When couples get to argue and fight, not caring the effect these traumatic images have on their children, Bunmi Sofola highlights the trauma these violence has on the children.
Victor and Sola are the kind of couple you wouldn’t want to go out to social functions with because if you did, they’d only start fighting and cause a big scene and you’d be embarrassed. They’re both silver spoon kids, have been married only a few years with two children, but don’t seem to have mastered the art of staying married.
Their neighbours were also fed up with their antics. A seemingly loving couple, Fred, next door neighbour said he was sick to the stomach of Sola always rushing to their house whenever Victor’s jealousy took the better of him. “Some few months ago,” he recalled, “we were having a cosy birthday party for my wife when it happened again. Both of them were invited, but it was Sola who fled into our house looking like a possessed woman. “Seconds later, Victor followed, yelling and screaming abuse. He ripped a necklace she’d obviously worn to attend the party from her neck, scratching her in the process.
Then he virtually grabbed her by the throat, her blood-curdling screams scarcely putting him off! “My guests were appalled as Victor towered menacingly over his wife, ordering her to go back to the house. We insisted she stayed but she told us it would only aggravate his jealousy, so she went meekly back to the house with him.
Yet, they’re still together. My wife couldn’t understand their type of love either as it became apparent that both of them were wracked with jealousy.
Victor’s friends often painted a different picture of the fighting that had dogged their marriage. Some remembered seeing Victor when he had a change of clothes in their house when they wanted to go out, his body covered in scratches—his wife’s trade mark! One had even recalled witnessing Sola aim a vicious kick to Victor’s knee. He’d just had a mild surgery at the time, yet his wife had lashed out at him, kicking him right on the surgical wound.
Heaven only knows what type of example they would set their children in future….
” Stella was 14 when her parents’ marriage finally hit the rocks; yet, memories of their unhappy marriage still haunt her.”My parents argued all the time… and had done so for years,” she recalled. “They just weren’t compatible. I shared a room with my younger sister and we’d hear them shouting and cursing while we were in bed. I’d put my hands over my ears to drown out the violence and most times, mum would weep bitterly when dad started his own crying.
I couldn’t really deal with that. They would apologise and we’d think everything was Ok but it never was. My parents often went days without talking, which put us under a lot of strain. They even tested our loyalty by using us to get at each other. That was hard as we felt stuck in the middle and didn’t want to take sides. I remember being jealous of kids whose parents picked them up from school because ours never did—leaving it up to the maids to do that, often endangering our lives by squashing all of us on the okada.
“It was inevitable that they broke up and we left to live with our mum. I missed my dad terribly as we were very close, it was a relief though that those horrible arguments had stopped, but I still would have preferred we lived together under the same roof.
“Although I saw my dad every week, the break-up had damaged my sister and I psychologically. I became withdrawn and it took me years to accept dad’s new wife.
“I’ve since finished university, have a good job and live in one of dad’s flats but I can’t forgive what my parents made us go through. They were selfish and have put me off marriage. The way they shouted at each other, knowing how much it upset us, makes me wonder if they never thought about our feelings. Were they ever in love?
“It was because of this that my views on marriage changed radically. I decided it was not really worth it. To me, it had become something that never lasted—a union that was pointless because people only fall out with each other in the end. I’m currently in a relationship with a man who is patient enough to convince me that although marriage doesn’t come with a life time guarantee, it’s better to take a chance on love than not to try at all. Who knows what will happen in future because of his patience and love, I might give marriage a chance….”
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