How I am planning not to fall prey to domestic abuse by the grace of God

To make it clear, the previous post is about domestic abuse, which is what triggered the idea of writing this post.  You know, no-one can ever categorically say for sure that their life will be free of domestic abuse. However, these are the steps that I am taking to hopefully minimise that possibility in my own future marriage, if indeed I get married, as I very much hope to do.

A big part of this is about knowing myself, my own strengths, my own weaknesses, my own tendencies. So perhaps the relevant steps for anyone else might be very different.

1.  Firstly, and most importantly, insist on marrying a guy with genuinely great character. When I read or watch stories about domestic violence, it always seems clear to me that the perpetrator is grossly lacking in character. These people are clearly not used to working sincerely on their character, and in most cases I imagine that they simply have not worked on their character sufficiently to be able to interact healthily with other people.  Actually, shockingly, I know that even this is not always true. So it is not at all impossible that someone with genuinely excellent character might be pushed to snap.  In this case, I hope that they would have the wisdom to apologise to their victim and get the professional help that they need. Even at that, it should be a shocking once-off and never to be repeated again. However I would say that the vast majority of domestic violence cases are out and out cases of very very poor and very very undeveloped character, coupled with an apparent inability on the part of the perpetrator to be honest with his or her own self.  By the way, this whole post assumes that I of course am not going to be perpetrating domestic violence, and this is the reason why I make that assumption about myself: I do not have a history of physically abusing people, rather I aspire to treat people with dignity, and kindness. I have made up my mind that if someone annoys me that much, instead of lashing out at them, I will simply walk away, and at most rant about them on my blog. Furthermore my character is something that I am immensely committed to working on. In truth, I have not invested lots of time and effort in working on my character of late. However I consider it as an ongoing priority in my life and my relationship with God, and I am thinking on how to reinstate this as a daily priority in my life. That is, I am working out how to jiggle my time to make time for it.

2. All the relevant stuff that goes with marriage, prayer for my husband, myself, our interaction, reading the Bible, proclaiming the Bible into our marriage. These are all things that I am planning to do anyway, without any specific focus on avoiding domestic violence.

3. Maintain my own financial independence, have my own money. Hopefully, from the first two steps above, the possibility of domestic violence should be greatly reduced. However, there might still be some circumstances where I feel that I would just like to take a break from my husband for an indefinite length of time.  Perhaps I need to scope out a new area for a new business and travel back to hubby for the weekends. Perhaps we are just really annoying one another and he is as stubborn as I am so it is just beneficial to have somewhere to go to to just sulk apart from one another (perhaps under the pretext of scoping out a new area for a new business!) Or perhaps he is not desperately convinced about a new, expensive business idea or concept, and I want to prove a point to him. Or perhaps he and I are competing about our different business ideas so he puts his money into his and I put my money into mine. In all of these scenarios if I had my own money it would grant me a measure of autonomy and I could just go ahead and do whatever I needed to do. The idea of using my own money to escape domestic violence would hopefully be the last thing my money could ever be called upon to do. However if I had my own money then at least the funds are available just in case an escape from domestic abuse does become necessary.

You know, the one big but reliable reason why I am so confident that hopefully this would never be an issue in my marriage, even remotely, is because I am being so careful beforehand to choose an outstanding spouse, and I am throwing myself on the mercy of God, and asking Him to lead me, because I simply cannot afford to make a mistake in my marriage. NOTE! I did not say “because I am planning to marry a  Christian”.   Because if I was not being so careful, if God had not already taught me so much already, then the probability of an abusive marriage increases dramatically, even as a Christian. When I was growing up in the church, I barely heard of domestic violence within our educated, Nigerian Christian community. Now, sadly, perhaps with the advent of social media, we often hear of such cases. In fact, I believe that one popular Gospel singer was killed by her husband not too long ago. Witnessing his earlier attacks, or their aftermath, people had tried and tried to get her out of the marriage but she “did not believe in divorce”. You know, right here, right now, in my unmarried state I am doing absolutely everything that I can to avoid ever needing to divorce once I am married. However, if it was a case of saving my life, I hope I would get out of there. And then pray for him from a distance. Knowing the kinds of things that I have shown of myself on this blog, I cannot guarantee that those prayers would be wholly loving; I fear that I am more than capable of praying hellfire on an unrepentant husband’s head!  But let us pray that it does not get close to that.

The broader point I am trying to make is that apparently 25% of Christian marriages, that is where both spouses (or just one?) are churchgoers  – a whole twenty five percent! – experience domestic violence. Apart from me, I have never ever heard of anyone two-yearing their husbands (although some people would undoubtedly know their spouses for a period of over two years before marrying them). So that indicates that a quarter of all the Christian marriages I know, the people I smile at at church, the kindly looking husbands (and wives) who are so helpful at church – a full quarter of these would be experiencing domestic violence, or perhaps perpetrating it.  Because the statistic is so high, none of us can afford to be complacent about this, and think “it could never happen to me”.  Reflecting on this, as a proviso, it would likely vary from demographic to demographic and the various percentages from demographic to demographic would then all combine together to form the 25% figure. While any income level of woman (or man) might experience domestic violence, the fact is that higher income women (and men), such as those from my educated Nigerian background, are more likely to have the funds to be able to escape, that is, assuming that they actually have any savings.

So to any lady reading this, please, two-year your husband. Please!  And please, insist on outstanding character. It is not an expression of humility to accept someone with poor character. Conversely, it is not an expression of arrogance to insist on someone with outstanding character. Remember that when you are with an excellent spouse then you can serve God most effectively, as your spouse will be actively working to cooperate with you, rather than holding you back.

You know, two-yearing has already saved me from a few men who would have turned out to be very poor choices of husband.  I can only imagine that through their immaturity, or insecurity, they would have frustrated so many of my endeavours which I am offering up to God as an act of service to Him.

In addition to that two-yearing though, I would also urge you, as I urge myself:  please, please please, maintain your financial independence, as far as you can, even if you plan to stay home with any children that God might bless you with, as I also plan to stay home with any future children I might have.  Ideally work towards having enough money to be able to walk away and establish a brand new home and a whole new life for yourself and your children should the need arise. If you do not have any marketable skills, then why not have a browse of Youtube, look around for some simple craft that you can do and reliably sell, and create an Etsy platform, and start selling? I would say start working on it right away, start building up your funds, don’t wait for something to happen and then have to start panicking.  You know what?  I feel like a responsible husband would actually encourage his wife in a measure of financial independence, you don’t have to hide it from him. However, if he does not encourage you in financial independence, because he would prefer to be able to control you, then that sadly sounds like all the more reason why you do need to have the funds available.