Why Men Remain Silent About DV

Article here. Excerpt:

'It just wasn’t part of my nature to talk about my feelings and emotions.  If I felt hurt, I wasn’t going to make an issue of it – I certainly wouldn’t let anyone know – I’d simply dust myself down, pick myself up and carry on.   I would talk about what I could do or what I was going to do, but never about how I felt or the circumstances behind emotions.  I would say that this is true for most men that our innermost angst remains locked away in our psyche.

For a long time, I didn’t recognise the violent assaults on me as Domestic Abuse.  I’d made a wedding vow that included the words, “ for better or for worst, in sickness and in health.”   The actions perpetrated against me, I reasoned, was because of some undiagnosed illness caused by the stress of bereavement and maybe even physiological changes due to childbirth.  My pleas to my ex-wife to seek medical attention for her extreme anger outbursts were ignored.

I kept telling myself the violence would stop 

I didn’t see the attacks on me as criminal assaults although they clearly were.  I kept telling myself that the violence would end once the grieving had ended or once the baby had arrived.  It never did.  The more I accepted her pattern of behaviour, the worst it became.  Also, how could I even think about involving the Police and pressing charges against the woman I loved?

I felt I couldn’t tell anyone.   Who would believe me?  Most people thought that women are incapable of attacking the physically stronger man.  I wish I’d known back then that women attacking their male partners is far more prevalent than assumed.   Although hit, I’d never retaliate back.  To me, striking a women even under provocation, is totally unacceptable.'