BBC "BIG QUESTIONS" DEBATE ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAST WEEKEND

There will be a post in a few hours on the domestic violence announcements this week but worth looking at the debate (42 minutes in) on domestic violence last Sunday on the Big Questions BBC show.

There was plenty of people asking the question about why are men not to be included on the proposed ACPO register. When a woman said that all victims should be treated equally everyone clapped except for a few...

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[Groan]

Yes people in the real world know its not just men as perpetrators. Please take the few moments needed for the Men's Health Forum snap survey. http://www.malehealth.co.uk/userpage1.cfm?item_id=2933eded

[John Kimble]

That woman speaking in support of the register makes my blood boil.

None of her points made any sense.

I didn't realise innocent men were going on the register too - it's even worse than I thought!

[JB]

First off let me say that it is not okay for anybody to be hit unless they are being attacked in such a way that they can not escape from the aggression or they are defending someone else that is under the same type of attack.

Let me tell you a little about what I have experienced.

I am a 31 year old man with a high education and clean background and up until a year ago, I was the guy that always said “never hit a female for any reason”.

However I was marriage to a woman for 7 years that abused me physically and mentally through out the entire married. She was very aggressive and physical and the least little thing would set her off. She was a substance abuser and a diagnosed bi-polar patient however she would not take her meds but would abuse other chemicals. We met and married too young but we also had kids early. Yes this was a mistake on my part, I should have waited on both but I was young and I really had no idea how deep the rabbit hole would get with her until it was too late. She would beat me with her fists while I was driving the car and often it was because I had caught her high on prescription pills and had simply confronted her about the issue and the fact that she had been driving the car herself while my four week old son was in the back seat and her 7 year old nephew. Early in our marriage she just did not come home one night and would not answer her cell. I did not hear from her all night long and I had both sides of the family, mine and hers looking for her. I went to work the next morning because I had to and I got a call from her mother stating that she had been dropped off by a man at her house in at 2am the previous night and that she was drunk to the point that she was falling and had urinated on herself. Also, she was six months pregnant with my son at the time. I also learned that she had been kicked out of a local bar after she had too much to drink and they discovered that she was pregnant so she became violent with the bartender and her so called female “friend” that she was with. She punched her friend and left early with a strange man, all of which knew she was married, pregnant and heavily intoxicated with many chemicals. I had to leave work to come home and find her the next morning with 14 xanax in her hand and downing them in front of me. I prayed that my son was be born without a physical and mental disabilities do to her abuse. By the grace of god he did come out okay however during this entire process I reached out to both sides of the family for help, we tried getting her into rehab, counseling you name it we tried it. The fact is that you can’t help someone that does not want help. I was helpless to help my unborn child and it is the worst feeling in the world! I tried getting help from the legal system but I was told that unless they caught her breaking a law then they could do nothing. I was shocked to find out that there were no laws to protect my unborn child and that she could not be forcefully entered into an inpatient program even though she had admitted to breaking several laws and abusing everything from meth to pills and alcohol. She would get high and then come in the room and latterly think that I was out to get her and punch me in the face. She knew that I had a heart and I actually cared about what happened to my child and that I would not just leave her and walk away form the situation. I knew that if I left, then she would not have anyone to be accountable to and so should only abuse drugs even more. Finally when my son was born she agreed to get some help but it would not last long and this cycle of excused for her behavior would continue for years. She eventually did slow down and at times things would be okay but the had cycles when she would spin out of control and began using and lying which lead to other issues such as adultery and poor parenting. I would work during the day while she was at home with our son and she would be so high that she would do reckless things like leave the iron on all day and the stove. I found her one day passed out behind the wheel of her car when I came home from work and my infant son was in the back seat with her 7 year old nephew and she had been driving them around looking for more pills when she passed out in the drive way before she could get back into the house. I told her that I was taking my son and I was leaving. She began punching me and clawing my face in front of the kid and chased me in the house. I tried to pick up the phone to dial 911 and she ripped the phone out of the wall and started hitting me with it. She followed me in the kitchen and had me corned when she picked up and steak knife and told me that she was going to “fucking kill me” and tried to stab me with the knife. I was able to block her arm and take the knife way form her with out striking her. He ran out side and got back into the care with the kids and left, still very high. I called 911 and they later picked her up and took her to jail. She was charged with aggravated assault, terrorist threats, child endangerment, and domestic violence.

She was sentenced to anger management, drug rehab, and 5 years probation. I filed for divorce and got custody of my son however it was only six months before she got a job and passed few drug tests and was able to start having my son over night at her house. I found out through mutual acquaintances that she was having drug dealers over to her house and around my children and during this entire time she had been writing me letters on how she knew what she did and that she had a bad child hood and needed help ect. She claimed to be getting the help and wanted to be a family again ect. After a while this can start to take an effect because I did want to see her get better and when she was not using drugs she was a good person. Also, I began to worry about the times that she did have my son, even if it was just for a night, I worried what he might be exposed to and what might happen when I was not there. I started to fear that she would have some creep drug dealer around my son and the worse fears started to play out in my mind. Again, she manipulated me because she knew I cared. If I was like a lot of men that can just walk away and not worry about their child and what they are exposed to then it would have been easy. I just could not deal with not know, plus she said she needed me and our family support to get better and even though I knew I could not trust her, I felt I was better for me to be around then to not. I also felt that just maybe, just maybe if I did everything right and I tried to lead by example and loved her enough that finally she would mature and grow out of this garbage. I ended up getting back with her and things were good for maybe a year. I was going to college and working full time. We were going to church and things were good. I graduated with a degree and got a better career. We ended up having another child, a daughter. We were moving up and we had things that we never had before. Unfortunately it all started to go down hill, I guess she became too comfortable and started the lying and using again. One night when the kids were at their grandmother’s I had came home from work and she was completely wasted. I found that she was talking to some man on the phone and was high as a kite. I told her I was leaving and she began to charge me and pushed me in a corner and punched me in the face. My eye immediately had swollen up to the point that I could not see and was cut from the rings on her fingers. She was still trying to punch me and I was trying to restrain her and dunk the punches like I had always done but at that point something happened inside of me that I never thought would happen. I did snap and I laid her out in the floor with a counter punch. She immediately began screaming, “Oh a man hit a women, a man hit a women, now you are going to go though what I did. I tried to help her because like me, her eye was swollen shut and bleeding but she pushed me away and told me that her brother was going to come over and shoot me. Granted, her brother lived a mile away and had just gotten out of prison for the third time and would not hesitate to do it. I finally got away form her and started out the door when she literally slung a kitchen chair across the room at me and hit me in the back of the head as I was going out. I went to a near by hotel and was later picked up by the police on domestic violence charges. I had a clean record and had never fought or hit her back in 7 years even though she had two prior arrests for domestic violence on me and was still under state probation. She was actually still under a court order to not have any contact with me. It did not matter that she had busted my eye open yet again or that she had been picked up just a month before on a DUI and another probation violation. They did not charge her or doing anything to her. I spent the night in jail and was later bonded. She got a restraining order on me and I was not allowed back in my house for a month until she got around to moving her things. She called my employer while I was in jail the night of and told him that I had beaten her. She destroyed the house that we were renting and left me to deal with the landlord when she had the utilities turned off and left meat in the fridge for a month to rot and crap in the toilet. She took all of the furniture that I had just bought a few months prior and sold it. Again, we were not married at this time. I was not allowed to see or even talk to my kids for two months in anyway shape for form. She had went to the court house when I was in jail and signed a restraining order that stated that I had beaten her because she would not have sex with me and made it almost seem like a rape. This was not even close to the truth. She also told them that I had choked and beat her and left her passed out for dead. When in fact she was a wake enough to sling a chair across the room to hit me in the back of the head on my way out and sex was never brought up or even considered on this night. I was sentenced to 1 year of probation with a domestic violence record and ordered to several fees and a six month anger management domestic violence class. I went to register for the class the interviewer for the class spent an hour with me and looking over the facts and history of this, something the police did not even consider, and told me that I did not belong in his class. He also sent me to two other licensed professionals that were domestic violence advocates and counselors to be evaluated and they both agreed that I was not an angry person and was not an abuser and so did not fit in with this class. They sent their recommendations to the judge who basically said, “oh well he has to attend it anyway.” My ex had even came down after a few months and signed a legal affidavit stating that I had never been abusive to her before and that she had always been the aggressor, including on this night in question but the DA told my attorney that he did not care.

My point is that there is an extremely huge double standard. I am not proud of what I did in any way but people can only take so much abuse. For those of you that say “never ever never hit a woman for any reason” well yes and no! I am not an abuser and I do not have that mentality, never have. There is a BIG difference from the dirty bastard that comes home and just decides to hit his women and mentally, physically abuse her from what I did. If I was an abuser then I would have beaten her to death way before when she had done just about everything possible to me and my kids for 7 years. She was hurting me yet again for no reason what so ever except that she was using drugs again and cheating and she did not like loosing me and the kids over it so she decided to use me as a punching bag.

For those that say, “Well why you don’t just leave her, or get out of the relationship and don’t go back” I do agree, walk and way and get out if you can however this is MUCH easier said then done. I remember watching those domestic violence movies on TV when I was younger and some poor women with kids was being abused by her husband and I was jus think, well you are stupid, get out and leave him already. It’s not that easy when you have someone that is a manipulator like that and even more importantly when you have kids with them. Yes you can get custody of the kids but the courts system almost always grants the woman rights back to her children not matter what she had done. She basically had to clean up her act long enough to satisfy a judge and then she can continue outlandish behavior and I was not willing to leave this up to chance and see one of my kids end up dead because I was not there to protect them form her or her trash company.

Also, I am not putting this off on women, because usually the roles are reversed and women are the victims and end up in this “no win” situation just like I was in. All that I am saying is that I don’t know what the right answer is, if you find yourself in this trap then there really is no right answer but the justice system has to see and evaluate all the facts and relevant history of each individual case. However, no one should ever have to except abuse from anyone, everyone has a right to defend themselves from an attacker. It does not matter if the attacker happens to be stronger or weaker than you, that’s not the issue. What matters is the attacker’s intent! If there intent is to harm you then you have the right to defend yourself, who is to say that the next time they attack, weather you, me or someone else is their victim, that they don’t have a weapon, or get you in your sleep, or poison you, these were real worries that I constantly feared. You never know how you are going to react to each individual situation at any given time when you or your kids are threatened and when abuse accumulates. You also don’t always have a good way out and end of having to choose the lesser to two evils when kids are involved and you feel like it is better to be around to at least try and keep the calm then to not be around.

All comments are welcome please.

[coach purses]

Don't go for looks; they can deceive. Don't go for wealth; even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. Find the one that makes your heart smile.

[original Sildenafil]

Domestic violence is something that has no boundries it touches everyone reguardless of education or your income level. Actually, I am a little offended in the thought that some are believing that only the uneducated forgotten people are victims....

[Alcohol Abuse Recovery Treatment]

Drug rehab is a term for the processes of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines. The general intent is to enable the patient to cease substance abuse, in order to avoid the psychological, legal, financial, social, and physical consequences that can be caused, especially by extreme abuse.