Why won’t anyone help me? Day 41 of the Lockdown The evening that my wife stormed out to her mother’s with a suitcase of children’s clothes – the day I realised they had smuggled my children out from under my very nose – I went for a walk for my hour’s permitted exercise. I bumpedContinue reading “A Male Survivor of Domestic Abuse: The Black Hole”
Tag Archives: Violence
A Male Survivor of Domestic Abuse: The Day I Lost my Children
Our support worker reiterated to Children’s Services that my wife wasn’t capable of looking after the children on her own due to multiple acts of negligence and abuse. I spoke to the social worker Sandi on the phone and told her all of my wife’s history – leaving the children unattended in the bathtub, sendingContinue reading “A Male Survivor of Domestic Abuse: The Day I Lost my Children”
The Worst Hell
When I was a much younger man, I believed I knew something about heaven and hell. Heaven was waking up on a Sunday morning beside the person I loved with no plans for the day. Hell was waking up on a Sunday morning beside the person I loved, knowing that she didn’t love me back.Continue reading “The Worst Hell”
Abusers Abuse
Abusers abuse. They abuse because they’re abusers, and they’re abusers because they abuse. I know this is a circular argument, but it’s the safest way to think of them. They are the spider, and you are the fly. Anything beyond that, and you make yourself vulnerable. In my talks with other survivors of domestic abuse,Continue reading “Abusers Abuse”
Men Suffer Too
Victim-blaming and Coercive Control
A year before I left my wife, I read a book by Matt Wesolowski that disturbed me to my very core. On the surface, Changeling is a supernatural-chiller-cum-crime-mystery, but by the end you realise it’s about something else entirely, something that only becomes clear as you peel back the layers of lies and misdirection andContinue reading “Victim-blaming and Coercive Control”
Being Hit
The violence of being hit isn’t about the pain or the damage caused. She used to hit me when she was angry – normally an overarm thump with the bottom of her fist – and she kicked me in the shins, bent my fingers back, dug in her fingernails, threw things at my head andContinue reading “Being Hit”
The Narcissist’s Call
‘Do you still love me?’ ‘Do you miss me?’ ‘I just wanted to check on how you’re doing?’ ‘Did you have a good day today?’ ‘Did you remember it’s our wedding anniversary?’ I know why abuse survivors go back to their abusers. It isn’t weakness or stupidity. It’s because you live inside a cage, desperateContinue reading “The Narcissist’s Call”
Deciding to Leave an Abusive Relationship
Your abuser controls your perceptions of the world for so long, erodes your sense of self to such a degree, that you’re not sure of anything. I kept asking myself if I was making it up; if I was causing it; if what I thought was happening was really happening. At what point does awkwardContinue reading “Deciding to Leave an Abusive Relationship”
The Confusion of Being Abused
When you’re in an abusive relationship, what’s so clear to everyone else on the outside isn’t so clear to you. Your abuser has so many holds on you – on your thoughts and your emotions, on how you see the world and your place in it – that you can’t get a handle on what’sContinue reading “The Confusion of Being Abused”
The Abused Man 