Lee Harvey Oswald seems to have physically abused his wife over the bulk of their brief marriage. Oswald met his wife Marina during his attempted defection to the USSR -- they married in April of 1961 and relocated to the United States in the year after that, with some difficulty. Marina and Lee became acquainted with the Russian expatriate community during their time in Fort Worth; however, the young Lee rapidly alienated himself from his new acquaintances due to his bad temper, his political grandstanding, and his poor treatment of his wife. A number of friends from the expat community continued to support the family in various ways, such as gifts of clothing and furniture, but this was largely for the sake of Marina and her young daughter. At their first residence in Fort Worth, a number of people noted that Marina had acquired bruises on her face, including a black eye; she told her friend Anna Meller that she'd walked into a door, but disclosed to her mother-in-law Marguerite and to Russian expat George Bouhe that in fact Lee had struck her.
Mrs. Meller. One of these times we came to Marina house [sic] and husband was still not at home she has a terrible blue spot over her eye and I said to her "What's the matter?" Marina was shy little bit. She's shy little, a little bit in nature, I think, too. She said "I have to get up during night and quiet baby and I hit the door and hit my head here" and it was very blue.
Mr. Liebeler. Around her eye?
Mrs. Meller. Under her eye was and over here [indicating] and it was very noticeable I will say. I said "You have to be careful" but I felt always like girl tried to hide something, you know. She was shy and not very—didn't like to talk too much, I think. That's last time I went; it was on Mercedes Avenue in Fort Worth where they had home.
The couple's disagreements were ongoing, and were exacerbated by the fact that Marina had left the USSR for Lee; the couple once fought over a letter Marina had written to a former boyfriend back in Russia that had been returned for insufficient postage. In November of 1962, Marina and her daughter sought refuge with Meller and at the home of a friend for a few weeks after Marina reported that Lee had been beating her; she and her daughter would reside with women friends several times during periods of separation from Lee, both due to marital difficulties and to financial strains. Reconciliation followed conflict, however, and the couple never divorced or separated on a permanent basis.
In early 1963, the Oswalds had befriended Ruth Paine, a Russian-speaking American Quaker they'd met through a mutual friend. Marina and Lee's marriage was now under additional strain due to Lee's political activities, including his preparations to assassinate General Edwin Walker. Paine had acted as a support for the couple through the spring and summer of 1963, but her sympathies too were principally with Marina; in April, when Lee left for New Orleans to find work, Marina and her daughter moved in with Ruth at her home in Irving, Texas for two weeks. After the couple relocated to Louisiana, Ruth continued corresponding with Marina in Russian. She seems to have found the contents of Marina's letters troubling -- in addition to descriptions of marital unhappiness and the belief that her husband no longer loved her, Marina alluded to Lee's desire for her to return to the USSR against her own wishes. Ruth reached out to the Quaker and Unitarian communities in New Orleans to assist the couple, but to little effect, in addition to suggesting that Marina and June could move back in with her and her children again at the house in Irving.
Marina testified, however, that after they had been in New Orleans for a while, Oswald became depressed and that she once found him alone in the dark crying. She wrote to Ruth Paine that his "love" had ceased soon after Mrs. Paine had left New Orleans. Mrs. Paine testified, however, that she had noticed friction between the Oswalds before she left. On July 11, Mrs. Paine wrote Marina that if Oswald did not wish to live with her any more and preferred that she return to the Soviet Union, she could live at the Paines' house. Although Mrs. Paine had long entertained this idea, this was the first time she explicitly made the invitation. She renewed the invitation on July 12, and again on July 14; she attempted to overcome any feeling which Marina might have that she would be a burden by stating that Marina could help with the housework and help her learn Russian, and that she would also provide a tax advantage.
In September, Marina and her daughter split from Lee and moved in with Paine again; in October, Lee reappeared in Irving, stating that he'd been looking for work in Houston. (He had, in fact, spent the intervening time in Mexico applying for a Cuban visa, for which he was denied.) Lee rented a room, visiting with his wife and children on weekends and with Ruth's help eventually securing a minimum-wage job at the Texas School Book Depository.
Lee's behaviors up until that point certainly don't suggest a happy marriage -- his desire for financial control in household matters, his resistance to Marina learning English, the couple's arguments, his objections to her homemaking abilities, his criticisms of her desire for "bourgeois" material goods, the prospect of Lee defecting to Cuba or Marina returning to the USSR, frequent separations, discussion of divorce. Ruth knew that the Oswalds were struggling, financially and emotionally, and that the two often quarreled. Did she know of any physical violence between the two? I'm not sure. She was aware of Lee's temper and potential for violence; she wasn't aware that Oswald owned a gun, or that he had kept the gun under her roof. Her opinion of Oswald seems to have improved during this last phase of the family's situation (that is, just before the assassination of Kennedy) as his renewed employment seemed to promise stability and a renewed commitment to a shared life with Marina and the children. This was not the case.