It is not okay for Nigerian women to go through horrible things in relationships. It is not okay for women to endure abuse because this society tells them that tolerating pain makes them loyal.
It is not healthy for Nigerian women to normalize abuse and see women who refuse to stay with abusive partners as impatient and disloyal women. I pity women who believe they have to suffer to keep unwilling men.
Nigerian women need to stop making excuses for men who treat them badly. They need to stop suffering over men who don’t care about them. They need to have courage and say no to abuse. Life should be lived well.
Here are 10 things that are not okay in relationships and Nigerian women shouldn’t tolerate these things just to keep the peace:
1. It is not right for women to dumb down themselves and behave as if they are not intelligent, knowledgeable and wise so that their men can feel like men. This is not healthy.
2. Women should be told that they are ugly and unattractive and should be grateful a man wants to be in a relationship with them. Men who tell women this are playing mind games with them.
3. Women shouldn’t lose their voice and who they are because they want to keep men in their lives. In the long run, these women will become sad and unfulfilled. Nobody should lose themselves for a relationship.
4. Women shouldn’t be humiliated in public. It is wrong for men to humiliate women and still expect these women to love, respect and treat them right. Humiliation should have no place in a healthy relationship.
5. Women shouldn’t be forced to do something they don’t want to do. Emotional blackmail is a bad thing. Most women give to the unhealthy demands of the men in their lives because they want to keep the peace. How long will this peace last?
6. Women shouldn’t be told that they will never find love again and that no man will ever love them the way their abusive partners love them. This is a ploy to keep these women stuck with badly behaved men.
7. It is not okay for women to be controlled. This society makes it look as if women can’t be trusted to make good decisions on their own and men should control them. This is hogwash. A woman is an adult who has the right to live life on her own terms.
8. A woman shouldn’t have to choose between her man, her family members, her friends and her job. She can have them all. Men who tell women to choose between them, their family and means of livelihood are abusers.
9. It is not okay that women are made to feel guilty for the anger, behavior and actions of their men. All the time, we see men blame women for their inability to control themselves and it is sad. Men should learn to take responsibility for their actions.
10. It is not okay for a woman to give up her dreams, her job, her business and social life because of a relationship. Women have the right to pursue their dreams and make their own money. They deserve to live their best lives. Women deserve the best in life.
Women, a word is enough for the wise. Live free!
