George Rolph Writes to a Psychologist About DV

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This entry: October 3^rd, 2004

On October 2^nd, men's rights activist and DV counselor George Rolph wrote to a psychologist about a statement on his website: specifically, "Men on the other hand are quicker to resort to physical abuse and they are more capable of physical assaults that are more brutal."

George asked, "Really?" Then requested, "Please read this." He referred to his article, "A Conversation With an Abused Man" which I reprint here in full. Quite apart from the point GR is using the piece to prove, its main value for me are the insights it provides on the psychology of an abuser and a victim of either gender. GR's words are in normal font; the abused man's words are in italics my subsequent comments are in bold face.

The phone rang. I picked it up.

"Man2man [GR's hotline for abused men]. George speaking. How can I help you?"

"What's going on?"

The voice sounded panicky and confused."OK. Take your time and go back to the start. How long have you been with her?"

The tale was a familiar one. He had met his wife 12 years ago. She was all he ever wanted. Within five years they had two kids. A boy and a girl. The boy of 8 and a girl of 10. [Names and certain details changed to protect anonymity.] He worked hard and they had bought their home. He became an advertising executive. It was good money and the family enjoyed two holidays abroad a year. They were thinking of buying a second home in France. Life seemed great.

One day she hit him. "It wasn't too bad, at first. Just slaps around the head and face."

As if, that's OK.

"I could handle that." He told me.

I asked what had brought it on.

"I forgot to wash her car." He told me. "She called me a lazy bastard." He complained. "I knew I wasn't lazy. I was just tired.. I was working all the hours there are and I just forgot."

"Why didn't she wash the car herself?" I asked.

"Do you think hitting you was over the top?"

"Not really." He said. "She did seem to find a lot of time to do her own things though."

"What do you mean?"

"How did she find the time if she was working so hard at home?"

"I know! That's what I asked her and that's when she hit me." He laughed nervously.

"OK." I said. "Lets recap here for a moment. You were working as many hours as you could in order to buy a nice home and afford two holidays abroad every year for the wife and kids. You were thinking of buying a second home in France to improve the family lifestyle and assets. While you are doing all of this your wife is spending a lot of time doing what she likes to do, with the money you work for, and she got angry with you for not cleaning her car? When you told her she had time to do it herself she hit you. Is that right?"

"I see. What else has happened?"

"In what way?"

"She stabbed you?"

"Why?"

I listened carefully as he described a cycle of behavior that so many other men had told me of. A small disagreement over a silly detail became blown up into a full scale attack. She began yelling. Accusations began to fly. She accused him of taking advantage of her. She threatened to take the kids away from him. She warned him she would get everything, [the house, the money, the cars, the kids] if he tried to leave her or if she left him. She attacked his parents. His efforts to make life better. She attacked his sexual performance. She accused him of being selfish. She told him he was a rubbish at fatherhood and at that point he decided to fight back.

"I love my kids." He told me. As if he felt the need to justify his anger at her attack on his abilities to do just that. "I couldn't stand for that. I told her that I spent as much time as I could with the kids. I reminded her that I made sure I took them out every weekend. I mean, I take Josh to football and Rosie goes to the pony club. I take them to the cinema to give mum a break and so they can have fun. We swim together and we have our adventure times."

"Adventure times?"

"OK. Go on."

"Yes you did." I said, gently.

"By claiming to be a good dad you made two mistakes. First mistake was to disagree with her. The second was, to defend yourself as a dad. In her mind, that implies you think you are a better parent. If you are better then she must be worse, in her mind. To her, that means you think she is a crap mum."

"It's OK. We will talk about this later and then you will see. Tell me what happened with the knife."

"What happened next?"

"Why not?"

I suppressed a sigh and told him to go on.

"She hit her?"

"Yes." I said, as softly as I could. "But do you understand why she said that to Rosie?"

I interrupted him. "Go back over what you have told me so far. You were having a row. She was firing things at you. All kinds of accusations and insults. (I call it, verbal machine gunning). You were taking it until she said you were a crap father, correct?"

"Right. When she said that you stood up for yourself. She sensed she had found the right button to press. The one thing that you would not tolerate. The one thing that hurt you. Made you angry. Made you defend yourself.

This time he interrupted me. "Ah. So I had handed her a weapon?"

"Exactly. She knows what to use now to get you going. Take that weapon away by refusing to get angry. Tell me, has she ever been insecure about her own motherhood?"

"Just a hunch. In what way insecure?"

"I thought that something like that may have happened." I said.

"Because I recognized her accusing you as typical of the projection that abusers indulge in. When they feel insecure or guilty they accuse their partners of whatever it is that is troubling them. It's very common."

The story went on for another hour. It was another tale of a man being abused by a woman who has no conscience. A women prepared to destroy the children's love for their father because she imagined he was slighting her in some way. A tale that will probably end with the father having "visitation rights" as if he was a prisoner in jail and seeing his own children is some kind of privilege. A tale that told of further attacks on his mind and body. A tale of a man helpless as she destroys his faith in himself, his self respect and his lifestyle. He spoke emotionally of her constant provocation. Her destruction of his property. Her attacks on his friends and family. He cried as he told me how she was alienating him from his children and how their previously fun times together were now strained and difficult. He told how he had called me because he was not sure how much longer he could stand the pressure. He told me he was afraid because he was getting angry. He talked about how he had started drinking heavily. He asked me why there is no help for abused men.

I listened. I sympathised. I advised him to record her behavior. I explained how abusers think and how they operate and I asked him to call back if things got tough and he needed to talk again. When I put the phone down I thought about the British Minister, Jack Straw saying, "Domestic violence is men hitting women."

I wish you were here now Jack. I wish you, and David Blunket and Harriet Harmen and Rosie Winterton and all those other left wing, fanatical feminists in the Houses of Parliament were here to listen to what I hear every day. I would love to hear you all explain to these men that by being victims they are in some way oppressing women. I would love to hear you explain to them why you will not give them refuges to go to. Why you refuse to help them at all. Why you deny they exist. Why you think they do not matter. That, is something I would like see you do! I would also like to hear those idiots in the men's movement who think, "domestic violence is the opiate of the men's movement" (Whatever that means), explain their thinking to these men. I would like to see all those "heroes" in the men's movement who think that men like this, who suffer appalling domestic abuse, are all "wimps" because they don't beat the hell out of their wives and walk out on their kids, justify their views to these men.

I work with these men every day. Every day I am saddened as I listen to them falling apart on the telephone. Men who, in the main, work damn hard to provide for their families, suddenly destroyed by abuse. Men who cannot fight back for fear of arrest. Men who are often arrested even though they don't fight back. Men whose hearts break as they watch the children they love turned against them by cowardly women too frightened to deal with their own problems. Men being destroyed by the casual cruelty of policemen, judges and politicians, as well as brutal self centered women out for revenge against imagined wrongs. By journalists and broadcasters, too scared of the women in the office to write or tell the truth. Yet the one thing that gives me hope is the knowledge that for every fool there are other brave souls fighting back.

Within the men's movement, men and women all over the world are seeing these injustices and shouting out, with all their strength, "No More Silence!" If you are a man suffering like this then don't tolerate it anymore. Talk to people. Don't lie about your injuries to medical people. You are just empowering her for all the wrong reasons. Make the doctor, the lawyer, the politicians and even your local men's groups take you seriously. Refuse to accept their prejudice. Don't allow your kids hearts to be stolen from you. Make recordings of her behavior. Video or tape recordings taken secretly can strengthen your claims when talking to the police or legal professionals. Send the recordings to me and I will post them on the Internet for all to see. We can disguise the faces if necessary. Above all, stop being silent! Stand up for your rights, for the rights of your kids, and fight back!

My comments: I think the pattern of abuse described above is non-gender specific. I remember one incident from the abusive relationship I was in over 20 years ago which was similar to the stabbing scene GR describes…tho', fortunately, no physical abuse occurred at the time. (I am feeling quite unsettled as I sit here thinking about it so I will keep my comments brief.) Like the scene above, the man just exploded all of a sudden -- I can't remember why and even, if I did remember, I doubt if his reaction would make any sense to me. He launched into one of his verbal assaults, attacking me over really strange things…like a small comment I'd made a week ago and how he had to drive me to work one morning because I'd missed the bus (he was unemployed). I don't even remember what comment made me start shouting back -- but it was some attack out of the blue because standing up to him wasn't my normal response. He started hyperventilating, clenching and unclenching his fists with a bizarre look on his face that seemed to blend anger and pleasure because he was smiling but gritting his teeth at the same time. I got scared to death and literally hid under a large wooden writing desk, crowding up against the wall while he stood in front of the opening where a chair would have otherwise been. I tried to be as small as possible against the wall as I watched his hands clench and unclench about a foot away from me. He kept yelling and yelling at the top of his lungs, he kept screaming these really bizarre accusations at me. He screamed that I treated him like dirt and I made him feel like shit, that I was sleeping around and I had ruined his life. I knew enough to shut the fuck up and take shelter until the fury passed. Which it did…I honestly don't know how long it took. More than five minutes and less than fifteen is my best estimate. But it left me dazed and totally confused as to why he was screaming things that he knew weren't true about my being a "slut.". He'd never said that before and he didn't say it again later. Whatever my faults, I was and am monogamous…and he knew that. I finally figured out what was going on in the coming weeks when neighbors -- especially an elderly couple downstairs who had taken a shine to me --became suddenly sympathetic to him and gave me the cold shoulder. I don't know whether he spoke privately to them in order to cement my status as a tramp and a bitch…but I assume he did. In fact, as far as I know, when he stamped out of the apartment, he may have gone right down stairs to apologize to them for the ruckus and further explain how I wasn't the nice "little girl" they thought I was. Like the situation GR described with the mother and Rosie….I was being set up. Certainly he told enough of our friends -- my 'supposed' friends -- business associates, and acquaintances afterward all about my 'betrayals' of him…tho' I only learned about what was being said behind my back years later. It makes me wonder whether the accusation he leveled that finally prompted me to stand up for myself was about my fidelity…because I knew through my heart and into my bones that I hadn't done anything wrong there. It makes me wonder if I handed him that weapon…but, as I said, I honestly don't remember what remark sparked my reaction.