When Women Abuse: Food For Thought

                                                                                          A True Story

In the early months of her pregnancy she was sitting at the back of the bus while her boyfriend and father of her unborn baby flirted with the girls at the front of the bus. Throughout the ride she made an effort not to allow herself to get jealous – even though just over a month ago her boyfriend confessed to her – after making her promise that she would not get mad – that he had been sexually involved with another woman. She didn’t let him see her get angry; she wouldn’t even allow herself to cry in his presence because of that promise. And she was not going to allow herself now to be “that” kind of jealous girl. She had more important things to worry about with the new baby on the way if she was going to be a good, responsible mother, after all.

The bus came to a halt at the very top of his street, which was on a hill. She picked up his books and stepped off the bus, her boyfriend following closely behind her. As soon as the loud engine of the bus faded away in the distance, he broke the silence with an announcement:

“I wish you were more like those girls. You never want to party or have fun.”

She instantly felt a surge of anger at the thought. She was trying very hard to straighten her life up for their child. She stopped drinking and doing drugs; she quit the party scene. This was a responsibility he had yet to take seriously. While she did the hard things and worried about her child’s future, he got drunk and messed around. She dropped his books in protest and started down the hill, his papers flying every which way in the wind.

“Get back here, you slut, and pick up my stuff!” He screamed behind her.

She walked on until quick footsteps sounded loudly behind her,she felt a blunt hit on the back, and she found herself laying face-first on the ground.

“Get back up there and pick up my books!” He demanded after pushing her down on the sidewalk with the full force of his speed behind him.

But she didn’t. She got up, crying, worrying about her unborn child and aching that he would do this to her and the baby. She could barely catch her breath under the weight of the betrayal and shock. She ran to his house and locked herself in the washroom as he started back up the hill to collect his books and papers.

Upon entering the house, he threw down his belongings and proceeded up the stairs to pound on the bathroom door, shouting angrily and demanding that she open the door. She refused, needing some time alone, not knowing what to think or to do.

“Fine!” He snarled. And he grabbed the phone to “call another girl." When she heard what he was doing she bolted out of the washroom, took hold of the vacuum cord that was lying on the floor beside him, and before she even realized what she was doing, she found herself hovered over him with her hand raised and ready to whip him with it.

...And then she seen the fear in his face. She was immediately taken back by what she was doing. “How could I do this?” She thought. “What is the matter with me?” "What has become of me?"
No sooner did she drop her hand to her side and release the cord and he had pounced on her with everything he had, pounding on her with his fists in an uncontrollable rage. Everything turned into a blur until she found herself riding home with her mother late that night, balling not because he had beaten her up, but because she thought she was going crazy (how could she have almost hit him like that?) and blamed herself for the entire incident.

"What's wrong with me, mom? How could I do that?" she pleaded to know. "I think I am going crazy."

If the police had been called and they had asked her boyfriend what happened, he would have probably reported that he acted out of self defense. He would talk about how “crazy” she is. She would likely have agreed that she was going crazy, still spinning with confusion and pangs of guilt and shame over what she almost did to him. The police would likely have filed the incident under “mutual domestic violence.” Her boyfriend would have reported himself as a victim of “male abuse” because she almost hit him with a vacuum cord.

Do you think he would tell the WHOLE story?

Not likely.

In his egotistical estimation, he hadn't done anything wrong at all. He felt entirely entitled to do every thing he did. The whole world revolves around him, after all. She was already conditioned to question her own reality and take the blame because for years he has been psychologically abusing her. For years he has been playing mind games with her - "joking" about raping her grandmother, "joking" about taking her child and finding a new mommy, inviting her older brother to join him in calling her a slut, forcing her to have sex against her will, cutting himself up with broken glass and blaming her, pounding her head on the basement concrete and then acting as if it never happened.
If he could make himself look like the victim, and she the abuser, he could use these people as allies to reinforce her self-doubt and ultimately strengthen his control over her. At the very least, he could use their pity to feel justified in his own eyes.

These are things we need to be wary of the next time we hear a story of a victim of "male abuse." Not to say it doesn't happen; it does. But it doesn't happen on the scale that some Men's Rights activists pretend it does. And when it does happen, there just might be more to the story than he is letting on.