Are You An Abused Man? Three Questions
Recently, on the Shrink4Men blogs and in my private practice, men have made remarks such as: “I didn’t know men could be abused;” “It’s still really difficult for me to admit that I was abused; that I’m an abused man;” “My couples therapist told us men can’t be abused and that my wife is just emotional;” “I just don’t how I went from being a happy guy, with friends, family and a great job, to what I am now;” and “My wife thinks I’m being abusive and controlling when I tell her her behavior is hurtful.”
Gentlemen, it’s time to take the blinders off and wake up. Men are just as likely to be the targets of abuse as women. Women are just as capable of being abusive as men. Abuse is abuse and it’s not different when she does it. Wait a minute, I take that back. It is different when she does it because she’s more likely to get away with it, for the time being, that is.
Women-centric domestic violence groups and Dr Phil would like our society to believe that only men can abuse and only women can be victims. However, just because they want this to be the truth doesn’t make it so. In fact, individuals who perpetuate this lie are abusers themselves. Why? Because not only are they denying help to millions of men who are suffering everyday, they’re denying the existence of their suffering.
People who deny that men can be abuse victims are also unforgivable hypocrites. Domestic violence centers and spokespersons bang the drum ad nauseam about “ending the silence on domestic violence” in regards to female victims, but tell male victims of abuse that they’re not victims and to shut up and go away. The “Men Bad-Women Good; Men Abusers-Women-Victims” mentality is an example of a primitive psychological defensive mechanism called splitting. [*Splitting is also a very common behavior engaged in by many individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder.]
Men in Denial about Being Abuse Victims
Many men recognize that their wife’s/girlfriend’s behavior is cruel, erratic, crazy, demanding, controlling, pathologically possessive, manipulative, passive-aggressive, cold and hostile. They can articulate that their female intimate partners call them names, withhold sex and affection to punish and/or use it as a transaction, lie, cheat, steal, make disparaging remarks about them to others–including their own children, make threats and throw objects, slap, kick, scratch, punch, pull hair, etc., but still won’t acknowledge that their wife’s or girlfriend’s behavior is abuse.
If you’re a man who is having trouble coming to grips with the fact that your wife’s/girlfriend’s behavior is indeed abusive, I’d like you to consider the following 3 questions:
- How does her behavior make you feel?
- How would you and others view her behavior toward you if she were a man and you were a woman?
- Would her behavior toward you land her in jail if she were a man?
1. Helpless and hopeless. If her behavior makes you feel helpless, hopeless, powerless, crazy, confused, overwhelmed, scared, anxious, stressed, fatigued, and physically ill, you may be experiencing common trauma symptoms associated with abuse. Admitting the problem is often the first and most important step you can take to solving the problem.
However, don’t expect your wife or girlfriend to share your view of the problem. If you tell her that her behavior toward you is abusive, she’ll most likely turn it around on you (DARVO—Deny, attack and reverse victim order) and accuse you of being the abuser. That’s what abusers do. They blame their victims. It’s what the stereotypical alcoholic wife beater does and it’s what abusive high-conflict and/or abusive personality-disordered women do.
2. Role reversal. Imagine if you and your wife/girlfriend could switch genders. How would you and, let’s say, oh, I don’t know. . . support staff at a woman’s domestic violence shelter view your wife’s/girlfriend’s behavior toward you if she were a man and you were a woman? If the answer is, “He’s an abusive creep. You need to protect yourself and your children, create a safety plan and get out,” then your wife/girlfriend is an abuser and you’re an abused man in the context of your relationship.
Domestic violence shelters don’t tell an abused woman who’s seeking help and protection from her male abuser to stick it out and be patient. DV shelters don’t tell an abused woman to have empathy for her male abuser and to try to understand his feeeeeeeeeeeelings and point of view. DV shelters don’t tell an abused woman to stay with her male abuser for the sake of the children and to honor her commitments. DV shelters most certainly do not tell an abused woman that she needs to change her behaviors, so that her male abuser will stop abusing her.
Enough with the double standards already.
3. Perp walk. If your wife/girlfriend engages in physical violence toward you, it’s abuse, it’s domestic violence and it’s a crime. Period. Violence is not different when a woman perpetrates it; it’s still violence. If you would be arrested for throwing keys at your female partner, kicking her, throwing a glass of milk at her head, scratching, her, slapping her, stabbing her with a knife, biting her, trying to run her down with a car, threatening to kill yourself and the children, threatening to kill her and the children, threatening to kill her pet, threatening to kill her new boyfriend, going after her with a hammer, punching her in the groin, etc., etc., she should also go to jail for these behaviors when she perpetrates them upon you.
Men, I know it’s humiliating for many of you to admit you’re in an abusive relationship and that you’re an abused man in the context of your intimate relationship, but there shouldn’t be any shame in doing so. Your abusive wife/girlfriend is the one who ought to be ashamed. It takes an incredible amount of strength and courage to admit to this problem and seek help. If you can endure the behavior of an abusive woman, you have more strength than you know. You just need to use that strength to get help and get out. Furthermore, the powers that be and DV groups want to maintain the shame men feel about being abused. It makes it less likely that you’ll complain and ask for help. In order for this matter to be taken seriously, you have to redirect the shame at the people who are behaving badly and make some noise.
If you can’t admit that you’re being abused to yourself and take it seriously, then society and our legal system will probably never do so. This means the current extremely biased and inequitable divorce and custody laws and practices will stay in place. If we don’t change the current divorce and custody laws that favor women, then you will most likely be punished by the courts for trying to escape your abusive marriage. It’s not right and it needs to stop. That won’t happen until we raise public awareness.
Once you stop the abuse and fight back, you’re no longer a victim.
Shrink4Men Coaching and Consulting Services:
Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.
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Excellent post Dr T. While not in an abusive marriage myself this will be very helpful to a lot of men. I originally got here because of a past G/F. But anyway I remember YEARS ago as cop in the Air Force we did see domestic abuse in base housing from both men & women. The victim was almost always the Air Force spouse. If an Active Duty Member male or female dos this their career is over in pretty short order. At least in the service, when their is a sign of physical assault they are apprehended (A.F doesn’t arrest, they apprehend) quickly regardless of the sex. At least they were in my squadron.
But here is where the difference comes in. After we apprehend the person guilty of assault the matter is refered to the active duty members commander even if he/she was the victim. This was because it was done in Base Housing. If the member was the victim the commander would just counsel the member on how best to handle it. No punishment was given at all. But if the victim was male it was almost always as you said. “She is emotional. Don’t break up the family over 1 incident. Don’t press charges with the local police” (if the abuser was civilian that’s where charges had to be handled) etc. But if the victim was female it was ‘Kick him out, press charges with the local police, leave, run” etc etc.
Granted this was all many years ago & in general believe it or not the military actually tends to get ahead of the curve in domestic & societal matters. They were one of the first to put in serious policies on sexual harrasment & yes it could go both ways. To listen to the press you would think they are all a bunch of club wielding cave men…lol
I was married to an Active Duty Air Force Officer (No she wasn’t abusive) for 16years who was female & they take this stuff seriously. A woman in her squadron was charged with domestic assault back in 98, given an article 15, lost a stripe & pay & was discharged (other than honerable). So I guess in general they are trying to do the right thing with it. I wish this was the case nation wide. But sadly it isn’t. Yes I am sure there are places where the police do try but many times get confounded by the courts who side with the female abuser.
Keep educating
Ron
Thanks, Ron. I can’t wait for the day when this particular double standard is the exception and not the norm.
Opps I meant the victim was almost always the Air Force Active Duty Member (in the first paragraph. Sowwy bout dat
I wrote this letter to the Los Angeles times three years ago and followed up a few times but they wouldn’t engage. Two years later I tried to get their attention after the landmark Woods v Shewry case but to no avail. No one in the mainstream media wants to admit that DV is a gender neutral issue…
Dear Sir,
I am a victim of domestic violence. While waiting for four hours at the police station this afternoon to file a report I read the “Domestic Violence Handbook, A Survivor’s Guide” (a California Attorney General’s Office publication).
I learned that violence may be triggered by a role change, such as when the woman starts school or goes to work. Batterers apparently rationalize abuse to “show the woman who’s boss” and the woman typically accepts the blame.
In an emergency, I’m encouraged to call 911 and say, “My husband hit me.”
I discovered that some women feel guilty and are ashamed of their partner’s violence. I now know that, during the Tension-Building Phase, the woman rarely becomes angry.
It was frightening to read that, following the incident, the batterer may refuse to summon medical help even when the woman’s injuries are life-threatening.
It was reassuring, however, that legal information is available by ordering the Attorney General’s Women’s Rights handbook and that I can find help in the Yellow Pages under “Women’s Organizations.”
This is all very well and good, except that I am male and my abusive wife (now ex-wife) is female.
There was a Spanish version of the booklet available. Why not a version of the booklet for male victims?
Sincerely,
A battered husband (now ex-husband)
Sad, but not surprising, Frog. This is why websites/blogs that tell men’s stories are so vital in raising awareness. The MSM, wholly owned by Corporate Overlords that manufacture products that they tell women they deserve and are entitled to because they “deserve it,” aren’t about to report the truth anytime soon.
I totally understand the text though, as I am afraid to say anything. I was punched in the gut many times once and felt dizzy and sick for a few days and literally would have allowed myself to die without medical attention before telling anyone it was my wife. I have had so many accusations of emotional abuse and then a turnaround where I stop arguing and remain silent and she gets worse and worse. I have to now think, how many times have we thrown things and how it will turn against me and anything she did will be ignored. I don’t have a place to go and don’t want to lose my kids and begin a life where everyone just hears her side of the story. I even began taping her talking about beating me up and caught a lot of the things that she denies doing and saying but then I got rid of it because I thought we were moving on. I moved out before but I have a serious co-dependency problem. I literally had to call on her because when I lived alone for a month, I wanted to commit suicide and she was the only one I could talk to. In my mind, I am to be strong and get through this but she started to say she was going to look elsewhere for affection and that if I don’t change she’s leaving (because I have been so silent lately). If I try to say anything about anything, she has to argue so I thought not saying anything and focusing on my career would help and it makes her even worse toward me. When I moved out, she changed and when I said how I felt recently and threatened I might tell people about this she changed for now. I guess I feel like I have to have some kind of tactic to reset the situation, if I leave then I am doomed to an even worse life. It sucks being a man. I try to figure out in my head how it would work if I could just get her to leave but everything always ends up (in my mind) with me alone or in jail for not being able to keep up with child support or something.
I am a woman, and I would like to tell all the men out there who feel like less of a man or ashamed because they are being abused by a woman or anybody for that matter that the problem is not because you are a men. The problem is the definition of what a man’s role in society is.
You are first a human being with minds, emotions and feelings. The role of a man should be defined in those terms not in terms of a machine. Only a narcissist would put a human in the role of an unfeeling object and expect stealth endurance in all matters. It is simply cruel.
I have broken down and cried rivers of pain with men in my life. We were equal when we did this. I grew to love men more because of it. We picked each other up and lead each other out of pain with our individual strengths as healthy, normal functional people do. I want you to know that I am not the only woman out there who believes and does as I do. Men and Women are meant to be equal but different in a partnership not servitude. It is part of your constitutional rights as well. No man shall be a slave and has the right to pursue happiness within the laws.
It is simply unconscionable and egregious for anybody yet alone a so called Mental Health Professional to tell you that men can’t be abused. That comment deserves a complaint sent to the State Discipline Department for professional malpractice and legal advice from a lawyer. The person telling you that is putting your life in danger as well as perpetrating a myth in society and going against criminal and civil laws in our society. It is the part of any Mental Health Professionals job to enhance pro social behavior and protect their clients or patients from harm and work within civil and criminal laws. If their judgment is that warped, they are impaired so called professional and shouldn’t be holding a license.
It’s a sad state of affairs that I feel the need to thank you for saying that, but thank you for saying that. It really should be no more than stating the obvious, but there’s been so much propaganda and brainwashing on that score that you’re swimming against the current just by making that observation.
Ditto. Thank you, B Experienced.
You are very welcome. I was hoping that insight made an impact on someone. It is the key ingredient in pulling out of the recipe of madness put on anybody involved with any Cluster B or narcissist.
B Experienced:
My friend told me that when his wife, who “handles the finances” aka: takes his paycheck every week, pays the bills with it and doesn’t tell him what she does with the rest- including buying four dogs after he said he didn’t want a second one (to the tune of thousands of dollars), saw a strange phone number on the call log on his cell phone bill -she slapped him.
He told her that if she ever did it again he would leave and that was it. However, he continues to endure total lack of physical or emotional intimacy with her, verbal and mental abuse, and isolation from friends and family, except on holidays and special occasions, when she puts up with it for brief visits. If he goes alone she makes sure that she constantly texts and calls until his visit is over, according to his sister and mother, who have both expressed concern about him.
His individual counselor has convinced him to stay with her despite the abuse and “work it out”. Obviously not concerned with his best interests. The man has been suicidal since about the second year of marriage to this monster.
Yet he continues to believe he isn’t an abuse victim in his marriage
There’s so much more, but it would fill a book unfortunately.
P. S.
This article Dr. T really blew my mind. Unbelievable what men are going and put through.
It can be a long hard walk – but I tell you that it is worth it.
Hahaha…’his feeeeeeeeeelings’…..
He said, “I’ve been told I don’t have any money to spend.”
I asked, “How can you not have any money? You’ve been working 70 hours a week!”
He answered, “*I* don’t have any money to spend.”
I countered, “I thought you said it all comes from the same pot.”
He replied, “But I’m not the one who makes that decision.”
I asked, “Don’t you make alot more than she does (she works 5 hrs/day 5 days /wk. He works as much OT as he can get)? Not hourly, but over a year’s time with all your overtime?”
He answered, “Yes, but she’s the one who makes all those decisions.”
All I could do was think, “That’s one of the signs.” and kept my mouth shut.
Good News: Canada now has officially recognized that men can be abused by women. I’ll try to link their guide, from Heart-2-Heart:
http://www.heart-2-heart.ca/H2H/viewtopic.php?f=148&t=916
The name of the pdf file is “Men Abused by Women in Intimate Relationships”
Alberta Children and Youth Services
Prevention of Family Violence and Bullying
3rd Floor, Sterling Place
9940 – 106 Street
Edmonton, AB T5K 2N2
Family Violence Info Line: 310-1818
http://www.familyviolence.alberta.ca
It took me 18 years to figure out that I was being systematically abused, bullied and manipulated by my BPD wife. Once I figured out it wasn’t me I asked her to stop and she wouldn’t. I would get the following response from her: (taken from this blog post) – “My wife thinks I’m being abusive and controlling when I tell her her behavior is hurtful.”
From this site I have learned detachment and how to take care of myself first. I have been trying to get out. It has been very difficult to get her to understand that I want out because of the abuse – we live in a state that makes divorce difficult. Soon hopefully I can be free. She cannot admit that her screaming tirades in front of the kids is a real reason that I don’t want to spend time with her any more (very similar to Lynne in this post -Scenes from an Abusive Marriage: Should You Post an Abusive Wife’s Behavior on YouTube?).
So anyway I would just like to thank Dr. Tara for her work here. And also tell anyone who is reading her site for the first time that just because your abuser tells you that it is your fault – IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! My wife is so good at playing the victim that often times the next day after a tirade I would be the one who apologized. Now that we are in a high-conflict divorce she has really turned the abuse up a few notches. To stay strong I keep thinking about the day when I can go back to who I was.
Hang in there, Scouter. They escalate the abuse because they know they’re losing control and they’re trying to scare you back under their thumb. It sucks that she has little hostages that she can weaponize. However, I truly believe that in order to have a fighting chance of not becoming the monsters their HCP/APDI parent is, they need a healthy parent and safe place to go away from the Crazy.
To quote Dr T:
Q: How does her behaviour make you feel?
A: If her behavior makes you feel helpless, hopeless, powerless, crazy, confused, overwhelmed, scared, anxious, stressed, fatigued, and physically ill, you may be experiencing common trauma symptoms associated with abuse
Scenario: I am selling my house and separating from the ex wife
Event: I just got back from inspecting a house to rent.
Background: I said that I could meet the landlord at 4.00pm. She said that was too early. I offered to meet her 4.30pm or 5.00 pm instead. She said that she couldn’t make it then but did not offer an alternative time. Then she changed her mind and said 5.00 pm would be fine. Then she sent me a text and said that she could make 4.00pm after all. I said fine.
When I met her she said that she wanted a stable long term tenant. When I offered to sign a long term lease she said that she was only prepared to sign a short term lease and would insist on inspecting the house every 3 months.
She said that she had concerns about my ability to pay the weekly rent so I offered to pay the entire lease up-front but she refused to accept it because it was not normal and she was not comfortable with that arrangement.
After interviewing me she then said that she was thinking about hiring a leasing manager. But she couldn’t tell me if she wanted to use an agent or not just that she was considering it. She couldn’t tell me if she was prepared to accept me as a tenant but asked for my references anyway.
Q: Why do I feel so “wound up” after this unpleasant experience?
Q: Why does her behaviour remind me so much of my former partner?
Q: Why do I feel so confused, frustrated, angry and yes…abused…?
Peter
You bring up a good example about how interactions with BPD women outside of a partnership occur. These are big flags that you should consider a sign to look elsewhere for your new home.
I would also be tempted to call her out to the carpet and throw down a challenge to how her behavior is emotionally abusive. I suspect no one else in her personal life will do it. I’m sure she’ll get snarky, blame-shift, name call and other 3-year old bully tactics, but at least you will have the satisfaction of calling her, albeit in a civilized way, what she is…an asshole.
My guess is that you are dealing with a person who isn’t experienced as a landlord. They are nervous and scared that they will make the wrong decisions. Odds are they intended to use a leasing manager, but someone told them they’d be ripped off and so are intent on doing the leasing themselves.
I was a landlord once and the experience was so stressful, I would never do it again. I’d attribute your perspective landlord’s behavior to something similar.
My guess is that he is dealing with someone who is putting him in a “double-bind,” at every turn, as regular readers of this blog would understand to be a symptom of an overall personality disorder.
Ugh. Find another place to live. Whether she’s a PD or just an inexperienced bad landlord—doesn’t matter. You want a landlord who sticks to agreements, makes repairs and isn’t intrusive. 3 month inspections? No thanks.
I once had a landlord who wanted me to agree to random surprise inspections. He still insisted even after I pointed out that this was illegal. I found another place to live. It was a little more expensive, but my LL stayed out of my life and the apartment except to make repairs, which is what you want.
“Q: Why does her behaviour remind me so much of my former partner?”
A: Because it’s the same behavior! You’ve run into another Cluster B. Look at it this way: you are learning to spot them up front. That’s the skill you need to develop to keep from falling into a relationship with another one. You’re making good progress!
Hey Dave,
I think this is the way I see it too (48 hours later). There is the stereotypical Cluster B pattern double bind a.k.a. “no-win” pattern of behaviour; and there is my pattern of trying to be too fair, too reasonable, accommodating etc. So at least now I am beginning to recognise the old patterns thanks to websites such as this one and the community of men out there who have been there before. Thanks for all of your comments and encouragement; it is progress and being able to recognise this sort of behaviour and curtailing or avoiding further episodes of conflict and struggle is the best course. Prevention being better than cure.
Walk away. Offer no explanation. If asked, just say, “It’s not going to work out.”
Wasting a single oxygen atom trying to explain yourself will be a waste of time, and only start the cycle of ‘crazy’.
Two words: run away!