One in three victims of family violence are male

Men's stories

MEN’S PERSONAL STORIES

If you are a male victim of family violence – intimate partner violence, violence from other family members, child abuse, elder abuse, sexual assault, or other forms of family violence and abuse – this page is available for you to tell your anonymous story. Please click here to tell your own story. If you feel like you need support, please click here. Stories are moderated to prevent the posting of spam, so it might take a little while for your story to appear on this page.

 

Anonymous’s personal story

Where do I begin? Well, this is hard to do and I do it with some tears but oh well that's life.

A few years ago I met a female (I can't call her a lady) and we went out for a while and in time we got married. What I didn't know is that behind my back she was having affairs, yes plural. I was so trusting.

We got married and when she was pregnant she told me I wasn't the father and to leave. I was in total shock and I mean total. She used to scream at me and attack me physically and hit me, etc, and I used to hold her hands to stop her. One night I was supposed to have gone to the city for a doctor's appointment re a major injury I suffered at work but the plane was delayed until the next day. I came home and she was shocked to see me.

About 20 minutes after I got home there was a knock at the door and she got to the door before me and I got there just after her. It was one of her ex-boyfriends and he said to her smiling, "whats new" and she said "sweet f*** all." I hit the roof and told him to get out, etc, and she started abusing me saying she can do what she likes and see who she wants.

Well, he left and she started hitting me, etc, and I didn't do anything to her but restrain her.

When I was going away for treatment she wouldn't come, and after my major operation she attacked me again and bashed me where the operation was on me, and I fell to the floor knowing if I had bent my back I would have been in a wheelchair. I had broken my back at work and I had spinal fusions to help me. I was screaming in pain and crying and she just glared at me with this weird look on her face and it took me about half an hour to drag myself about 30cm along the floor on my face, etc, so I could lever myself up on the lounge. She didn't help me. I was too ashamed to tell my family or her family and she wouldn't come to the doctor's or anyone else for help.

She was always screaming at me "you are not our child's father" and was always lying to me about everything.

She would attack me verbally and or physically if I wanted to have bread, bread rolls and or tomato sauce with a meal. Actually if she didn't like what I ate I would cop the abuse. TV? Well, only if she agreed to the programs I could watch it, as she accused me of having a crush on the female actors.

One time she threw a cup and saucer on the floor and picked up a broken piece of it and tried to cut my face, neck and throat area. With the brace on my back it was hard to defend myself. She was bashing me with her left hand and attacking me with the crockery in her right hand. I was holding onto her right hand with my 2 hands while taking the bashings off her left hand. For the first time in my life I really thought I was going to die. I released my right hand and slapped her face in self-defence and it was not hard and left no mark on her but I thought it would stop her and it didn't. I grabbed her right hand with my right hand again as the crockery was so close to cutting my throat and/or neck. In the end I don't know why she just let it all go onto the floor. Another few minutes and she would have killed me for sure. OK, I was mad at not getting help, but I rang doctors (not in our town) and police, etc, and they all said not much can be done without evidence.

She had control of the money and we would always be late paying bills etc. When I was in the city for a while she didn't pay any bills and debts piled up. She was having affairs and many people I know caught her out and told me. I was away (at the doctor's in the city) when I found out 100% it was true.

I asked her for a divorce. Well, she goes ahead and tells her family, cops and anyone that would listen that I raped her, bashed her, didn't give her money and so-on. Because I wrote to her and asked her for a divorce when I was away at the doctor's, all of them believed her.

She said she didn't want a divorce but just 2 days on her own. I agreed to that. I had to go to the city for back treatment.

Well, off she goes for a few weeks to a town where her ex-boyfriend was and then a few days later (I found all this out and more a few months later) she went to the city where I was but didn't see or tell me but had affairs with some sailor then she went to another town and had affairs with 2 other men. Her grandparents caught her out and went beserk at her apparently but she didn't care.

I came back from the city knowing none of what she did. I was in the city for a few weeks due to my operation, etc. (She had told people I wouldn't let her see her friends, raped and bashed her, got her deliberately pregnant, didn't give her money and in general I was a horrible person. All this came out later).

So on my arrival from the city I came back a day earlier and as I pulled up in a taxi some guy was at my front door (he didn't see me) and knocked on it. Another man opened it and I got out of the taxi and was in shock and they said nothing to me. The outside man left and the one inside (a family friend who she was also having an affair with) stayed. I asked where she and the child were and he wouldn't tell me. I went through some drawers, etc, in my home and found sex/love letters from 2 men she was having affairs with.

So I didn't know where she or the child were or my car.

I got a taxi to my parents' home as they were living in another country town. I stayed there and the next morning I got a early taxi back to my place and she was letting another man out. By this time I was in total shock and I told her I wasn't coming back unless she changed. She tried to kiss me but all I could do was kiss her quickly on the cheek.

I asked where the child was and she wouldn't tell me. She wanted me to come back there and live and I said "no, you have to get help and change and be normal." Later that day I saw the child who didn't want to let me go.

I was in shock at what she did and was doing to me and our marriage.

She wouldn't change and kept seeing whoever she wanted to. She bashed me in front of 2 witnesses who were in the car and she didn't know it. She bashed me from behind (hit my back again) and kicked me in my face and body and ripped my shirt, etc. The people are to do with the law. They wanted me to press charges on her and I declined.

While she went away for her so-called 2 days on her own (which turned out to be a few weeks), she was getting all of my wages (I had no money and was in a rehab centre for my back), money off her father, money off one of her boyfriends and would you believe she went to community welfare and told them I gave her no money. They sent me a bill for $1000 And I refused to pay it. I gave them all the banking details, etc, and in the end I gave them $100. To this day I still think I should have given them nothing. I also was sent all the bills she didn't pay for months.

I didn't go back to her but she kept trying for us to get back together. It took me nearly 3 years - yes 3 years - to get evidence on her to what she was like and what she did to me.

The last bashing when I had the 2 witnesses, well, she sent me a letter 2 weeks after she bashed me and said I killed a baby she was carrying. I collapsed when I got that letter from her. My family read it and it was sent to her father with the 2 people's evidence I had. It really freaked him out and she was forced to see a psych.

I forgot that when I came back from the city the last time and refused to go back to her, she went and told the police I killed a man in the city and I was running away from it. The police came and spoke to me and just as they wanted me to come to the station one of them said "have you got a blood group ID?" I said "yes, it's a rare one and I need ID about the blood group with me all the time." I showed it to them and they were shocked and kept saying sorry to me for a fair while as it proved I didn't kill the man in the city. Eventually they did catch the right killer.

So all in all I lost a wife, a child that I thought was mine, our home we were buying, friends, family (as they said I should have gone back to her). My health was wrecked due to my accident. I had a heart attack after we split up a few months later. I couldn't play sport, etc. You name it, my life was not good.

A few years later I met someone really nice. We got married and have kids and own our home. We live hundreds of kilometres from her and have not had contact with the child or her for many years. She has rung our home but it's silent on her end and she never speaks, just listens (creepy, yes). We had our phone listened to by the proper authorities so we know it's her though she hasn't rung for about a year. She was warned to stay away or else.

So many things happened while I was with her but the ones that I have typed here are some of the main things she did against me.

My wife knows of my past but our kids don't. Need to know basis I guess.

I am shaking typing this. I am wondering why I was so trusting of her, so "in love", so stupid to stay there for all that time. I got out alive. Oh, I forgot, she tried on about 5 or 6 occasions to have me bashed by other men but that failed. One of her boyfriends laughed about it how he shot my dog (which he did) as she didn't want it. They knew I was coming to get my dog but he took it out and shot her. That was so hard to take. I loved my dog and she knew it. Now I have tears. She is mental, truly.

I hardly think of her, as life is for living.

I don't compare my wife to her... You couldn't compare her to hell... That's what she is… A living hell and worse.

I forgot to say I have not had any contact with her or the child in over 20 years.

I also had never hit her before or after that crockery incident.

The last time when she attacked me and there were 2 witnesses, what happened is I knew 2 elderly people and one unfortunately died. On the day of the funeral, after the person was buried, the other elderly person asked to see my child as I used to take the child to visit them, and I rang my ex up and she agreed to bring the child to see the elderly person. Anyway, she turned up with another boyfriend and the child. They stayed a bit and when I was with the child she actually ripped him from my arms, verbally abused the crying child, and verbally abused me and upset the elderly person. I can tell everyone at the wake wanted to destroy her. The elderly person convinced me to go and see her with 2 witnesses later that night to tell her I can't see the child for a few weeks as she was destroying me inside. The elderly person let fly at her with a few home truths and my ex left with child and her boyfriend.

I went to my ex's home and told her I couldn't see the child for a few weeks until she stopped abusing me and I turned around and suddenly my head was hitting the step of my ex's home. I was being assaulted by someone and all I did was grab the hands of the person assaulting me. I was dazed and bleeding, etc, and it turned out she was the one assaulting me. I initially thought in my daze it was her boyfriend hitting me, etc. I pushed her away, got in the witness' car and left. I was crying, upset and dazed and went and got medical treatment after I stopped crying etc.

I never ever went back. Well, why? I lost weight and went down to between 6 and 7 stone, had a heart attack, my hair was falling out and one of the specialists I was seeing said to me... I will never ever forget these words: "If you keep going like this you will end up like a piece of meat in the morgue." He then stared at me for ages. I had been smoking between 3 to 4 packets of smokes per day, I didn't do illegal drugs, I hardly drank alcohol in my life. And I was not eating except for a meal every few days. I was living on my own in my parent's other home.

My survival instincts kicked in and I knew then and there I would die if I didn't stop seeing her and child. I went on a holiday for a couple of weeks. I went and saw my elderly friend and they were shocked at how much weight I put on, etc, and looked good. I knew then and there my ex was and is a very sick person and she didn't want me alive, etc.

After few years I met my now wife, gave up smoking about 24 years ago.

I am OK and my new family are not in any danger at all.

I was so lucky I got out of that relationship then or I would have been dead years ago.

Thanks for reading this, I won't go to your site and read it if it's there, it's too upsetting.