Men abuse: A look at abusive women

Abuse in a relationship is usually directed to women - we are "used" to seeing women as victims and men as pepetrators. This is especially true when you look at physical abuse. Because women are designed to be physically not stronger than men, physical abuse if often committed by men. This, however, does not say that women can’t be abusive to men. There is a lot of abusive women out there and a lot of silent abused men. Men can be victims and women perpetrators, but men usually keep quite about their abuse.

Because of society’s expectations, men often feel that they have to be a man and not speak out about the abuse. Abuse of a man by a woman or men abuse is often emotional or financial or sometimes even both.

Some women, even though they earn an income, still leave all the financial responsibilities to their husbands, putting tremendous emotional pressure and stress on them. Some people may refuse to call this abuse and might even name it ‘manly responsibilities’ but I would call it abuse if all the woman does with her income is buy expensive clothes, jewellery, and so on, without relieving the husband of the household financial responsibilities - and calls it retail therapy. Most husbands do allow this kind of abusive behaviour and are often the ones who encourage it, by funding it, but it serves neither the man nor the woman well.

Financial abuse of men by women

Financial abuse of a spouse also occurs when one spouse ignores their responsibilities and in addition to that, also controls the other’s finances. One partner may want to receive and have full control of the other’s pay check, - deciding on your own on how the household’s finances should be run. In this case, the other party is left in the dark, not knowing what the mortgage balance is and will have to ask for money to buy monthly essentials, just like a child/dependant. It goes without saying that, abusive behaviour is not specific to a particular gender; it is a disease that can take hold of both men and women. Men abuse does exist. Women do become abusive - not just financially and emotionally, but also physicaly at times. Those that experience it in any form should be willing and able to recognise it for what it is and to take a stand against it. Do not be ashamed as a man to stand up and speak against male abuse.