DOGS Corner

I'll start this write up by saying this;

Every marriage is a reflection of the quality of the couple in it. Every couple is a reflection of the kind of home they each grew up in. Quality people, beget quality marriages. Quality marriages result in quality people. A chicken and egg scenario.



Last week, I took you through the kind of home I grew up in and the kind of marriage my parents had. This week, I'll let you in on the drastic impact it had on me and my siblings.

I'll drop this shocker. My dad was a fervent believer and a tongue speaking Christian who woke up to pray every midnight for over 25 years. He later became a pastor and headed a church. His members saw him to be a committed believer on fire for God but at home, we knew different.

Growing up the way we did in a home with a violent dad who was a pastor, did one thing. It pushed us kids far from anything religion. None of my siblings want anything to do with church or religion today. As a teen, I sought out the roughest boys in the neighbourhood and started rolling with them. We'd drink and smoke together but try as much as I did, it was clear even to them that I was the odd one out. It was obvious that I wasn’t cut out to live like them but they didn’t push me away. They were my escape from the emptiness at home or so I thought.

We may not really know how much of our personalities get shaped by our backgrounds until we find ourselves displaying characters and behaviours we didn’t know we had picked up from home subconsciously. Characters and behaviours we hate. I became a woman beater too unfortunately. The first woman I dated was coming from a far more damaged background than I was. While I thought a man needs to beat a woman to exert authority and command respect, she thought a man who doesn’t beat a woman doesn’t truly love her. 

I began to notice a pattern. Anytime I beat her, she’d get so turned on and dripping wet. I didn’t understand what was going on until a particular incident where he had a major brawl and I was beating her. She was loosening my belt, trying to pull down my trousers to give me head. I pushed her away in anger and disgust and the next thing I knew, this lady gave me a well-targeted headbutt. I saw stars and my nose opened up like a tap.

 In rage, I br*tally ass*ulted her in a way I never did before. Blood everywhere and yet, all that seemed to turn her on the more. We did end up having deranged sxxxxxxx that afternoon but I quit the relationship months later. That level of crazy was too much for me to handle.

I had become the very thing I hated my dad for. My ability to communicate properly in a relationship was nil. Anger and rage was a garment I wore. Respect for women was totally non existent. If I wasn’t hurting a girlfriend through words, actions or sometimes beatings, I would feel so out of place and unsettled. And a good number of ladies went along with and accepted that. But I could see the toll my mom’s experience with such had on her and I wasn’t able to stand the kind of man I was becoming. I had to stay off dating for years. 

Thank God for that woman. 

She noticed the seeds my dad’s violent nature at home had planted in me and drew me close to start working on me. She’d point at the empty space in her teeth and remind me that my dad did that and she knows I would not want to turn out to be that kind of husband. She made me take an oath never to lay my hands on any woman again. I haven’t broken that oath in over 18 years. Last week made it 17 years since dad died. She still cries every time his posthumous birthday comes up. I guess her generation was wired to love differently.

I am married with kids now. I won’t say my home is perfect by any means. But I know domestic violence is one thing that will never happen in this home. My kids are growing up to know me as a loving father to them and husband to their mom. Their experience has to be different from mine.

 This takes a serious level of intentionality and commitment but taking it daily as it comes makes it easier. There is always going to be some part of us that is weak. We don’t feed it. It helps to marry someone who makes marriage easy for you. There are certain issues you won’t have to deal with as a result. Demons of the past can remain there.

Our backgrounds don’t have to define us. We can choose to be different and give in abundance the love, care, warmth and affection we never had growing up. We must be very intentional about this. Our homes, our marriages or relationships will only respond to the seeds we sow. By all means, let them be good seeds. We will enjoy a better quality of life and relationship as a result.