"Männer bleiben aus denselben Gründen bei gewalttätigem Partner wie Frauen"

As a divorce lawyer who focuses on men in divorce and child custody cases, often times the men I represent are incapable of seeing that they are in abusive relationships. They just know that they "can’t take it anymore." They started the relationship with the best of intentions, to find someone nice, settle down, have a family, and lead a quiet life.

But as in all relationships, problems crop up and the love of their life begins finding fault where before there was acceptance. The fault finding goes from "you did a thing I don’t like" to "you’re a bad person," and eventually this type of behavior can escalate into greater power plays. Control over the finances, control over which set of friends to associate with, control over how the children will be disciplined — these are all difficult areas in which to see abuse, because in any healthy partnership or relationship responsibility and control must be shared.

Men have a particularly hard time seeing when they are giving up too much responsibility, because they frequently labor under the belief that their role is limited to being the provider to the family. They sometimes lack the perspective of seeing that their contributions to childrearing extend to emotional development as well.

Men who are in relationships also have trouble seeing that they are being abused, because they are conditioned from the time they are little boys to be tough, to minimize their fears, and to play a role that is based on a false construct of self-sacrifice as the "right thing to do."

Hier geht es weiter mit den 13 Gründen, weshalb Männer bei einer gewalttätigen Partnerin bleiben. Ich hatte darüber schon vor 15 Jahren in "Sind Frauen bessere Menschen?" geschrieben; aber dieser Artikel ist noch einmal viel ausführlicher.