Emotional Abuse Support Group

One of my facebook friends posted a this yesterday.

"Thinks this is something all men should remember......... Happy women don't kill their husbands "

Then comments followed about wives catching husbands cheating, and one girl said she learned recently that more wives kill husbands than serial killers. She thought it was weird.

Two thoughts for me going on here. First of all, while I understand that MUCH more abuse is perpetuated by men onto women, I still found it offensive because it speaks of an underlying value that can be held as much by a woman. I think John would understand this...the belief that our partner is RESPONSIBLE for our happiness. Recipe for abuse, if not just great unhappiness.

Second thought. It really is not surprising that more wives kill husbands than serial killers. To be a serial killer speaks of something very wrong with your pyschology, a complete lack of conscious. But abusers? A dime a dozen. And it does not surprise me one bit that a woman could be pushed so far as to feel the only way to protect herself is to kill her abuser. I could do more research on this, and I am not condoning the murder of abusers or otherwise, but I'd be willing to bet that most of those crimes were committed by women in desperately dangerous situations, perpetuated by abusers.

I think it speaks volumes of social acceptance of abuse. And going backwards...if our idea of equality is that it's ok for men to abuse women as long as women can abuse men, in what direction are we headed?

I don't know how many people have told me they believe that if a woman can hit a man, it should be ok for a man to hit a woman. The outrageous thing about it is that no one is thinking of domestic abuse when they say this, they don't realize they are normalizing and condoning it. They think they are being politically correct. It is mind-boggling.

Post edited by: Izzy87, at: 03/04/2011 01:04 PM

thanks for thinking of me Izzy

I think that, apart from certain circumstances violence is just plain wrong and inside a relationship it is always wrong regardless of the person doing it.

I feel that violence against male partners is probably very much under reported and may be farely common, I know that emotional abuse certainly is.

John

I have thought a lot about the idea that it's underreported, and there are a lot of social standards that would condemn a man for being a victim of abuse (rationale there??? Honestly...)

I am tempted to believe that violence perpetuated against men by their partners is not quite the same; I don't know how to state that without sounding very sexist, which I certainly do not want to do. Bancroft addresses it briefly, and I thought what he said made sense...he said that when a woman hits a man, how likely is it to frighten him, how effective might it be to exert control?

That doesn't address emotional abuse however, and I do think it's overlooked because we might automatically assume sympathy for a woman. I feel like through many social circumstances and generations of social grooming we have also built a culture of female resentment, which, like ANYTHING, could be used as a weapon by an abuser, and this particular feature could be perhaps the most useful and easily grasped by a female abuser.

The thing is that abusers lie, and if you would ask my husband he would say that he NEVER hit me, Never dislocated my shoulder, Never choked me. Now if you ask him if I ever hit him, he would say yes!! He twists things around and always justifies hitting me by lying saying that he was fending me off of him!! So how are we suppose to believe when a man is saying she abused me.

Men are just built stronger, and told to be the strong one since they are little. Boys don't cry. Oprah is doing a big show on boys that were abused and men are talking out about it. But that's about childhood abuse I assume.

But what I'm concerned about here is that do we start believing the abusers that lie about defending themselves, like my husband says that I was standing on the toilet beating on him, that's why he threw me down, this is bullshit. I was not even near the toilet when he threw me across the hallway. But he's always the victum and I'm the abuser when I confront him. So if police or courts believe his story, what happens to women like me?

And yes, I was being driven so insane, by his injustice of his lies on me, his long lectures of lies and stories that he made up to belittle me, and his physical abuse on me and the kids that I had to leave or I would have tried to kill him. I understand how a woman can be driven to kill her abuser. After ten years of abuse, anyone who has lived with severe abuse on her and her children would understand why there are so many women in prison for killing their husbands.

I haven't heard of a man killing his wife because she abused him. I do hear that men have killed women because he was abusive to her and like OJ Simpson thought he owned her, and needed to control her. I don't say it's not possible for a man to be abused by a woman as in John's case here, I'm just saying we don't hear about women killing men because the woman is the abuser. Guess double standards are still there for certain things, and I'm doing the double standard I know, but it's just that men are so much stronger physically, and usually are less emotional and may be able to leave easier I don't know. Sorry John, just don't know.

I am very worried by the assumptions here.

Most women may be physically weaker than most men but that doesn't mean all of them,and in any case being raised as not to hit girls, ever, would make it hard to defend oneself. If you had seen my wife when she was in one of her rages you would agree with me that she is very frightning and very controlling even without any physical violence, god knows what she would be like if she started hitting me.

Yes people may well lie and say it's the other partner who is the abusive one, I accept that can happen but it probably happens both ways

I don't think it is important as to if its a man or a woman hitting or emotionally abusing their partner, it still hurts and its still abuse.

My brother's abusive ex would hit him with things. Once, he was watching TV and she came up from behind him and hit him in the head with a beer stein. She was also found of attacking him in the middle of the night while he was sleeping. He would awaken dazed and sleepy and she would be smacking away.

I agree that women can and do abuse men, but that it is just probably under-reported. This is probably because of the social gender roles that we are taught from when we are young. While a man being abused by his gf, wife, etc. may want to reach out for help, there is a stigma involved in it. I remember even in elementary school, boys would tease each other for being "beat up by a girl." I think that the stigma is the main reason for the under-reporting. I also think that maybe even when these crimes are reported, they are not taken as seriously because of the gender roles. I remember that there was an episode of law and order kind of like this, but I can't remember the specifics.

My brother always called the police (if he could get the phone away from her) because he was determined not to lay a hand on her. The first few times he called, the police doubted that he was the victim until he pointed out that he was the one with the injuries, not her. The clincher came though when the police tried to handcuff her to take her into custody and she bit one of the officers. After that, they had no trouble believing him. Sad it had to get that far though ...

I have no doubt it can go both ways. I have been in very awkward situations with our friends where the wife constantly put down her husband - it was so hard to watch - we didn't like going out with them much. She was mean!