Male victims: You are not alone!
Are you a male victim of domestic violance? You are not alone
Prvalence and Misconceptions
Underreporting: Male victims often underreport abuse due to stigma, shame, and societal expectations of masculinity. Men may feel pressure to "tough it out" or fear they won't be believed.
Prevalence: Studies suggest that men experience domestic violence at rates comparable to women. According to some reports, nearly 1 in 4 men experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at some point in their lives.
Misconceptions: There's a stereotype that men can't be victims of domestic violence, especially when the abuser is a woman. This belief can prevent male victims from recognizing abuse or seeking help.
Types of Abuse Experienced by Men
Physical Abuse: Hitting, slapping, pushing, or using weapons against men.
Emotional and Psychological Abuse: Insults, belittling, manipulation, gaslighting, and isolation from friends or family.
Sexual Abuse: Forced sexual acts or coercion. This form of abuse is rarely discussed when it comes to male victims, but it exists.
Financial Abuse: Controlling access to money, sabotaging employment, or forcing a man to hand over his income.
Legal Abuse: Threatening to make false accusations of abuse, manipulating the legal system to gain custody of children, or making false reports to the police.
Barriers to Seeking Help
Shame and Stigma: Men may feel that admitting abuse is a sign of weakness.
Fear of Not Being Believed: Law enforcement, courts, and even friends or family may not believe that a man can be a victim.
@CatListener
Missing in the list is the religious abuse. It happens when a partner, a parent or another family member forces or manipulates a man or a boy to take part in unwanted religious practice or to share the same religious attitude.
Another, quite sophisticated form of abuse is forcing someone to treat an adult spouse (or a young-to-middle-aged mother) like a child, needing special protection, being talked to and taken care of in a very special and specific way.
I have also noticed some possibly controversial form of abuse: Very few women, diagnosed with various illnesses, may exaggerate the results of their illnesses, forcing a man to take over all daily chores exclusively. Such an impression can be misleading, because it's difficult to feel how a person with illness really feels inside, but some of them may deliberately sabotage their healing process.
Unfortunately, many forms of abuse start in our childhood, and growing up we may unconsciously choose partners who abuse us in a similar way.
