Tutasi Tanuvasa is standing by the man convicted of trying to kill her.
Her partner, Meke Petelo Lafaele, aged 51, was found guilty by a jury in the High Court at Auckland this week of attempting to murder her.
He was remanded by Justice Tony Randerson for sentencing next February.
Mrs Tanuvasa, a 50-year-old airport cleaner from Mangere who received stab wounds to her abdomen and neck, hugged and kissed Lafaele in the dock when she was called as a witness for the defence.
She told the jury of violence she had meted out to Lafaele during a relationship characterised as "volatile" by crown prosecutor Mark Treleaven.
The stabbing took place during a drunken incident at Lafaele's Otara home on April 24.
The injured woman gave evidence for the defence of assaults she had previously made on Lafaele.
Defence counsel Lorraine Smith told the jury that when Mrs Tanuvasa was in a bad mood and had been drinking, she "tends to go overboard a bit."
Her violent assaults included smashing a whisky bottle over Lafaele's head, cutting a vein in his arm as he slept, attempting to smash a chair over his head and splitting a table he was sitting at with a large knife.
After a few drinks on Easter Monday, Mrs Smith said, Mrs Tanuvasa told Lafaele that she loved someone else and was only using him for his money.
"Lafaele decided to show his hot-tempered lover that he was a real man and not a pathetic shadow of one whom she could beat up when she felt in the mood," Mrs Smith told the jury.
She said he got a kitchen knife to give Mrs Tanuvasa a fright, but a struggle developed and she was stabbed.
Mr Treleaven told the court it was a deliberate attempt to kill, but Mrs Smith said that murder never crossed Lafaele's mind.
Stabbing victim stands by her man in volatile affair
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.