Grace Essen:
“One man learned a very valuable lesson as seen on social media last week, after cheating on his wife with the least person he should ever have thought of – his mother-in-law! His wife in revenge poured boiling water on him, leaving his back in a horrible state. My question: If she bathed her husband with hot water what will she bathe her mother with? Cold water?”

When we hear domestic violence, our minds quickly go to women being battered by their husbands, fiancés or boyfriends as the case may be. But from what we see in the news these days, it looks like men are now at the receiving end. When they say, “What a man can do a woman can do better,” I suppose it means when a woman does what a man would usually do, she goes the extra mile, good or bad.

One man learned a very valuable lesson as seen on social media last week, after cheating on his wife with the least person he should ever have thought of – his mother-in-law! His wife in revenge poured boiling water on him, leaving his back in a horrible state. My question: If she bathed her husband with hot water what will she bathe her mother with? Cold water?

This is not the first man to be at the receiving end of domestic violence in the hands of the wife. In November 2014, an Abuja based man suffered the same fate when his wife bathed him with scalding water following a disagreement, leaving him with serious burns. In March this year, a married man, who thought he was playing smart by secretly marrying five other women without his wife’s knowledge, got a shock of his life when the wife, in a well thought out manner bathed him with hot water. Are these women justified?

Also in the news last week was the story of a five-month pregnant woman who accused her husband of having an affair outside their marriage which led to a quarrel. She held her husband’s testicles and crushed it with an object, resulting in his death.

A 35-year old Nigerian mother of two was charged in the US for killing her husband of ten years over infidelity claims. She told police that her husband cheated severally on her, including having affairs with her sister and their nanny’s daughter.

Nigerian women are certainly not the only ones in these vengeful attacks. However, it appears the attacks by their counterparts in other parts of the world are a bit milder and somewhat hilarious to watch.

After finding out that her man had slept with her co-worker, a woman (likely an American judging from her accent) decided to (in a video clip available on Youtube) get some revenge – against the very body part he had strayed with. While the man was sleeping, she slowly poured some nail polish remover over the groin area of his underwear and with a long lighter; she set the front of his underwear on fire. The man woke up screaming and batting at the flame as he falls off the bed and stumbles off camera.

Another woman in Australia reportedly burned her boyfriend’s penis with hair straighteners as an agreed punishment for cheating on her. According to her, she applied the hair straighteners only for a few seconds, thinking it would feel like sunburn but it just looked like a cooked piece of meat. The District Court Judge said the man’s penis will be scarred for life and he will suffer from a number of issues, including the proper function of his penis, not to mention the cosmetic and psychological problems associated with the scarring to such a sensitive site. He also added that the crime was one of the “most unusual” he had ever encountered.

In April, a Japanese woman got revenge on her cheating boyfriend by destroying thousands of dollars worth of technology. Furious over his infidelity, she tossed his iMac desktop computer, Mac laptop, iPhone, iPad, and other gadgets into a bathtub full of water. The heartbroken man then shared images of his destroyed Apple collection on Twitter.

And in February, pictures surfaced online showing a new Audi R8 V – which can cost upwards of $115,900 – completely torn apart from the inside out. After a woman reportedly learned that her husband was sneaking around, she smashed all his car’s windows, the dashboard and speedometer, and the headlights and taillights. She also tore up the leather seats and used a sharp object on the red paint on the exterior, leaving the message ’f*** you’ with a smiley face on the destroyed car’s trunk.

In May, a Saudi wife took revenge on her husband who married a new bride – by racking up £50,000 of driving penalties in his car. While her husband was celebrating his second wedding night she took the pick-up truck and asked her brother to repeatedly drive it through red lights. They spent the night deliberately flouting traffic regulations, building up fines totalling about 300,000 Saudi Riyals – the equivalent of more than £51,000. A video on Youtube shows the pick-up truck inching forward through red lights before being flashed by a camera, the truck then reverses and carries out the manoeuvre several times.

So much more of such stories than I have space for. But here is a comment I consider a good advice: “… As a woman I’m embarrassed that other women are this immature. No man is worth going to jail for because you hurt them or destroyed their stuff. Walk away with your pride intact.”

What is your thought?

Connect with Grace @GraceEssen, email:[email protected], follow her blog @mum2mumafrica.com.