One man’s story of being emotionally abused

THE notion of men being abused has been scoffed at many times, dismissed by societies driven by views that men are the stronger sex and simply need to toughen up.But in the case of a popular businessman who requested anonymity, his experience with emotional abuse from his wife almost caused him to suffer a nervous breakdown.He told All Woman that the abuse started very early — just three days after the wedding, in fact. However, his wife brushed it off as a side effect of her period. Eventually, he said he found out she had borderline narcissistic personality disorder, but his discovery came after a series of manipulative events.“I wouldn’t do [certain] things she wanted me to do; for example, she wanted me to write her university essays for her, but I said that was morally wrong. She would also ask me to write letters to her university saying she wasn’t married and she was a single parent, so she could get grant funding, but I wouldn’t do that. When I didn’t do it she would say that she wasn’t attracted to me. I tried to explain that it was morally wrong if I did the work for her and put her name on it. It would be plagiarism and she wouldn’t progress in her degree. I had no problem helping her, but to get to a place where I’d write it, that’s wrong. So she would close the marriage bed and say ‘no sex’; she would give me the cold shoulder, be insolent, rude, and this was because she wasn’t getting her own way. In disagreements she would even say, ‘I’m lusting for other men’, and that would make me feel really, really bad. Other times she would say, ‘You make me sick’; for no reason. When I was trying to encourage her she would send me text messages saying ‘I really hate you’.”Additionally, he said the manipulative control would extend further, as she would access his social media accounts and e-mails to see what he was doing, but when he requested the same of her, she always withheld the information.In addition, he explained, when he reached out to friends to talk about his problems, she would demand that he end the friendships if he loved her. Consequently, he lost many friends, as he did as she requested in a bid to make her happy and comfortable.“It left me feeling like I was constantly walking on eggshells. It made me feel disregarded, worthless. I fell into a level of depression because I was fighting for her approval, fighting to get her attention, fighting to basically be loved. Eventually when we broke up, I was fighting for my son in court and almost had a nervous breakdown because of it. It was really serious, and the emotional abuse was heavy,” he said.It has now affected whatever future relationships he may have. If he should get involved with anyone else, he said he would need to thoroughly check out their background and family issues.In relation to overcoming the abuse, he said it took really good friends, family and God to pull him through.“My friends and family spoke to me and made me understand that this person could not love me, must really hate me if she was behaving this way. Above all, it was Almighty God in heaven who really helped me get through that traumatic period in my life,” he said.He has a bit of advice for men who may be currently going through this experience.“Seek advice as soon as possible. Try marriage counselling if it’s a wife. If it’s a girlfriend, analyse what is the root problem, because it is most likely not you, it probably is something deeper down, but don’t stay in the relationship if it’s abusive. If there’s no apology or repentance from the abuser, then get out, because your mental health is the most important thing. The mind can be the worst enemy, but it is important to have mental health as well as physical health, so if the person is unwilling to change, you need to get out 110 per cent.”