The Other Domestic Violence: Abuse Against Men

Generally domestic violence against women involves physical abuse and on some occasions verbal and mental abuse. When a woman is the perpetrator it often takes a different slant. Women know they aren't the stronger gender so they generally commit more subtle, but no less painful forms of abuse such as:
►Parental Alienation - Often a separated woman will attempt to control the partner by using the children - either refusing to let the father see them, claiming that they are being harmed by the father or telling the children lies about the father and/or any new partners he may have.
►Manipulation - Some women will attempt to control the partner by promising things and then not doing them (such as child visits) or claiming that they did not in fact say they would do something.
►Abuse - Some women will take out domestic violence orders (DVOs) against a man, merely out of spite. This can be very harmful for the man's reputation whether there is proof or not that he actually committed abuse.

Rick and Tina had been married for over 15 years. They lived out of town and had several teenage children.
Tina decided that she wanted to break up with Rick. She moved into a large township about an hour away.
Rick was distraught - he begged and begged for her to come back and finally she agreed. The terms were that he'd buy them a house in town - the only catch was it was to be in her name. Her excuse involved the fact that it was better that way due to insurance and tax reasons based on his business.
Three weeks after moving into the house, Rick came home to find all his belongings on the front lawn and the locks changed. He could not do anything legally, since the house was not even in his name.

James and Alison had been married for more than 20 years. Alison never worked for more than a year total during most of the marriage and depended on James for support. The year their mortgage was to be completely paid off she went across country and spent a large amount of money, putting the couple back in reasonably large debt.
James followed her and bought her back but several months later he found evidence that she'd been cheating on him and finally decided that enough was enough.
Alison demanded a large amount of money from the split, due to their house investment. After paying creditors and other bills James was left with not even enough for a house deposit and Alison went on to spend all her money within the next year or two.
Alison later claimed that James had been bashing her, which confused police since she had no physical proof at all. She also claimed that James had been abusing their teenage child, another untruth.

Evan and Laura were married over 20 years. During their divorce, Laura bought in a private evaluator who was in fact a friend of hers. He evaluated some of their joint assets at nearly $100,000 despite the fact that they only ended up selling for about $20,000. This meant Evan had to pay Laura $50,000 despite the fact he didn't end up with that much.
Laura also forced Evan to buy back several thousand dollars worth of hobby items despite the fact they were items that their son had used.
Laura continued to tell different stories to family friends and neighbours. Two of their three children now refuse to speak to her after many of the things she told other people about their father.

If you haven't heard about or experienced domestic violence against men before, you're probably wondering why men put up with this or why there isn't a bigger outcry.
The truth is, men are often less manipulative than women as well as still being in love with the woman. Especially after a long term relationship, the male may be used to women handling all the complicated paperwork and money side of things. This leaves them vulnerable to abuse on every level - from their assets to their children.
In Australian divorce cases some courts are even including superannuation funds (reitrement funds) in the divorce settlement. This gives a woman with a good legal representation the chance to take most of the assets as those come to approximately 50% of the couple's property when the funds are included, despite the fact that the funds are usually not available to the man till the age of 65.

The sad thing is, domestic violence against men is rarely recognized or dealt with properly. As one man was told when he rang a domestic violence help line "A woman has only to say she has been hurt. A man can be covered in bruises and will still be doubted."
Unfortunately, not a lot can be done. All I can recommend is that male victims of domestic violence try to get as much proof as possible - whether that be from witnesses or written proof (for instance if the partner writes a letter.)

• MenWeb-Domestic violence. 835,000 battered men each year, silent too Long...
• Battered men: almost 40% of domestic violence victims each year. Help for male victims of domestic violence, men's stories, research findings, articles, gender polarization in domestic violence, international developments, links.
• Hawaiian libertarian: We Don't Need Domestic Violence Shelters for Men
• "...We need to fight the popular culture and media that degrades men, fathers, fatherhood and the "you go girl" mindset that gives it's tacit stamp of approval for women to physically assault men..."