Abusive boyfriends beget abusive husbands

By Ivy Chibanda

It’s around 7pm and I am walking with my friend to the nearby campus, I hear a girl crying and I look ahead, there she is, screaming and crying, the guy is pulling her and trying to calm her. I try to ignore but guilt hits me, I am a woman, I should help my fellow woman.

We gang up with my two other friends and decide to go assist the lady (with fear of being slapped by the guy), we manage to take the girl and one of my friend shouts to the guy who seems not to care, “You are going to defer, no one hits another at this campus.”

Maybe because of fear of deferring since he’s in his last semester, he turns back and tries to talk some sense into the girl so that she doesn’t report him to the authorities. But already we are fuming and we are about to shout to the campus police to come and help us, unfortunately, the victim really wants to save the boyfriend, and pleads to us not to report him, we comply. The guy tries to force the girl to give him a chance to speak to him but she refuses, and we take her away.

She narrates her ordeal and really there wasn’t reason for him to slap her. Apparently, she was texting her mum and he needed attention so because the girl decided to keep texting her mother (who pays her school fees) and tells the boyfriend (who does not pay her fees) to wait a moment she just needs to finish off the conversation with her mum, the guy is intimidated and decides to slap her twice because she isn’t respecting him by texting her mother while he is with her. Surely, of all the reasons of slapping someone, I found this as the lamest excuse.

No one deserves to be hit by anyone, especially a boyfriend, no matter what wrong you have done. Unfortunately, there is this thing called love that we as women tend to misuse to try and defend when we have been wronged. No matter how much it haunts us, we believe in second chances and try to think of it as a mistake when sometimes these things are premeditated.

This is where domestic violence starts, he hits you the first time, and he begs for forgiveness, blames the evil spirits for his actions, he says he wasn’t thinking straight, he buys you the perfect gift and you forgive.

Same thing happens after some time and you continue forgiving. I know the bible says we should forgive several times but I think forgive we must, but get back together, we mustn’t. Surely what makes you think they will change after signing that marriage certificate or after paying the bride price?

It’s these little things we take for granted that beget the bigger things. Those people, who kill their wives, axe them and beat them like dogs did not just start like that. Those actions started somewhere and were forgiven and the habit grew with them with the belief that they will be forgiven.

The next incident is always worse than the previous one and this leads to extreme cases like murder and at times murder is not premeditated but they are trying to beat them up to discipline the wife and discipline them more than they did the last time.

Of cause, one may argue that they might not beat you up during courtship but eventually do so in marriage but then why take the chance when someone has already shown you what they are capable of before they have even paid anything to your family and before there is any sign of commitment.

As ladies, we should try to guard ourselves from violent partners; we might be digging our own graves. Also, it is not only the women that are victims of domestic violence, the men too and the same goes, stay away from violent partners.

You never know, you might save the next person’s life because the moment they realise they have been dumped because of their violent behaviour, they will try to desist from it the next time. Let us not be blinded by love, love is a beautiful thing which does not need violence to prove it’s true.

You can visit Ivy Chibanda’s blog Ms. Resolute