#DearBuki: I Beat My Husband!!!!

Hello dear blog readers, how has your day been? I have started a column tagged #DearBuki where you can send whatever issues weighing on your minds and I would do my best to proffer solutions to them by giving my opinion and showing other perspectives to them. I do a lot of these guidance and counselling offline so I felt the need to bring it on my blog. Do send me an email on bukiotuyemi@gmail.com and we will put heads together. Check out the other posts here.

As they say, a problem shared, is a problem half solved................ :)

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Dear Buki, how are you? Happy new year.  I must confess I'm a huge fan of yours. Your mature responses online towards people and situations always thrills me. I follow your blog delicately, even though I do not leave comments. I will do better this new year. I like your fair and 'on-point' advises in the other DearBuki series and I hope you will help me with my issue.

I am in love with my husband yet I physically abuse him. I know you won't judge me, but let me tell you a bit about myself. I am married to a wonderful and loving man and we have three children. My husband loves me a lot and I love him too, I just can't seem to stop myself from lashing out at him whenever we are having arguments. I am a hot-tempered person and I watched my father beat my mother nearly everyday. I don't know why she put up with all his abuse because she had enough money to leave him and live a comfortable life by herself, but she never did.

I resolved never to let any man that me the way my drunk-of-a-dad treated my mum like dirt. I guess my short-tempered nature developed from my father's genes and from the fact that I got easily irritated while watching my mother suck up to him regardless of how badly he treated her. I made up my mind early not to end up like my mother. 

I met my husband almost a decade ago and it was love at first sight for the both of us. Buki, I really love him but the ugly side of me shows up every now and then. Despite all these, my husband has never raised his hand or voice at me. He has cried and begged me to get help but I never saw cause to do so. On new year's day, I watched my children playing and from the utterances of one of them, I now know that indeed I have a problem. I cannot go into the details but I do not want my children becoming bullies to their spouses. 

Please help me Buki, help me be a better wife and mother.

Thank you.

Amarachi.

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Dear Amarachi,

Thank you for writing in and for your vote of confidence. I will be honest with you Amarachi, you see, while you kept to your self-promise of not becoming like your mother, you have become just like your father. That is the bitter truth, and until you seek help in form of counselling and therapy, you will keep spinning in this vicious circle of destruction. Your children may end up being abusers too or even worse and you may lose your husband. 

The fact that you have realised you have a problem and have sought help via my blog is a great step towards saving yourself and your home. I am mighty proud of you. I will encourage you to see a proper professional psychotherapist and unburden yourself onto him or her. They will help you a lot in getting rid of the demons troubling you as a result of watching your abusive father batter your mother.  Your husband sounds like a really good man and I sincerely hope he will stick with you till the end. 

Please in all these, you must work on yourself as well. Create your own channels of happiness and patience and be consistent with them. Have a word with your children on what to do and what not to do and if you can, try to book them sessions with the therapist. It is very unfair to children to be left in unhealthy domestic environment. their minds are like sponges, with which they soak up all they see and perceive to be acceptable. I don't condone domestic violence in any form and I really hope you can make amends with your hubby at the end of this all

The power to break this circle of reoccurring abuse lies in your hands, please use it right. 

I sincerely wish you all the best in life. Do let me know how it goes. 

Cheers.

Buki O.