Men Go Through Abuse Too; My Story – Lovers Desk

        LOVERS DESK

Lovers Desk is a weekly Lovelife.ng series that explores the relationship struggles and exploits of young Africans. It showcases the hidden love and hurt stories that are rarely shared or discussed, helping you see through their lens and draw lessons for your own love life.

              My Story

Men go through abuse too, contrary to what the society projects and thinks and I am here to share my domestic violence story with everyone.

I am a victim of domestic abuse and this is my story.

My name is Daniel Egbi and I was 31 years old when I first met Bisi.

Bisi was everything I ever wanted in a woman at the time. She was gorgeous, soft spoken and very smart. We met on Twitter, I slid into her dm after a tweet she made had gone viral. We laughed over the viral tweet and soon an easy conversation began between us. I found myself telling her secrets I could not tell others. She just had a natural aura that made me feel very comfortable. Each day that passed, I found the attraction between us growing even stronger.

On our third date, unknown to her, I decided I was going to marry her. I did not want to let her in on my thoughts, lest I frighten her away. She was exactly the type of woman I could see myself settling in with for the long time and I could also tell that she could be a great mother to our kids in the future.

Things got serious between us and I asked her to move in after a year of dating.

That is when the troubles started.

At first, living with her was like heaven. I was even more drawn to her and everything was so smooth and effortless. After a while, some pieces of that smoothness started to fall off. It was like I was getting introduced to another side of her. A different side.

The pleasant, warm and soft hearted girl I knew and was used to suddenly turned to a rude female who would bark orders at me. She would raise her voice during arguments, bang the door like a child and would sometimes lock me out of my own house for hours if we had a big fight.

I started dreading coming home. Slowly, she was beginning to change from a happy place to a frightening space. There were numerous fights over the tiniest things and sometimes it would stretch for weeks.

The first time she physically abused me was during dinner one Friday night. She had made pasta with vegetables as sides and there was a big bottle of red wine in the center of the table.

I remember her vividly asking me about a female coworker. We had had arguments previously concerning this coworker, with her accusing me of cheating on her with the said coworker. This was a complete lie and that particular night I did not have the strength to indulge her tantrums.

She kept asking me the same questions  and I decided to ignored her. That’s when she flung a bottle of red wine my way.

I did not see it coming, maybe if I had, I would have had the time to duck.

I felt something cold and hard hit me squarely on the forehead. She had flung the whole bottle of red wine towards my face. The wine slid down and hit the ground with a thud, breaking into a tiny million pieces. The first thing that hit me was the shock of the entire Incident, then the pain. My head felt like it was on fire, I had also sustained a major bruise on my forehead that would not go away for weeks.

She did not beg. Neither did she apologize. Instead she told me it was my fault. That if I had given her the answers she wanted, I would have prevented that. She went back to eating her food like nothing had happened.

I know many people might be wondering why I allowed that happen to me and did not retaliate but I was raised right. My parents taught me never to lay my hands on any woman and I promised myself I would never do that. Besides, I was so in love with her and partially blinded by that love.

Somehow, I blamed myself for what happened and decided I was going to do better to make our relationship work. I stopped speaking with the coworker in question and even stopped associating myself with any females for that matter. However, that would only be the beginning of my abuse.

She started picking fight over other things. Things like coming back too late, leaving the toilet seat up, not cooking, and so many other things.

The bottle was the precipice to other objects being flung my way. She soon began to fling even bigger objects my way. From antiques, to heavy bowls and even once, our Dstv decoder.

My body soon became riddled with bruises all because of her. Each time she wouldn’t apologize and on the rare occasions that she did, she would rope it around me and tell me it was all my fault.

I finally had enough one day. It was like the scale of stupidity she had woven around my eye had fallen off. It was the day I decided to confide in my family. When I showed them the scars from the bruises which she had inflicted on me, they opened my eyes to the fact that nobody who truly loved me will put me through such inhumane things.

They opened up my eyes to the stark reality of my situation and forced me to have a rethink.

For the first time, I decided to chose myself. Yes, I loved her but I loved myself more.

I broke up with her a week after and even though she begged and pleaded with me that she would change, my stance on our relationship did not change. I gave her a month to pack up and leave and when she refused, I had someone take her and her belongings out of my house.

I was still very much in love with her when I made the decision to break off our relationship but I decided to chose myself and love myself. Today,  I am happy and at peace because of it.

This is a reminder that loving yourself and putting yourself first is never out of fashion.