THE ABUSED WOMAN AND THE SOCIETY

A friend of mine some years ago called me that she is in the hospital alone. She is married with 3 kids so I was surprised that she was there alone. I asked where the husband was and her reply shocked me. I quickly left the office and rushed to her side.

 The state that my friend was in broke my heart. She had bruises all over her body. Her head was wrapped up with one eye and lips swollen. Between tears and anguish, she told me her husband did that to her. I knew the man was irresponsible, reckless and a womanizer but becoming a wife beater was something else.

WHAT WAS THE REASON  for the wife to be beaten blue black? She said she saw a pack of condom in her car that the husband used the night before this incident. She just advised him to be careful since the son had previously seen one and brought it to her as balloon. The husband even saw the condom with the boy but only burst into laughter.

 For daring to advise him that he should be discreet with his infidelity and not bring it home, he slapped her. And for her trying to resist the slap, he pounced on her. It was the neighbours who came to her rescue.  It was one of them that took her to the hospital that morning and called her sister.  

I couldn’t believe it. I know the guy is violent despite the fact that he goes to a bible believing Church. My friend was already Born Again when she met him but the fear of being too old to get married, she settled for the charmer.

When the parent heard, they came to Lagos to take her home.  She left with her parents and I had to get sick leave and submit to her office. She was with her parents for 2 weeks and we had  to intercede in prayers and counseling.   The guy did not bother to call. He only called when the little son was ill and he didn’t know what to do. Her parents insisted that the husband had to come home. He went to beg her and her parent and promised he would not beat her again.

 That was not the fist time she had been beaten by her husband but it was certainly the last.

There are several  reasons that made her to endure those beating:

1)      One of the reasons she endured was  her Children. The children then were aged between 4 to 7 years. How could she leave her 3 young children to suffer?

2)      The other reason is what the society will say when she separates from her husband. In our African culture, a divorced woman is stigmatized. She is looked down on and blamed for the breakdown of the marriage.  They will say she wants to start sleeping around that is why she left.

3)      The next reason is that she may be the troublemaker who is always provoking the husband. Women are supposed to be quiet, docile, subservient and obedient.

4)      Also as a believer, she knows God in His word, The BIBLE forbids Divorce.
5) She had no job and was relying solely on her husband to provide for her and the children. If she leaves, how will she survives? 

There were  many more  reasons why my friend endured the physical and emotional abuse for years.  SO when she returned,  we advised her not to be confrontational no matter what.
We advised her to ignore the husbands provocation and not answer back even when she is being verbally attacked by the man.
Its been 3 years now and the relationship has improved greatly. Little by little the WORD of God is getting to her husband.
The Bible says in Proverbs that a soft answer brings peace and that is the weapon my friend is using. She does not answer back and does not allow any argument to get out of Hand. And to the Glory of God she got a job immediately after she came back.

But many other women are not as lucky as my friend. So many have died from physical abuse and many are maimed for Life or disfigured by their husbands.
The Society is not helping matter. The law also is not strong enough to convict these wife beaters. There have been so many declarations and convention on the elimination of  Violence Against Women but these have not stopped or eliminate wife battering. The impact of these convention has been minimal or zero when it comes to Nigerian men.
 Its sad that many women are suffering these physical, emotional and psychological abuses and they cannot speak out.

This cycle of abuse below has explained a lot.......... If a woman notices that tension is increasing and she is fearful of the husbands' reaction, its better she does everything to calm him instead of aggravating him.
Please wives, don't allow the situation to get out of hands. Be wise.

Submissiveness in Marriage.

People have written a lot about Marriage and how wonderful it is that you would think divorce will be deleted from our vocabulary but no it is not. Infact in this age and time, Marriage is no longer as wonderful as it should be, divorce is now becoming a trend and no one wants to endure with the man/woman of their youth. At the slightest appearance of difficulty and misunderstanding they want to give up. People now are quick to forget the vow they made to their partner on their wedding day.

I try a lot of times not to make my writings sound religious because to me, Christianity is a relationship with God our Creator and not something to be 'practiced' as some claimed. I do this with the intention of carrying a lot of people along. I hope I'm trying well enough.

Talking about marriage, I believe no matter your religious inclination, everyone wants to have a wonderful and great marriage and no religion preaches intolerance in marriage. I know that  all religions of the world preaches that submission is very essential in marriage and the lack of it, is one of the major problems in marriage.

A lot of marriages face problems in this times and most is because of lack of submission. See, be not confused when i say submission and don't think it is only the wife that i am talking about. The context in which submission is used here is not in relation to women alone, a man also needs to submit to his wife.

A man submitting to his spouse in marriages is building a lasting relationship. I do not mean becoming complacent and accepting folly from your wife. I mean discussing issues affecting everyone in the family and listening to your wife's advice.

We shall consider what makes a marriage great using the GREAT acrostic, GREAT meaning the following:

G---Giving:  Remember that when you give to your spouse, he will want to reciprocate. The bible says in 2 Cor 9: 6-7 that when you give/sow sparingly, you get sparingly but when you sow/give generously, you get generously. Give your time, affection and money to your marriage and you will have more joy and happiness flowing in that home.

R---Relating: Try to relate more. Talk more and doubts and suspicions will not have a foothold in that home.

E---Edifying: This is instructing especially to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement so do it gently.

A---Allowing: Allow your partner to express themselves verbally, artistically etc. Give them space. Be more understanding to what they are saying, acting out or doing. Most times, pent up emotions can increase or cause high blood pressure.

T---Touching: A touch shows affection, love, kindness, understanding and support. A casual touch of holding hands goes a long way to show support and understanding. in fact it says "I am here"  and  'you are not alone".

In the above, it shows that both husband and wife have to do the same for a great marriage. Both have to submit to each other. Both have to show more understanding and tolerance in that relationship. Don't listen to the so called friends or family members who tend to know more about your spouse more than you do. Most times they are wrong. They just want to cause misunderstanding in your relationships.

No matter what you are going through in that marriage, God will see you through. The Bible says, ---Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on when the wicked are cut off. I have seen a wicked, ruthless man, spreading himself like a green laurel tree. But he passed away, and behold, he was no more; though I sought him, he could not be found. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him. (Psalms 37:34-36, 39, 40 ESV)

If you submit to your husband or wife and people think you are weak, please ignore them. Do you know most people will definitely envy how close you are to your spouse and will come up with irrelevancies to separate you?

At times they say there are looking out for you but do they really look out for you? Do they? When I had misunderstanding in my marriage, I had a lot of advice from friends and family members both solicited and unsolicited. I know I was hurt especially when I think I gave 100 percent and my husband gave 50 percent to the relationship. They all meant well. But I knew the decision lies with me to stay or move on. I was hurt, really hurt but I had to go to God and submit all.

Okay I want to ask, Is Submission in Marriage only for the wife?

./

Married Women in Nigeria -Where From?

Justice Jombo-Ofo 

 

The sad story of Justice Ifeoma Jombo-Ofo brings to my mind the tragic situation of married women in Nigeria. Nigeria’s negative socio-political development has greatly affected women who are married outside their State of origin.
Nigeria is 52 years after independence, yet its citizens are not given that assurance of security and protection in many ways. It's only in Nigeria that some people are still strangers in their own country if they are not living in their State or their city. The women are worse off.
Justice Jombo-Ofo by birth is from Anambra State. She married an Abia State man and has been living with him since her marriage. She is not divorced from the husband and has been working in Abia State Judiciary. even before the State was created 21 years ago. She has served the Judiciary “meritoriously” according to the State  Governor, Theodore Orji, who recommended that she take up Abia State’s slot in the Court of Appeal when the vacancy came up. She did and that is when the problem started.
A petition was written to the  Chief Justice of the Federation, Mariam Aloma Mukhtar, stating that Justice Ifeoma Jombo-Ofo is not an indigene of Abia State and therefore should not take up a seat reserved for its indigenes. Based on this, the CJN refused to swear her in.
All these years that she has been toiling to dispense justice in Abia State , no one said that she is not an indigene but now that promotion has come and she is to reap the fruit of her labour, the enemies of progress sprung up to put her down. This is so unfair. Is Nigeria moving backward or what? Why should we be talking about a married woman not being an indigene of the state she is married to? The Bible says what God has joined together let no man put asunder. Are the petition writers saying she is not one with her husband because she is not from Abia State?
I remembered an incident in 2005 during the recapitalisation exercise in the banking industry. My husband's cousin working in First Bank recommended me to one of his bosses for employment and he asked me to take my CV to the man. I went and when I entered the man's office, I greeted the him in English language but the man answered in the local dialect. I responded and the man asked why i used English. I told him that i am not fluent in my husband's dialect. That was a minus. After going through my CV the man then said, using his words "oh you are not from our area." I was shocked and i said i am but the man firmly said NO. Not wanting to spoil my chances of getting a job by arguing with him, i stopped. If  I had known that I will still miss the job simply because I am not from the same state with my husband, I would have given the man a piece of my mind.
The movement towards creating a nation where everyone would find fulfillment was alive in the minds of our Nationalists when they fought for independence, why have we gone back to tribalism and Statism? Shouldn't we by now have gone past this and be able to settle, integrate and struggle with fellow countrymen in any parts of the country like is done in America that we claim to emulate?
America is full of examples of people moving from their states of origin and attaining their dreams and ambitions in their places of residence not even marriage. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the the Secretary of State . She was born in Illinois and married an Arkansas man who was American President for 8 years, Bill Clinton. After her husband's two terms in office, she moved to New York and was elected as a federal senator in 2000.
Why can't we have the same here? This Justice Jombo-Ofo case is definitely an eye opener for all of us. In Nigeria, It is the lot of women to leave their families at maturity and relocate to strange new families, sometimes strange new lands and cultures after marriage. Wherever married women find themselves, they work hard and Justice Jombo is not an exception. From testimonies from people around her, she has been using her God-given talents to serve her husband’s community and State with all her strength. She actually started from the bottom and worked hard getting to the top helping to build the State in which she was married. While she was stressing herself and sacrificing time, energy and quality family time, nobody raised any objection. But now that the time has come for her to to reap, someone is writing a petition against her. This is so cruel and unfair.

I do not know why the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mukhtar is delaying the swearing in but she needs to set aside the evil petition and a help a fellow woman move up the ladder to occupy the higher Bench.

Clearing the Air | Today's Christian Woman

I read this article written by Jenny Schermerhorn in Today's Christian Woman and it blessed me so i had to share it with all. She writes about resentment, its causes and how to resolve it.

Resentment toward my husband was silently strangling me. I was shocked to feel so angry and bitter. My husband and I had a solid marriage, and these overwhelmingly negative emotions seemed to have come out of nowhere. Nasty, sarcastic thoughts flew into my head uninvited, centering on my husband and things he did or didn't do. Get a grip! I told myself. I hoped these strong and destructive emotions would disappear to wherever they had come from. In the swirl of life—toddlers, job, and laundry—I blamed them on hormones and ignored them. But as weeks went by, my feelings of bitterness and anger didn't decrease. Instead, I seemed to be agreeing with my angry thoughts more and more. Yeah! Why didn't he do that, am I responsible for everything? or Sure, go out to a movie tonight, I'm sure you need a break. Instead of being shocked at my thoughts, I began to nurture them, deliberating on perceived wrongs. Angry words spilled out at my husband and children—an overflow from my hurt and bitter heart. I was frightened and unhappy with the state of my home, both my marriage and my negative parenting style. I tried to "talk it out" several times with my husband, but he felt attacked and I felt misunderstood. Suddenly I was terrified—we were struggling and stuck. I felt overwhelmed by negative emotions with no way to control or banish them. When I encounter a problem, whether laundry stains or emotional meltdowns, my go-to solution is research—in the form of bookstores and girlfriends. So I trusted my struggles to a few of my closest friends and found this was an issue they had all encountered and wrestled with as well. And while they had each tried to approach this problem with prayer and unselfishness, endeavoring not to let bitterness in their marriages take deep root, none of them felt their issue had ever really been resolved. Christian psychologist and author Dr. John Townsend, author of Boundaries, agreed to an interview with me, to help me understand what resentment is, where it finds its root, and how to resolve it. Here's my exclusive interview with Dr. Townsend, when I asked him everything my girlfriends and I wanted to know! What is resentment? Resentment is a persistent feeling of bitterness from feeling wronged by another. It often significantly decreases a person's happiness and contentment in important relationships. How can I recognize resentment in my relationships? Look for the following three things: 1. bitter feelings that get in the way of your connections with someone you normally care about and enjoy 2. a sense of powerlessness that there is anything you can do to change things. 3. a specific issue which is driving resentment. Resentment does not exist in a vacuum, and it is not the real problem. It is a symptom of a deeper perception of wrongdoing by another, in a behavior or in a pattern. For example, in your experience, did the other person criticize you harshly? judge you? control you? disconnect from you? lie to you? break a promise or a vow to you? How can I bring up resentment (to my spouse, friend, parent) without making a bad situation even worse? God designed relationships to be vehicles of transferring truth and love to each other, "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). We should be able to be open and honest in our closest relationships, and feel safe about it. So it's better to resolve things than to have an internal hurt blocking the relationship. Good relationships welcome truth that comes out in a vulnerable way. It is also important to realize that you don't want to focus on the resentment itself, but on the hurtful behavior of the other person. If you two reconcile about the behavior, the resentment should resolve. It has done its job in helping you be aware of the problem. What are some practical steps I can take to resolve resentment? There are several actions that will help. 1. Make sure your resentment is based on reality. Sometimes we feel bitter because we were having a bad day and the other person was just innocently in the same room. Talk to someone objective and wise and make sure there was an actual offense by the other person. 2. Make sure it's something significant. Could you be overreacting to a one-time misdemeanor, or it is something that matters, or a pattern? "Sensible people control their temper; they earn respect by overlooking wrongs" (Proverbs 19:11). Check that out with a trusted friend as well. Sometimes resentment is rooted in something from our past that has not been healed. If that is the case, healing and forgiving in the earlier situation should resolve the resentment in the present situation. 3. Have the conversation. If you have walked through steps 1 and 2, and it is an actual and significant offense, go to the person in a vulnerable manner and tell them the following: "I have felt alienated from our relationship and I want to us to be close again. I have had some feelings of resentment because of X. Our relationship is important to me, and I am sorry I have felt this toward you. At the same time, I need to know that you are aware of how X affected me when you did it. I need to know that you are sorry for it, and that things will change. In that way, we both can be close again." With a normal loving and open person, this should get you on the path and the resentment should resolve, because you are reconciling. However, if the person is defensive or blaming, you will need to adjust your expectations of that person and move into some grief and adaptation to the situation. And if the other person continues the hurtful behavior, set healthy boundaries so that you are not affected as much. That will help the powerless feelings, because you are taking action, and you will not experience the resentment so much. (These principles can be found in a more complete form in my book Beyond Boundaries.) Dr. Townsend's insights into resentment helped me better understand my emotions and set up an action plan. I set aside some time when I was at my best, (not tired, hungry, or PMS-ing) and prayed for clarity. What was the real reason I was feeling so resentful toward my husband? I wrote out one possible reason and realized it was a problem but not the cause. Going down several layers, I finally rooted out the real foundational issue. It was surprising to see it written out—I had been totally unaware of the real source of my hurt and anger. I set up a time to speak to my husband and used the format that Dr. Townsend laid out. It really helped to start with "I have felt" and "I want us to be close again." It felt much less like an "attack" and more like a conversation focused on mutual love and reconciliation. Our conversation wasn't an instant fix, but it was the beginning of a healing process. Having identified the core issue, we were able to reconcile and move forward. We have made some minor changes in our relationship, but the most helpful part of the process for me was feeling that I had been heard and my husband was willing to work with me. With the issue out in the open, we can have short check-in conversations about the topic, and I don't let hurts fester around this issue. I bring things up quickly, because I know I am sensitive in this area. After months of discord it's incredibly freeing to have this resentment cut down at the root. Truly "the truth has set me free." The angry and bitter feelings that were overwhelming me are gone, and with them my uncontrollable outbursts and dreary outlook. his process was a difficult one for me, and boy am I glad to be on this side of it. I am thankful to have this new knowledge and experience to add to my relational toolbox. God calls us to move toward people with love and grace, and inevitably things get messy. I'm sure this won't be the last time the weed of resentment shows its ugly head and will need to be dealt with, and now I feel much more prepared to handle it biblically instead of ignoring it and letting it grow into a full bloom of anger, bitterness, and despair.

Jenny Schermerhorn is seeking to live an abundant life in motherhood, ministry and marriage. She's a freelance writer and communications director at her church

Clearing the Air | Today's Christian Woman