‘My wife is husband beater’

By Sunmola Olowookere
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The above claim by the husband whom we all know beats up his wife constantly has left the residents of our neighborhood puzzled as we no longer know whom or what to believe.

The wife claim that her husband is a psycho who flares up and beat her  mercilessly at any slight provocation while the husband insists that the wife is a husband beater who is now bent on killing him in his sleep. The threat of this had made him to leave his matrimonial home, he claimed.

They were unrepentant and determined to ruin each other. They both had scars and sores to show as proof of their claims.

It is like the moonlight Yoruba tale of the wasp and the bee who were both indicted over the farmer’s swollen eye. His swollen eyelids showed that he had been bitten on the eye.

Unfortunately, no one knows whom to hold responsible for the attack on the farmer’s eye as both the bee and the wasp both denied being responsible for the attack.

Hence, it became an adage in Yoruba’s parlance “Oyin nse, Agbon naa nse, Oju oloko re e, to wu bantubantu”.

The above adage was so apt in the case of the couple in our neighbourhood. The husband had decided that he had enough and went to the assault at the police station.

The police men on duty had taken his statement and being a family issue, the case was transferred to the family section of division and women police were detailed to ” invite” the wife to the station for interview.

It was at her office that they met her according to the tip off by her husband who had someone monitoring her at her place of work.

She went with the police women and also wrote her statement. The police women seemed sympathetic with the husband who looked ragged as if he had not slept in days.

The woman on the other hand was looking chic and attractive in a knee length suit gown. Hence it was easy for them to assume that the husband was getting the rough deal out of the relationship.

They took her to task for treating her husband shabbily. They became more opinionated when the husband interjected “ask her o, she has poisoned my children against me. They no longer pick my calls”

One of them, who had on a scarf around began to preach to her about the evil that befell women who felt their husband amounted to nothing.

The criticism was too much for the woman to handle and she burst out “madam, let me tell you the truth, I am no longer interested in the relationship. I want out. now, he camr to report that some people beat him up, what of all those times that he would beat me and break my phone?”

The police women looked at the man in shock and he defended himself “I did it because I was angry at her disobedience. How could a housewife be chatting with strange men on her phone? Whenever she saw me coming, she would hide the phone. She even locked her phone and refused to tell me the password. The worst of it is that for the last four months, she had been avoiding me and she didn’t allow me to touch her no matter how much I begged her. Can you imagine?”

Before the police women could reply him, the wife fired back ” why would I allow you to touch me. The last time I allowed you was after you had beaten me and you began to cry and beg me afterwards, do you remember what you did?

” you don’t? Don’t worry. I will remind you, you broke the tip of the condom you used with me so that you can fraudulently impregnate me. When i noticed that my private part was wet, I suspected foul play and I went to check the condom you threw inside the toilet. You are a wicked man.

“And about my phone, it is my personal property and you don’t have any right to know the password. Well, I am through with you. You have left me. Please let me live my life. Police, please tell him not to come near me again. I don’t want to die prematurely”

As they hurled hurtful and damaging words at each other, their family and friends were at a loss on what to do or say. They too were tirad of the whole drama.

It appears that there was no love lost between the couple any longer. The man who rarely paid his children’s school fees demanded that he wanted his children and the woman told him he could have them, by then, the youngest of their three issues was eight years old.

The police women who were unable to arrest the supposed guys who had joined his wife to beat him followed the family members advice that the couple should both try to work things out and live together peacefully for the sake of their children.

Will they be able to regain the lost love and trust? Only time will tell.