by Aniefiok Udoabasi

I once dated a violent woman. A lovely,beautiful woman but very violent when angry. Possessive,extremely jealous and, in my opinion, had low self esteem. She almost killed me one day. Literally.
The year was 2007. I still had one full year to go in the university. I was living in a students compound close to palm street, Calabar. I noticed her violent streak few weeks into the relationship. It is by God almighty that I am alive to tell this story.

You would have an argument in the room with her and next thing, her eyes turns red. She picks a kitchen knife and advances towards you. Sometimes she throws the knife. You have to dodge or run for your life.

I remember the first time it happened . I had just come in from school. We were just a month together .I did not know she had been trailing me in school that day. She was in the 3rd year ,studying a different course in the same university.
Not long after I entered the house ,she paid me a visit. She was not smiling. She was fuming. I asked what was wrong. She said I was seeing someone else. That I was going everywhere with that other lady . That she saw us. She described the lady and every block /place we went to together. It became clear that she had been trailing me all day in school. I was angry.

I told her to stop following me about. That if she had come to meet us ,I would have introduced them and she would have seen for herself that I wasnt dating that other lady. Maybe ,I misspoke in anger. I said that she was timid and has self esteem issues, that was why she would be following me about. She went into a rage. Her eyes turned red . She started lookind around. Picked a knife from the ‘kitchen’ at the corner of the room, and advanced towards me. She didnt say it,but she held the knife in a way I read to mean ‘say another word and I will use it on you’.

I was stunned. Speechless. I had never seen anything like that before. As I kept quiet, she started calming, breathing down heavily. Within minutes, she was begging me. She kept exclaiming ‘ this thing wants to disgrace me again’.

That day, I later got to know that indeed she had anger and violence issues. She told me she had gone to see her reverend father and he had recommended a type of spiritual healing programme for her. She had stopped along the way. She promised me she will restart it. She assured me it will never happen again.

I also got to know the story of her life. She was the last child of her father who died soon after she was born. She was her mother’s only child for her father, a man who had had many other children. Her mother abandoned her and ran away. Her aunties and sibblings from her late father’s side raised her. She struggled.

When she was a very young adult, she traced her mother to her husband’s house in a different city. The woman acknowledged that she bore her, but was not willing to even let people, especially her husband, know that she is her daughter. She was not willing to play any motherly role. She asked her not to come again. This rejection hunted this lady to her bone. She even used to talk her rejection in her sleep.

It seems that her low self esteem and violence issues had their root in that rejection. She was always so, so afraid of being rejected. She didnt say it, but I know She thought she was not worhthy of love. The rationale seems to have been ‘if my mother doesnt love/want me, who will’?

Each time I told her ‘I love you’, she would look at me as if I just spoke Greek. ‘You are beautiful’ used to annoy her because she felt I was saying what wasnt true. And those were statements of fact. I loved her and she was very beautiful. She was on the not- too-big and not- slim side. Such curvy hips . Her face,comely. Yet she felt she was overweight. She was always shy and self concious of this.

You may think that, with the picture so far, we are dealing with a bad person. But that is not true. Take away the violence, she was a gem. Very honest; would tell the truth even if it hurts her. Very reliable. I trusted her and, for me, trust is crucial. She was also a good handler of money. Before her, my allowance used to finished within 2 weeks. With her handling all the money, she would still have balance at the end of the month.

Sweet lady. Fun when not angry. No boring moment with her. Take away violence, she is your dream woman.

But I could not overlook the violence. For those who continue to overlook violence,I wish them goodluck. She couldnt stop it after many promises to stop.

The last time (and last day of our relationship), she almost murdered me. I had been sitting on the rug carpet when a needless argument erupted. Her eyes turned red instantly. And she picked the knife and flinged it. It missed my throat by the whiskers and hit the wall. The mark it left on the wall remained till the day I parked from that house.

As expected, she soon started crying and begging. But I knew it was time to run.

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