Domestic violence does not always start with a slap. Sometimes, it begins with “jokes” that cross a line, controlling behaviour, insults, or small acts of violence that are easy to dismiss. For others, the abuse only becomes visible after years of emotional manipulation, financial dependence, or being made to feel like leaving is impossible.
In this article, we spoke to eight women about experiencing domestic violence from partners they loved and trusted.
When I started dating my ex-boyfriend, he would sometimes punch me hard in the arm and then call it a joke. I grew up wrestling with my brothers at a young age, so I didn’t really mind, but months into our relationship, I started realising I should actually have seen that as a warning sign. The abuse happened on a random Saturday morning. I’d checked his phone the previous night and found out that he was cheating on me with three women and a man.
I didn’t even know that he was queer, so that was a surprise, but I actually didn’t care about that part. What I cared about was the fact that he’d been having sex with other people without a condom. I was really mad that he put me and my health at risk, so I confronted him about it. He got mad that I was snooping around. The confrontation turned heavy quite fast, and I was still trying to explain why I was mad at what he did when he asked me to stop talking. I asked what he was going to do if I didn’t stop, and that was how I got the beating of my life on his couch.
It was not a small beating. He beat me till the point where I lost a tooth and started bleeding because of his belt. I believe he would have killed me if his neighbours hadn’t heard me screaming and broken down the door of his house. They were the ones who took me to the hospital and found a way to contact my brothers, who immediately got my ex-boyfriend arrested. I wish I could say I got legal justice for what he did to me, but he did not. However, my brothers employed agberos (touts) to track him down and beat him every time he left his house. It didn’t matter if he moved places; they still always found him, and I ignored all the texts he’d sent asking me to beg my brothers on his behalf. The agberos did it for six months before my brothers decided that he’d received enough punishment.
Although everything happened two years ago, I don’t think I’ve ever truly gotten over what my ex did to me. Sometimes, when I start talking to a new guy, I get phantom pain from the scar on my shoulder that my ex gave me, and I decide that I don’t want to put myself through dating again. I am talking to a therapist, though, and I hope that I heal from what happened to me.
Even before we got married, my husband had started being abusive. As my boyfriend, he was already beating me till my entire body was sore. I’m an orphan with no family or friends, so I didn’t really have any support system to talk to about his abuse, and for some reason, I was convinced that he loved me. He just got angry once in a while, and it was no big deal.
As my husband, he got ten times more abusive. There were seven days in a week, and I only got a reprieve from his beatings two times a week. It was because of his abuse that I couldn’t bear children, because every time I got pregnant, he would beat me till the point of miscarriage. He knew how much I wanted children, and every time, he would take that away from me.
I’m sure a lot of my concerned neighbours and co-workers had wondered why I was with him, but I didn’t know how to tell them that he also had his really sweet sides, so I was constantly conflicted about leaving him.
The day my husband dropped down to his death because of heart failure, the first thing I could think was, ‘I’m finally free.’ I couldn’t even pretend to care about his death, and when I got home from the hospital, the first thing I did was sit down and cry for a long time. It was later that I called his family to let them know about his death.
It has been ten years since my husband’s death, and I have refused to get involved with another man. However, I am trying to see if I would be allowed to adopt a child.
My girlfriend went from calling me degrading names to actually beating me. She’s always had a thing for calling me names (e.g., a slut) and accusing me of cheating (I’m not) for no reason, but then one day we had an argument that turned into her beating me until my entire body bruised. I don’t even remember what the argument was about, but I knew it didn’t warrant her beating me until bruises started forming.
After she beat me, I left her place, took myself to the hospital, and blocked her contact while I was there. I informed my friends about what happened, and they were very supportive of me deciding to go no-contact. I went no-contact for three months and ignored all my girlfriend’s attempts to reach me, but one day she managed to find a way to talk to me.
She sought my forgiveness and grovelled for months. I refused to pay attention to whatever she was doing, but she eventually wore me down. She and I are now back together, against my friends’ collective consent, but I’m still wary of being too close to her sometimes. She seems to have learnt from her mistakes, and I love her enough to forgive her.
Before we had my son, my husband wasn’t abusive in any way, but after we had our child, he got angry for some reason. I think he doesn’t want to be a father, but he never communicated that with me. The lack of communication ended up leading to resentment for my son and me, and that resentment turned into domestic violence.
I remember a specific incident where, after he had almost choked me to my death for accidentally pouring hot rice on his feet, he back-handed our then five-year-old son, who didn’t understand why daddy wanted to kill mummy. The backhand was so strong that our son lost consciousness, and I completely ignored that I was also close to losing consciousness so that I could carry our son to the hospital. I’d never been so scared in my life as I’d been scared that day. It was such a horrifying experience, and it was from the hospital that my dad came to drive us to my family house. He and my mother had been hoping that the abuse would stop at some point, so they’d turned a blind eye, but his almost killing their grandson was the last straw for them. Normally, I should be offended, but I was just so relieved when they told me that my son and I do not have to go back to his house.
Even though we are still married on paper, I haven’t actually seen my husband since my dad brought my son and me to my family home a year ago. My parents and siblings have been the ones handling any kind of communication with him, and I’m glad because I know that if I set my eyes on him, I might go back to him out of fear.
I was convinced that having an abusive boyfriend was better than having none at all, so I just accepted all the times my ex-boyfriend would use his hands against me until one day I realised that I actually needed help.
On that day, my ex had seen me talking to a male friend and had gotten angry because he’d thought I was cheating on him. When I got back to his place, he confronted me and didn’t even let me make my defence before he brought his belt out and started whipping me everywhere. He didn’t stop when the metal buckle hit my face, and I started bleeding, and he ignored my cries when my body started feeling like it would give up. I honestly don’t know what strength I had that day to push him off and run away from his place, bleeding.
From his place, I went to my best friend’s house, and thank God for her. She was the one who took me to the hospital, paid my bills, and took care of me throughout. When I told her about what had happened, she wasn’t judgmental in any way, and she was ready to get people to find him and beat him up. It was only because of her that I was able to bounce back. The entire experience has made me wary about getting into relationships, and I’ve decided that it’s better to stay single than have an abusive partner.
I grew up with an abusive father. He was also abusive to his wife, so I decided that when I grew older, I wouldn’t settle for someone like my dad. Then I met my ex-partner. I really thought that leaving someone who abuses you would be so easy, but when my partner slapped me across the face, and I still woke up to make them breakfast the next morning, I began to understand my mum.
The abuse was not constant, but it happened almost every week, and I would keep taking them back the moment they apologised. I believe I would have stayed with them for a long time if my friend group hadn’t staged an intervention after I kept turning up for our hangouts with bruises on my body. They made sure to speak enough sense into me, and at first, I refused to listen to them because I was convinced that my ex was just making mistakes. But the more they spoke to me, the more I realised that I was slowly turning into my mother. That was enough to wake me up, and the next day, I broke up with them.
These days, I am more intentional about the people I date, and I’m always so careful in recognising red flashing signs early on in the relationship.
When I first met my husband, there were no obvious warning signs. He was sweet and kind to me, although he was significantly older and I was only 18, having just started university. My family also encouraged the relationship because he was wealthy. By the time I realised how abusive he and his family could be, I was already pregnant with our first child, so I felt like I had no choice but to marry him.
For the first few years, the abuse was mostly emotional and verbal, but after four years and three children, I eventually left him. I came back because of the children, and that was when things became much worse.
He had always been physically abusive towards the children, and I would sometimes put myself between them and him. Then one day, during a major argument, he beat me with a belt until I was bleeding. I felt trapped because my children depended on him financially, he had stopped me from completing my education, and I had become pregnant with our fourth child. I tried to build a life for myself through things like a business, but he kept interfering with everything.
Leaving was difficult when he controlled everything I did, but one day, our landlord warned him to stop the abuse. She also told him that if he continued, there would be consequences and that what he was doing could be exposed because she was a journalist. The abuse stopped for a while, and at some point, I finally managed to gather the courage to leave the marriage and take two of my children with me. Regarding our other children, we arranged split custody between us and did our best to maintain an amicable relationship for their sake.
Every time I went to my parents to report my husband’s constant abuse, they would say things like “Just manage for the children” and “He is still your husband”, and for some reason, I kept allowing the constant abuse that almost took my life because I always believed everything my parents said.
My breaking point, however, happened on a Saturday night. The children were already asleep, and I was waiting for my husband to go to bed so I could sleep comfortably when he appeared and asked me to make him tea. I was tired, and I didn’t want to make tea, but I dragged myself to do it because saying no was just another round of beating. After I made tea, I handed it to him and told him to take his time because it was still hot. He ignored me, as always, and then drank the tea. When it burned his tongue, he started shouting at me, and before I could even remind him that I had warned him, he poured the hot tea on my face that was still bruised from his last abuse.
Normally, I would have screamed from the pain, but in that moment, I realised that I needed to leave because someone like him is truly capable of killing me. So that night, while he was asleep, I took my car keys, woke my children, and left the house with them. I drove all of us to a hotel far away from where we lived, and I didn’t let my parents know where we were because they are enablers.
Later, I called my best friend, and she was the one who accommodated the children and me until I rented an apartment for us. As for my husband, we’re not divorced, and, unsurprisingly, he didn’t really care that we’d left the house. He just told me not to come back begging for him or else he will kill me, and I have taken that warning seriously.
If you are going through something similar, whether sexual violence, an abusive relationship, or simply carrying something too heavy alone, help is available. You do not have to carry it alone.
1. Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative: Call or WhatsApp text 08091116264 or 08111680686 to receive immediate mental health crisis intervention and counseling from the active volunteers at the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative.
2. Lagos State DSVA Helpline: Call 08000-333-333 (toll-free) or dial the quick shortcode *6820# on your mobile phone to safely report domestic violence, rape, or child abuse and get immediate medical or legal response from the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency.
3. The Mirabel Centre Support: Call or text +2348155770000 to receive 24/7, completely free medical care, forensic evidence collection, and professional psychosocial counselling after experiencing sexual assault from the Mirabel Centre.
4. WARIF Toll-Free Crisis Line: Call 080092100009 for 24-hour completely confidential emergency aid, legal advocacy, and rapid response to rape and gender-based violence from the Women at Risk International Foundation Helpline.
5. Project Alert Crisis Line: Call 08180091072 to receive professional counseling, shelter support, and legal advocacy for female survivors of domestic and sexual abuse from Project Alert on Violence Against Women.
6. National Emergency Line: Dial 112 from any mobile network in Nigeria to reach nationwide emergency services if you are in immediate physical danger.
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