You might be right. Any online forum
could be manipulated and support can be weaponised.
Does anyone think men can reasonably expect advice or support from women on here? I have a lot to write and may use long words but I am nonetheless a woman and a long-time member 😬
Sometimes there are good-faith reasons for men to hear loud and clear what women think of other women’s behaviour.
I’ve got a sibling who’s been through two decades of misery with an abusive spouse. He found it incredibly difficult to see her behaviour for what it very clearly was. It’s sadly not uncommon for female abusers to claim to be victims themselves. It’s an effective form of silencing a victim and retaining control.
There have been some instructive, hopeful divorce threads on here (the ones with the British teacher in Normandy stand out) written by women in very similar circumstances to his. But for all the challenges they faced, there wasn’t that threat that effectively silences male victims: ‘you won’t be believed, and I will.’
I wish he could have had a tiny fraction of that support. It would have done him good; in the beginning, to have heard our voices say ‘hang on, this isn’t right,’ and going forward, ‘here’s some strategies,’ and now, ‘here’s how to deal with what you’re probably facing.’
However, I suspect if he’d posted as AbusedDad and got the predictable ‘yeah sounds like maybe you’re the arsehole’ replies, it would have done a great deal of harm. Abuse victims are easily set back.
If he was a woman there’d be so much more he could be reading to help him, but I’d hesitate to send him any thread (even ones that are closely comparable to his situation, but where the roles are reversed) because of the level of anti-male feeling on here. A vigorous re-application of the stick that’s been used to beat you is not going to help a vulnerable person.
The Freedom Programme was designed for people in his precise situation, but the language is such that I read through the online summaries and thought this might actually make things worse.
Male victims seem to be a forgotten minority. I understand why, I work with women who’ve been abused, considerably less often encounter the same victimisation with men, and know that women are much more likely to be victimised. They are smaller and less able to physically defend themselves, made more vulnerable by pregnancy and motherhood, more likely to be primarily responsible for children, disadvantaged in finance and find it logistically harder to escape. However, some men are trapped with women who actively wish them harm and use every weapon they can find to do so.
If anyone who has been a victim, has experience in assisting male victims, or knows of material that could help, reads this - please post.
TL;DR
some victims are men and sometimes MNetters can help, if you can please do.