First of all, I need to state something so that it's clear and absolute. I have never asserted that there is never a situation in which a man is abused by a woman. It would be ludicrous for me to state this or even really think it. I have never known a man to be abused by a woman, but that doesn't mean that abused men do not exist.

However, I do harbor a great deal of suspicion for men who press the issue of the battered man as if it deserves equal time/attention/funding as the issue of battered women AS A SOCIAL ISSUE. Obviously, on a personal level, abuse does not discriminate based on gender, but when you add the institution of sexism to an abusive relationship, you end up with a great deal of imbalance that simply isn't part of the equation when discussing battered men.

So, yes, anecdotally speaking, I feel extreme empathy for any man who has been beaten or otherwise abused by a woman. And I'm sure I would comiserate...if I actually knew any men who could honestly tell me that this was their reality. Fortunately, I do not. Instead, I hear from men who want to tell me that I am somehow denying their experience as ostensibly non-abused men by focusing only on my personal experience of abuse. It's ridiculous. I mean, I can ALMOST see this being an issue if I were to speak about abuse in the abstract, although for the reasons stated above, it's not an issue as far as I'm concerned...but to be accused of denying the existence of the battered male when I am discussing my own personal abusive relationship is at best absolutely absurd. There are no abused men in my relationship, although my husband would like you to think there is.

Speaking of my husband, I have for years debated about the ethics of posting potentially disparaging remarks about him in my blog. Obviously, no human being wants to be known as the "abusive ex spouse" or "the jackass I had kids with" or whatever else I might conjure up in a negative space. My conclusion, after years of arguing with myself about this, is that *I* own my experiences, and I am allowed to write about the experiences that are mine. The problem with this is that there is a very important dynamic in our relationship which is caused by a reality that my husband faces, and by intentionally not discussing that dynamic or reality (because it is not an experience that I feel I own) I probably come across as less than sympathetic when it comes to my husband. You, dear reader, will just have to trust me when I tell you I don't lack sympathy for the father of my children. The problem is that having sympathy for him was getting in the way of me creating a healthy household for myself and my children. Sympathy was not enough to make things better. I don't hate my husband, and I don't wish him dead, and I don't wish him out of my life. I simply wish (probably unrealistically) for him to stop using manipulative and controlling tactics to evade responsibility for his actions (or non-actions.) That frustration is there, and it builds up, and if it doesn't get expressed - it causes a tremendous amount of anger. People who see only that dimension of my relationship with him are probably going to think that I walk around here like a ticking timebomb while he is here. I don't. Most of the time, I'm able to interact with him calmly and cordially. I know, too, that he loves it when I don't, because it enables him to tell me that I'm irrational or "too" emotional or whatever else.

I found this passage in the book interesting, as I can relate to it to a great extent:

How Society Adopts the Abuser's Perspective

Almost anyone can become an ally of an abusive man by inadvertantly adopting his perspective. People usually don't even notice that they are supporting abusive thinking, or they wouldn't do it. Let's examine some of the most common forms of accidental support:

The person who says to the abused woman: "You should show him some compassion even if he has done bad things. Don't forget that he's a human being too."

I have almost never worked with an abused woman who overlooked her partner's humanity. The problem is the reverse: He forgets her humanity. Acknowledging his abusiveness and speaking forcefully and honestly about how he has hurt her is indispensable to her recovery. It is the abuser's perspective that she is being mean to him by speaking bluntly about the damage he has done. To suggest ot her that his need for compassion should come before her right to live free from abuse is consistent with the abuser's outlook. I have repeatedly seen the tendency among friends and acquaintances of an abused woman to feel that it is their responsibility to make sure that she realizes what a great person he really is inside - in other words, to stay focused on his needs rather than her own, which is a mistake. People who wish to help an abused woman should instead by telling her what a good person she is.

[...]

The person who says: "These abuse activists are anti-male."

How is it anti-male to be against abuse? Are we supposed to pretend we don't notice that hte overwhelming majority of abusers are male? This accusation parallels the abuser's words to his partner: "The reason you think I'm abusive is because you have a problem with men*!" One of the best counters to this piece of side-tracking is to point out how many men are active in combating the abuse of women. Remember allso that abused women are the sisters, daughters, mothers, and friends of men; mens lives are affeted by abuse, because it happens to women we know and care about.

*Yes, I have heard that exact quote from L.

Another way L's abuse manifests is in the way he attempts or has attempted to manipulate me based on my strong beliefs. For years, I allowed him to stay in the home because there was an implied threat that if I split up with him, I would be unable to homeschool the children. And, in fact, after I went to work on the day I told him that I was completely serious about breaking up, he told Monk that Monk "was going to be starting 2nd grade, and mama will pack you a lunch, and you will get to play on the playground with all of the other kids." I came home to hear this part of the story from Monk, as well as an emphatic "And I'm on dad's side, mom. I want to go to school now."

Earlier that day, I had actually asked Monk if he was satisfied with his experience as a homeschool. I wasn't threatening or leading him. I was honestly curious if he felt his needs were being filled. He told me emphatically that he never wanted to go to school. Ever.

L has also used my political beliefs as a means to attempt to manipulate me. He criticized me for "dragging the state into our relationship" when I told him I wanted a divorce. And he justifies much of his irresponsibility by saying that he thought we lived an "alternative lifestyle" in which this particular kind of irresponsibility is acceptable.

Of course, I believe I have told the story of Cole's birth, where L refused to take Monk out of the house when I was in labor. I was trying to get some rest, and Monk was punching and kicking and slapping me because I would not play with him. I pleaded with L to please take him away so I could get some rest, because I was in labor. L stretched out on the bed, closed his eyes, and fell asleep, leaving me to fend for myself. I remember I called a friend in tears, begging for her to come and take care of Monk so I could rest up for the birth. She was planning to come over right from work, and for some reason I told L that I was expecting someone to come get Monk at 5:30. At 5:15, L got out of bed and took Monk out to go buy some shoes, so when my friend got there, they were gone. This is very much the same kind of abuse that L demonstrates when he refuses to stay here and watch the kids when I am sick. I spent practically my entire vacation in bed, and he left 1-2 hours early each day...because I was here in the house and he felt "uncomfortable" watching the kids with me here - even though most of the time I was curled up under the covers fighting whatever illness had taken over.

In fact, it is the story of how L acted when I was in labor with Cole that I go back to again and again as the tangible evidence of his abusive behavior towards me. It's not the only evidence of abuse, but it's the only tangible evidence. It's the only clear, unobfuscated anecdote I can relate to people to help them to understand what it is like to live with L.

Other than that, L is pretty much a textbook (according to this book) "Water Torturer:"

The Water Torturer's style proves that anger doesn't cause abuse. He can assault his partner psychologically without even raising his voice. He tends to stay calm in arguments, using his own evenness as a weapon to push her over the edge. He often has a superior or contemptuous grin on his face, smug and self-assured. He uses a repertoire of aggressive conversational tactics at low volume, including sarcasm, derision - such as openly laughing at her - mimicking her voice, and cruel, cutting remarks. [...]he tends to take things she has said and twist them beyond recognition to make her appear absurd [...]He gets to his partner through a slow but steady stream of low-level emotional assaults[...]He is relentless in his quiet derision and meanness.

The impact on a woman of all these subtle tactics is that either her blood temperature rises to a boil or she feels stupid and inferior, or some combination of the two. In an argument, she may end up yelling in frustration, leaving the room crying, or sinking into silence. The Water Torturer then says, "See, you're the abusive one, not me. You're the one who's yelling and refusing to talk things out rationally. I wasn't even raising my voice. It's impossible to reason with you."

The psychological effects of living with the Water Torturer can be severe. His tactics can be difficult to identify, so they sink in deeply. Women can find it difficult not to blame themselves for their reactions to what their partner does if they don't even know what to call it. When someone slaps you in the face, you know you've been slapped. But when a woman feels psychologically assaulted, with little idea why, after an argument with the Water Torturer, she may turn her frustration inward. How do you seek support from a friend, for example, when you don't know how to describe what is going wrong?

[...]If you are involved with a Water Torturer, you may struggle for years trying to figure out what is happening. You may feel that you overreact to his behavior and that he isn't really so bad. But the effects of his control and contempt have crept up on you over the years. If you finally leave him, you may experience periods of delayed rage, as you become conscious of how quietly but deathly oppressive he was.

[...]

The central attitudes driving the Water Torturer are:

• You are crazy. You fly off the handle over nothing.
  
• I can easily convince other people that you're the one who is messed up
  
• As long as I'm calm, you can't call anything I do abusive, no matter how cruel
  
• I know exactly how to get under your skin
  

I also found some of the characteristics of "The Victim" familiar, and perhaps that is why I'm so suspicious of men who press the issue of the battered male:

When the Victim joins an abuser group, his story tends to go like this: "I put up with my partner's mistreatment of me for years, and I never fought back or even tried to defend myself. But I finally couldn't take it anymore, and I started to give her back a little taste of what she was doing to me. So now I've been labeled abusive. Women are allowed to do these things and nobody cares, but as soon as a man does it he's a pariah."

This line of reasoning many times develops into a discussion of how men are the victims of women overall in society, because women run the world. This is a startling distortion, given which gender actually dominates almost all legislatures, police departments, judgeships, businesses, and so on ad nauseum. When I point out this reality to the Victim, he describes a kind of paranoid fantasy in which women are behind the scenes secretly pulling the strings, largely by getting men to feel sorry for them. His capacity for turning things into their oposites in this way is a central cause of his abusiveness.

One of the things L told me when things really started going downhill for us was that he was tired of my shit, and tired of me treating him the way I was treating him (although in the three years I earnestly asked for a clear definition of how he was being mistreated, he was never able to come up with one) and that he was just not going to take it anymore. He asserted that he had done his best to be nice and accommodating to me, but that he felt he no longer owed me that. And, poof, from that point on he basically refused to go out of his way to do anything to make my life any easier, in spite of the fact that I was basically in a position where I couldn't NOT make his life easier. If that makes any sense. In other words, he knew that if he abdicated responsibility with regard to the children, I was not going to let it harm them, and i would pick up the slack. I would buy food. I would pay the bills. I would continue to be the responsible adult because someone had to take care of the children. Basically, the way I see it, L invented a reason to be resentful of me - a reason that might very well have been based on an actual wrongdoing on my part, but which remained undisclosed ("If you don't know by now, there's no hope that you will ever know." he would say. And yet, he refused to leave the relationship because one day I "might straighten up and start acting right.") so I was not able to apologize or correct my behavior - and he used that as an excuse to act like an ass towards me, regardless of how clearly I expressed that I felt his behavior towards me was inappropriate, and regardless of my attempts at trying to rectify our problems with each other.

I also have to say that I do not feel that all men are abusive. At the same time, many men, when I have spoken with about my relationship with L and the passages from this book that I am relating to, have responded by saying that they see themselves in those passages, and it makes them uncomfortable. I have to say that there are some parts of the book that I see myself in, as well. I think the key is power, and how power is handled in a relationship.

For instance, in my relationship with L, for the past 3 years, I have been the sole income-earner in our household. I've been wary of this, because I believe this places a lot of unasked-for power into my hands. However, I have not desired to be the sole income-earner, and I have told L many times that he needed to earn some money to help the household get back into financial shape. His excuse has always been that my schedule doesn't allow for him to get a job (I work evenings) but I have made it clear that I have several options for babysitters and could make it work. He also claims that he does not wish to leave cole with babysitters until he's "whatever age is about a year past the age he is currently." This would be an admirable excuse if all of my babysitting options weren't personal friends of mine who I trust beyond a doubt with my kids, and if the kids would be in any childcare situation for more than an hour or so a day.

At any rate, it turns out that all of my fears of being in a position of power in my relationship with L were totally unfounded. In actuality, L is in a position of power, because he is the one with the ultimate ability to abdicate his parental responsibilities, but to continue to hold the threat over my head that he can somehow prove that I am an inadequate parent. This is an unstated and probably unrealistic threat, but it exists nonetheless. And I find it's a fairly consistent dynamic in the lives of single mama friends of mine. Everyone seems to, at one point or another, freak out about the possibility of having their custodial rights challenged or taken away by the biological father of the children. This is a particular challenge for my mama friends who are poor and/or leading alternative lifestyles of one sort or another.

Believe it or not, the book had something to say about this, as well, in the chapter called "Abusive Men as Parents" in the section titled "The Abuser's Tactics in Custody Disputes:"

Appealing to Popular Misconceptions Several misleading arguments appear repeatedly in statements that abusers make during family court litigation. First is the claim that fathers are widely discriminated against by family courts in custody disputes. The research actually shows the opposite, that in fact fathers have been at a distinct advantage in custody battles in the United States since the late 1970's, when the maternal preference went out of vogue. Next often comes the myth that children of divorce fare better in joint custody, when the research shows overwhelmingly that they in fact do worse, except in those cases where their parents remain on good terms after the divorce and can co-parent cooperatively - which is almost impossible for a woman to do with an abusive ex-partner. Abusive men also assert falsely that there is a rampant problem of women's false allegations of abuse, that child support obligations are unfairly high, that domestic abuse is irrelevant to custody decisions, and that men are abused in relationships as much as women.

I think I'm going to have to end this for now, and perhaps take it up later. I'm feeling a little exposed after what happened last week, but I also feel like I have a lot to tell. I feel like I am lucky to have been able to get out of my relationship with L with relatively little damage. I think my financial position, and the fact that I was already earning an income that I knew could at least mostly cover all of the living expenses here is what really saved my ass. I worry for the mamas who are in relationships in which they basically live at the mercy of their abusive partners. Even in my position, it took years to really gather the strength to leave the situation.

Before I close this, I need to vent a little anger at some people who I feel were insensitive (and continue to be insenstive) to the issues I am discussing here. One person in particular, who I had really assumed was someone who was at least a good acquaintance if not a friend, said some fairly awful things about me behind my back WHILE I WAS CHATTING WITH HIM on AIM. I thought that was pretty crappy. I also resent being belittled, and having it implied that my problems with my relationship with L were somehow the result of immaturity on my part or an inability on my part to "compromise" or truly "love." Believe it or not, I do know what love feels like, and I know what love looks like, and I know what love IS. I hope the person who said these things is not put in a situation where he has to actually communicate on a face to face level with a woman who is processing an abusive relationship, because I worry that he is capable of doing some severe damage. In addition, there were several people who actually diagnosed me with a mental illness for setting boundaries in my space about what I felt was appropriate in the context of my processing. This pissed me off not only because it was potentially harmful to me (I was, however, relieved to find that it had a relatively minor affect on me) but also because I know for a fact that there are women reading this blog who identify and relate very strongly with what I am writing about, and for a person to feel entitled to come here and invalidate what I am relating and then to proceed to call me crazy for voicing objection to this invalidation is just absolutely the very definition of abuse. It is damaging because it discourages women from speaking their truth about their experiences. And, basically, it just sucks all around. I am not saying these things to start another argument. I am saying these things because they need to be said.

I want to also explain a little something about me. I don't fuck around with people who I don't give a shit about. In other words, if I get from you that you are worthy of my time and will actually respect and listen to my explanations of things, I will give you my respect. I'm so pleased to be an adult and to be allowed to make these decisions for myself. If you have somehow indicated that you are not worthy of my respect (HINT: typically people who say racist/sexist/heterosexist shit are NOT worthy of my respect or time) I will probably not be very nice to you. It's just the way it goes. I don't have time to politely explain myself to every idiot who wanders in here demanding explanation and respect. If I feel you are beyond hope, I'm not going to waste my valuable time or yours attempting to live up to your warped idea of what I "owe" to you.

And, too, I want to thank those of you who were supportive of the way I handled those interactions. There were many who voiced and displayed support in numerous ways, both publically and privately, and I appreciate it.

I'll probably write more on this topic later, and I want to dig up some links to some of the heavier subjects in this post, but I really need to get some sleep. I hope everyone is having a good night/morning/afternoon. Until I post again...take care.