Without question, we as a society have difficulty taking seriously the reports of men that they have been privately victimized by women. Perhaps it would help to hear the way one of those victims of violence described it to me in an e-mail message. Let’s call him Ronnie.
I recently decided to leave my wife and get a divorce. I won’t claim to have been a perfect husband, but after years of the words “emotional abuse” flashing through my mind, I finally realized I was trying to tell myself something; I was being emotionally abused.
I had also come to believe that when I talked with my wife about an emotionally touchy subject and it erupted into her verbal and physical attacks, that this was just life; maybe even normal for men to take from their wives. I learned to stay at more than arms length emotionally for 3 years and the verbal and physical attacks stopped. When I decided to leave and talked about divorce, it all started again. This time it was worse. She pushed me down the stairs, hit me with a frying pan, threw objects at me (including a knife) and worst of all, she kept hiding the kids on me. She’d say things like “you’ll never see the f_ _ _ ing kids again.
I don’t want to live in that type of relationship. It’s hard for a man to admit to himself his wife is abusing him. When I did, I started standing up for myself. Unfortunately, she started telling everyone that I was the abusive one. She got it to my work, the church, my friends and family. It’s so easy to believe a woman and so unfathomable to believe that a man could be abused.
Almost all info and programs available are for women who have been abused. Including your recommendation for a book on the Let’s Get This Straight page. Please don’t forget the men who have been abused. Men are more likely to hide it, there’s less support and just as much shame.
Respectfully, Ronnie