There are things I never imagined hearing, not because I was naïve, but because of the values I was raised with.

Across the world, we are witnessing a crisis that is not just legal or moral but psychological. Violence against women continues to escalate, often in the very spaces that should offer safety: relationships, marriages, dating, even friendships. While we talk about laws and justice, we rarely confront the more uncomfortable question. What is going on in the minds and hearts of the men who commit these acts?

Before we talk about systems, we need to examine what is breaking down internally. This is not just about isolated behaviour. It is about culture, mental health, and what boys are being taught or not taught about love, power, and emotional responsibility.

The first time I heard of a boyfriend taking the life of his partner, I felt something beyond horror. I felt disorientation.

Not because it was unimaginable in a naïve sense, but because I was raised in a context where such violence simply had no place. In the world I grew up in, women were cherished and often idealised. Our music, our dances, the small gestures of everyday life all reinforced this affection. Love was gentle, not dangerous.

At gatherings, during football matches, in those traditionally male spaces, we did not blast fight songs or aggressive rhythms. Instead, we listened to romantic ballads. The atmosphere encouraged tenderness, not control. Even dancing held this softness. When a young man danced with a woman, it came with sincerity, with stories of family and invitations to Sunday dinners. It was not a performance of dominance.

Today, many of those cultural cues have changed. In modern club scenes, physical interaction is often marked by aggressive movement. Pulling, bending, grabbing, all under the illusion of flirtation. What was once courtship has shifted into something darker, something performative, something entitled. And this shift reveals something larger. We have lost the emotional script that once connected love with respect.

When I first heard about a man harming the woman he claimed to love, my reaction was not just shock. It was disbelief. I wondered if I had missed a crucial lesson growing up. But the truth is more complex. These acts are not simply the result of individual failures. They are symptoms of wider cultural and psychological breakdowns.

How can someone claim to love another person, yet hurt them? It sounds like a contradiction. But psychology reveals that love and harm can exist simultaneously in the minds of people whose understanding of love has been warped by trauma, insecurity, or distorted beliefs about masculinity.

If a boy is taught that jealousy is romantic or that control is a form of care, he may come to see domination as a legitimate expression of affection. And if he grows up without healthy emotional models or education in empathy, even genuine feelings of love can become twisted into something dangerous.

Culture plays a crucial role in shaping how men express themselves. In environments where masculinity is defined by control and emotional suppression, violence becomes a tragic outcome. These behaviours are not born. They are shaped by norms, traumas, and the silence that surrounds male vulnerability.

When society glorifies power but mocks sensitivity, emotional literacy dies. Without the tools to process pain or rejection, some men learn to lash out rather than reflect. This is not about excusing their behaviour. It is about understanding the conditions that make it possible.

We teach children about the symptoms of malaria. We run campaigns about preventing typhoid. But we remain silent about the psychological illnesses that lead men to destroy women’s lives.

Where are the signs that say, “If you feel violent, seek help”? Where are the adverts that say, “If your mind is unwell, treat it like your body and seek healing”?

Instead, we normalise male chaos. A rapper goes viral and days later faces accusations of assault. A footballer gets promoted and begins to treat women like trophies. A young man makes his first thousand pounds and thinks he has earned control over someone’s daughter.

What sickness teaches that success entitles you to harm? What kind of emotional abandonment confuses confidence with cruelty?

In school, we studied history’s most powerful men. Leaders, revolutionaries, visionaries. But there is one figure we rarely discuss in terms of healthy masculinity. Jesus.

Not from a religious standpoint, but from a human one.

He was constantly surrounded by women. They loved him, trusted him, followed him. He had power, popularity, and influence. And not once did he abuse that trust. Not once did he use his position to harm.

In today’s world, if a man could make the blind see, the sick walk, and had a crowd chanting his name, many would exploit that. Jesus did not. He remained centred, grounded, focused on healing, not conquest.

What if we raised boys to admire that kind of strength? What if masculinity was not about domination but about direction?

This is not just a male violence problem. It is a cultural and mental health emergency. When a man believes he can take a woman’s life, it is not just the woman who is lost. He loses part of himself. His empathy. His humanity.

Some argue that men who commit these acts do so because of childhood wounds, especially maternal abandonment. But statistically, far more women grow up without their fathers. Many experience violence, neglect, or abandonment. Yet very few of them respond by harming their partners.

So why do some men turn pain into cruelty, while women with even deeper wounds do not? The answer is complex but rooted in how society handles gender and emotion. Boys are discouraged from vulnerability. They are rarely taught to reflect, to heal, or to speak. Instead, they are taught to dominate.

If you are spiralling, if the storm inside you is growing, please, do not take someone else down with you.

Ask for help. Speak to someone. A therapist. A friend. A spiritual mentor. Lock yourself in a room if you must. But do not chain another person to your pain.

Because strength is not power over women. It is power over your own darkness.

Bahati Kasibu Fiston is a psychologist and writer who dedicates his writing to demystifying the human brain, translating its complex mechanics into simple truths that allow us to understand our minds as deeply as we understand our own bodies.