Men are dogs. #KillAllMen. Men’s only value is in providing for women. Your father is a loser. You’re just like your father, you worthless piece of shit. I don’t care if your sister hit you first, never ever hit a woman. Only men can stop domestic violence. Teach men not to rape.
Men have no emotions. Men suck at expressing their feelings. Men are only interested in using women for sex. Men are not allowed to sit next to unaccompanied minors on airplanes. Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.
When counseling men on how to have better relationships and how to make better relationship choices, many mental health professionals say it’s a matter of developing a healthy sense of self-respect and self-worth.
But what if a man was never allowed to develop self-respect? What if his mother vilified men, including his own father, and masculinity?
Fatherlessness is a growing epidemic. There are now several generations of men raised by single mothers. Many of these men were raised to revere women (even horrifically abusive women) to their own detriment and received love and validation only if they pleased their mother. How does a man develop self-respect if he was taught from an early age that his maleness is bad and that it makes him less than?
What if a man has had his self-worth decimated after becoming involved with a toxic, abusive woman or a series of toxic, abusive women?
Abusers, whether they’re male or female, systematically dismantle their target’s sense of self and agency, often to the point where the target believes he deserves or causes his partner’s abuse. How does he restore his confidence and self-worth?
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Counseling with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD
Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD helps individuals work through their relationship and codependency issues via telephone or Skype. She specializes in helping men and women trying to break free of an abusive relationship, cope with the stress of an abusive relationship or heal from an abusive relationship. Coaching individuals through high-conflict divorce and custody cases is also an area of expertise. She combines practical advice, emotional support and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Schedule a Session page for more information.
Want to Say Goodbye to Crazy? Buy it HERE.
Like many men on S4M, I don’t recognize myself anymore and for all my talk in previous posts about getting up the courage to leave, I’m still with her, though as I wrote in a previous post, she rarely drinks anymore, meditates and exercises, but I’ve been damaged and even if she’s a totally changed woman, I stopped caring about her, for example, she was in Florida for two weeks visiting some of her cousins and after seven days, I realized how much better I was feeling and sleeping. Everything stopped feeling good when she returned. Yeah, that’s a wake up call for me but I’ll probably still be singing the blues about this crappy marriage months from now…or maybe I’ll actually find the strength to go. Don’t take any bets.
Tropicaldaze,
You deserve to be happy, man! So what if your wife is better now? She poisoned the well. Your mind is telling you to leave but your heart is still attached to her. Trust your mind! Your heart will follow. Hell, it’s your heart that got you into this mess in the first place!
Head for the hills, my friend! Doesn’t matter how you do it, just listen to Paul Simon 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=298nld4Yfds
You can do it! 🙂
TD, don’t be so hard on yourself — you’ve got your wife for that. I’ve read some stats that it takes up to 7 attempts to leave. If you want out, start by changing your language from “I can’t” to “I will.” Tell trusted friends and family members what is going on in your marriage. Perhaps they can help you to be accountable to yourself. Make a list of objectives you need to secure in order to leave and begin working on it. You’re in a cage, but it’s you who holds the key to the door. Figure out what fears are keeping you there and work through them.
Overdue piece where we’re finally acknowledging society’s complacent role in the problems. Its going to be perceived (rightfully so?) as a direct assault on feminism & female privilege.
Are you afraid of assaulting radical feminists and female privilege? I don’t think so. It needs to be done. So how can we make the pendulum swing back to the middle? Feminists and their male sympathizers are so closed minded.
Niet. Just stating the obvious. Dr. T has taken withering criticism before from the feminazis on other pieces. They haven’t stopped us yet. Glad you’re on board SNM.
The concept of “personal responsibility” is for men only. Single moms are let off the hook as permanent victims of the patriarchy. Our country’s glorification of single motherhood is an abomination. The Ray Rice episode is great example. The video shows his wife hitting him in the face as they get in the elevator. Then she lunges at him in the elevator as if to attack again. He does what many reasonable people do when attacked and defends himself. The video surfaces and now he’s banned by the NFL. Anyone who says anything about his wife’s violence is publically shamed. Such a sad state of affairs.
To tropicaldaze, sounds like your intuition (inner voice) is telling you there is something wrong. We are told not to listen to that. If I would have, then I would not have lost 6 years of my life to an alcoholic NPD “mate”. Sounds like she is in the best behaviour mode to kind of lull you into feeling good about things.
This could be a set up for something in the future. Keep in tune with that inner voice that seems to be telling you that something is still not right. You have lost alot of your “energy” to her already…..soon she will be back for more, that is a given.
I ran big time, but too late and I am paying the price as recovery takes longer…the longer you stay being manipulated by the abuser.
If in doubt, retreat while you can before you are totally wiped out.
As for the Ray Rice knockout punch…in older articles Dr T addressed the reasons why his wife is now singing “stand by your man.”
I really need to brush up on that again.
Without this web site, I would still be living a life that would compare to that of a victim of some diabolical religous cult.
It’s been a few years since I posted anything on this site. I’m a guy, married to a toxic, emotionally and verbally abusive woman. Sadly, I discovered this website (Shrink4Men) back a few years when we were still dating, and although I thought I had managed to successfully extricate myself from the relationship and break off our engagement and wedding plans the first go around, unfortunately my (now wife) managed to persuade me into returning, under the guise of promises that she had “changed” and was committed to therapy, and had realized the error of her ways. Sadly, I believed her, but it really turned out to be just another string of lies in her relentless towering inferno of never ending bullshit. Now we have an infant baby daughter, who I love and adore more than anything in the world, but who my wife is trying to keep from me and alienate me from. Of course, my wife is very high functioning, and uses her charm very convincingly and effectively. We are in the midst of a divorce now, which I instigated, but only after she had driven me to the brink of suicide, threatening me that I would never get to see my daughter again, and landing me as an inpatient at the psychiatric hospital for a week. Prior to this, she had called the police on me several times since our daughter was born, since she could not stand to deal with any conflict like a mature or responsible adult, and instead had to bring the cops in to settle what amounted to marriage squabbles with an infant child in the picture. After my hospitalization, she invited me over to the house (we were separated) to see my baby daughter, only to ambush me with an Order for Protection, which is now in effect and continues for another several weeks. We are now in the midst of an ugly and contentious divorce. Although I do get to see my daughter a few times each week, my heart still breaks for the time that I am missing out on with my daughter, as I wish I could be with her (my daughter, not my wife) more often. In any event, that is my story in a nutshell, and I know there are several other guys like myself, perhaps with stories similar to my own. I’m glad to be in the process of ridding myself from this toxic woman, although we are still in the early stages of the divorce, and the ugliness and contentiousness from her is not likely to abate anytime soon. But I appreciate the chance to read posts from others and continue to network and learn more about how I can hopefully grow and learn from this process, and become healthier over the long term, as a result. Thanks for reading my post.
I am 6 months out from filing for divorce from my stbxnpdw. The catalyst for me was when I realized that I could not protect my kids from her wrath and chaos. I was willing to tolerate the abuse, but I could not stand by and let her do the same to my kids. I have come to understand how my own childhood experiences primed me for (and helped me survive) this abusive relationship. I feel more awake and alive today than I can remember. I am feeling more now and learning that it’s safe for me to have feelings and needs. My stbxnpdw is doing everything in her power to make this as difficult and as painful as she can for me. But I am creating and enforcing boundaries to protect myself and my kids. One boundary I maintain is no verbal contact. Email and text only. She has been going overboard trying to subvert that one! If you are in a relationship like this you have already proven how strong you are. Now use that strength to get out!
Those last two sentences in your post are absolute gold divorcingnpd. All strength to you brother!
I wish I could tell you how to regain it or keep from losing it when it’s under constant assault but I can tell you that you don’t stand a chance without it.
What got me to kick my to the curb was when she attacked my self-respect when I asked if what she was telling me was “…if she didn’t find anything she liked better, you might come back and settle for me?” Her response was, “There’s some truth to that.” I couldn’t believe what I heard.
I almost hit her.
Thank you so much for this video. It is really important that this be brought to the forefront as family court just kills men. Women know this.
National Joe. I am right where you are. I wont say it is going to get better, but if you dont do anything about it, it gets worse. It took me forever to convince myself to leave. Its not always easy and my highly successful Type A dominant man self was completely destroyed emotionally and I started questioning myself. I was very indecisive and the feeling of obligation and shame to be a man and provide killed me because I was being abused mentally. I would be the last guy you would think would lose self esteem and I allowed it to continue for too long.
Leaving left me facing financial ruin, being alienated from my kids until I got equal custody from a reluctant judge who lashed out at me in court but couldnt get past my wife writing 10000 pages worth of porn with Harry Potter characters having sex with each other with other characters named after our two very young daughters mixed in.
My now ex wife is a high functioning sociopath. To leave her I had to give her most of my assets and the rest to the lawyers. She now lives well and I am struggling with the decision to continue on in business as it makes no sense to work to pay for someone else. She never worked while we were married and does not work now and is better off financially then me every month as I have to pay her more than she needs.
That being said if you stay in the marriage you will get worse. I am happier coming home to a clean home and I get to see my kids every other week. No contact at all with ex wife and none since I left my own home that I had to give to her despite me owning it outright and moving her in to it before we married. She destroyed all my personal property and I had to move out under cover of night to save my stuff. She now owns my home and laughs with every piece of litigation filed.
You have to leave.