Put that knife down!

Ok....is it me, or is this domestic violence crap getting out of hand. I mean I really don't understand why two adults can't learn how to agree to disagree without acting like children and exchanging hands.

Here's the story...a few weeks ago, I went back to my hometown to visit some family members for party. When I settled in town, I was bombarded by several family members , telling me stories about one of my 29-year old male cousins, who was being physically abused by his girlfriend, who is also the mother of his two "children". The stories disturbed me, and I couldn't imagine that a person like him would go through this. I decided to go to his home just to pay a visit and let him know I was in town. To my surprise, when I got there, I would be left on the other side of the door knocking. I knew they were home, but I figured, she wasn't going to allow him to have company, so I left.

The next evening, I ran into that male cousin, at the party. I hadn't seen him in a while, and he looked a mess. Immediately, I felt the need to ask him what was going on with him. He just looked at me and said, "cuz...lets jut have a good time tonight, we can talk about this later". I let it go, and we partied the night away.

The party was over, and it was time to clean up the place. I walked over to my cousin, and I told him we were still going to have this conversation. I asked him what's going on with him, and he told me that his girl sometimes gets upset with him for stupid things that he may do. He said she lashes out by cutting, punching, kicking, whatever to get "her point across". That's when I asked him, so why do you put of with this? His response was because he wants to make things work for the kids. How can this possibly be good for the kids? I mean they are the ones suffering the most.

That's when it hit me. See...my cousin grew up in a house where his father and mother would fight all the time, and he would have to come home from school to see bloody walls, carpet, you name it. Not to mention all the times he had to witness his father hit his mother, or all the times he had to hear the violent fights from another room. When he was a kid, he would just curl into a ball, and bury his face between his legs, so that he could try to tune out the noise from the fighting. This went on for a great deal throughout his childhood. In fact, it went on until his parents got a divorce when he was 12. See when he was a boy, he made a vow that he would never hit a woman. What he didn't make a vow to do was not let a woman hit him either.

Too many times we mistake male domestic violence victims as wimps, punks, or whatever you want to call them. We never look into why they, like women, allow this type of behavior. I put two in two together, his mind is screwed up from his parents behavior when he was a child. He thinks it's ok for his woman to hit him because he does "stupid" things to make her mad. As long as he doesn't hit her, he thinks that's ok. The children are suffering, and not to mention at the rate of things, this could turn tragic. Since being with this woman, he has tried to take his life twice. He is covered in scars from the abuse, but he feels like he needs to be with her and that she abuses him because she loves him. My cousin needs so much help. He is an awesome father and a wonderful person, but he has no self-esteem what-so-ever. This abuse has to stop, or someone will end up dead. This is too serious!