Be a Man- The Crisis of Masculinity

A couple posts ago I wrote about what I would have said to my husband if I saw him again.  I would ask him to be emotionally intelligent, to understand that emotions do not equate weakness. Lately I have been reading a lot about the crisis of masculinity. There are several movements world wide that seem to be addressing this. 

Domestic Violence is not a victim's fault; nothing she did could possibly deserve a violent retaliation. Domestic Violence, and the ending of domestic violence is as much of a man's issue as a woman's. 

Withholding emotion, dominating situations and asserting masculinity is not what this life is about, but it is what we are training our boys to believe. 

Below Tony Porter makes a call to men to step outside of the "Man Box", this seems to be a thread strung through most of the crisis against masculinity messaging.

 

Joe Ehrmann speaks about being told to be a man. Separating your heart from your head, using women to validate masculinity,  and measuring a man.  Ehrmann explores what "Be a Man" is doing to us and what "Being a Man Person" is actually about. Watch the entire thing- trust me.

And Finally one heck of a response to "Man Up"

Thank-you's (L and K)

It is almost a year later. In this year I have made more changes in my life than ever. Some days it feels as if I am going light speed, I cannot stop moving forward, even if I tried. 

While this light speed has allowed me to achieve many things in the last 11 months, sometimes I feel I haven't taken a moment to address things. I haven't taken the time to stop and say thank you to those who have helped me. To those who I owe my life. This life. 

While I don't know who has come across or commuted to reading these pages the next couple of posts I will say the thank you's I need to say. I know all of them know, through conversations, emails or intuition. 

But, I've always been one to need to write the important stuff down.

Best Friend L

 

You are the first person I told. Though by mistake. You had the guts to interrupt the situation. When I have been  the stupidest I have ever been, you knew I needed help and acted. I know you think you were doing what you were suppose to as a friend, you were fulfilling obligation. But there is no obligation. You could have walked away, gone to Best friend A's shower and not bothered with it. Turned a blind eye, like so many people do so often. Even now, you meet me only with support and love. You accept me faults and all. From the bottom of my heart you are one of the Kindest, most devoted people I know. Thank-you

Best Friend K

"You need to leave" is what you told me as we sat in your car in the driveway of my condo. I had just confessed why I could no longer stay. "Accidents happen, he could throw something..." You said as you gave me the same look you give your son. I knew everything you said was true.

I was you who came with my Mother, who put me in your car and took me somewhere safe. I don't know the conversations that happened that Morning. I don't know what you were feeling as you knocked on my apartment door. If you were afraid, or if you were facing it with the same focus that you approach motherhood. I can't imagine being there, the other side of the story. But I will never forget the feeling of seeing to people I love come in. At that moment, I wasn't alone in the story anymore. 

In the 10 years I've know you you have never judged me, you support my decisions even when I cannot. You are amazing and I cannot imagine my life without you. My life that is even better because of you. 

Thank-you. 

M

Las Vegas. Part I

A year ago I walked along Las Vegas Boulevard I had been married for less than four months. In those four months I had struggled to understand my new role, my expectations as a wife. I held my breath often knowing the frequency that I now met my Husband's rage. Something after the vows had changed. It went from bad to worse and for the first time standing there outside the MGM in the desert heat I realized it wouldn't get better.

The next day my girlfriends and I drove from Vegas to LA. Through Primm across the miles of sand and past the mountains. My face leaving makeup marks on the glass as I sat there in awe of a place I have always wanted to be.

I spent years of my life thinking I would grow up, move to LA without any other plan. It might not have been a reasonable dream. But I would have thought somewhere in my 25 years I would have taken time to see it. He didn't travel, especially not to a place like LA. There was nothing there for him so there was no need for us to go.

The mountains took my breath away, the palm trees swayed in the breeze and I sat there. We finally started seeing the city. Me still in the back seat. Face still pressed to the glass.

I always wanted someone who would take me to my dreams, or at very least join me. Someone who could be part of my adventure and I could be part of their's. I wanted to see these places, know what they were like. I didn't care if at the end of the day I hated it, I had to know. But to my Husband they were always stupid. A waste of money he worked too hard to spend on something like that. It didn't matter how many Icelandic tourism videos I watched alone in my room, we would never go.

In 2012 I decided I would go alone, wrangle the friends I could and go. So, I did. As I explored he became angrier.

I can pinpoint the moment, staring at the luxury homes build atop the mountain. Furious with myself that it had taken me this long to come. Knowing that for the first time in a long time I was having fun, without being afraid of what happened when my front door would close.

On Saturday we flew back. I knew I would go. I had no idea how to make it happen. The days after that trip I couldn't stand him, his voice made my hands shiver. The way he spoke to me made my gut wrench. Convinced that my withdrawn behaviour after my return was an indicator that I was cheating on him he grew angrier.

Eventually, the fighting became nightly. I went through cover up faster than a 13 year old girl. I cried when I was alone, staring out my window knowing that I couldn't do it anymore. That the decision I had made in Vegas had to stand and I had to ensure that I would never go back....

A View from the Other Side

A month ago I was in Cuba. A vacation from a crazy 8 months. Along with one of my best friends Lor we had taken the opportunity to lie in the sun, eat bad food and get away from everything.

It was Tuesday Night, I had already been asleep for some time when I heard the thumping, followed by the yelling. One way yelling, all I could hear was his voice filling our room like he was standing there. 

Suddenly my chest felt tight, I couldn't breathe or move. I sat there in the humid darkness not knowing what to do.

Do I call 911? Is there 911 in Cuba? Do I call the front desk?

Do I exit my room and interrupt the confrontation hoping that the presence of a stranger stops it?

But I couldn't move.

I wasn't sure if he was yelling at a woman, or a man. His Wife, Son, Daughter, Stranger?

So I laid there, paralyzed. My mind racing through scenarios. Still, I couldn't move.

I lied there awake listening, thinking that maybe if I heard a "help me", or a scream it would provide me the courage to act. I never heard a thing.

At some point I heard a second man's voice, stern and calm. Then there was silence. And I understood. Those times when I wondered why no one knocked on my door, why no one called the police it's not as easy as it seems.

Even now I feel guilty, I feel sorry for that person who was on the receiving end of that man's words. I feel for her/him as objects flew at them or fists punched the wall.

I'm sure my neighbors felt like I did, helpless, and confused at what was going on.

Violence Unsilenced.

Today, on August 15th an excerpt from this blog was shared Here on Violence Unsilenced.  If you are not familiar with the site it is a forum for victims of Violence to share their stories.

What first struck me about this is how many people are featured. There are stories from every life stage, stories like mine. There are also some stories very different from mine, but the outcome is always the same. The decision to leave is a difficult one. For me, my friend and my mother showed up and saved me. Some days I think I wouldn't have done it without them, but I remember the struggle in the days that followed my emancipation. How hard it was not to pick up the phone, to go back to him. How tiring it became being awake, my eyes throbbed as badly as my bruises.

It is in moments of reflection that I know that I needed to be brave to make it through this. It is in moments when I hear the voices or read the words of others who have made it through that I know I am strong. I know we are all strong.

For those of you who left comments,  words of love, understanding, support. Confirmation that violence can happen to any of us, there is no definition or reason. The reaffirmation that all that matters is that I survived, and I am okay, I am out and I get my life after 10 years.

Thank-you.


The excerpt can be read here, alongside the stories from others. It is defiantly worth a visit. I also encourage you to leave a comment. Trust me, it matters.

http://violenceunsilenced.com/

M

The Numbers Behind the Stories

Yesterday I read something. There were 94,000 reported violent crimes against family members in Canada in 2011, 50% were spouses, 18% children.  This accounted for 26% of all police investigated crimes that year. The statistical Profile from Stats Canada can be read here. 

I also learned that the rate of women assaulted by a current intimate partner is 542 per 100,000 Canadians. 

The GSS also found that police were less likely to find out about spousal violence against women in 2009 than in 2004. The percentage of female victims indicating that the incident was reported to police, either by themselves or someone else, dropped from 36% to 30%.Reporting to police was more likely when women had sustained an injury, when they feared for their lives, or when the abuse had gone on for some time.  (GSS, Violence against women, 2011)

I waited almost six years to tell anyone, looking back I never thought I could call the police, I couldn't have done that to him. Even after I sat sprawled out on the floor, covered in bruises, my blood and his spit I don't think I ever could have picked up the phone. 

The reports all go on to say the same thing. Women. Young women are more likely to be assaulted by their significant other. Violence affects entire families. Daters are more likely than Married people to experience violence and Family related Homicides occur and account for 6 percent of solved murders. 

The conclusions I can draw are simple domestic violence happens, it can happen to anyone, it doesn't get better and people die. When I read these articles I thought a lot about my husbands hands around my throat, his raspy voice telling me that I was going to die that night. I don't know if he would have been able to do it, if his threats were backed by intent. I do know that if I had stayed there is a real possibility I could have been like one of the 419 Canadians in 2011 who died at the hands of someone they loved. 

Sources: 
1. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/130625/dq130625b-eng.htm
2. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/081009/dq081009b-eng.htm

Never a Choice a Man Should Make...

If you haven't seen this check it out. It really is a passionate response to a brave question. What is inspiring is the notion that even someone blessed with fame and a very successful entertainment career began his life in a terrible situation. What is even more powerful is that he came out of it not as someone who struggles with a violent past but who advocates a peaceful and stronger future.

 

 



Why my husband hit me confused me. To be honest, it still confuses me. From what I know about his life he was never abused, his mother or father were not violent with him or eachother. I use to wonder if it was because he was bullied, if it was because his dad would tell him to be a man more times than I can count. If it was because he didn't feel adequate or was struggling with something he couldn't let me see. These were the thoughts I would play in my head as I wondered if it was me, or him and how I could fix it, fix us, fix him.

The more I read about domestic violence the less I understand. I find more scenarios about why a spouse is abusive, yet none of them seem to apply to me.

The overarching theme seems to be that the abuser has in some form learnt the behaviour, been exposed to it, perhaps victimised or abused themselves. Sometimes I think back on what I know about his family, make excuses for his actions. Sometimes I try to accept that he was broken not me, and violence was a choice he made, not one I stimulated.

Mr. Stewart made one hell of a point through this video, no matter the reason violence is never, ever a choice a man (or woman) should make.

Learning to Forgive, and Move on

Trust has always been easy for me. You wouldn't suspect that. 

I believe that people are inherently good, that there is a fine layer that separates what makes us bad people and the good we are all made from.
I have always believed that if you focus on understanding the person, forgiving faults and believing that individuals are good, that they will be.

Here I am almost 6 months after finally having to give up believing that my Husband would stop hitting me. How do I feel?

My position hasn't changed. 

I still believe that people are good. We are not born or created bad. I don't believe that there is anything inside of any one of us that is preventing us from being a kind, or decent human being.

Growing up I was taught to be compassionate...

Even to those who did not show me kindness. I was taught that when a bully was mean to you it maybe was because someone bullied them. I was taught that when people where angry or upset or mean, you understand that that behaviour is wrong. 

Then, you forgive them...

Forgiving does not make what you went through right, or make negative actions or situations okay. By doing this you expel hatred or upset or disdain from your mind.  You release yourself from the situation, it allows you to continue to grow and move on.

Perhaps, even transcend into understanding....

Wish the person well. Wish that somehow they find their way and rediscover the natural good within them.

And eventually learn to trust...

Even though you might be ready to trust, you must learn balance Trust with wisdom. You can mend a wound, but would you put yourself back in harms way again?

Forgive yourself...
You will make mistakes too. Marry people you shouldn't, try too hard, eat too much desserts, buy expensive jeans. It's okay.

Does any of this mean you go back? No. Is what I went through okay? Not even a little.
But somewhere in my heart can I forgive my Husband for what he did to me and leave him in a distant memory? This I will need to do. One day.

Crazy Love+ Breaking the Silence.

When people know you have been through something they try to understand, they absorb information and share it with you, hoping it will help. In the time since I have shared my story I have received emails, texts and had laptops and tablets with content about domestic violence shoved in my face. I haven't really appreciated it until Best Friend P shared something with me yesterday.

This is Leslie Morgan Steiner. During her Ted Talk on domestic violence.

I will let you watch the video, but this is the most comprehensive and deeply truthful view of the domestic violence I have seen. A story that mirrored mine in ways that I have been thinking about over that last 24 hours. I have repeated this Ted Talk over and over again, studying her words, hearing my own thoughts echoing. It plays on the background of my laptop as I write you this letter.

I have bought Crazy Love and as I flip through the pages I am sure I will share what I find in those words.  On that note, Leslie brings up something in the closing remarks of her video. Abuse affects anyone, everyone, there are likely people within our circles who are battling this fight silently, Leslie states "abuse thrives only in science." this sentiment is wholly and completely true.

It was not until the words "he hits me" left my lips that I was able to leave, without sharing that with my friends, my mother only days before the last attack I am certain I would have soon after November 25th been applying another layer of cover up to new bruises, likely over top the ones that had yet to heal.

Telling them is what saved my life.

This sentiment also struck me for another reason, 1/3 American women or men have or are dealing with violence in a relationship. Somewhere in my circle of friends, someone is going through this hell.

Thus far I have been quiet silent about my ordeal, about what I went through. Select friends know, I write this blog under a pseudonym.

My own silence, even after surviving. My Voice and my story could be helping someone. Someone I love.

So my promise to myself, I will talk about it. I am not weak for experiencing it, I am strong for surviving it. I will share what I went through, with my family, my friends and this blog. Maybe one day someone will use what people like Leslie and myself went through to rewrite the next chapter in their lives and stop their domestic violence story.

Before I Knew

Do you ever think about those moments you are sure saved your life?

It was May of 2005, I was a year into my Television Broadcasting education. Something I had hoped to do since I was a child. All I wanted ever was to create things, to help make something bigger than myself. I wasn't bright, I wasn't exceptional, I didn't excel physically or academically, but God was I creative.  And no matter what shit I got from others about not being adequate, I knew wholeheartedly that I could be something.

But at 19 you forget where your priorities lie. You often forget your dreams. At 19 you’re not sure about your life or your path, but you are always sure about the boy. So after a fight with your mother you drop out of your almost completed program, work full time at a burger place and move in with your boyfriends white trash family while you stop speaking to yours.

I remember walking the boyfriend's golden retriever one afternoon after I had completed my 4 hour shift at a $300 a week job when I spotted my mother and little brother riding their bikes. I tried to plan an escape route I couldn't. There I was face to face with my family, the family I had left.

It was an awkward and angry conversation, one to this day I try not to think about. When it does cross my mind I know that this encounter was what pushed me out of a path I would never have escaped, a path and a life that I later saw approaching.

I might not have been a smart teenager, but at least I did this before the beatings began. At least I was able to get out of his family's home, reconcile with mine and enrol in another program, complete my education. I got a job and made a life outside of him. I sometimes think about this. What if I hadn't? What if I was not educated or didn't have a job outside of that $300 a week burger place, what if I didn't talk to my family now. I wouldn't be out.

I am fortunate in so many things, not only did I get a second chance, I had the means to support myself, I had no children, minimal shared property and a family to go home to. I have great people in my life.

I know this isn't the case for everyone, some days I don't feel right writing this blog about a situation that could have been so much worse, that is so much worse for so many other people. People without means to leave or with families to think about. I know as much as my situation sucked, there is worse.

Nightmares

I woke up last night with my heart pounding like a war drum.
This has become a frequent occurrence lately and I can't seem to make it stop.

It's never the same dream but it is the same enactment, he is dragging me across the room by my hair,  I am screaming for help hoping the neighbours hear. Almost three years I lived in that condo, probably dozens of nights that you could hear my screams echoing through the halls, never once did anyone call the police, check to make sure I was okay. Not even that night, a night I remember calling out, "help me please", someone.

Sometimes I hear or read about how someone doesn't understand how women could let it get so bad that they lose their lives. How you could continue to love someone or stay even through fear. Now I understand. I understand what it is like to be afraid, to comply to live, even if it is barely living at all.

A few weeks before I left for good I got smacked around for not being affectionate after returning a trip with my girlfriends. I couldn't, it was that trip when I decided I would leave, that I was unhappy. At the end of the night I sat on the floor, scared, convinced that I needed to go, not knowing what people would say or how my family would react, I didn't want to tell them he had done these things to  me, would they even believe me?

As I sat there, my lip bled and my arm throbbed from being bent in an unnatural direction. He approached me, my stomach turned. He told me that I would not see my friends, I would leave work promptly at 6pm when he would retrieve me, I would come home with him and that was my life. I was his, his wife and his wife did what she was told.

After that I wasn't sure what to do, I felt like I was living in a dream-world.  My actions had no weight, I could try my hardest, do my best at work, be spectacular. But it didn't matter. In the end two things would happen; I would be his wife, have children I didn't want and take care of him in a little house in the country between beatings, or I would die.

Whether it is being dragged across the floor, or his hands around my throat, or his knee on my chest. The nightmares don't end. My therapist says they will subside, in time. Like my concious mind, my subconscious is working it out, making sense, trying to understand.

The Outcome + Sevenly this Week!

The last time I saw my Husband he was sitting on the corner of the sectional. I looked over my shoulder at him and my heart broke, I knew it was over, I knew I was out, and I was scared.

It was 12 hours earlier that he began the last chapter of our relationship. I wasn't right, I had come home at 3am after a night out with my co-workers, I had been away for the weekend and for a week prior to that had been staying with my Mom, I don't know why I went back to my condo that night. I am stubborn, I was intoxicated and figured it was my apartment too.



This was a dumb decision. Maybe the worst I have ever made.

I wanted to get away, to dance and laugh and smile, to feel like the weight of the world wasn't on me, for just a couple of hours.

Still, I was Married. I was suppose to be at home with my husband, never mind that I am 26.

I knew it was coming when I walked through the door. He was lying on the couch, waiting.

As I quietly entered my apartment and walked past him on the way to the bedroom my chest hurt. I was scared, I knew this wouldn't be the beatings I had grown used to.

I heard him shout from the doorway, insisting that I give him my cellphone so he could filter through the texts. It was dead, as it turned on I could hear the notifications alerting me of incoming messages. Just friends, informing me that they had found their way home.

Stubbornly I declined. He had taken everything. 2 weeks earlier he told me that I was going to be picked up at 6pm every day from the office, I wasn't to see my friends or go out. I was his wife and would play by his rules.

Dumb, I should have given him the Phone.

Then the iPhone, decked out in a heavy duty Otterbox slammed into my kneecap, splitting it open.

I remember that pain like it was 5 minutes ago. When I run my finger across the scar I relive that moment, I relive that moment a lot.

I regret a lot of mistakes I made that day, I have spent countless hours pawing through the memories like data. Understanding what I could have changed to alter the outcome. I've made myself crazy with wonder and guilt and anger.

It has been a struggle but I am learning to understand that I made choices that resulted in actions, I helped craft this story. The outcome is I am ALIVE and maybe a bit broken, but broken is okay. 

Before I close this post I want to share something with you. If you have heard of Sevenly they are a great company that makes lovely T's and donates $7 from each of them to a charity of the week. This week the Organization is NEXT DOOR who provides support for Women and Children who are in or have survived situations of domestic violence. Buy a shirt, support this great organization.



http://www.sevenly.org/

http://www.nextdoor.org/

Where I've Been

I left my Husband at 1:38pm on a Sunday. Sunday November 25th, 2012. We had been married 5 Months, 10 days. In that time I had been beaten up 9 times, in the 10 years we had been together I was hit for 6 of them. Lies poured out of my mouth, l I fell off treadmills, got in car accidents, spilled down stairs, I believe once I got in a bar fight, I can't recall.

But at 1:38pm my best friend Kay and my mother walked into my apartment, put clothes on me, packed my blue duffel bag and put me in Kay’s car, as I sobbed uncontrollably. It was over.

I am not the kind of girl you expect to have been through this. We were not the couple you would have even believed could be capable of having this story.

My husband and I were highschool sweethearts. We found eachother at sixteen and besides one brief breakup in 2009 were never apart. I loved him and he loved me, and that is why no matter how many times I caked on concealer or lied to my co-workers and friends I never left.

I am a smart girl. I've heard it over and over again. Like I said, you would never expect this story.

Like everyone else one of my best friends found out when I came to work with bruises I couldn't hide. He still tells me he doesn't get it, I am a smart girl.

My eye was black, my neck bruised from my Husband's hand grasping it tightly two nights before. I have never felt anything as terrifying as not being able to breathe. Days later I could still feel it, a lump in my throat, the purple finger imprints stained my skin.
I walked like I was recovering from surgery, dozens of black bruises hid below the long sleeved tops I bought at the local Walmart, because that was what was open at 10pm. My knee was swollen from the impact of my iPhone smashing against it; I limped and struggled to get into my pants.
My head throbbed and the world spun, I couldn't tell if it was injury or anxiety but I spent some of Monday throwing up in the company washroom.

I can't remember the day or the month that he first hit me, I remember thinking it was bad, but isolated. I didn't think it would get worse, I didn't think that in six years time the fights would become struggles where I feared for my life, moments where I worried the man I loved, the person I married would take my life.

For six years I didn't tell a soul. Not my best friends, not my family, no one. Sometimes I almost did, sometimes I wondered if it was just time to get it out, hope for help, start again. But I wanted to save my Husband, I wanted him to get better. If I had told anyone, he would become the bad guy, I would become the victim, and no one would be able to help him. Little did I know that I couldn't have helped him.

This blog will encapsulate the story of how I lived 10 years, more than half my life with a man I loved but couldn't help. How healing is harder than surviving and what happens when the world you know collapses and makes way for the person I have always wanted to be.