Understand the Perpetual Offender

The offence of a perpetual offender can be very painful. The pains get more penetrating when the offender shows no remorse. However, if you understand a perpetual offender, you will be equipped to cope with him as well as help him. On BrojidStepUp today, I want to introduce you to a perpetual offender.

I had explained earlier that it’s possible that your perpetual offender offends you because he can’t help but offend you. I do not by that mean that he can never change and there is nothing he can do about it. My emphasis is that unless the person deliberately makes changes in his mindset and lifestyle that produces the offence, he can’t help but offend you in those areas.

A perpetual offender is positioned where he or she can’t help but offend people he/she is relating with. He has influence, mindset and lifestyle that make him default in the areas you find offensive. That’s why I call perpetual offenders, offenders by influence.

You see, life is designed in a fashion that you will act in a manner consistent with your true self which comprises of your belief system, values and associations. The root of a perpetual offender’s life is that he brought himself to the point where he can’t help but offend you.

Please don’t think he deliberately brought himself to that point; nobody would want to do that. He may have come under such influence by virtue of his background and upbringing. From these influences, he carries a lifestyle that may linger in his life forever, unless he makescommitted effort at changing it.

Let me illustrate with these examples.

A man that grew up under a wife-batter father may grow up with the consciousness that it’s OK to beat a wife when she defaults or gets you angry as a way of correcting her. It’s even worse if the beating always made her mother recoil in her shell and assume obedient-slave position in the home. He may not plan to hit hisgirlfriend or wife; but without even thinking about it, he raises his hands on her when he gets offended.

His friend who is not like him sees his action as an aberration because he has never ever seen his father verbally cut her mother to shred let alone raise his hands on her.Meanwhile, this friend of his may be a chronic adulterer because he grew up from a background where people are sexually lose and he is aware of his father’s promiscuity and he doesn’t see anything wrong with his adulterous lifestyle.

Similarly, a child that grew up without adequate and proper training in respect for elders may turn out insulting and show zero respect for elders. You may find it offensive if you are her boss or husband; but she is not so because she chooses to but because she was not properly cultured to be respectful. She offends you in not showing you respect not because she doesn’t love you, but because she is an offender by influence.

A perpetual offender may have also exposed himself to influences that produce his offensive lifestyle by virtue of interactions which he considers subtle and harmless but indirectly affect him. Let me show you how people subject themselves to an influence without realizing it.

You see, men generally hang out with other men especially to drink and in the process gist about life. If your faithful husband hangs out with adulterous men long enough, he will be influenced negatively by their lifestyle. Even if he doesn’t go into it as deep as his influencers, he will most certainly have elements of it.

It’s important to know that he didn’t go there to learn the bad lifestyle of adultery; he just went to hangout and found himself in the midst of men who choose adultery as a way of life. He refused to quit the association; but convinced himself that nothing will happen to him. He didn’t realise that the change in his lifestyle may not happen automatically but will start with playing down on the wickedness associated with adultery. He starts realizing that adultery is good to eat and make a man wise, until one day, opportunity will present itself and he will fall helplessly into it. Most people started like that and have gone very deep into it.

In the same vein, your wife who used to be respectful and submissive changed when she started entertaining the visits and association of women who are not happy in their home or married heartless men. She had no plan of changing negatively but she just welcomed her visitors, church members or neighbours and as usual they started gisting (abi gossiping). Women who married heartless men devise means of handling their husbands and his lifestyle.When your wife starts listening to them, she will start learning the methods of handling a wicked, heartless and godless man and if care is not taken, you will start getting the treatment that you don’t deserve.If she is not greatly influenced by such unprofitable association, certain evil seeds will be deposited in her heart, at least in a small measure. She may not find out until when you remark, “When did you change like this?”

My point is that the perpetual offender is so by influence and not necessarily by choice. This should exude pity from you, not harsh judgment. It should propel you to seek a means of helping, not harassing him. Let it activate endurance in you but not to exit your relationship. It may not be easy; but the thrilling joy of seeing a hitherto annoying person turn loving can be great.