October is almost here and that means it’s Domestic Violence month. Since most women’s domestic violence organizations not only neglect to include men who are targets of intimate partner violence, but also misinform the public about domestic violence, I’ll once again attempt to shed light on the other 50% of domestic violence victims.
Men.
While men comprise half of all domestic violence victims, there ‘s currently only one DV shelter in the US that accepts men seeking safety from their abusers (the Valley Oasis Shelter in Antelope, CA). Meanwhile, there are approximately 1,800 shelters available to women and their children nationwide.
To the best of my knowledge, there are no court advocacy programs for male victims of domestic violence. Men (and their children) are not eligible for state and federal stipends for safe housing from their female abusers. There are no free or subsidized counseling programs nor are there free legal services/legal aid for male victims of domestic violence.
Male domestic violence victims are not protected under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). If anything, this unconstitutional legislature does great harm to male domestic violence victims by demonizing men as perpetrators and women as victims in the majority of domestic violence cases. It also helps to enable the rampant abuse of false allegations and restraining order abuse engaged in by abusive women.
According to RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting), less than 10% of the United States OVW’s (Office of Violence Against Women) funding is used to help male victims. A big part of the problem lies in the very names of the OVW and the VAWA. “Violence against women” is exclusionary and ignores half of all domestic violence victims.
The U.S. Department of Justice refuses to fund research about male victims of domestic violence. On page 6 of the DOJ’s solicitation for proposals on intimate partner violence and stalking, they have a section that explicitly states what kind of projects they will not fund, including:
Proposals for research on intimate partner violence against, or stalking of, males of any age.
With the lack of services and funding and the refusal of the DOJ and the CDC to approve and fund research on male victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, many people might come to believe that these issues are not a problem for men and boys.
Not true.
In reality, men are approximately 40% to 50% of domestic violence victims. Sadly, many people are still horribly ignorant about domestic violence in large part due to persistently dishonest and misleading public awareness campaigns, data gathered via unscientific methodology and woozles like the 1 in 4 woozle about rape on college campuses.
Despite the abundance of peer-reviewed research on male domestic violence victims and female perpetrators, most domestic violence awareness campaigns focus exclusively on female victims as if our society isn’t already well aware that women can be victims of domestic violence. Many domestic violence organizations persist in publishing long ago debunked statistics that portray women as the victim and men as the primary aggressors in the majority of domestic violence cases.
In His Own Words and In Her Own Words
To raise awareness of male domestic violence victims and female abusers, I will publish an In His Own Words and In Her Own Words on Shrink4Men everyday in October. These posts will be from men who are or have been victims of domestic violence and women whose husbands, boyfriends, sons, brothers and friends who are victims of female perpetrated violence.
Heterosexual men aren’t the only invisible domestic violence victims. The four other populations that are also ignored are individuals in same sex relationships, the transgendered, the new partners of men with abusive exes as well as family members who have become estranged from their sons, brothers, nephews and grandchildren due to their being involved with an abusive female wife or girlfriend. There is often collateral damage in domestic violence and the domestic violence industry is ignoring the new wives and families of origin of male domestic violence victims as well, so I welcome your stories, too.
If you would like to share your story about female perpetrated domestic violence, please send it to [email protected]. I am looking for written narratives and/or audio or video recordings that describe or illustrate the abuse you have suffered. If you have an audio or video file of your wife, girlfriend, ex, etc., in the midst of an abusive episode, I will publish those as well.
If you would like to submit your story, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1. Limit written testaments to no more than 2000 words and send as a Microsoft Word Document.
2. Use paragraph breaks, spell check, etc.
3. Please send video/audio recordings in a format that can be readily uploaded to YouTube.
4. If you send and audio/video recording, also provide a written description of the file (i.e., the circumstances leading up to the abuse episode).
5. Edit out identifying information before sending Word, video or audio files, unless these incidents are already part of the public record.
6. If your abuse case is already a matter of public record (e.g., in a newspaper or online publication), you may use identifying information.
7. Use DV SUBMISSION in the subject header of your email.
Due to time constraints, I may not be able to use submissions that require a great deal of editing, so please try to have your materials in the best shape possible before sending.
Additionally, please consider including some of the following in your submissions:Who is or was your abuser? Wife, girlfriend, fiancée, ex, grandmother, mother, sister, grandmother, aunt, etc? If you are a woman submitting an article about the abuse of a partner or family member, please explain the nature of your relationship (e.g., mother, sister, fiancee, new wife/girlfriend, grandmother, aunt, friend, etc.)
- How long did the abuse go on?
- What kind of abuse? Emotional, physical, parental alienation, financial, smear campaigns, stalking, false allegations of abuse, sexual, falsely obtained restraining order and other abuse via the courts and law enforcement, etc?
- When did you realize what you were experiencing was abuse?
- Did you have difficulty believing you were being abused? If so, why?
- Did you tell anyone you were being abused? Friends, family, therapist, clergy, police? What was their reaction?
- If you were physically abused and called the police, what happened? If you did not call the police, why didn’t you?
- What is your message to other men and boys who are being abused or other partners and family members who are in similar situations?
Thank you in advance for helping us support men and their children who are victims of domestic violence.
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.
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I grew up witnessing continual violence.
My father and mother, both fundamentalist Christians, did not spare the rod. They beat their three sons, but I do not recall my sister ever having even been touched by either of them although she was capable of doing some despicable things. My father beat us boys in anger. He was a very volatile man, and I sincerely believe that he is much of the cause of my two brothers dying young, one of them by suicide. My father (and our indifferent, rather distant, mother) destroyed him. He was the first of four children, a wonderful big brother whom I loved, and the most sensitive to being mistreated, and to feeling bitter and unloved. In my mind’s ears I can still hear him screaming from the brutal beatings administered by my father.
So I despise violence of any kind, and as a father I never spanked my children, although, once and for which I always felt guilty, I slapped my 4-year-old daughter on the arm when she knocked the newspaper out of my hands as I read it. It was her way of getting my attention. I should have just stopped and asked her not to do it. She was always a good and obedient child, and quite beautiful in every way, just like my boys. I tried not to ever break their spirits and stop them from being a little rowdy at times.
My wife and I were married in our early twenties. We were too young and immature. We both had tempers, although I believe hers was a little more explosive than mine. And when she flew mad, sometimes I needed to get out of the room, or duck from something dangerous being thrown, or dodge an implement or a fist. One day we argued while my mother was upstairs. My wife went ballistic and grabbed a lead-bottomed decoy duck which was the decor of a living-room lamp and struck me with it across my low back. It hurt and I grabbed her and began shaking her to get her to drop the duck. My mother heard the commotion and ran downstairs and cuffed me in the mouth. I was shocked that she took the wrong side, and I never forgave her for it because she blamed me for the violence.
When our three children were still so young, we split up. It was one of the great tragedies of my life and very traumatic to the children who are still bitter about it. I could no longer endure the constant fighting, or the prospect that our marriage would end up like the marriages of our parents, her parents’ especially which was frighteningly matriarchal, stifling, and bitter. My parents had already split up and settled into hating each other, squabbling over property, and using us surviving children as backboards to maintain hostilities and launch barbs at each other.
I was gradually becoming an agnostic while my wife began to embrace fundamentalism. We either changed or became what we really were. I still try not to blame her all that much. There are certain deeply embedded ways in people that are immutable.
My first post-marital lover I lived with for about two years. Our relationship was quite beautiful but tempestuous. One day she slugged me in the mouth, but only after she had threatened to do it and I dared her. I got more than I had expected, so I told her to never do that again. I had underestimated her ability to deliver such a jarring blow. So we never came to blows afterwards. I was never even tempted to do violence to her. Looking back I recall it never even occurred to me.
I remember a funny story she told about being a schoolteacher in NYC. She had a disruptive student, and although corporal punishment was forbidden she took him out in the hall where no one could see and gave him a stunning pop in the mouth, then told him if he reported her she would deny it. Nothing ever came of it, she said, and the boy began to behave himself.
She came from a wonderful family and a close loving relationship with both her mother and father. She told me about her happy childhood. To be truthful I was a bit envious. I enjoyed the company of both her mother and father, especially her father who was a prosperous businessman overflowing with a warm personality and wonderful anecdotes and dirty jokes, many of which I never forgot.
We two lovers were compatible in so many ways, but alas she was too bossy and aggressive with me, and I could not handle it. I was also afraid she might stray if we married because she slipped off for trysts with a former lover. She moved to another city and became happily married to a doctor, for which I was grateful because I wanted her to be happy.
I then made the mistake of cohabiting with a pretty woman who was unstable and narcissistic, probably a sociopath, and made up the most elaborate fairy tales about herself. I found out after I was already smitten that she had abandoned her husband and two little boys, one of them in diapers. Of course we had our little differences, and I noticed that when she became angry she could go crazy. I got in the car with her at the wheel once just after we had lunched together and she nearly killed us, over a silly tiff which ignited her. She drove like a fiend and got us into a skid, and the little Mazda did two spins and jackknifed into the bushes. Thankfully we were not hurt. I learned that when she was angry to stay away because something was about to be destroyed, like windows broken, family pictures slashed, furniture hacked up with a knife, nice things ruined by an explosion of violence and rage. I could understand vandalism by children, but not by an adult. It was an insufferable vice.
During our time together I learned that she had an unresolved conflict, and a love-hate relationship, with her mother. She complained of being abused by her mother as a child and said that her mother was violent and often drunk. At the time we were together she was being treated by a psychologist.
After a year of this stormy relationship she let her guard down and sank her teeth in my arm, breaking the skin and leaving a large bruise, over just about nothing. She just flew mad because I had not given her a key to a car I had just purchased. I had had a key made for her and misplaced it. I later found it under the seat where she was sitting when she bit me. She never apologized and blamed the violence on me, both to others and to me.
Within another couple of months she bit me again during another disagreement over a trifle, and it was really an act of hypocrisy since she had made me promise early in our relationship, which I did without hesitation, that I would never strike her or hurt her in any way. The conversation about physical violence had come up when she told me about a girlfriend beaten bloody by her husband. I never laid a finger a finger on her. So that quarrel was one of several death knells of the relationship. She was also jealous of my children. She moved away and was married, and I have been happy not to ever see her again, although in my mind the romantic times with her and the lady before her were quite beautiful and left me on balance with wonderful memories. The delights of those experiences remind me of that Willie Nelson song, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.”
The only thing that really left a bitter taste in my mouth with the latter of these lovers was how she circulated slander after the relationship was over. The last time we were together she burst into my house, breaking a glass out of the door with her fist. She cut herself and bled all over the house. While I was worrying about her bleeding to death, she was still fighting mad and screaming. It was bedlam. A neighbor heard the ruckus and called the police. I am glad he watched because he was witness to her violence and gave a written statement after she threatened me with a warrant. She said I hurt her but I had put up my hands to fend off her blows and did not strike back when she repeatedly struck me, and thankfully my neighbor was there as an eyewitness when she rammed her arm through the doorpane. When the police arrived a policewoman quickly decided I was a batterer, and grabbed her cuffs and started to take me into custody until the neighbor (and the male cop who knew me) stood up for me. My neighbor told them that the cut on my girlfriend’s arm was self-inflicted. And she even admitted it when she saw she was not going to be able to make up a tale about it. Now that the bleeding was stopped with a bandage and a tourniquet, I demanded that she leave but the policewoman forced me under threat of being struck by her nightstick, which she slapped over and over again against her hand to intimidate me, to allow her to come in and retrieve her jewelry box, her cosmetics, and a couple of garments she had in the closet. We had both maintained separate residences.
Later she was to parade about in the watering holes of our small gossipy town with that large, striking bandage running 8 inches up her arm and make people think with her innuendos and self-pity that I had done that to her. It really hurt because at the time I had a professional image to maintain. Unringing the bell of slander is impossible.
Doc, I appreciate your support but I have another way . I’m a peaceful guy married 25 years with 3 great kids in an abusive relationship. My wife pretty much fits the BPD, controlling, angery, paranoid, financially irresponsible, and smart and beautiful, abused by her father as a child. With young kids I’ve found the golden rule works best even if it’s one way. One day the kids will remember the example I set for them. Hopefully this will help. Escaping is not an option until they grow up and leave. That’s the least I can do for them.
Hi Dr T, thank you for this particular forum for men to express their experience with the big “D” (disordered) in their lives.
Noticed you have a “Going Mental” with Paul Elam coming up about male denial with pathologically crazy bitches!
Wanted to add that if you have children in these types of relationships, apart from denial, there is always the clear and ever present threat of taking your children. the house, your savings, and the false allegations that will come your way as you try to distance yourself from the “crazy!”
Now I know you will be talking about borderlines as the topic of crazy, my crazy was NPD’d, so it may not have strict relevance, but it does in the sense of both forms of crazy have limited social restrictions on their behaviors towards their abused!
If the laws are changed towards custody and false allegations, then you will see a whole lot of men saying “fuck no to that,” within a blink of an eye!
My crazy offered to keep the marriage going if she could continue in a relationship with this particular person …. Told her I would sleep on it! She was pacing up and down the hallway the next morning waiting for her answer … I thanked her for her generous offer, then asked when she was leaving the marriage … she said “I will take the children, the house and make sure you are left with nothing!” Well she was just about good to her word … So yes there is denial, and yes I probably thought many times WTF and WhyTF did I marry her, but losing my kids was not an easy option … depower the bitches through the law courts, and then we will see what males are left in denial …
cheers
Dear Dr. T,
I admire your work that is expressed on this website that helped me to put my feet back on the ground. I was in two abusive relationships, being the second one the worse. Like me, there are hundreds of guys that are put through hell by highly toxic women and our lives and souls are burnt to ashes.
I live in Central America, and the laws down here regarding domestic violence entitle toxic women to do as they wish. It is a sad situation and it is long from being resolved. My last crazy ex was definitely a borderline, and has been wrecking havoc in all her relationships (boyfriends, friends and family). It is curious how she is backed up by some of her family members that help hide her off-the-line behaviors.
I was brought up in a decent and loving family. Mom and Dad are still madly in love as when they first met (about 40 years ago), they still hold hands and “escape” to secret places (LOL). This was the blueprint I was given when it comes to relationships. Mutual respect, mutual admiration, and mutual support during rocky times. I tried to build my past relationships following this principles but I was unlucky to have my “crazy-radar” not as tuned as I would’ve liked to save myself from inimaginable amounts of pain.
I broke through my pain in silence; but my family helped (it took a while for them to understand). During my relationship, I was put down every time I succeeded or every time I failed in my daily endeavors. There were incessant and ridiculous needs from my exBPD: Money, expensive gifts, food, etc. Luckily I refused most of the time and when she did not get her way anymore, she left. Before she left she had to make sure she left me completely destroyed. Most of her accusations made me feel guilty, but through therapy and family conversations I came to understand that she had managed to make me believe it was all my fault.
Now she is with another guy who has an extremely weak will. I just hope she doesn’t destroy his life, but I can’t do nothing about it. Her mask fell off, and fell hard. When we broke up, she said she wanted to still be friends because I knew to much about her (she was buying her silence). I did my homework and found out everything she told about past relationships were lies. This gave me strength and closure, but I had to dig in too deep and it was a painful experience. However, truth sets you free.
Thanks to your work, I started to see what I had to see on a woman and found a healthy, loving gal. She is not my girlfriend yet (I hope she will be soon), I’ve seen no red flags yet :), but I’m taking my precautions. So long, she has made a quite good impression to my family (remember: good mothers and fathers can smell shit for miles). Mom and Dad smelled shit the moment ex entered home. I was blinded by her sex drive that slowly disappeared. Later in the relationship, sexual encounters were just present when she wanted something. If I refused, she shut down the candy store. It was awful, I felt I was having sex with a machine: No love, no caresses, she just opened up her legs and told me how she did it to other guys.
I am relieved she left, but at the beginning it felt like hell. I would like to say to the guys who write in this blog, that only a small percent of the population is crazy as fuck (FUBAR!!) but some of us are unlucky to get sprinkled with shit as we walk. Reading your blogs help us clean the shit up and to start normal relationships with TRUE WOMEN that WILL NOT go down on you on the first date and treat themselves with respect!
Thank you Dr. T, God Bless!
Mongoose
I see from Google research that domestic violence is 50/50ish these days between male and female perpetrators, but if *my* experiences of two 7 year relationships is anything to go by, male violence towards female partners is *always* in self-defense of his and/or his children’s mental health, *and* in defense of hers (a damage-limitation exercise?), and is *always* LESS than proportionate. So, aren’t women then responsible for *all* relationship violence?
I mean, *perhaps* (I don’t think we can be sure of this) *some* men, or a relatively small proportion of men, have been deranged so badly by dysfunctional mothers coupled with the cowardly (or sane?) inaction of their fathers that their response is persistently disproportionate, or that they respond in this way because they actually need a punch-bag for the purposes of cathartic release but, from what I now know about female psychology, I would say that, in this latter case, the physically abused women are actually manipulating their men (a sort of goading that both victims are blind to) to respond in ways that they think they deserve saving them the guilt associated with physically harming themselves (e.g. by cutting themselves with razor-blades, etc.). So, if I’m right, then such women are self-harmers who “know” (it’s all unaware) how to get uneducated men to do their dirty-work for them. An alternative view that is *not* in contradiction to what I’ve written so far is that such women tolerate male physical abuse because at some level they know that this is precisely the kind of therapy that their beloved “princes” needs. So, “white knight” men offer their hearts and souls for punishment, whereas “white witch” women offer their bodies and vaginas.
So, is men’s love (or duty of care?) towards their women so deep that it makes them stupid by dint of love that is blind? So, either the man’s parents are jointly(?) guilty or the woman is guilty and, when it’s the latter, shouldn’t the men in violence cases and divorce cases be given the benefit of the doubt AND all assets AND automatic custody of the children?
You should have seen the pack of lies that my ex’s solicitor put together with my ex’s help to expedite a quicky divorce! I didn’t contest this pack of shocking lies because a quicky divorce suited me fine, but whata-mistaka-te-maka — *my* solicitor did *not* point out that *not* contesting the lies would count against me in child access proceedings (relating to my 3 young sons). When I later applied to the courts for better access to my sons, *all* of the “professionals” labelled me as defective and the judge treated my ex as an expert on *my* mental health. And, when I was in the stand giving my side of the story, the judge was cold, impassive and dry whereas, when my ex was in the stand, he hung on her every word as if he were having an orgasm (the “drooling” was obscene) — why aren’t court proceedings televised in the UK because then I would have been able to have his guts for garters?
And, in the UK, I can honestly say that legal advocates are scared of judges — they dare not put a foot wrong — making them powerless to confront chauvinistic bias.
So, does having a dysfunctional mother (mine always has been a narcissistic martyr) and an overly-tolerant father (mine’s always been a narcissistic psychopath) make for sons that are strong but blind to women as abusers, and does having am overly-tolerant mother (a Mother Teresa) and a paedophile father (my ex’s late father was kinky to say the least going by the naturist videos and what my mother-in-law told me) make for daughters that weak, abreactional and blind to themselves as abusers? — I’m sure that my ex must have been sexually abused outside of her memory.
So, in summary, I blame our parents. Mine were blamer (mother) and shamer (father) and my ex’s were shamed (mother) and blamed (father), so I ended up blaming and shaming myself and my ex ended up blaming those who trust her with their vulnerability and trying relentlessly to shame me into backing off and taking my pain elsewhere, which stupidly (or sanely?) I refused to do.
And, what should be done about the solicitor problem where solicitors, it seems, will do *anything* for money. And, what should be done about judges who are biased by dint of their chauvinism? — I wonder what went wrong in *their* childhoods?
Dear Dr T,
I have learned a lot from your site, as well as my husband on dealing with his BPD ex. It’s not been a fun time.
However, I must point out as former DV victim myself, there is a reason there is more help for women. Unlike my husband, when he was in that situation, I was not making 100K plus a year. MONEY made every bit of difference as to when I could get away. When I finally landed a job that could support me and my kids, three days later, I left. I knew not only could I not count on support, but didn’t really want it because it left open one more avenue for him to continue to harass us for another five years until they were grown. It was a horrible time in my life and yes, he too meets all the criteria for BPD and most of the marriage I was afraid for my life.
There was even less help and awareness for women in the early 90’s, than there is now. I am well aware that women commit acts of DV, my husband is proof of what a man is willing to tolerate with a woman who taunts him with “you’ll never see your kids again!”. I do find it hard to believe its half of all DV cases, based on teaching DV awareness and using DOJ stats, as well as team teaching with police officers and their own experiences.
I never reported my own situation, because I knew I’d be dead long before the police arrived. My current husband never reported it because he was afraid she would have the power to send him to jail.
Regardless of the perpetrator, its no way for anyone to live. The connection with DV and BPD was due to reading your site and that is much appreciated. It makes so much sense.
Keep up the good work-but keep in mind, not all women have the earning capacity of a PhD. I only have a Bachelors, which I managed to do while in the turmoil of the horrible marriage. I knew education was my ticket out. I’m in debt for it, but I have my life, my kids didn’t go onto to perpetrate the cycle and for that I’ll always be grateful.