Edna O’Brien

She wears the trousers now and has mastery over the pig of a man to whom she has been married for twenty-five years. Deciding to do catering for the factory and for private parties has brought her independence, that and a stint on saturday morning doing the altar in the chapel. She holds the chequebook, pays the television rent, pays the licence fee and hides that remote so that he can no longer flick the channels. Their battles have ceased.
[...] A sort of truce after many bitter years of rowing, the earlier years when he struck her, the later ones when he raised his fist and longed to strike her, culminating in an atmosphere of glares.
[...] Gone the time when she cowered, dreaded his key in the door, at night, drunk, banging things, threatening to kill her, all that is past now and there is a truce, a hating truce.