ABUSE HAPPENS TO MEN TOO; Not a contradiction, just a fact...

*NOTE: April 2001 READER'S DIGEST page 120 "Myth of the Deadbeat Dad"; 'Those who don't pay usually can't'...this article is in defence of the 'war against the poor'.*


Abuse happens to men to. It's a fact, plain and simple.

Verbal/emotional/mental abuse was all new to me; I had experienced vague instances of verbal abuse through life but nothing even comparable to what my husband threw at me. I will not deny the fact that I verbally abused my husband; he made me nuts. His behavior turned me into a monster. I retaliated in "the only way I knew how" as authorities on the subject have assured me; these authorities include men also. As my notation in the Men's Guestbook below states: we do the best we can with what we have, under the circumstances that surround us at the time.

I have every intention of being completely objective on any info I receive on the subject of men being abused by women. Abuse happens to everyone...regardless of race, color, religion, and sex. I will, however, not accept the excuse of 'I abused my wife because she wouldn't give me sex.' I'm rolling my eyes as I type that one.

Fellas, you are more than welcome to contribute to this page. No names/locations are printed for protection of the subject of your entry.

You can send me e-mail @:

wisdomwomenmail at yahoo dot com

Writing it this way prevents spamming.

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Thanx to those who have written. This is what I have received so far:

When I asked if any men would like to share their story of being abused by a woman, I received the following responses posted on the message board:

Thanks, I have a few stories to tell. Some of them I have told no one. My own brother, who was raised with me, does not know the depth of them, even though we have talked since becoming adults. As for anyone else, well, I have just never said anything. I have pretty much done it alone since I was about 6 or so. Anyway, I will post over the next few weeks some of my stories, it will be a catharsis for me, and an education for you. :-)You have my permission to repost anthing I have posted, if you think it will help others.I will read your site and post more soon. Take care of yourself.---

Now that is the kind of post that would make a man not want to bother to post his own issues. It minimalizes the pain that a man might go through. I would like to point out that, as you say, men are the ones doing 95% of the abusing, has it ever occured to you why that might be? Men are taught from early childhood to suck it up, and not let anyone know what their emotions are. If a young boy is emotional at all, he is called a "pansy" by his male peers. He is never taught a healthy outlet for his own pains, and a lot of men as boys are abused by fathers and mothers that have been abused themselves. It is a perpetual cycle. This doesn't excuse it, but these same men are never taught to communicate their feelings in a positive way.The point is, that if you would like to see men stop abusing women, then you need to stop being judgemental when a man does open up. Any man opening up and reaching out for for help will stop imediately if they feel that they are being judged because of it. And that is one more man who will have closed the door to a healthy outlet for his own inner turmoils. Yes, the world is different for a man, and it is different to a man. As for your own situation, I am sure that you would one day be able to get to the point in your life where you will be able to do it on your own. And you KNOW that you would not have just let your hubby go on his merry way without giving you child support and alimony, divvying the assets, etc. Not that you wouldn't have deserved it, but you would not have come away from the marriage destitute while he was living high on the hog.I have to say that I resent the thinly veiled male bashing that goes along with your post. I hope one day that you realize that men have feelings too. You claim to understand, but poo-poo the idea that a man can feel helpless. Unfortunately, I was not able to read Steve's post, for some reason I did not get it on my server. But it seemed to me that you are not sypathetic to a man being a victim, while I am sure you would expect that sympathy. I hope you change your mind in reading future posts in this group.

As for me, in terms of walking on egshells, I went through some of that in my first marriage, and some in my childhood, although it was not as bad as others, i think. It is weird how sometimes those feelings carry on despite them being unfounded in future relationships. One of these days, us humans will learn to live together without hurting each other. Maybe I am ever the optimist, but I would like to think that people are really good inside, and that the reason we continue to hert each other is that we have not learned to get over the pains in our lives. Sort of like the alcoholic that had an alcoholic parent(s), these emotinal hurts are passed down from generation to generation.I have to admit, that my oldest son was turning out to have serious issues with me and my ex. We had him when we were way to young to understand, and had begun passing many of these hurts on to him. He was manifesting it by rebelling and taking drugs and alcohol. He even became a drug dealer. It was a very hard road, but the ex and I went into family counseling with him, and invested almost two years into helping our son get over the mistakes we had made as his parents. It was a good investment. He has now become a fine young man, and is living his life without drugs and alcohol. He is on his own, and is a responsible person. Best of all, he has a good relationship with us, and hopefully will be able to have healthy relationships in his future. He now says he hopes to have kids some day, a 180 turn from just a year ago. I think he will be a fine father, better later than sooner!The importance of what I am saying here is that it is never too late to confront these issues with our families. Granted that both parties need to be willing, but a frank discussion or a letter explaining the need can usually open the door to helping to heal the past. I hope this helps all of you. In the meantime, try to live your life to the fullest in every way every day. I hope to see your posts here, and I will post more. Glad to be here.---

In your case, it seems that the ex beat the trust out of you. I can see that plainly. Now the guy who will do anything for you suffers because of your past experiences. Again, this is a vicious cycle. Do I know how to end it? If I did I would have an infomercial and be the richest man on earth!!! LOL

The only thing I was trying to say, is that it is not good to invalidate the feelings of others, no matter what. If those who say men need to learn to open up to their feelings thne trivialize them, then men won't open up, and you have this continuous cycle. I wonder what happend in your ex's past that made him so angry. It has to be somehting. Unfortunately we will never know. That doesn't excuse his behavior, but if he had an outlet for the anger/frustration that was positive, he may not have become an abuser to you.

I think everyone's feelings should be at least acknowledged, and for what they are. I do it too, sometimes I say, "because you are a woman," or "you're too young to understand." I have been trying to change this attitude. I hope my comments were not misconstrued for anything else. Glad to meet you.
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Sure, feel free to use post as you please. I'm sorry I didn't get chance to finish it and the original post got lost. But it all comes down to someone playing the CONTROL game. We all do it to some degree, but compromise works wonders. I don't totally fault my EX for her control problem, you see her parents were doing it to her even at age 40. We lived on "there" property and had to follow "there" rules, even on how to raise our kids. She in many ways was just taking it out on me the flustrations of the way she was being treated by her parents. They just really never let go. Today she has finally stood up to them after 1 year court ordered conseling. She does stuff her way now, told parents to butt out,they already had there turn. ---

Gosh, I think I just read 40 posts from one day.I don't have the time to re-write my missing one from 3 days ago. Been ill and have business emergencies to handle right now.Briefly--I was forced to work with the legal end of DV when my wife was arrested. I got to work around professionals in the field. Socially we are programmed to think women mostly have this problem. The pro's are now finding men have this trouble for more than believed. Many centers are now beginning to take men into the support system thou they have no housing for them.I have research papers that show the problem really is close to 50/50 not this 95/5% some believe. One woman who has worked with DV victums told me 18 months ago she finds in her investigations, the women are problem over 60% of the time, I was set back when she told me that, and she has 20 years experience doing home investigations. The method of abuse is whats different between the sexes. Men tend to be physically abusive, but the women are emotionally abusive as a general rule. Some men go through years of verbal and one day just "snap" and turn physical. This info is not my personal opinions per say, but info I got from people that work in this field. Anyway, I wish I had more time here. I'll try to finish this later, about 7 days backlogged on workload. I'll leave you all with one last comment: The easy way for married couple to stop or reduce DV problems is simply follow marriage vows. I case you forgot them, A quick review> MEN: Love and cherish your wifes. WOMEN: Honor and respect your husbands. It just that simple. Neither side should try to totally control the other, be partners, share together.---