.' J. K. Rowling has spoken for the first time about her abusive marriage.

For years, J. K. Rowling never spoke about her first marriage.

This week on The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling podcast, the Harry Potter author opened up about what she went through with her first husband, and how she managed to escape. 

At the age of 25 in 1991, Rowling broke up with her boyfriend, quit her job, and decided to move abroad to Portugal, where she worked as a teacher. While there she met Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese TV presenter.

"I'd been there six months maybe, in a bar with my friends, good-looking guy told me he was a journalist and we began dating. It was okay. I had lost my moorings, and I was drifting along in something that wasn't perfect, but it was good to be wanted," Rowling said on the podcast.

But along the way, things took a serious turn. 

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The pair decided to move in together, and later fell pregnant, which Rowling said was a surprise to them. However, they experienced a miscarriage, Rowling saying it was "traumatic emotionally and physically".

Rowling said it was after this point that she began to experience "huge pressure" to get married from Arantes, so they went through with a wedding and then fell pregnant again. They welcomed their daughter Jessica in 1993.

Soon after, Rowling alleges that Arantes became abusive towards her.

"The situation was a bad situation but until you actually go through it, you don't know what you would choose to do. I left him twice before I left him for good. The marriage at this point has turned very violent and very controlling. At this point he's searching my handbag every time I come home and I haven't got a key to my own front door because he's got to control the front door."

Rowling said that she felt as though her husband "wasn't stupid" and knew that she wanted to try and leave again. 

"It was a horrible state of tension to live in, because you have to act. And I don't think I'm a very good actor. I don't have a very good poker face."

She said it "was a terrible way to live". At this time, J. K. Rowling was writing her first Harry Potter book and said her then husband threatened to destroy her work.

"He knew what that manuscript meant to me because at a point he took the manuscript and hid it. He held it hostage. When I realised that I was definitely going [to leave my husband] I would take a few pages of the manuscript into work every day so he wouldn't realise anything was missing. I would photocopy it. I suspected that if I wasn't able to get out with everything, he would burn it, take it, or hold it hostage. That was the thing that I prioritised saving, along with my daughter."

Rowling said for her personally, the push to leave her husband was to "protect Jessica", saying "she is not going to grow up and think this is normal or okay". She also alleged that her husband threatened to hide their daughter from Rowling.

"I put up a fight. I paid the price. There was a very loud and violent scene which terminated with me lying in the street and then I thought, well I'm going to the police. It was clear I had just been beaten up. The next day I went back to the house with the police and got Jessica back."

The relationship ended in 1993, soon after Jessica was born. What followed next was organising how to leave Portugal with her daughter and go back to the UK, specifically her sister's home in Scotland. But they managed it and moved to Edinburgh. 

Rowling said that although her first marriage was traumatic, she is thankful to have her daughter Jessica from it. Her daughter now uses her mum's last name, and is reported to not have had contact with her father since they left Portugal.

"It showed me that even though I was a mess, I had this daughter that I loved beyond anything in my life. It was unlike anything I had experienced before and that was so powerful."

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Feature Image: Getty.