The Key to Change

I think the only thing that will open people's eyes and create changes within the system are personal accounts. It's the same with any tragedy. I didn't know how to wrap my head around the devastation of Hurrican Katrina until I heard personal stories from the survivors. Just the same, I never understood the first thing about abused males until I read the stories.

I have a story about a guy whose wife had abused him physically and verbally. He was tremendous stress and had a heart attack. While he was unconscious for several weeks after, his wife arranged everything, and he woke up to find his life torn apart. She had arranged a divorce, forced him into a no-win custody arrangement, and when he tried to dispute it, she trumped up a false domestic violence case against him. He had no money to fight it all in court, and was left to languish, an invalid, with nothing, who never gets to see his children.

Sometimes people have the reaction that "well, he must have done something to deserve it." I'm pretty sure that no one on earth deserves the life this guy has now.

Other stories are more subtle, telling of subtle lies, deceptions along the way, unraveling a marriage by bits at a time. Here the abuse is harder to detect, but the end result is the same. The man has been left unable to trust and unable to enter into another relationship in a healthy way.

A man told me a story of being sexually assaulted by his wife, repeatedly. I never really gave it much thought. I thought it was impossible, but it's not. After reading the stories, I respond very differently to the issues.

The next level of abuse happens at the legal level. When the cases are tried in court, both sides can lose big. A false accusation of abuse is nearly impossible to shake. Even if you have bruises all over your body, the police can arrest you for domestic violence.

The only way to institute change in the system is to tell these stories. In other generations, we needed to get the first-hand accounts of violence against women to see that changes were needed. And that movement has come a long way, and now when a woman is hurt, no one dares say "she must have done something to deserve it." But once upon a time, that's certainly the common response you would get. The movement to stop violence against men is still in its infancy. It's still in its fetal development! But within our lifetime, if organizations like NOW have been able to bring new awareness to women's issues, then we may find a way to promote awareness of violence against men. It's entirely possible, and it starts with the victims speaking up.