Unspeakable Violence (Living Your Life With Dr. Abdulfattah Adeyemi)
As we speak now, behind a closed honeymoon door, where some wedding gifts are yet to be opened, the air is stiffened and dense with mutual plots to subdue the dominance-prone partner.
While teeth are gnashing, fists are clenching, and rage is building, the urge to attack, to beat, to bite and to stab, wells up between two dangerous animals caged in a violent matrimony. A scorpion is set to tackle a cobra in a lethal exchange of poison and venom!
As we speak now, a wounded cheetah is bleeding. It might not survive the bruises and pains inflicted by a lion. And the plea is changing from “don’t kill me” to “just kill me”: spare me this endless mental torture. Regrettably, from adulterous text messages to exiting existence, casualties become statistics.
Those mentally wounded become walking dead, and those for whom it is all over are now six feet underground.
This is not what we understood a home to be like. Unlike the streets or motor parks, home is never imagined to be where criminal violence takes place.
We actually thought home is always a safe haven. But we were wrong. Some homes now, are where couples break down each other’s spirit and heart. They batter each other physically, mentally and emotionally as a cat handles a mouse. Psychological disorder sets couples to caress each other’s throat with kitchen knives in senseless violence.
Domestic violence starts with distrust, fetters into jealousy, thrives on uncontrollable anger and brims over to psychopathology. Then, the society sweet-talks impenitent psychopaths to get married; afterwards, their mental dysfunction begins to express itself in domestic brutality.
Violent aggressions contort their caring nature; it brings out the beast in them. Their sadistic words sting and stab their partners. They keep malice to agonize each other with cold treatment and silent torment. The society must address the delusion and naiveté of the young couples who are yet to understand that no social class is immune to familial brutality and no ethnic group is impervious to domestic violence.
Any individual can be bent, broken, and brutal when the last straw is allowed to break their back. So, no spouse should reach a breaking point before they call experts for help.
Come to think of it: why would couples who claim to love each other subject themselves to mental cruelty that leaves them frustrated, damaged and ashamed? Why would people abuse the ones they profess to love? Why would those who claim to cherish each other turn around to trap themselves with heavy metals weighing them down into life’s filthy sewage? Could this be because some spouses are just like worms on vegetables, maggots in a plate of rice?
Couples’ countenances may not portray what lie beneath their skins. The mask of love might conceal a person’s vicious cruelty. A beautiful face may conceal murderous tendencies. A rich pocket may conceal a moral poverty. A man could be handsome outside, but gruesome inside.
The spirit of Cain might dwell in the body of Abel. Behind the flowers, the ribbons, the decorations and the towering wedding cakes might be unrealistic expectations, greed, and promiscuity. Behind spouse abuse might be substance abuse. Behind one unfortunate incidence of domestic violence might lay many more that are unreported, unheard of, and unspeakable.
