I am a battered husband who finally left. I feel better about leaving after reading all of these posts. Thank you all very much. free@last

I am currently in a relationship with a wonderful, loving, kind and considerate man. He is my dream come true and I love him dearly. However he is a victim of spousal abuse from his previous relationship. It breaks my heart to see him flinch if I make a sudden move near him and if we get into a disagreement and I get frustrated he says "go ahead and hit me" I would *never* do so. How can you abuse the person you love? The things he tells me that his ex did to him are numerous and make me so angry at this woman for being so callous. He was verbally and emotional abused daily, punched, slapped, threatened with a knife, sliced across the chest -- even kicked in the jaw. He had the strength to leave her and pursue happiness with me thank god! He's still suffering because they have two small children, 8 and 3, and he does not get to see or speak to them much due to her manipulations. One second she loves him and wants him back and the next he's a piece of crap again. The few times he has gone to see the kids she has still tried to swing at him, threatened to beat herself and call the cops on him, even tried to lock him in a room and rape him. Terrible behavior! Every day he is healing and hopefully he can recover from all of this with the caring, love and support that I and good friends and family give to him. For all those battered men out there I have one thing to say: get out! Your children will not benefit by you staying and there are people out there who can and will help and love you the right way.

What if she has made sure you didn't have a credit card and took all your money.

With no friends or family where are you supposed to go? I`m so depressed I am thinking the only way out is killing myself. I see no point in anything anymore she has taken all that I ever needed and turned it against me.

I`m lost and hurt so bad!

all the women and men who have been abused by their wife and husband, please do not tolerate. go for help and if it gets worse, do not stay. go to police or family to help you, ok? do not wait for the last moment, please.

I used to be the abuser,now the roles have changed for the the worse. Tonight my wife started in on me about a table that got broken a week ago. I tried to leave the house,but she would stand in front of me and and block my path. My wife owns a .380 caliber hand gun and always talks about using it on me. So i did not force my way past her. my daughter was in the other room watching tv. she is 16 years old.

She came out with two butcher knives in both hands and started walking towards me like she was going to stab me. my wife stopped her and I left out the house. I really think she was going to do me in. The saying is true, "you reap what you sole". I am lost and confused with this situation.

This article is so true. i have suffered a very similar marraige with a crazy wife the end came after she cut her hand deeply and told the police that i did it and i am to appear in court for this with the threat of jail. about a month later a letter came from her solicitor wanting a reconciliation. no way would i go back. i suffered years of her abuse before this. I advise any man who reads this to get out. i am losing thousands and my kids, but no way will i go back to that. The authorities only recognise women as getting abused and are not interested when a man is the victim !!!!

After having just googled "verbal abuse" I couldn't believe the list of signs and how much they matched my current living situation. I walk on egg shells, do not call friends, cannot even make reference to members of the opposite sex (unless they're lesbians, a fact I often make up about people to avoid assaults). I can't believe how many times I've been called horrible names by someone who seemed so sweet and lovely when we met.

The big clue came when I met her parents and saw how her mum treats her dad. He's a shell of a human being, whipped, berated for his clumsiness and muddle-headedness. He's constantly humiliated.

And it looks like someone is becoming her mother.

MY ADVICE: Start making an "ABUSE LOG" in a private email account that she cannot find.

Every time she throws something abusive at you, leave the room and try to find the time and space to email the incident to yourself. Don't elaborate or get emotional in the account, just state the exchange that took place.

The problem with emotional abuse is: it's like a "death by a thousand cuts." You can't isolate one incident as crippling because it seems so minor in isolation, and that's the defense an abusive partner will throw at you when you want to talk about how hurt you feel. They'll often say: "Don't be a little boy!" Or "Maybe you should just learn to have thick skin."

This will firstly give you strength but most of all a legitimate argument, but it means you have to bear with the abuse for a little while. I'm at the beginning stages of my log and the accounts are unbelievable when I read them objectively. My plan: bring the log to a therapist, then possibly bring it to a lawyer.

She threatens that I will never see our little girl again if I were to ever leave her. But realize that every time you log an abusive account, SHE is the one responsible for it, and SHE is the one making the relationship miserable.

Speak up. Be strong. But, mostly, be smart and rational.

I was a battered women and while in the shelter over-heard the workers answer phone calls from battered men. The answer to them was sorry but we only help abused women. The tone of voice they used was so demeaning and my heart went out to the men on the other line. I have seen men who were abused, it hurts them as much as it does us. As a society we need to fight to find a way to protect abused men as well as abused women. We need government funded shelters for men. But we also need men who are not afraid to step out and say I'm abused. We must always remember our children follow our patterns. The next life you save could be your sons'

my brother is in an abusive relationship. it is very hard for us as his family to watch this. It's not so much the physical abuse that is so hard it is the fact that the physical abuse causes emotional pain. he loves her and don't want us to step in. How can I help him break away with out pushing him away???

My brother was recently found dead, hanging in his garage, and the cops are trying to rule it a suicide although the marks on his head they are shrugging off as something from the fall after being cut down.

My brother constantly complained about how he 'fell' or bumped himself and always had some clumsy excuse for the marks on him. He was married 3 weeks....and I remember helping him remove carpet one day at his home prior to the wedding, and he needed something to cool him off because he has severe asthma and was exhausted. When I asked his wife to get him a fan or a wet towel she just stood there with a grimace on her face. I finally yelled and said, "you either get something or I will!" My brother's exact words were, "She thinks I'm worth more dead than alive." His words were enough to alarm me and when she heard it she just said, "Oh please, you know I'm worth so much more than you." I'm not sure if anyone else sees this as abuse, but I sure as heck saw it as abuse, and now he's suddenly dead? I really can't see him taking his own life, at home with his family there. Something just doesn't fit. In his obituary, she wrote that he "loved to hang out with friends and drink in Any garage".......and mind you she supposedly found him hanging in the garage. Does anyone find this weird???????

I was in an abusive relationship for 8 1/2 years. My marriage started out well, but as my wife became more successful in her career, she also became emotionally abusive and controlling. The emotional abuse escalated into physical abuse, and I remember the first time she threw a remote control into my head, I felt devastated. That abuse escalated to punching, kicking, breaking wine glasses over my head, and eventually she attacked me with a butcher knife. I felt ashamed to let anyone know, and felt trapped in the marriage because she made more money than me. As her success grew, she quickly forgot how I wrote all of her papers in college and helped promote her career. She thought she was superior to everyone including me. I tried to get us both in counseling, and she refused. The abuse became so unbearable, that when she took a trip to Mexico, I left her and filed for divorce. When she returned from the trip and found the divorce papers, she tried to reconcile only to put me back into the abusive cycle. Through the support of family and friends, I had the strength to break away. It has been 10 months now, and I am finally starting to heal. I am an ex special forces operative for the US military, and have a Masters degree. I am successful in my own right, but I always thought that things would get better even though they kept getting worse. I have never hit a woman, but had to restrain my ex when she attacked me with the knife. It bruised her arms, and she claimed that I hit her. Although the cops were never called, (Thank God), her sister who is a cop encouraged me to leave. I still feel somewhat humiliated considering my background, but trust me when I tell you that wife abuse and battered husband syndrome are real. On several occasions after she kicked the heck out of me, she would say who is going to believe that an ex-special forces trained soldier is getting beat up by his petite little wife. Thank the good lord that I finally came to my senses and left.

I have been abused by my wife for 20 years. I have tried everything to make her happy. She takes pills for depression and pain and sleep. She use to drink while she took them and was dangerous around the kids. She is violent when she runs out of her meds and takes it out on me and the kids. We have no sex life because of this. I don't know what to do. I feel trapped. She told me she wants a divorce. She has slept with other men on several occasions and denies it. If things do not go her way she attacks, even in restaurants and in front of customers which makes me embarrassed to be with her. I try to love but receive none in return. I wish there was an answer to this long term mess.

i have been a battered husband for 23 yrs. the last time was 3 wks. ago,she went to jail,got a protective order,dv pending.alone,depressed,and her family on her side,i was assleep when she attacked me,she is bi polar and on lithium but something else is wrong.i did nothing to provoke this attack,i just give up.

my son has been in an abusive relationship for 3 years. we told him for a long time that his wife needed help..he came up with scratches, busted lips, nose etc...on apr 22 she stabbed him in the shoulder it cut his lung and just missed his heart and artery. he has a dv pending from her calling after he slung her off his back the da is waiting to see what happens with her. in court last week the att for her wanted our son to ok a plea agreement so she could walk out of jail on a personal bond and get 5 yrs suspended sent. he refused...the da said since she was cute and small that she may get off scott free. theres a lot more but any ideas or help?? god bless

contact your local battered woman's shelter for direction. they may even offer services to battered husbands as well.

Where is the help for a battered husband?