BDSM has enabled me to save my relationship, leave a cycle of domestic abuse and salvage what's left of my heart. My name is Matthew Dixon and I'm a big and tall black man of Jamaican descent living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. I'm a graduate of the Sprott MBA program at Carleton University, and work for the Canadian Revenue Agency as an auditor. I have one hell of a confession to share with you, folks.
You know that guy with anger issues who crosses the line and puts his hands on his woman? That used to be me. I'm ashamed to say that once upon a time, I struck my wife, Sharon Vincent-Dixon, and the mother of our sons Elijah and Marcus, in anger. I had to attend counseling as a result, and although I hated it at the time, it enabled me to see within my own soul, and make the necessary changes.
Growing up in the City of Kingston, Jamaica, my family's household was deeply dysfunctional. My parents, Marianne and Jeremiah Dixon used to fight all the time...literally. My mother was the violent one, and she used to absolutely dominate my father. To the point that in my eyes, Pops wasn't even a man. He always let my mother beat on him, and always fled, rather than stand and fight. I swore as a youth that I would never let a woman treat me this way.
I saw women as treacherous, deceitful and abusive. I thought all women were like my violent and controlling mother, and when she died of a heart attack in Kingston, even though I was in Canada at the time, I rejoiced. Sadly, my father missed her so much that he became depressed. Good riddance, I thought. I left my old life behind and focused on the future. I graduated with honors from Carleton University, got hired by the Canadian government and began working towards my future.
Shortly after I graduated, I met a wonderful woman, Sharon Vincent. Born in the City of Montreal, Quebec, to a Haitian immigrant father, Jacques Vincent, and a French Canadian mother, Erica Tremblay, Sharon was exotically beautiful. The tall, curvy and caramel-skinned chick with the green eyes, deliciously round butt and angelic face simply took my breath away. A whirlwind romance followed, and we got married.
Sharon Vincent and I got hitched, and a year later, our twin sons Elijah and Marcus were born. We bought a house in the Barrhaven suburb of Ottawa. Sharon completed her Master's degree in Nursing at the University of Ottawa, and began working at the Ottawa Hospital's Civic Campus. Just a couple of highly educated and successful immigrants living in our nation's Capital, that's Sharon and I.
All was fine for the next ten years, until Sharon and I began having problems. We both work long hours, our sons are growing, and paying the mortgage on our large house certainly added to our stress levels. Sharon changed from the sweet and good-natured woman I married into a mean-spirited, loud-mouthed broad who got critical of my damn near every move. It's like I couldn't do anything right anymore.
One night, Sharon and I were arguing, nothing unusual there, when I got MAD and struck her. Man, I'm ashamed to say that I popped my wife and the mother of my sons on her mouth. I struck her like I would strike another man. I was shocked by my actions, as was Sharon. That night, Sharon took our sons and drove off. I sat alone in our bedroom, thinking about what I've done. I lay there, feeling anger and remorse. Seriously, how did it come to this?
Sharon and I used to be so passionately in love. We had a good thing going. And then she started becoming a loud-mouthed, controlling bitch...like my mother. My dead mother whom I still hate to this very day. Sharon never pressed charges against me, and returned to the house three days later, with our sons in tow. You must attend counseling or we're through, Sharon said firmly, and I nodded. Gently, Sharon hugged me, and told me that we would get through this.
I began attending both one-on-one psychiatric sessions with Dr. Minerva Suleiman, a Lebanese Christian gal with an office in downtown Ottawa, and anger management support group meetings in the east end. I spoke to other men with anger issues. They weren't monsters. Whether black, white or Chinese or whatever, they were normal guys with normal lives. I met cops, grocery store owners, lawyers, and even a church deacon. Normal men whose anger got the best of them, who were trying to be better.
