This is the first of my short stories and it is aimed at both creating a conversation and educating the reader on simple life lessons. These stories are not based on any particular event but a collection of views put together as a story to generate a common scenario that one may find him or her self in.

"Recent global prevalence figures indicate that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

Most of this violence is intimate partner violence. Worldwide, almost one third (30%) of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical and/or sexual violence by their intimate partner.

Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
Obi is a 35 year old man who studied Fine Art at the University of Calabar in Nigeria. He was described by his friends as being quiet, friendly with a good sense of humor. He dated and later got married to Anita a lawyer whom he meet during the National Youth Service Corp days. These two were said to be love birds and everyone envied their relationship.
Obi did most of his work from home and made a decent amount of money from his Artworks. Anita on the other hand was the legal adviser to a popular bank in the country. They both had 2 kids between them and live in a 4 bedroom flat in Lagos.
Anita's job is so demanding and requires her to stay at work late and sometimes work on weekends but Obi was always at home except for when he needs to make some deliveries or take the kids to and from school.

This routine had not been an issue for both parties until about 6 years into their marriage when suddenly Obi was no longer comfortable with the late night return of Anita. He voiced out his concerns and even tried to get his wife to reduce her work load or find another job all together.
Anita did not buy into his idea and was ready to take her career to its peak. They began to have frequent arguments and sometimes violent confrontations with their neighbors always coming to the rescue.
They finally decided to get their parents involved and they were told to make their marriage work and seek counsel from their religious leader.
This interventions seemed to have a short lived effect. One Saturday night Anita was returning from an office dinner and was denied access into the house for coming home too late. Obi had locked her out and told her to return to where she was coming from. There were verbal confrontations between both parties amiss the voice of the crying kids. Anita picked up a steel bar and broke down the door to gain access into the house. This lead to a fight and later the demise of Anita while Obi sustained multiple stab wounds.
Obi is currently in prison awaiting trial.

What would have been done to prevent these outcomes ?
Let me know what you think and look forward to another short story next week.