If Your Man Knew What to Say, Here’s What He Might Say If He Knew You Feared His Potential For Violence...
Excerpted from Warren Farrell's Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say.
(Permission to reprint granted by Warren Farrell.)
See www.warrenfarrell.com
and
www.warrenfarrell.info.
The Elderly Man’s “Learned Helplessness Syndrome”
Carlos Mello’s wife wouldn't let him sleep. He reported that his wife would grab him by his genitals and “pull, squeeze, and twist them until I could not stand the pain any longer and I would just stay awake.”27 He didn't report to the hospital until she had prevented his sleeping for three days and his genital area was “swollen to the size of a small balloon,” according to the report. Although neighbors confirmed they had been hearing loud screams and moans for three days, Mello had been reluctant to discuss the ruckus when neighbors knocked on his door. When he finally did report to the police, his wife denied she had beaten him, dismissing his condition as “he must have fallen out of bed.”
Many elderly men who are abused by their wives report their wives’ anger at their failure to be useful – as a breadwinner or home repairer. The man has gone from protector to needing protection, and that is a set up for her anger. The man’s shame and dependency often prevents him from reporting his wife’s abuse.
The unwillingness of abused men to come forward is a classic symptom of “Male Learned Helplessness.” The elderly man feels helpless physically, emotionally, and socially: physically, because he is often 10 to 15 years closer to death; emotionally, because male socialization is a retardant to emotional communication; socially, because the network of friends he built up at work are more likely to be spread out among many communities whereas the network of friends his wife built up are more likely to be in her neighborhood and her community. This physical, emotional, and social combination creates the Elderly Man’s Learned Helplessness Syndrome.
Do Men Experience a “Battered Man Syndrome”?
Feminist literature has helped us understand the many reasons a woman may remain in an abusive relationship – from economic fears to low self-esteem to fears of enraging the man and having him track her down and become even more abusive. The usual image is that the woman cannot afford to leave, but low-income wives are more likely than high-income wives to leave abusive situations.28 This suggests that the man’s money may keep a woman but his lack of money does not prevent her from leaving.
Men’s fears of leaving can include those, but they are usually quite different. I’ve already discussed men’s fears of asking for help and reporting abuse, and the plight of elderly men’s experience of learned helplessness. But three other reasons battered men fear leaving are even more crucial...
A battered man knows that if his wife has been abusing him, she has often been abusing the children; leaving her means leaving his children unprotected from her abuse.
Second, a man who loses his wife often feels his children are his only remaining source of love.
Finally, abused men know that if they leave, their wives will not only get the children, but the home. For many men, “Home, Home on the Range” is more appealing than “Apartment, Apartment on the Range.”
Many men, then, endure the physical hurt of being beaten rather than endure the emotional torture of feeling they’ve left their own children unprotected, lost love, and lost their home. When these combine with the helplessness that emerges from the fear of asking for help, they create the “Battered Man Syndrome.”
