Los Angeles, CA–I’ve often made the point that one reason why abused men don’t report the abuse or try to leave is that they’re afraid that if they do anything which provokes a divorce, they will lose custody of their children. The kids will then be in the de facto sole custody of the abuser.
Recently the popular blog Protein Wisdom did a post discussing our recent Campaign Protesting Father-Bashing Domestic Violence Ads. A poster named Bill Shaw posted an interesting response on the site. The post is below:
Comment by Bill Shaw on 11/23 @ 5:50 pm #
My first marriage ended in divorce three years after we married. I left the marriage a year after and went back once to try and make it work.
The reason for the divorce? I got tired of being her punching bag, pure and simple. Did I ever call the police? No. Why? Because she was a fantastically good liar, used to punch herself in the arms and then dare me to call the cops.
I”m 6?4? tall and weighed in at 235 lbs back then. Who would the police have believed?
The surprisingly high rate of women vs. men reporting is just that…men are too often thought to be the perpetrators of abuse against women, when, as in my case there are times when women are the instigators as well as the abusers.
My ex then went on to medically abuse our son for 8 years (he being the obvious choice for retribution, since I left the marriage), until a sympathetic doctor who suspected Munchausen”s by Proxy syndrome agreed to testify against his abuser. I got custody of him at age 15 and he hasn”t seen his mother now for 6 years.
Sometimes things aren”t what the public perceives them to be.
This comment was followed by one from Carin, who wrote:
My sister-in-law is rather abusive to my husband”s brother. She”s attacked him before (when drunk) yet, of course, who do they believe? She is a REALLY good liar.
She got drunk last summer, fell off their porch, and broke her pelvis**. She tried to blame my brother-in-law in the ER, but the small hospital has finally figured her out and ignored it. If my brother-in-law hadn”t been charged with abuse a few years back, he probably would have divorced her by now. But, with that hanging around his neck, he knows he”s sunk as far as custody goes.
**She also stopped breathing and my brother-in-aw had to perform CPR on her. Isn”t that a kicker?