THE MAN COULD ALSO BE THE VICTIM

Here I am sitting on the floor, soaked in my tears and drowned by devastation. Everything seems worthless if we can save the world but fail the very people that mean the world to us.

My name is Ada and I'm a journalist, a lawyer. Most importantly a women's right advocate and therein lies the problem, I limited my advocacy to women because I thought they were always the victims but I was so wrong.

For starters, I lost my mum at a very young age to domestic violence. My dad beat her like he never loved her, to the point that I was convinced that he enjoyed it. I still can remember times that he dealt with her so brutally that I and my elder brother begged her to run away. The few times she did, my dad and his family always came begging with the usual lie of a promise that he was changed. So my mum always went back "for our sake" till he eventually murdered her right before my very eyes. It was the most traumatic experience I ever had. My dad was arrested and eventually sentenced to death but that didn't take away the pain.
Being an orphan, we were adopted by mother's younger sister who was childless. She was loving and always there for I and my brother but my mother was irreplaceable and the trauma of her death hunted me for the rest of my childhood days up until I became a woman. Based on this experience, I vowed to advocate against domestic violence on women and  see to it  that the "animals" who do this are prosecuted and this decision shaped my career path. I studied mass communication and became a journalist and wrote numerous articles on domestic violence against women an it's effects on the society using my story as a punchline. Years later, I went back to school and to get a law degree and was eventually called the Bar. I became a women's right advocate and did pretty well as the years went by. I never got married because I was afraid of being a victim like my mother. Three times I attempted falling in love and settling down but I ended up calling off my wedding, I was just too scared of making the same mistake mother made and I eventually decided that marriage wasn't for me.

My elder brother eventually got married and I was pretty sure he would make a great husband cause he was the nicest, meekest, most patient and reserved person you could ever meet. He was just like our late mother. Though I wasn't married but I was very happy for him, at least, he now had a woman to replace our late mother. Little did I know that was the Genesis of his problems.

Ruky, my brother's wife was a plus-size beautiful lady. Although I noticed she was quite authoritative and rude but she seemed to be a wife material and at least she was what my brother wanted and he loved. So  my arms were thrown wide open to her and I accepted her as a sister.
That was three years ago and just yesterday, a received a call from the police and I was told that my brother had hung himself right on his living room. It was shocking news I had ever received in my entire life. But what shocked me most was the note he left behind. The more I read the words of that note, the more confused and devastation I became. It read:

"I can't take it anymore!
I've loved Ruky with my life but she brought nothing but misery to me. She was never there for me. Rather than giving me comfort, she always gave me torture. She only cooked at her own will knowing full well I couldn't cook for myself so I had to always eat out. She starved me sexually; always saying I couldn't satisfy a dog not to talk of a woman. When ever we quarrelled, she beat the daylight out of me because she was always stronger than me. She refused to give me kids, always saying she wasn't ready for the stress of being a mother. So why my friends and colleagues bragged about their wives, I was always quite; all I could do was to run into my closet and cry but no one knew what I was going through. I just couldn't bring myself to tell everyone not even my sister, she looked up to me and I didn't want to look weak. So I endured it all till I couldn't take it anymore. I fell into depression but no one knew, I lost my self esteem

Then just last week Ruky told me that she married me out of family pressure and she never wanted to have her children with a man like me. I got angry and we ended up in fight. Ruky beat me up once again and gave me a bleeding nose in the process
It has really been humiliating for me as a man so I've decided to put an end to this misery. I hope God forgives me."

Right now my heart is in shambles. so all my life, I've been out to help people suffering from oppressive marriages and relationships but I failed to help my own brother. It all useless, all my years of advocacy against domestic violence. That's because I limited it only to women forgetting that men are also human and could also be the victims too. Now I've had to learnt the hard way, now I've lost the only family I have left

Yes, I've gotten Ruky arrested and a suit has been filed against her but will that bring back my brother?
I was just too busy focusing on one side of the main issue. so in tears I admit that women are not the only victims of domestic violence! Sometimes, the man could be the weak and vulnerable one.