MY WIFE ABUSES ME
According to The Mirror (17 March 2011) over 40% of the victims of family violence in England are men. This figure bears out research done in the USA. These men receive very little support, however, and are ashamed to seek help. In England there are fortunately an increasing number of places to which men can go. However, one of the biggest problems is that men’s situation is not taken seriously. People seem to think or say: “Surely a man cannot be abused by his wife? Is he a sissy or what?” and/or “He is probably exaggerating.” Shirley Powell, the managing director of the Montgomery Family Crisis Centre, puts it this way: “It’s almost as though the men have to prove that they are abuse victims, in a way that we never expect women to have to do.” And with whom does a man in this situation discuss his problem if he knows that no one will believe him?
In England there are over 7 000 places of safety for women and only 20 for men with children. Men often prefer not to go to a place of that nature, because this means moving far away from their families or places of employment. One of the workers at a place of safety relates that they regularly get calls from men who have no choice but to sleep in their cars or who simply endure the abuse in silence because they have nowhere to go for fear that no one will believe them.
*The official definition of family violence is any behaviour that threatens you. It is also violence or abuse between partners or family members, irrespective of the sex.
This is not confined to physical violence but includes verbal abuse, threatening behaviour, emotional and psychological abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, isolation and false accusations.
More detailed information on forms of abuse can be obtained from http://www.mankind.org.uk/typesdomesticabuse.html
In South Africa the picture looks like this:
In the case of all “minor assaults” that occur in relationships, women abuse their husbands just as often as men abuse their wives. In the case of “severe assaults”, however, men are three times as likely to abuse their women or partners.
In the research I conducted, the figures refer to “violence” and not to “abuse” and there is a big difference. “Violence” can be defined as follows:
An act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention, of causing physical injury or pain to another person.
It is therefore quite different from the above definition *, which includes all forms of domestic violence.
Let’s distinguish different forms of violence:
Minor: To throw an object at someone, push the person, grab him, slap or hit him.
Serious: Kick, bite, hit with fists, hit with an object, batter the other person severely, threaten the person with a knife, gun or any other deadly weapon; use a knife, gun or any other deadly weapon.
This description does not even include emotional and psychological abuse – something which can have just as serious an effect as physical violence. The reason why the figures given above do not reflect emotional or psychological abuse is probably that the research was based chiefly on figures obtained from hospitals and the police. These are the institutions to which men (or women) go when they have been so severely physically assaulted that they require treatment or want to lay a complaint. People who regard their injuries as “too minor to report”, or who are being emotionally or psychologically abused, often conceal the situation or consult a psychologist/psychiatrist/general practitioner. These figures are very difficult to obtain.
Further information is available at http://www.mankind.org.uk/
(Read the story here of a woman who describes how she abused her husband.)
In England there are over 7 000 places of safety for women and only 20 for men with children. Men often prefer not to go to a place of that nature, because this means moving far away from their families or places of employment. One of the workers at a place of safety relates that they regularly get calls from men who have no choice but to sleep in their cars or who simply endure the abuse in silence because they have nowhere to go for fear that no one will believe them.
*The official definition of family violence is any behaviour that threatens you. It is also violence or abuse between partners or family members, irrespective of the sex.
This is not confined to physical violence but includes verbal abuse, threatening behaviour, emotional and psychological abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, isolation and false accusations.
More detailed information on forms of abuse can be obtained from http://www.mankind.org.uk/typesdomesticabuse.html
In South Africa the picture looks like this:
In the case of all “minor assaults” that occur in relationships, women abuse their husbands just as often as men abuse their wives. In the case of “severe assaults”, however, men are three times as likely to abuse their women or partners.
In the research I conducted, the figures refer to “violence” and not to “abuse” and there is a big difference. “Violence” can be defined as follows:
An act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention, of causing physical injury or pain to another person.
It is therefore quite different from the above definition *, which includes all forms of domestic violence.
Let’s distinguish different forms of violence:
Minor: To throw an object at someone, push the person, grab him, slap or hit him.
Serious: Kick, bite, hit with fists, hit with an object, batter the other person severely, threaten the person with a knife, gun or any other deadly weapon; use a knife, gun or any other deadly weapon.
This description does not even include emotional and psychological abuse – something which can have just as serious an effect as physical violence. The reason why the figures given above do not reflect emotional or psychological abuse is probably that the research was based chiefly on figures obtained from hospitals and the police. These are the institutions to which men (or women) go when they have been so severely physically assaulted that they require treatment or want to lay a complaint. People who regard their injuries as “too minor to report”, or who are being emotionally or psychologically abused, often conceal the situation or consult a psychologist/psychiatrist/general practitioner. These figures are very difficult to obtain.
Further information is available at http://www.mankind.org.uk/
(Read the story here of a woman who describes how she abused her husband.)
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