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I've thought long and hard about posting this. I've come close a few times recently for obvious reasons but have held back I think mostly because I do not see myself, nor want to be seen as, a victim. Something happened today that makes me realise it's time to be honest and so I'm about to click submit and hope this doesn't back fire. Here goes.
There was a point in my life, around my mid 20s, where I was so desperate to be loved by someone that I found myself in a relationship that can only be described as abusive. To be clear, what I am saying here is that I have been subject to we all know and understand to be ‘domestic abuse’ including violence.
It’s important to understand that at the time it never occurred to me that what was happening was wrong; even when the abuse became physical, the only thought process that went through my head was ‘how can I prove to her that I love her and am worthy of her’. The worse things got, the more I tried to prove my worth to her.
The relationship followed a pattern of abuse that began as slightly controlling, slightly obsessive behaviour, progressed into the very definition of coercive controlling behaviour and culminated in actual physical abuse. I should qualify that last part by saying the physical abuse was slapping, usually around my face but never rough enough to leave marks. That aspect of it was, like the coercive controlling behaviour, not about inflicting pain, but rather about power and control. It was a symbolic slap as much as it was a physical one; it said, ‘I can do this to you and there’s nothing you can do about it’.
The particular circumstances of the relationship are relevant. This was someone I worked with. She initiated the relationship, which started as her trying to seduce me on various work nights out and in response to which I denied her for several months. I did this because I knew she was in a long term relationship. But she was incredibly attractive and very persistent and I was desperate to be wanted and loved by someone, so in the end I got together with her on the understanding that she would break up with her boyfriend after they got back from a pre-existing holiday four month in the future.
Needless to say that she never broke up with him. I spent 18 months with her hoping she would and being subject to a constant tirade of denigration, belittling, accusations, jealousy, manipulation etc, all based around me being a bad person and not capable of being either faithful or loving, which is kind of ironic really. She would question where I had been, who I was with and what i was doing. I wasn't allowed to be with certain people who were my friends at the time and if I did something she didn't like, she would fly into a violent rage and scream and spit at me. That was when the slapping also started.
The end result of this is that my mental health really suffered. I started getting crippling headaches that got worse over time. I ended up having scans to check for anything physical and it was only when they came back as all clear did the consultant then end up diagnosing this as being stress related. The relationship ended about that time and I managed to move on and get closure from her even though I still had to work with her. At that time, she also ended up in a relationship with another work colleague. Rather tragically I think, she ended up marrying the guy she had been with the whole time.
While people were aware that I was in a difficult relationship at that time, I’ve never told anyone about the true extent of what really happened. The timing for coming clean about this now is not entirely coincidental given that I’ve become very vocal on the subject of gender recently. This post isn’t about proving anything other than the fact that far more men are victims of domestic abuse and violence than people are prepared to acknowledge. In my own close circle of friends I know of four other men who have had experiences like mine and some far worse besides.
All abuse of any kind, casual, domestic, stranger or otherwise, is abhorrent. It should all be condemned, it is all a vile corruption of the humanity and respect we are all capable of and that we should aspire to. I am categorically not a victim and do not want nor need sympathy from anyone. But what I do want, is for other men to feel that they can admit what might have happened to them also, maybe not here on this thread, but to themselves and perhaps to their close friends.
Copy the text to notepad or something first, then paste in here. Should get rid of the word stuff.
Brave post. Thanks for sharing.
I read about another man's similar (ongoing I believe) situation on Pistonheads.
You're right - control and abuse of power is at the heart of these things. You'll never change someone like that so well done for getting out.
Props for sharing and well done for standing up and getting out.
+1 for the OP's bravery in posting.
As correctly pointed out, an abusive relationship is always about power and control. While not quite as terrible as the OP's situation, I've bailed from a couple of relationships in the past which were bordering on being abusive and have never looked back.
Well done for sharing, this place can be great for telling randomers stuff you hardly tell anyone...
I've been there, was controlled and cut off from most of my friends for years. She would ring me and demand I came home work for some stupid reason and if I said I can't she would ring my works number 50+ times just hanging up when someone answered until I phoned her back so she could threaten me...
only ended last year and we have kids together so I still have to see her which doesn't help.
I'm much happier now without her but the worst part is as I have the kids and there are ongoing court proceedings over that she has told everyone I was the abusive one and that was why she left (she was seeing someone else was the real reason)
I hope that you are able to get some catharsis from posting that geetee. I have a friend who seems to have had a very bad childhood and while he hasn't explicitly told me that he's been in abusive relationships reading between the lines I strongly suspect this is the case. He was forced to leave his job because he rejected the advances of one of his female collegues and was then bullied and ultimately assaulted by his next employer after that and I feel as though there is something in his personality that makes him vulnerable to people who would abuse him, either physically or mentally.
Not saying that's the case with you, but I'm often reminded of him when I read your posts and it helps to bear in mind that we shouldn't make sweeping assumptions about people.
I think men need a type of #metoo moment but I don't think society is there at the moment. I find it unfortunate that the male rights movement just seems to be an anti-femanism movement, rather than the equality for all movement it should be. The very fact that men can be subjected to domestic abuse seems to be denied by so many. Well done for speaking out and moving on with your life.
Fascinating insight, i know someone who i am a bit concerned about. A few telltale signs and i have asked a few open questions but got nowhere. It must be incredibly hard when you love someone to admit there is a problem. Strangely i know both husband and wife and its probably cognitive bias but i can see the suspect traits in both.
Good luck op btw.
I feel as though there is something in his personality that makes him vulnerable to people who would abuse him
Well I would say two things to that.
The first is that it is well documented in the experiences of female victims of DV that this does indeed happen. I could be wrong about this, but I think there is some research that shows if a woman has been a victim once, there is a significantly increased risk of it happening again. Since I do not believe the problem of DV is uniquely specific to either gender (which is not the same as saying that the frequency is equally distributed, though it might be) it seems logical to suggest that the same increased risk applies to men as well as women.
Secondly, as I've mentioned on here before, this isn't my first experience of 'abuse' though it is my first experience of 'domestic abuse'.
Of course, we need to be very careful in discussing that lest we end up in the realm of victim blaming.
It sounds like you dated someone with narcissistic personality disorder and / or a psychopath.
Someone on here recently recommended the book 'The Body Keeps thee Score' by Van Der Kolk. It's absolutely brilliant in its surveys of the experience of abuse and advise for dealing with it, get it.
I don't think there's any danger of victim blaming. If someone male/female/other has personality traits or tendencies that someone sees, then takes advantage of, either by bullying, mental, physical or emotional abuse then that makes the abuse even more egregious.
To elaborate briefly the "something" in my friends' case , superficially at least, is that he's very easy going and doesn't cope well with conflict, even disagreements. I could see a mile away that he was being exploited, even bullied by his boss and I pestered him for a year to come to my brazilian jiu-jitsu club - not to defend himself, rather if he was confident in his ability to strangle his boss unconscious he might be able to stand up to him.
I never imagined that he would actually get attacked and beaten up by his boss when he finally stood up for himself that's exactly what happened. At the time I considered starting a thread here but since it wasn't my personal experience it didn't feel right to do so.
Sorry to hear you went through that GT. Sounds horrible.
Not anywhere near as bad but I think my relationship with my ex-wife ended up becoming abusive on her part. Strangely I don't think she's a 'bad person' as in she has good intentions and is generally a moral person, but she's very irritable/angry/hyper-critical of anything that isn't exactly how she wants it to be, and generally refused to accept this, blaming it all on me. Either it was my fault she was angry, or she denied being angry and accused me of being over-sensitive etc.
The level and frequency of criticism and some pre-existing self-esteem issues meant even though we would argue I just pretty much accepted what she said internally.
She would strongly deny all this of course.
Not anywhere near as bad but I think my relationship with my ex-wife ended up becoming abusive on her part.
Well I think it's important not to frame things along the lines of one person's problem being worse or more deserving of sympathy than another's; your experience sounds like it was hard for you and it's important to acknowledge that.
I don't know at what point a difficult relationship becomes abusive though; perhaps as men we're less likely to reach that conclusion and end up putting up with a lot more abuse than we admit to ourselves, which is one of the reasons why I think acknowledging your/our/my experiences is important.
But what you describe is a pattern of experience/behaviour I've heard a lot from other people.
I hope you're in a better place now.
Really brave post geetee, well done for opening up about it.
A lot of blokes have had relationships with controlling partners and it's a fine line before it tips over into abuse, either emotional, financial or physical. But it seems harder for men to speak up about it.
Well done for speaking up Geetee. It makes me realise that I was probably emotionally abused in my 1st marriage. You know, the one where you can't have a discussion about something important without it turning into an argument where she gets 'upset' & I get the silent treatment for 3 days?
12 years I put up with that shit!
It gets better though pal, don't worry.
I suspect that abuse of make partners (more mental than physical perhaps) is more common than society is currently willing to acknowledge. I too suffered in my first marriage - mostly her belittling me in front of her friends in various ways, but backed up by other behaviours too.
I doubt that will be of much solace to you, though it might just help your own state of mind to know that "it's not you".
Well done geetee for sharing this.
I was emotionally (and physically) abused by my first wife, it went on so long that I considered it normal to be attacked with a kitchen knife.
she regularly told me that she could easily find someone else but that I couldn’t because. I believed it of course.
eventually, after a decade of accusations of cheating (ive never cheated on any of my partners) she had an affair with a guy she knew.
we split up, and tbh it was a relief.
14 years later, im married to a very nice woman who I met at work, we’ve barely had a cross word in the 13 years we’ve been together and life is basically good.
Nobody, regardless of gender/age/ethnicity/religion or anything else, deserves to be abused, whether its physical or not.
Well done GeeTee. Must have been difficult.
Psychological/emotional abuse is now classed the same as domestic violence and can result in a prison sentence.
Well done OP. I have a mate that went through it, and even worse, had kids. The missus tried her best to poison the kids against him. It's starting to work out again for him and he has re-married and the kids are realising what a horrible person their mum was.
Having worked with DV victims its not really the case that male is undereported [ anymore than female is] and whilst we are having this cathartic moment lets remember women are much more likely to be the victim than the perpetrator [ 85-15%]
IME the vast majority of male perpetrators solved all conflict/issues/problems with violence[ including domestic ones] and were just violent people. How they treated their partner was largely how they treated everyone.
not my experience at all and i am not sure why you said /feel like this.The very fact that men can be subjected to domestic abuse seems to be denied by so many.
respect to Geeteee makes some of your posting make sense
I would imagine every person has had a shit relationships and we can all think of examples within them , and at the end, that were "abusive".
Well done for sharing fella.
I was in an abusive relationship for about 4 years and can relate to 95% of that post. Never realised until I'd got out, looking back it's hard to believe I was so blind to it.
The only real difference is that it was rarely physical, except once late on in the relationship. I was knelt on the floor sorting computery things out whilst (naturally) having an argument, I confessed to kissing another girl and she took a golf swing at my head with the keyboard. Damn near knocked me out. Granted I wasn't blameless, but I think she finally realised that she'd actually gone too far that time.
Very well done for posting. As a society we need to talk about this shit more. Men are socially programmed from an early age to suppress their emotions and being on the receiving end of domestic abuse rather than our more traditional role gets swept under the carpet.
Thanks for posting geetee1972. I think this happens more than people realise and threads like this help. I had an abusive and controlling girlfriend many years ago and it took some considerable time to be open about it - in fact long after I ended the relationship...
Having worked with DV victims its not really the case that male is undereported
How can you measure something that someone doesn't tell you? For your next trick are you going to disprove god?
I don't know about "denied" or "under-reported" but it is most definitely under-discussed. There's a stigma attached to it. How much of a 'man' are you if you're getting abused by a woman? Quell those emotions, MTFU. Of course women being on the receiving end is more common, no-one is saying otherwise, but that doesn't mean we should just ignore the 15%.
I'm genuinely surprised at you here JY. For someone who's worked with victims, I'm stunned that your immediate reaction to a thread on the subject is to start picking holes in what's being said (especially given that no-one's said it's under-reported, though I was about to). Do you want to go out and come back in again?
probably need to read the bit in parenthesis to fully understand
I did not mean to derail the thread into a STW bicker so i will comment no further.
All sounds sadly familar
recently divorced from mine, she also insisted that I was the abusive one, even got legal aid!!! as she had bruises on her wrists from where I'd held her as she was attacking me as i left. Courtwas a joke despite repeated reports from professionals saying she was intentionally poisening the kids against me she still gets them and i don't see them, i have to hope that as they grow up they'lll see her true colours.
Hopefully the house sells soon and I can take my 20% and start over somewhere.
Still I'm riding my bikes loads more now 🙂
>Cougar
I’m genuinely surprised at you here JY. For someone who’s worked with victims, I’m stunned that your immediate reaction to a thread on the subject is to start picking holes in what’s being said (especially given that no-one’s said it’s under-reported, though I was about to). Do you want to go out and come back in again?
You're surprised??????? Just to bring you up to speed Cougar, men's rights is a right wing topic. If you're a man, especially a white man, and really especially a white middle class man in the western world you cannot be victimized in any way because of your white privilege . If you disagree you are obviously right wing. Which makes you alt right. Which means you're a Nazi. Sorry. Seems hyperbolic but that's the new reality we live in. I guess you haven't noticed the way he attacks every thread, poster or topic that disagrees in any way shape or form with his political world view like a rabid animal? A kind assessment would be to use a term like troll, or provocateur but they're not really applicable since he actually seems to believe what he posts. What was it he posted recently, Jordan Petterson is mental because he links feminism to Marxism? Words to that effect.
It's hard to see where lies stop and the delusion starts. If you haven't noticed this I guess you must be drinking the same Koolaid as him, which is worrying.
The fact that he couldn't resist sticking his political oar in, to contradict, belittle and provoke even on a thread about such a personal experience shows that there's no depths to which he won't sink in order to attack or bully people who he sees as his "enemy" politically.
women are much more likely to be the victim than the perpetrator [ 85-15%]
A sizeable portion of that 85% will also themselves be perpetrators of DV. This can be lost in the statistics as they are not as good at inflicting injuries as their (mostly) male partners. When such an incident occurs it is normally marked as the woman being the victim, not both.
Full respect to GeeTee. I couldn't be the first to bring that up, I can only follow,
I get pushed about by my missus, not physically but there's little I do that is not dependent on her approval. The way she "controls" me is not even a blatant thing. I love her and she's one of the very few people whose opinion of me I care about and it's the disapproving sounds, gestures and lack of interest in my plans that sway me. There's also the fear, yes fear, of something she assumed me to mean/want/be hiding being brought up days/weeks/months later to try to shut me down. Yeah it sounds pathetic but our situation is an odd one. She has just started working from home after many years of me fully supporting her following a serious head injury. She still suffers from it and probably will for life and so I give her slack but it's never enough.. I have lost my temper with her many times and did strike her once, it wasn't for control or to establish dominance, it was pure rage at her behaviour towards me. When I do lose my rag she says she needs a man not a boy, that sorta stuff, as if an outburst is more childish than mind games.. Someone's going to get hurt and I need to prevent that. But I can't chuck her out, she's not a citizen and can't support herself neither physically or financially. It is up to me though, one of the few things that feel like they are.
That sounds really tough going lazlowoodbine. I think you need to go have a chat with someone professionally to see what your options are. I don't think anyone should sacrifice their own happiness for others.
Post deleted, copying from an Apple note fail
Yes I do, as does anyone in a similar situation. Please be more proactive than I am.
men’s rights is a right wing topic
"Men's rights activists" are generally right-wing nutjobs who are a threat to their own swiveleyesation. People who don't understand the difference between equality and equity. But that's got the square root of **** all to do with anything on this thread.
Seems hyperbolic but that’s the new reality we live in.
It might be the reality you live in but it's a fiction.
Brave post OP. Other than my therapist (and that took a long time) I've not been able to tell anyone what happened in my relationship. It's cost me my mental health, my career and my friends. Hopefully one day I'll be as strong as the OP and be able to tell people what was happening - until then it's one day at a time and trying to rebuild a life. Despite the progress I've made since leaving there's still a long way to go.
Why are you (OP) “categorically” not a victim, when you describe as such other people who have the same experience?
Want to say so much more, but well done.
Men need to open up and talk about so many things and not be embarrassed.
Here is a good place.
Write here OP but please feel free to message me.
I can be a sounding board for most things.
Writing things out can help.
You’re surprised??????? Just to bring you up to speed Cougar, men’s rights is a right wing topic...
and here goes the STW bickerathon JY gracefully ducked out of the thread to avoid happening. Dare I suggest that's a bit of a Pavlovian response from you there jimjam?
You snowflakes have to stick together eh?
Did I miss something?
Jimjam complaining about JY sticking his oar in, by sticking his oar in...
same old same old.