25 Domestically Abused Men Reveal Their Horrifying Stories | Thought Catalog
25 Domestically Abused Men Reveal Their Horrifying&Stories
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My last ex was pretty controlling but I never guessed she would resort to violence when I tried to break up with her. I sat her down and explained to her that I didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore and when I tried to leave she dug her fingernails into my arm and wouldn’t let me go. I tried to remove her hand but she dug her fingernails in even harder. I pushed her off of me, at which point she looked at me like I hit a small puppy because “men aren’t allowed to push girls!”… So she retaliated by punching me in the nose. Blood was getting everywhere and instead of trying to calm her down again I ran out her bedroom and burst into her roommate’s room where she and her boyfriend were hanging out. They knew what was going on immediately. The boyfriend restrained my girlfriend and gave me enough time to run out the front door. The roommate ran after me saying, “I don’t care how big you are! You can’t take that abuse and feel fine.” I broke down right there and wept like a schoolgirl. Glad that’s over with and I’ve found someone who makes me very happy.
We had an argument, and she suddenly escalated and started to hit me repeatedly. This included low blows.
I immediately left, called it off, and told her to get out of my life.
She then proceeded to stalk and harass me over the next several months. It was annoying but mostly harmless- she would mostly leave me degrading notes in various places, such as my car.
It all occurred in public areas, up until she managed to leave me a message in my home while I was away. I was terrified that she had been there. I didn’t feel safe at home afterwards.
I proceeded to obtain a domestic violence restraining order against her in court, and won the case. She’s been out of my life since.
None of her actions indicated to me that she wanted to severely injure me, but she did want control over me- the ability to lash out at me when she wanted to. She had little respect for my personal boundaries.
The violence was primarily of an emotional/terrorizing nature rather than a constant physical threat.
Old ex-girlfriend was visiting from out of town for a week. We were having a good time I thought . Some conversations about relationships that she didn’t like, but nothing resembling an argument or fight. I guess she thought her coming out to visit would turn into a long term relationship.
Anyway, one night we’re watching a movie, she goes upstairs to get something to eat. While she’s up there she starts yelling at me out of nowhere and then throw a large pot of soup down the stairs. Then some dishes. Then comes downstairs and throws a hammer at me which sticks in the wall, then a jar candle. She then tries to stab me with the broken jar.
This is all out of nowhere, no exaggeration. I had paused the movie, she went upstairs and then just flipped out.
Eventually she calms down. I am terrified of calling the police knowing that I’d probably go to jail. So I encourage her to sleep, and the next day tell her she can’t stay here after what happened. I pay for a hotel room just to get her out of my house. She goes to stay with family in another town and I guess tells them how we got in a fight and who knows what else. Anyway, 2 days after she left my house, I’m home playing skyrim with my daughter when the police come. They ask me if I put my hands on her, I say no, and then I’m arrested and going to jail.
Now I’m out on bail on a form of probation while I wait to set a trial date that can take up to a year.
My ex roommate had some serious issues with his girlfriend.
They’d split up at one point and she used a spare key she had (made a copy before giving his key back to him) to break into his house and walk into his bedroom while he was sleeping. She stood over him and then took her lanyard with keys attached and began beating him. He woke up being hit over and over with keys being swung around on a nylon rope. She was screaming at him while doing it. He threw her out of the house and she threatened to call the police to report that he’d started the physical portion of the fight and saying she hit him back in self-defense.
They got back together for some reason.
Same situation happened again with her coming in while he was asleep, only this time she crawled into his bed and began rubbing on him. While he was in this half awake/half asleep state, she started fucking him. He said when he realized it was her on top of him and he wasn’t just dreaming or something he threw her off. She again threatened to report him for physical abuse.
He never reported either incident but I know the rape was terrifying for him and he actually had some issues as a result. There’s not much help and if he went to report it anyway, it would have been his word against hers.
ComI was stabbed in the arm by my ex with a nail file thing when I walked in on her sleeping with some random she met earlier that night. Before that, she’d never even raised her voice at me. It was like something completely flipped in her head and she turned violent. I did not press charges and we weren’t living together so I simply left, went to the hospital for stitches and never spoke to her again.
We’d been together for eight months for those wondering.ment
I was with a girl for about a year. Things got stressful. We both had a couple kids from our first marriages, I worked so she could go to school.
To be fair, I can be a total, disgusting asshole when something makes me defensive. An ability she had in spades. One day I was laying back down. We were both tired and fighting viciously. I said “whatever” and closed my eyes and bam! She punched me three times in the head. I was freaked out, because my mother physically abused me as a child. I’m also 6+ and 230 pounds and was an amateur fighter. Violence is a huge insecurity for me and I was afraid I’d put my 4 100 pound girl to sleep or worse, as a reaction, someday. It kept escalating and I was hit with a twenty pound mirror, had countless mugs thrown at me, a pewter figurine, hit, scratched, bit, holes in the walls.
Eventually, I started using explosive, but non injurious force on her. I became violent back after a year. Within a month of me becoming violent in return I made the statement that if I ever touched her in anger again, I was gone. Next day was a knock down, drag out fight that ended with me holding her violently on the floor. I moved into a weekly rental crack house that day and we haven’t lived together since. Took another four years to completely end the relationship. I blew my thirties on that madness and I’m a worse person than when I went into it, but I’m getting over that trauma slowly.
Once was at Barnes and noble where this older couple(i think they were a couple) walked in. They sat next to me and this woman was a complete Bitch. Every thing he said she cursed him out, called him stupid and hit him. For me being in elementary school at the time it was was of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen. He never said anything back to her, he just sat and hung his head in shame. I can only imagine how she treated him at home if she act that way in public. I felt so bad for him, crushed really.
Because I was young and stupid I thought giving him a magazine with hot women in it would make him feel better when his wife walked away. I’m pretty sure it was porn. Does Barnes and noble sale porn?
Anyways that was the first time I’ve ever seen a men humiliated like that in public, I’m older now and know it happens a lot more than reported.
I was in a long term relationship about 4 years ago with a woman who was a little nuts. Every now and again she’d flip out during a fight and slap or slug me in the jaw, I only ever fought back once to stop her from hitting me (punched her in the arm), which immediately brought everything to a standstill and the “you just hit me” argument started up. It got really bad at the end when I moved out, left most of my stuff and started a new life. The bad part was she found out I was moving into another woman’s house. Totally unexpected, but I met my now wife the day after I broke up with my GF and basically said, “Fuck it, I have nothing to lose” and moved in with her.
Well my ex found out and while I was getting my stuff out she was throwing everything I owned at me, accusing me of cheating, saying how she was going to stab the mattresses I was leaving behind and pretend it was my now wife. My family was helping me move out too… super fucked up. All good now though!
Brief version: My mom attacked me. I fought back. I was certain I was going to be blamed (because it’s always the guy’s fault, and men should never hit women). Went to a therapy session, and the therapist immediately knew I wasn’t the problem, never asked me back, and started a very long, much needed counseling program for her. I have tons of emotional trauma from being attacked by my mother. I don’t tell anyone about it, and am in constant fear of it getting found out.
My mom went through a pretty crazy patch when I was in high school. To put it quickly, she had a lot of issues with not having a job, being in a shitty relationship with my dad, and not feeling like she was in control of anything in her life. Anyway, her crap led to some very nasty behaviors that would only surface with me. I feel a lot of it had to do with me being the only one who would talk to her (everyone else ignored the problems, I confronted her), and being the baby of the family (she wanted to command authority over something). We would get into epic, circular arguments that would just escalate and escalate. The arguments progressed like this: I would question something she said (“the sky is blue because it’s reflecting the sky,” “That’s not what I heard.”) she would get defensive, stop listening, would just start babbling nonsense contradicting herself, then start screaming and shouting. I was too stupid to walk away. I didn’t understand she was going through her own shit. I was genuinely trying to understand her point and communicate… Lesson number one, never try to rationalize with crazy. I’m still struggling with that one.
These arguments were not well known. I was a great student, and very personable. Teachers and people loved me. My mom is typically a very sweet person, but again, she was going through some shit, and I was easily the person she spent the most time with. My dad was not home much, and both of us were too embarrassed to talk to people about it.
On one car trip, things escalated beyond her screaming at me. Mid argument, I leaned down to pick up something from the floorboard of the car. I have no idea why, but she decided now and then was the time to strike me. She hit me in the face. When people are attacked there are three common reactions: freeze, fight, or flight. I have tremendous guilt about this, but my body reacted with fight. Looking back, I feel it was my vulnerable position that encouraged this reaction. I jerked my body up as hard and fast as I could, moving out of the way of her second blow, blocked a third blow, struck her solidly in her head with a right cross, then reached over and grabbed the wheel.
I didn’t hit her that hard, but she clearly had never been hit before, nor was she expecting me to retaliate. She was frozen in surprise, then she decided to play the victim card. She started screaming and wailing. I sensed the conflict was over, and forcefully, clearly, but calmly talked to her. I told her to calm down, refused to get into another argument, told her to either stop the car or grab the wheel herself.
We were on the way to her parents, my grandparent’s house. That was a sleepless night! I was petrified of what this meant. From this moment on, I would forever be known as a woman beater. Nothing seemed to come of it. My grandparents acted as if nothing had happened. I’m certain that she told them (of course leaving out the parts of her screaming at me, and striking me in the head while I was bent over picking something up). But to this day, neither of them have said anything to me about it.
A few weeks went by, and I realized she was telling her friends, trying to build a support network so she could more easily convince herself she was the victim, and I was the villain. Not surprisingly, she found many people who were happy to join her side, they encouraged police reports, legal action, kicking me out of the house, etc. The first step was therapy.
I was absolutely certain the therapist would paint me as the bad-guy. I was going to see someone she had already been in contact with, and someone she had already pre-sold. Plus, I’m a young, athletic male, and no matter how you spin it, I just punched my mother in the head. I was certain I was screwed. When the therapist finally asked me into his office, he told me he had already heard her side, and now wanted to hear mine. In my best grumpy teenager posture and tone (certain I was already guilty in his eyes), I told him a 3 second version. He then asked me about how school was, how I was doing, how my other relationships are.
I remember my mother trying to chime in multiple times, and him cutting her off. After about 10 minutes, he said “it sounds like this thing is getting pretty serious with your mother, but everything else is going ok.” Next thing I knew he asked me to wait out in the lobby again.
That was the last time he asked me to come to therapy. I don’t know the details of what was said to my mother, but over the years I’ve gathered that he sat her down and told her she was the problem, and her inability to communicate with my father was one of her biggest problems. She started going to therapy around 3x/week, and my dad joined her for at least 1x/week for about 3 months. My mom cycled through multiple meds for all sorts of problems and continued therapy for probably two years.
This happened more than 10 years ago, and I’m happy to report my mom and I rarely have shouting matches any more, her relationship with my father is better than it’s ever been, and she’s totally free of medication.
I am still absolutely shocked that the therapist believed me. That said, these people are trained to know when people are lying and to reserve judgement until both sides have been heard. Police also have significant experience in domestic violence, and most understand women often are the attackers. I would encourage everyone who’s been attacked to report the problem, regardless of your reaction. Your attacker needs help, and the only way to get them to see this is if you get other people involved. Stand up for yourself, realize you have options, and face the music. You need to do it for your own safety, and their well being. I’m lucky my mother reported me. There’s no way I would have ever told anyone about this on my own. I was far too embarrassed and scared. I know how hard it is, but you need to do it.
My ex was most likely a sociopath, but I am not an expert so feel free to examine it.
You want the psychological abuse or the physical? I’ll start with the mental abuse. That was actually the worst.
She was an expert at what is called Gaslighting, that is specifically she would try her best to convince me that I was losing my mind and she did pretty good at it.
She would objects in the house and then when I noticed would tell me they were never moved or moved weeks ago.
She would steal items of mine, hide them and then tell me that I was “losing it” as I looked all over the house for them. Things like my Ipod, medicine, personal journals etc.
We would meet new people and get along fine for a while and then suddenly they would treat me very differently. I was told this was because I was telling inappropriate jokes and weird stories. The truth was she would tell them I was seeing a psychiatrist. I was not seeing any health professional… nice one…
She would call me and then make stories up about what I said during the day. Like if I said I would call her at 5, she would insist that I said I would be there at five. Again I was “losing it”
There was lots more, but these were the best ones.
She loved to have super long “open talks” with me about my dreams, desires, what I felt bad about, what made me happy etc… and then take every single one of those things and do her best to destroy my confidence, shred my dreams etc… Over the years that was the worst. She found out every place I felt weak or bad and did her level best to exploit it.
This was also all done by keylogging everything on my PC, following me to and from work and accusing me of cheating on her pretty well daily…
Then of course the physical started about five years in. She called the cops the first time I defended myself. Defending myself consisted of me holding her arm from hitting me… and for that I was kicked out of the house, by the police. She let me come home about a week later.
It was pretty rough, no friends, family was far away and I was homeless for all intents and purposes. So hey, smart me went back…
A week later I was slugged in the face five or six times because I had actually gone out for a drink, by myself, on my birthday… I realized as she hit me, if I tried to stop her the cops would come back… and out I go. I learned later about a thing called abuse-by-proxy…
Long story short, I left about two weeks later…
My life has been great ever since. I still don’t open up fully to anyone though, they don’t need the ammo.
I came home from work and my soon to be ex wife started throwing punches. We’d never hit each other, hell, we didn’t argue or say hurtful things (I didn’t anyway). She had filed for divorce, and had been on a women’s domestic abuse website for “advice”. She didn’t know I knew. She hit me in the face, and took another swing, and I caught her fist totally by luck. Was aiming for her wrist, because the first punch hurt more than I let on, but you know. Shouldnt have encouraged her to volunteer as a firefighter, she wouldn’t have been lifting weights, maybe my face wouldn’t have hurt so much? I forced her hand down to her side and told her, “We don’t hit each other here.”
Then I walked out the front door, and sat on the porch. Minutes later the cops are there. I figure she called them first, took a swing or two, figured they’d arrive while I was beating her.. I got lucky I didn’t catch her wrist and put a mark on it, and I got lucky she ran to the police car, told him she hit me in the face “AND HE JUST WALKED AWAY!” The officer left that time. Didn’t even speak to me, just rolled his cruiser window up and drove away. I got really lucky when she filed her restraining order, the judge actually read her complaint and threw it out. The time stamps on my letter to the court, and the court tossing my wife’s “petition for relief from domestic abuse” showed 10 minutes. He saw she was in a divorce, remembered her telling him she wasn’t, and it saved my ass. Still cost me just over 3 grand in legal fees..”no harm done” right?
I met this girl in the tail end of ’09. At the beginning everything seemed to be going well. She was kind, willing to come out and see me(she lived with her mother about 100mi away), and things seemed to be going okay. There were a few strange incidents that in hindsight should have been warning flags, but I didn’t think anything of it. Since she lived in an area where there wasn’t much in the way of work and she wanted to get on her feet, I invited her to come live with me.
The warning signs got worse. At first, it was little things. Expecting me to drop everything I was doing, even work, at the drop of the hat to suit her whims. Subtle(and later outright arguments) accusing me of cheating on her with friends of mine. Insisting on me cancelling plans with my friends in order to
I basically started to live her life and not my own.
Two pretty big blows hit around New Years&#. Firstly, my cat, whom I took in years ago from a friend who moved out of state and couldn’t keep her, passed away in my arms. While I was crying, she started yelling at me to shut up, that she was trying to get some sleep and stalked off to the spare bedroom. A few days later I also got word that a buddy of mine on a car forum had been killed in an accident. Her response? “Sucks to be him.” By this time most other people would have kicked her to the curb, but I always saw the good in her, the kind person who would give anything to someone she cared about.
The physical abuse started not much longer after that. I would compliment her(“Hey, you look great today!”) and she would respond by slapping me, full-force. She had a strength and height advantage on me (I’m 5, she was 6+). Additionally, my father was physically abusive to my mom, and I saw some of that when I was a kid. I’ve spent my entire life to be a completely different man than my father, and that meant not striking anyone. Not even striking back if I was hit.
She also had a habit of going into sulking fits if I didn’t give her attention at exactly the same time she wanted it. If I was distracted at all by work, a video game, or college homework, she would give me this stare of death and stalk off to the most uncomfortable places in the house. She would curl up in a corner, in the dark, and bury her head like she was crying. She wouldn’t asking her if she was okay would prompt her to stand up, shove me out of the way and find another dark, physically uncomfortable corner to hide in. I knew something was wrong, and I thought I could get her to at
to at least tell me what was wrong.As she was stalking around I placed my hands on her shoulders and tried to move in to give her a hug. It wasn’t the smartest move, but I felt like i had to do something to show her I cared and wanted to help.
She grabbed my shoulders, wound her leg around mine and brutally shoved me sideways. The leg lock caused my left leg to bend at a completely unnatural angle. I heard a ‘crack’ and then felt this completely agonizing, burning pain from my left knee. As I was screaming she dropped me to the floor and walked off casually, as if nothing had happened. The pain was enough that I had to strike out against something. I had enough presence of mind to bang my fist against the washin the dent is still there. I was on the ground for over half an hour. I had considered calling the police, but was worried about the ramifications. Would she cry self-defense and I would be the one being hauled off to the police station? Would she do something else? What if she decided to get her hands on a knife or one of my guns?
I kept my mouth shut about this until the relationship was pretty much over. I told my folks and coworkers(I worked at the family business) that I had fallen on some ice and that I would be okay. I was even afraid to see a doctor about it. I limped along for about a week until I started getting a little better. At the same time I locked absolutely everything dangerous in my gun safe… firearms, cooking knives, everything. I had the combination and she didn’t.
After a few more physical incidents, including her kicking me very hard after going behind her back and purchasing a new laptop for school, I confronted her and told her that if she ever struck me again, the relationship was over and I would kick her out of the house. After that things dissolved into pretty much daily arguments. During this time she was getting very friendly with another guy and spending quite a
after one argument where I locked myself in my office with her banging on the door, she stalked off and spent the next two days with him. I was jealous at first, but started to see a way out.
I’ll admit to being very passive-aggressive about this, but I started ignoring her more. I continued to lock myself in my office, playing video games and doing homework. The arguments got worse, bu I admit I held the threat of kicking her out over her head. It was a bit hollow as she was technically a tenant at this point and I would have had to go through the le I was worried she would destroy my house if she was given that much time. She gave me an ultimatum one day: One more fight and she would be gone.
The next day I was completely fed up with the arguments, so instead of coming home after work I went to my folks’ house. I sat there, played some video games and watched a ball game with them. The texts from her
I counted at least 20-30 of them. She called a few times and I ignored them. She started having her friends call me, which I ignored, and I started receiving calls from a restricted number. I was gone perhaps four hours, and I had received a ton of texts and at least ten phone calls. Then my mom’s phone started ringing. She answered one from a restricted number, and it was this girl’s mom… asking where I was. My mom told her I was with them, ended the conversation and we had a little talk about this. I really didn’t want to go home. I ended up checking her Facebook profile and she posted pictures of her cutting herself with a pair of scissors, under a caption stating that it was me that was driving her to do this.
When I finally got home, it was a blowout fight. I don’t remember the details, but I threw her overly close friendship with another guy into her face and told her I was sick and tired of the double standards. Somehow we ended up making nice and ending things on a somewhat good note. When I got off work the next day she was gone, along with most of her stuff. I ended up celebrating by buying a big TV, like I had wanted to get earlier but she kept on telling me no.
I wish the story had ended there, but she kept on harassing my frien asking my friends to ‘smack him for me because he broke my heart’ and telling her friends I had raped her. She finally came to get the rest of her things after I threaten as she left she told me she had been cheating on me with her guy friend. I was beyond done at that point. I ended up having to threaten her with pressing criminal harassment charges to get her to stop. At this point, it was May of 2010.
Years later the damage is still there. I really can’t afford surgery (well, that and I’m deathly afraid of being put under, so I refuse to get it done) on my knee at this point. It likely didn’t heal up correctly and will still dislocate itself on occasion. Thankfully these have been hap I was experiencing one every couple of weeks. Now it’s only a couple of times a year, and I haven’t had one happen since January. I spent a period of time unemployed(another long story I’d rather not get into), after which I managed to find work in my given field. It’s mostly a desk job, versus the rather physical retail gig I had at the family business. I’m working both places part-time, though might be going back to my office job full-time later on. I do continue to wear a knee brace at times, but over four years later it’s been getting at least somewhat better.
The emotional scars are definitely still there. I have absolutely no patience or tolerance in relationships anymore, and for a period of time after that breakup I pursued a series of short flings. It’s been four years and I haven’t had a major relationship since then, and it’s been just under three years since I’ve last dated, been intimate with, or even held hands with anyone else. Despite quite a bit of therapy I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t want to date again. I’ve still got my house. I’ve got two rare sports cars that I spend my time on, I’ve got two awesome cats, and I’m on the verge of starting my own computer repair business. Life for me isn’t perfect, but it’s the best it could be considering the path it could have taken.
I was. I’ve previously told the story of how the one mormon girl I dated beat the shit out of me for nearly an hour because I refused to lay a hand on her – worst ass whipping of my life at the hands of a 110 pound girl.
At some point, when she’d punched herself out, I went to the bathroom to get cleaned up. My blood was splattered up the wall. I washed my face off, surveyed the damage, and the adrenaline wore off. I stumbled back, hit the towel rack (Ow.), and slid down the wall until I was sitting next to the toilet.
This was when she came in, realized what she’d done, and sat on my lap. She gave me a hug and told me she loved me, and I swear I heard my psyche just snap.
Fine. I can’t hit her. But I can drive her insane, show her things she never wanted to see. So I stood up, bleeding profusely down my front, and started laughing a way I’ve never laughed before. She backed up, fell out the bathroom door, and I came out hot on her heels. I got right in her face, blood pouring down my face, from one of my eyes, my nose, one of my ears, my arms.. and just whispered, very quietly.. “Do it, hit me again. Does it make you right, in the eyes of your lord?”
And then I laughed, and laughed.. and I kept laughing until she hit me again to shut me up.. and when she tried to swing again, I caught her hand. Then her other hand. And then I went full on Kajiri on her and spit a mouthful of blood in a mist all in her face.
“You’re worthless. You’re nothing. You will never be anything to anyone. And you’ll always remember this.”
She broke, crumpled.. and I went to change my now bloody clothes, and when I came out, she was trying to overdose on melatonin. I told her she was pathetic, and called an ambulance. She ran out the back door, and that was the end of that..
My high school girlfriend. She had a rough go when her ex passed away in a car accident. I didn’t know her during that period of time, but I should have been more hesitant when she kept calling me Dan (his name, not mine). She had her own demons, but I was 17 and didn’t think I’d ever find someone to pay attention to me. Fast forward a year at college, I told her we were breaking up because I met someone else (story two inc.). She had always been verbally abusive (blaming me for her ex’s death, me not always being available to spend time together, etc.), but when I told her it was over she stalked me. We’re talking multiple calls an hour, texts nonstop, etc.
I came home that next weekend post-breakup to celebrate my birthday with some buddies. We had a few drinks, and when I awoke in my bed at home she was there… raping me. My grandmother had let her in not knowing we were broken up. I immediately pushed her off, which sent her into a bloodcurdling, nightmarish tantrum where she started wailing on me. She was 5+ and I’m a touch under 6+. I tried to restrain her best I could, but I finally had enough (like the JLo movie, lifted her up, walked down the stairs with her flailing, opened the door, and let go. Before she could make a second attempt at attacking me, I slammed the door.
She approached me later that day at a party begging for forgiveness. She was best friend’s with my best friend’s sister, so she knew where I was headed. I told her to leave me alone and she started making wild accusations about me hitting her. She gestured to a bruise on her arm, which I am sure was from me trying to stop her earlier. I frantically tried explaining to everyone the circumstance, but very few took my side. I continued distancing myself from her at the party. As I was leaving, she told me that she was sorry, and I said I did not want to be by her — physically or emotionally. She got off one clean haymaker before I could react. Thankfully her friend held her back.
With a bloody nose, I went to the local police station pleading my case. The officers scoffed at my accusations. “Buddy, we take these claims very seriously. We suggest you think long and hard about this ‘story’ before you file a complaint.” I saw a number of different officers walk by, ask the story from a colleague, shrug, and go back to whatever they were doing.
I went back to college that next day. She was waiting outside my house. I had this feeling of calm before the storm as I put my bags in the trunk of my Dad’s car. I tried to not make eye contact, but honestly I was petrified of her trying to run me down. We drove off and my phone’s screen lit up with her name.
I never called back. Over the next month, I averaged somewhere around 50 texts a day and 4 voicemails out of 20 missed calls. I saw her five years later at a party. She introduced herself as though she didn’t know me. Maybe the trauma made her forget those two days. Maybe not. I shook her hand, gave a false name, and walked away. Fast.
The second story is not as dramatic, but I can share if anyone is interested.
It’s not a good place to be. I have reluctantly told a few people this story in person. To my surprise, they all have been incredibly supportive. Although, they usually have the same reaction as the officers at first. “Really? You’re a big dude, dude. Shit…”
It mainly started when my fiancee had lost her job, just as I was getting started in my new career and dream job. We were both into gaming, and she always got massive amounts of attention from the leg-humpers who have nothing to do all day but give her attention. I really didn’t pay it any mind, but when she spent all day every day online with these people, it stood out to her as me being abandoning and not caring about her because I would leave her go to my regular 8-hour job while her online gamer friends were at her every beck and call 24 hours a day.
I spent every free moment I had with her, even to the extreme that I barely even talked to my friends and family anymore, but it wasn’t enough. While I was at work I couldn’t immediately respond to all of her calls/texts, and when I would get home she would be in a raging fit, bringing up random things I don’t even remember saying 2 years ago like I’m the worst person in the world for saying it.
I don’t know if it was her online leg-humping friends riling her up to leave me or what, but some days I would get home and she would be angry for no explainable reason that she would start breaking things in the house. At one point she started to hit me, both with her fist and by throwing objects at me, the most dangerous thing being a pair of scissors. Her reasoning was that I am stupid and don’t understand her and how I could abandon her in the house like I would do every day I would go to work and this was my punishment.
I would spend hours calming her down, no matter how long it took I would eventually get her back to normal. She would be completely normal for days or even weeks sometimes, but eventually I’d come home and yet again get blindsided by a wave of rage I could not possibly begin to understand.
I don’t know why I stayed with her for as long as I did, perhaps it was out of loyalty, or that each time I calmed her down I felt like I had finally gotten through to her and this wouldn’t happen again. But it did, many times, and I took my hits for it, never fighting back, only providing the calm she needed to get her back to normal.
She finally moved out to go be with one of her gamer boyfriends she ended up cheating on my with, living with him at his parents house. It was a terrible experience but it gave me a very deep understanding into abusive relationships and why it can be difficult to leave someone even when they are not treating you like you deserve. I think I came out of it much stronger and wiser, knowing the personality traits of what I should not involve myself with again. Luckily it didn’t affect me bad enough to cost me my career and dream job so am doing much better now 6 months after it all ended.
I was the primary breadwinner in the house I.e my money was for mortgage and bills and food, her money was for her clothing and her money was hers for clothes and entertainment. One day, I got yelled at for buying a video game because ” we couldn’t afford it”. After she scratched the shit out of me (I was assaulting her by being “in the way of her leaving”) she called my supervisor and had me kicked out of my own house. She was late to a comedy ahow, you see. Where the tickets were 60 dollars each. For her and her 3 friends.
The kicker was that while I was kicked out, my grandfather died. While I was at his funeral, she moved all my shit into the driveway.
I was young, so was my ex, she began hitting me when things didn’t go her way, which I wanted to leave but we had a kid together. One day she flipped out at me when I was heading off to work, she wouldn’ I shoved her out of the way and left.
As I was pulling down the street I was pulled over and charged with domestic violence, I was jailed for two days and a TPO/no contact order was placed on us by the judge. Within 5 minutes of showing up at my parents house (after getting released form jail) she was calling me and threatening me with all sorts of crazy shit if I didn’t come back.
I eventually came back and one random Saturday she flipped out because she was hungry and “too tired to cook” after I got home from working a 12 hour shift digging holes (she didn’t work but our shelves were well stocked with groceries), I refused to take her out too eat. I fed and played with my son while purposely ignoring her that night, after I put the kid to bed I she called the cops and told them I broke into the house and was threatening her. The cops came, arrested me for violating the TPO I ended up spending 120 days in jail while she blew through my money and credit cards.
We are both remarried now, I’d still love to see someone light that bitch on fire though.
Was a few months after a break up. Ex hears I’ve finally brought someone else home. She enters my house and comes up to my room. Rooms locked so she proceeds to go grab a hammer. I suppose she was being quiet as to bust me in the act. She (this little 4+) thing stars knocking down my bedroom door with a hammer. I was in shock till I saw the middle of the door fall out. Then I jumped up and opened the door. After taking a few blows from the hammer I disarmed her and quickly let my guest out of probably one of the most awkward and terrifying hook up of her life. Upon reentering my house I tried to get her to leave. She would not so I called the police. She ended up hitting me with some kind of metal object on the head while thw pos show up. Drawing a good amount of blood and giving me a wicked headache.
When the police showed up I was made fun of and told ‘what you just piss off girls and when you want to get rid of them you call us to do the dirty work’. Like I had some option other than violence.
My soon to be ex wife was diabolical and cunning about the daily abuse I took from her.
She was 11 years older than me, ( When we first got together I thought it was hot- big mistake!). It’s not the physical things about abuse that get to you, it’s the mind games. It’s was slow and crippling process for me. I literally packed my bags and ran one night, and I’ve never been happier of felt more free since getting away from her. Heres how the stages of the abuse I received happened:
First, The Isolation. Turned me against my friends and family, made me believe it was just us versus the world, “let’s move far away so no one can bother us again.”
2nd-The breakdown of independence. About once an hour, all day every day,(for years) she would start making small mean comments about how terrible I was in bed, make fun my physical appearance and degrade and humiliate me.
When I would tell her this bothered me, she would insult my masculinity saying that real men can take barbs. It began to grow much much worse. She would get up in my face and taunt me when she would see i was upset or frustrated and if she succeeded in making me mad, she would insult and break down me even further for even thinking it was ok, “its a womans right to take things out on a man, they’re supposed to be able to take it.”
Last-The abuse It escelated from there. Her trying to start physcial confrontation every day with me was the norm. Throwing silverware at me, getting her face as close to mine as she could and begging me to hit her “so could please call the cops and have the house to herself.”
If I made the mistake of trying to argue back I was “punished” with no sex for a month at a time. I began to act like a dog with an abusive owner, I would come home cowering and hope and pray and said and did the right things. She would punch herself in the face and If I didn’t do what she said she would threaten to call the cops and say that I hit her. It’s all about control to the pscyopaths. The worst part is the guilt, psychopaths favorite tool of them all If they can find a way to turn the tables and make you feel like its your fault, THEY WILL. I’m not saying I’m totally innocent in not making it work, but I finally had enough-the blackmail,the guilt,the fear of being humiliated, the insecurity.
My Fellow men who are in an abusive relationship right now, YOU HAVE POWER,GET YOUR ASS UP AND WALK OUT THE DOOR AND DONT LOOK BACK. SHE WILL FIND ANOTHER VICTIM SOON ENOUGH. (I found my hope and motivation to get out from a website )
Not sure if this qualifies but here’s my story. My ex and I have a child together but were never married. We went through a very difficult custody battle during which time she drove to my house to drop my son off and started yelling at my about not returning a shirt. Instead of standing there holding my 1 year old and getting yelled at I decided to shut the front door of my home. My ex tried pushing her way into the house so she could still tell at my but I pushed back and locked the door. An hour later 3 police are at my home and I get arrested and my son taken from me. Long story short I get my joint custody but not without more lawyers and court bullshit. To this day the cops in my town think I’m some type of woman beater.
Came home from hanging out with my sister and her husband. the x and I had been fighting a lot at the time so she was pretty pissed that I didn’t call or anything. yelling ensues, I had eaten a Seattle street dog a lil fast and accidentally puked on myself earlier that night, so I try to explain that I just wanna change and go to bed.
I went into the bedroom and she said something that made me stop what I was doing and come back out to the living room (can’t remember exactly what it was, this was years ago). as soon as I rounded the corner she’s freaking out, hitting and whatnot, threatening to call the cops. I had heard that in these situations pretty much whoever calls first is the one in the right, so I did. 911 operator told me to lock myself in the bathroom, so I did.
Cops come, x answers the door and they ask where I am. She tells the cop I’m in the bathroom and he gets on his radio and says, “Suspect has locked himself in the bathroom.” At this point, I realize I’m fucked. I tried explaining the situation but the x had already convinced them I was in the wrong. I tried explaining that the 911 operator told me to lock myself in the bathroom. That didn’t do any good.
I got hauled off and pr’ed the following Monday. While the DV trial is going on, the city files a no contact order that only goes one way. That means the x can call, txt, email all she wants, but if I respond, I get arrested. I don’t know why but in two separate occasions I responded. she convinced me both times that it was OK, she loved me and wanted to be together. Both times she called the cops. I know, I’m a moron. the original dv charge had been dropped (due to a wonderful lawyer, a recording of my 911 call and a recording of the previously mentioned fantastic police work by the officers that first night), but since I violated the no contact order…twice…I was still fucked. I lost my gun rights for a total of 5 years. Lots of $$$ in fines. I lost my job. I spent a total of 45 days in jail over the whole ordeal. I contracted a totally unknown skin infection virus never seen before while in jail. I lost a ton of friends and not to mention the constant reminders from friends like, “Hey dumbass, we warned you,” etc.
It’s all a lesson learned, I guess. If she wasn’t pregnant with what I thought was my child, then I would never have violated the no contact orders. It turns out the kid’s not mine, so it was pretty much all for nothing. My advice? Pay attention to the cheater signs. Constant nagging, accusing and checking emails and Facebook constantly. If I just realized how horrible of a person she was I never would have moved in with her….
Oh, and fuck the police.
Not my story, but my best friend/current roommate.
He had a bad streak of picking the crazies for a few years. He has many stories. Anyway, lets call this guy Terry. He was a pretty shy man back then, he doesn’t like confrontation. Terry was dating this Korean girl for a while named Jimin. Jimin was a bit different, quite racist actually, Terry told me it was apart of their culture. I didn’t know any different so I just believed him. (She and her family would refer to white people as ‘big nose’).
He moved over to Korea to do some teaching for a year and she moved back home, so they continued to see each other over there. After a while Terry wanted to break up with her. He was tired of her mood swings and wanted to be single again. So he took her to a restaurant to break the news. This is where things go a little crazy.
He tells her, she goes crazy and starts yelling and screaming in a restaurant full of people. He wasn’t having any of this so he walked out. Jimin started throwing food at him as he left. He told me the other restaurant goers were staring in shock.
Terry left the restaurant and was walking down the city street. This was a pretty busy city. It was in the business centre so there were a lot of people walking around, going to work etc. All of the sudden he feels these nails dig into his arm. As he turns around an arm swings and hits him in the head. It was Jimin. He got out of the clutches of the now ex girlfriend and started running down the busy street. She was hitting him in the back, nobody would stop and help. Eventually he out ran her and escaped.
This isn’t the end of it.
After a while he circled back to his apartment he was staying in. The place he lived at had a sort of door man/maintenance guy. He wasn’t security but he was there when you needed help. Anyway, Terry reached his apartment, the door was ajar. He said he felt like he was in one of those crazy Japanese horror films. His ex had a copy of the key for the apartment you see.
He pushed the door open slowly and called out, “Jimin, are you there?”. When the door opened fully, he saw his ex girlfriend standing in the middle of the room, fists clenched at her side, just staring at him. At first he didn’t know what to say, “Jimin, are you alright?”.
She didn’t move. He closed the door and went to get the door man/maintenance guy. He came up to help, but, as he got to the door, he offered to call the cops. Terry, said later with 20/20 hindsight that he wrongly chose not to accept his offer. As the man was leaving, Terry heard a thud inside.
He rushed in and saw his ex lying on the ground, shaking and convulsing uncontrollably. He, being the nice guy, went over to help and she attacked him again. After a while of talking her straight, she decided to go to sleep. So, my friend let her sleep in his bed, while he slept on the couch.
After that he never saw her again. That guy has so many stories about crazy girls. He’s now dating a sane girl who is pretty cool.
Now, to start with, I didn’t grow up soft. I scrapped in school, at one point threw my brother through a window. But you don’t hit girls, you just don’t.
So I hooked up with a woman I’d been crushing on for a while. We’d been friends for years, and things kind of escalated. I’d been interested in her since I’d met her. After a few months, I’m looking at moving out of my parents house (relationship started about 5-6 months after I turned 18), so she invites me to move in with her. Ok, sure, why not? Things are going well, and we lived together for the next 4 years.
That was the worst 4 years of my life. The violence was the easiest of her abuse to cope with. She was manipulative, mentally and emotionally abusive. There was no drinking or other drugs involved. She’d start hitting and I wouldn’t fight back, it was my fault for making her angry. I deserved it for talking to a woman at work, or for having a female teacher, or any number of other incidental, entirely non-interesting exposures to women that shouldn’t be alarming. For instance:
Me: “This isn’t working.”
Her: “Didn’t your prof give you a reference?”
Me: “No, she said to look it up online.”
Her: “SHE!?”
Commence beating. But she managed to convince me this was my fault. I don’t know how, why I never questioned it. She turned me away from my friends, and pretty neatly isolated me. I did hit back once, and the guilt I got in return was worse than anything else. Of course, she made sure she told everyone she could that I’d hit her. Funny thing is, a guy walks in with a black eye or bruises all up his arms, no one asks what happened.
If I got away – say by locking myself in the bathroom or just walking out the front door (if I could get past her to it) she would start destroying my things. My laptop, my guitar, my PC, game consoles, board games, card games. Anything and everything. And I fucking proposed to the loony bitch. From where I sat then, nothing seemed strange about that. I thought that was normal, somehow. My parents weren’t like that, but that didn’t mean anything to me.
Then one night I found her cheating. I say found because caught isn’t the right word. I’m pretty sure she wanted me to know. It’s like 3am, and I hear her making noise in the living room. I get up and go out to see if she’s ok – and she’s fucking some guy right there in the middle of the floor. I just walked into our bedroom, grabbed a box, grabbed a few toiletries from the bathroom, grabbed my guitar, and left. All I said on the way out was, “she’s your problem now.”
I drove for about an hour, then sat in the bed of my truck in a parking lot, playing my guitar til dawn while I mulled over what to do and where to go. I had just started a great new job and had reacquainted with an old friend there. I drove over to his house and asked if I could crash there for a couple days while I figured things out. I knew he had a spare room and no one else at the house. He was happy to let me stay there, and I wound up living with him (and contributing towards rent, bills) for a few months while I got things back on track.
She called me later to try and fix things, and I politely just told her to go fuck herself.
That was almost 10 years ago and I’m still fucked up by it. My last girlfriend did a lot to make me realize what a normal relationship is, and I wish I hadn’t let her go…she was perfect, but deserves better than me. She observed that the weirdest questions freaked me out and made me dodgy – because they were the sort of actually innocent (in her case) questions that would lead to me getting beat. I tried to cope with it, but I find it’s easier to just be single and do as I please. I’ve thought of dating again, but I just found myself measuring the last date’s sanity and decided that couldn’t be good.
I later found out that the violent ex has BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder).
I watched my step dad be verbally and physically abused for years by my biological mother. She is physically tiny, he’s average size.
One time he finally restrained her (holding her arms down to her sides so she would stop hitting him) and she called the police, claiming he assaulted her. She kicked him out, changed the locks etc. Threw away pictures he had there of his dead parents. Everyone believed her stories except those like me who knew her.
He put up with that for years and years, he loved her and didn’t see the monster she was. When he finally divorced her he had to pay her a LOT of money every month for years because she never had a job when they were together. She ruined the beautiful innocence he had.
Please men: leave after the first sign. The courts are not in favor of men and it has the probability of escalating. Physical size and gender means nothing, abuse is abuse. If you’re embarrassed just don’t tell others the truth, just GTFO. She gets away with it because she plays the helpless victim, she’s done it before as many others have.
As a woman, I apologise for the social stigma surrounding abusive relationships. It’s common and somewhat ‘expected’ of women to be abused and to be immediately seen as a victim, as soon as the gender roles are reversed then the man is called ‘weak,’ told to ‘man up’ by society and even by the police at times. Or the woman quite simply uses the self defense card.
It’s sickening and disgusting that some women do this, but this is so much more common than people realise. Domestic violence happens regardless of gender, mental and physical.
If you have ever, ever been a victim or are currently a victim of domestic violence then there is help for you, it’s ok to stand up for yourself and say ‘no’ to the attacker.
And if you’re unsure of wether or not you’re being abused mentally, . Let’s just ignore the ‘women’s aid’ title, because you may need help too.
Please, please please don’t let yourself be a victim and let the attacker get away with it, the more people who stand up the more this situation can be dealt with equally.
There is no shame in being attacked or hurt, you being the first to stand up and say no is a sign of strength. Let yourself be an example that you’re not afraid of being portrayed as ‘weak’ by the media or society because you were attacked by a woman.
Gender inequality needs to stop and I’m sorry that this is still an issue today.
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