South Australian senator Lucy Gichuhi says becoming a public figure meant she had to share her history of trauma and violence.
"Being a public figure and being a voiceless wife or woman, they don't go together, and I have that responsibility," she told Sky News on Tuesday.
The Liberal senator last month released a book, Behind the Smile, detailing her reaction to infidelity and domestic violence during her life.
It also shares other elements of her journey to the upper house of parliament in 2017, beginning from her upbringing on the slopes of Mount Kenya.
Some of the contents of the book have been disputed by her husband in News Corp reports.
Senator Gichuhi says she has accepted that her book may strain her marriage but that she felt compelled to share her experiences after entering the limelight.
"I tell my pain the way it happened so that we can address this epidemic of domestic violence," she told the Bolt Report.
"For all those people looking up to us, I had to tell my story and if that is going to cost me my relationship, my marriage, so be it. It's a price I've looked at and a price I will have to pay."
But the senator says Australians will have to wait to read about her experiences in parliament, including her allegations of bullying during the leadership spill that toppled Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister.
"That is in the next book," she said.
The senator joined the Liberals in February 2017 after entering parliament as an independent to replace disqualified Family First senator Bob Day.
But she was relegated to an unwinnable position on the Liberals' ticket for the next election six months later, all but confirming her exit from parliament.
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