This forum is for men who are abused by woman, mostly with hurtful, painful, and destructive words, often with confusing and unbalancing actions, but sometimes with physical violence. It's an anonymous, free, and open discussion, no one will ever know who you are unless you want them to, so you don't have to worry about perceptions.

In my last conversation with my now ex-wife over the phone, she told me that my mother was a "snake" and said sincerely that it was "a step in the right direction" for our marriage if I would apologize to my children for the way I raised them (I was a single-parent and did the best I could with what I knew). I haven't spoken to her since. You don't have to either. If you are in a poisonous, hateful, harmful, and destructive relationship, and you genuinely feel you are a bad person because of what your partner says to you about you and your family, but know deep down that isn't true, it may be time to leave! It will never stop if you stay, and you will at the very least suffer many years of low-level battering-away by your partner at who you are and what you're worth, sometimes escalating into wholesale physical abuse. I hope this site will give you the tools and resources to make an informed decision about your future, without fear, shame, or guilt.

I believe it's all about rediscovering your self-esteem, really, because it seems to me that's where abusers focus to exercise whatever their problem is that requires them to exercise control over you. You can be OK, by stepping back and re-taking control over how you feel about yourself. Once you realize that someone is trying to tear you down, even though you think they love you, and you know you love them, you have taken the first big step toward recovering your balance.

Those are just a couple of many, many more examples to discuss as our forum grows, including many from my personal experience with one individual.

Does this sound familiar? When she said this to me the first time, it was in front of my son (she has no children), who looked at me like he thought she was crazy. Thing is, at fifteen, and close to me, he knew me, and my worth, and couldn't believe she would say something like that, with such conviction. I believed her, because what she thought of me mattered to me, and I was shattered. I truly believed her, that I wasn't worth anything. My boy asked me later, out of earshot of her, why I would let anyone talk to me like that. He told me he would never let anyone pull him down like that. Why didn't I defend myself?

Said with distain, yet complete sincerity, as if she was doing me a great favor by sharing this epiphany with me, so that maybe I would learn from her thoughts. It made me feel horrible, and surprised me so much I sat there mute while she went on to explain all the details of my childhood and upbringing, and how those things affected me as an adult, explaining that that would account for the empty places in my personality where compassion and empathy normally reside in other people. I felt like a piece of garbage.

Later, sitting alone up on the hill, I thought, "Wait a second!" I had thought up until then that I was one of those rare children who had a great childhood. My parents, who are still together after fifty years of marriage, loved me very much, treated me very good, and made tremendous sacrifices for me, which they took pains to make sure I didn't know about. My dad even drove a taxi at night in San Francisco as a second job to put me in a good private school when they we really poor. I was never hungry, and could always get a warm hug or kind words from my folks if I asked, and even if I didn't. If that was true, then what my wife had just said to me couldn't be, unless I was crazy or something, which she has told me on many occasions in many different ways that I was. This was a turning point for me. I think this is where I started considering the possibility that this wasn't how I should be talked to so much of the time by my wife and partner, and I was on the down-side of an abusive relationship. She was supposed to love me, instead it looked like she hated me and considered me her enemy, and was trying to tear my personality and self-image down.

My sin? Did I attack her? No. Did I cheat on her? No. Did I break some vital trust? No. I asked her why she was so angry at me so much of the time. That was her reaction. Really, as she explained to me later, overall it was that I didn't have any compassion or empathy what-so-ever, and didn't react correctly to anything she would try to teach me, like everybody else in the world would. She then explained that it my fault that she attacked me, and that I was being a big baby by making such a big deal out of nothing. This sort of reasoning is textbook behavior for an abuser of either gender.

She hated me because I had no idea how to deal with her father committing suicide a year or so before and felt I hadn't supported her the way she felt she needed to be, and she was under a lot of stress, and her sister was challenging her and her inheritance, and that she thought I was probably gay, and her next-door neighbor friend wasn't doing what she expected of him as a friend, and, and, and .... all of her anger towards a multitude of other things besides what she considered wrong with me were focused like a laser right at me. I was to take the brunt of her anger towards everything in general that made her feel the way she did. I would make excuses and justify the way she treated me and talked to me. I would take the blame for her way, because I felt like I was the one who was at fault.