Yes, a man can be a victim as well. Sam’s story. | |
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This is Sam’s story. Sam I must thank Sam for allowing me to share this with all of you. I can only imagine how hard this is to tell publicly.
Most of us think of women when we here the words domestic violence. As I researched the topic of DV against men I found very little information. I realize that females are more often on the receiving end of the abuse. But where do male victims go for help.
I found one site that focuses on the male victim, lucky for me this site had links to other help sites. I just could not get to them any other way..Which for me is a big suprise, I usually can find anything real easy. Makes me sad that male vicitms have to hunt harder for help.
DO NOT GET ME WRONG HERE. THE NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HELPLINE HELPS ALL VICTIMS. But there was not much information on the male vicitm.
Please read Sam’s story and I will be there at the end to give more information.
Sam’s words....
I met my wife in the early part of my freshman year of college. I saw her sitting and felt my heart drop. I had fallen in love with her at first sight. I was introduced to her by a friend and we then all became friends. Emily was in her second year at that time but it was not until she transferred the following year that we really had become close. We wrote continuously to each other and talked on the phone as often as we could which was not very easy because the cost of the phone calls in those days was very expensive. Very often a 10 minute call was in excess of $15.00.
I told her how I felt about her but she (as much as she said she loved me) did not want to date me. I later found out that she did not like the way I dressed. I dated other girls and had a couple of "long term" relationships, but I was always comparing them to Emily. Emily on the other hand dated nobody during these college years. She graduated and came home without any job or prospects of dating or marriage and I continued locally working on my masters. At that time I had been dating another girl for 2 years and it was getting to be very rocky as Emily and I saw more and more of each other. She at that time started to develop feelings for me and shortly after my girlfriend and I had broken up, we started to date very seriously and 9 months later we started a 2 year engagement that was filled with constant problems re the wedding but we did in fact get married.
My daughter was a honeymoon baby. Neither of us was ready for a baby but neither did we want to terminate the pregnancy either and so my daughter was born. I was ecstatic but it only showed a sample of the problems to come. Three months before she was born, we purchased and moved into a new (old fixer upper) home. We decided that Emily would stop working so that she could stay home to raise the baby. I was naturally very new in my career and it meant a lot of work and pressure on me to support my new family but I did not care. I was so thrilled at the idea of a new baby girl that the first thing I did was go out and buy her a whole new wardrobe and brought it all to the hospital to show my wife who I thought would be thrilled but instead she was angry that there was nothing left for her to buy. On the day she was to come home from the hospital, I stopped to have the car cleaned and washed inside and out so that my new baby could come home in a clean car. I also had rented a video camera (I later purchased one) so that I could video tape the event. But Emily was angry that I was the last one to come to pick up his wife and baby.
As the years progressed, the marriage continued to deteriorate. I could never do anything right no matter how I tried. I would come home early so I could see my baby and have dinner as a family and then go back out to work. I was home every weekend but I made sure that my parents were in some way with us on Sundays. Emily’s parents saw her and the kids frequently during the week but she was angry that I would keep my parents involved on Sundays. As my daughter grew, I would come home and watch "Rainbow Bright" and "My Little Pony" with her on my lap, then have dinner, and then out to see clients and back to work. Yet when she was 4 years old, she told a neighbor that all I do was "watch cartoons". When she came home with her first report card from Kindergarten, we were naturally thrilled, and Emily asked her who she wanted to sign it. My daughter yelled out "Daddy" infuriating Emily because she felt that it should be her and I never for all the years we were married heard the end of it.
As time went on, things would get worse and worse until one day she took a steak knife to my chest because I would get angry at the amount of money she was spending continuously at TOYS R US. I grabbed the knife and restrained her. Scenes like that happened more and more as time went on and eventually I got to the point of pushing her away vs simply restraining and on occasion I even hit back.
I was made to believe that I was not only not important, but didn’t matter at all. Sex more than once per month was a chore and not allowed. It was called "favors for Sam". I was told that none of my friends (including those that I had since college and since I was 13) ever liked me and that they only tolerated me because of her. I was told that I was stupid because I liked "Star Trek" and other science fiction shows. One day when I decided that I wanted a new Hi-def TV, she told my son that I was stupid because I wanted a new TV.
Several years ago I had finally convinced her that we should go for counseling. She agreed and I let her pick the therapist. We went for several weeks with me sitting and not saying a word while she constantly knocked me down until one day when I said "NO". The therapist listened to what I had to say and responded to Emily "I do not think you are hearing what he is saying and perhaps you should look at it a little different here". Emily burst into tears and never returned.
I could never get it right. If I made a decision on my own I was called "Hitler" or "Gorbechove". If I asked her for an opinion or input, I was yelled at for not being able to make my own decision. If I stayed out and let her decide, I was yelled at for having no interest. One day a few years ago I finally convinced her to go for counseling on her own and then hopefully the 2 of us. After a few weeks she said that she wanted to have a family session. Her sessions were on Mondays and on the weekend before we had a fight. I was furious and stormed out of the house to cool down. I did a little window shopping and then went to see a movie. My daughter was house sitting. When I got home, I found out that she had called my daughter and her boy friend that I was on my way over there to kill her. I have never in my life ever laid so much as a finger on either one of my kids. After I calmed down she told me that she wanted to postpone the "family" session and I was fine with that but instead she had the kids lie to me about where they were that night (they told me that they were going out to dinner with each other) and she had them come with her to her session for a "Sam Bashing" session which the therapist did not allow and soon after threw her out.
Several months later I suffered a heart attack. The doctors (there were 4 in the room with us) told us that it was totally caused by stress and that I needed to reduce the stress I was under or find ways to control it. Within 2 hours of my returning home (on the same day), she started a fight with me and moved out of the bedroom. She returned 2 months later. Everything kept getting from bad to worse. As I had done throughout the marriage, I kept trying everything I could think of to win her back but I was always fighting a losing battle. Sex was non-existence for years. I was on all kinds of drugs for the heart and anti-depressants to help combat my temper and anger. A therapist that I was seeing at the time told me that Emily had become a master of "pushing my buttons" and actually got a sexual thrill out of it and that it took the place of sex.
Five months later my mother died and within 2 months, I was at the end of my rope. I could no longer handle the pain and overdosed on Xanax. I was rushed by ambulance to the hospital and spent 3 days in the psychiatric ward. Emily was angry that she was in the emergency room instead of home sleeping so she could go to work. When she came to visit me, she brought me a sandwich and then told me that she wanted a divorce. I was devastated and I begged her not too. I thought that I got through her after my return home but she had secretly retained an attorney (August 2004) by borrowing the money from her sister. By end of January of 2005, I settled my mother’s estate and March, I was served with the divorce papers.
There is a whole lot more that I can tell of the manipulation and mind games that went on but to shorten the story a little, I moved out of the house in August and forced her to sell the house and get out. I have not seen my kids since that time even though I am constantly begging to do so. My daughter got married this past September. I was not allowed to attend. When my daughter had called me the year before that she had gotten engaged, I asked to see her and her fiancée. I wanted to take them out to dinner, give them a gift, maybe help her out a little but she told me that she could not handle the wrath of her mother if she were to see me. She told the photographer that if I were invited, her mother would not attend or give her any money toward the wedding. So none of my family was invited, none of my friends were invited, my brother whom my kids had at one time considered a 2nd father was not invited and has not seen them since I moved out either. They have nothing to do with either of us.
From the time that my kids were little, she did nothing but put me down to them and never supported me in anything that I said to them or told them to do. I was nothing more than a bank or a wallet for them to take out of. Several months ago, I filed a law suit against my ex-wife for not complying with the divorce agreement and not giving me what she had agreed to and what I am entitled to. The court ruled totally in my favor and caught her perjuring herself while under oath but in retaliation to my filing the suit and to get me to stop it, my kids have filed a suit against me for the distribution of my mothers will. Even though they will not win, she is doing everything she can to continue alienating my kids from me and to make her be the good one and the victim when the truth is that she is neither.
I am now engaged to and living with another woman. We have some disagreements, but we are able to discuss them open and honestly. Doing so, we are able to admit our respective frailties, recognize where we each are wrong, appologize and move on. That is incredibly refreshing because Emily was never, ever wrong. I now realize after spending 20+ years in all kids of therapy ranging from biofeedback, several different therapists, and every antidepressent and seritonin inhibitor drug on the market that all I needed was to be with someone who actually cares about me and wants to be with me vs settling for me for fear out of being alone. I needed someone that was willing to once in a while vs never make me important. I needed someone to talk as well as listen. I needed someone that was not out to constantly put me down and knock me to the world so that she could boost her own self esteem. I only wish that I could have a normal relationship with my kids.
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As you know domestic violence is not just physical. In Sam’s case (correct me if I am wrong Sam) it was mostly emotional and pyschological. I know from expereince that this is just as devistating..
Ok, well the site I told you about earlier is www.batteredmen.com
Did you know that there are 835,000 battered men each year? Nope, I did not either..In my opinion, I think the number is too low. I am sure that there are many more victims that are too ashamed, embarrassed, or humiliated to report the crime.
That is sad my friends..DV is a crime no matter the sex of the abuser or the victim.
I found this on the website and found it sums up what I was thinking.
Family violence researcher Murray A. Straus observes:
Men are also less likely to call the police, even when there is injury, because, like women, they feel shame about disclosing family violence. But for many men, the shame is compounded by the shame of not being able to keep their wives under control. Among this group, a "real man" would be able to keep her under control. Moreover, the police tend to share these same traditional gender role expectations. This adds to the legal and regulatory presumption that the offender is a man. As a result, the police are reluctant to arrest women for domestic assault. Women know this. That is, they know they are likely to be able to get away with it. As in the case of other crimes, the probability of a woman assaulting her partner is strongly influenced by what she thinks she can get away with.
S.A.F.E. (http://www.safe4all.org) concentrates on domestic violence against straight men, gay men, and lesbian women, because few services exist for these groups. Personal stories, a comprehensive listing of Web resources and books, info on local shelters and groups that help battered men or offer services for abusive women, suggestions on how you can make a difference in the lives of people affected by abuse. E-mail list and Bulletin Board.
Also the National Domestic Violence Hotline www.NDVH.org
Ok, question time
What would you think if a male friend of yours told you he was being abused?
Do you think that DV against males is under reported? If so, why?
What can we do as a society to support ALL the victims of DV? (women, men, children, teens, gay, lesbian)
Thanks again my friends. Please let me and Sam know you were here..Please show him as much support as you have for all my other friends that have shared their story.
| Yes, a man can be a victim as well. Sam’s story. |
20th-March-2008
