Dear Humanity, Believe Him Too: The Silent Struggle of Male Domestic Violence Survivors
Male domestic violence survivors often suffer in silence because of shame, stigma, masculinity, and cultural expectations. It's time we listened and believed them.
Dear Humanity, Please Believe Him Too
Dear Humanity,
Can we talk about something we don't talk about enough?
Not because it doesn't happen.
Perhaps because we don't quite know what to do with it when it does.
Imagine a man sitting across from you, trying to tell you that the person he lives with hurts him.
Maybe she humiliates him.
Maybe she controls his money.
Maybe she threatens him.
Maybe she screams at him, breaks things, isolates him from his family, constantly tells him that he is worthless, or sometimes becomes physically violent.
And perhaps he finally gathers enough courage to say:
“I don't know what to do anymore.”
What would you say?
Would you listen?
Or would you laugh?
Would you tell him to grow a thicker skin?
Would someone jokingly ask, “You can't handle your own wife?”
Would you tell him that a real man should be able to control the situation?
Or would you simply sit beside him and say:
“I'm sorry. Tell me what happened.”
Dear Humanity, that difference matters.
Because sometimes the first person who fails a survivor isn't the abuser.
Sometimes it is everyone who refuses to believe him.
We have spent decades, rightly, talking about violence against women.
We have built awareness campaigns, shelters, helplines, laws, support networks, and conversations around women's safety.
Those conversations matter enormously.
But somewhere along the way, many of us became uncomfortable acknowledging another truth:
Men can be victims too.
Not every man is physically invincible.
Not every man is emotionally bulletproof.
And masculinity does not come with an immunity card against pain.
A man can be strong and still be afraid.
He can be successful and still be controlled.
He can be physically powerful and still experience psychological abuse.
He can be a father, a provider, a respected professional, a brother, a son, a friend, and still go home every evening to an environment that slowly dismantles him.
The bruises may not always be visible.
Sometimes the wound is the way his confidence disappears.
Sometimes it is the silence at the dinner table.
Sometimes it is the phone call he is afraid to answer.
Sometimes it is the constant calculation of what he can say without triggering another explosion.
Sometimes it is the man who used to laugh loudly becoming strangely quiet.
And nobody asks why.
Dear Humanity,
We have given men an exhausting instruction:
“Be a man.”
But what exactly does that mean?
Does it mean never crying?
Never admitting fear?
Never saying, “I am being hurt”?
Never asking for help?
If that is masculinity, then perhaps we have confused strength with loneliness.
We teach boys to protect others.
But who teaches them that they are also allowed to be protected?
We teach men to provide.
But who tells them that they are allowed to need something?
We tell them to stand tall.
But who gives them somewhere safe to sit when their legs finally become tired?
There is a particular cruelty in the shame experienced by some male survivors.
They may not only be afraid of the person hurting them.
They may also be afraid of what everyone else will think.
"What will my parents say?"
"What will my friends think?"
"Will people laugh?"
"Will anyone believe me?"
"What if they say I wasn't man enough?"
And so he says nothing.
He goes to work.
He smiles at relatives.
He attends weddings.
He answers, “I'm fine,” when someone asks.
Then he goes home.
And the cycle begins again.
This is how abuse becomes invisible.
Not because nobody cares.
Sometimes because nobody knows.
And nobody knows because the survivor has learned that speaking may cost him his dignity.
Culture can make that silence even heavier.
In many families, marriage is not simply between two people.
It is connected to parents, children, siblings, relatives, reputation, expectations, and that mysterious neighbourhood committee nobody elected but everyone seems to obey.
"What will people say?"
Those five words have kept countless people trapped in unhappy situations.
But reputation is not more valuable than someone's safety.
A family name is not more important than a person's dignity.
And a marriage certificate should never become a permission slip for cruelty.
We should stop asking survivors to protect the appearance of a family while their reality is falling apart behind closed doors.
And then there are children.
A father may remain silent because he is terrified of losing his children.
He may think:
"If I speak, everything will collapse."
"If I leave, what happens to them?"
"If I tell my family, will they understand?"
Sometimes he stays because he believes enduring the situation is the only way to remain close to his children.
But children notice more than adults think.
They notice the silence.
They notice the tension.
They notice when one parent is frightened of the other.
They notice when love becomes something everyone has to walk around carefully.
Children do not need perfect parents.
They need emotionally safe ones.
Dear Humanity,
Let us also stop assuming that every domestic dispute is simply a disagreement between two people.
Arguments happen in relationships.
People lose their temper.
Couples disagree.
That is life.
But abuse is different.
Abuse is about patterns of fear, intimidation, control, humiliation, coercion, threats, or violence.
A person who has been repeatedly controlled may eventually shout back.
They may become angry.
They may become defensive.
They may say things they regret.
That does not automatically erase everything that came before.
Context matters.
Power matters.
Patterns matter.
And safety matters.
Perhaps one of the most damaging things we can do is respond to a struggling man with laughter.
Because he may never come back.
He may never tell another person.
The joke that lasted ten seconds for everyone else may become the reason he remains silent for another ten years.
So if a man ever tells you that he is being abused, please pause before responding.
Don't immediately ask why he didn't fight back.
Don't ask why he didn't leave.
Don't question his masculinity.
Don't turn his pain into entertainment.
Listen.
Ask whether he is safe.
Help him find appropriate support.
And if you don't know what to do, say those wonderfully ordinary words:
“I don't know exactly how to help, but I believe that what you're experiencing matters.”
Sometimes that is where healing begins.
Dear Humanity,
We don't need to choose between supporting women and supporting men.
Compassion is not a pie with twelve slices.
Giving one survivor a voice does not steal it from another.
Recognizing male survivors does not diminish female survivors.
It simply makes our understanding of domestic violence more honest.
Because violence has no gender.
Pain has no gender.
Fear has no gender.
And neither should compassion.
Maybe it is time to retire the idea that asking for help makes a man less of a man.
Maybe courage isn't always the clenched fist.
Sometimes courage is the trembling hand that finally reaches for a phone.
Sometimes courage is saying:
“I need help.”
Sometimes courage is walking away.
Sometimes courage is admitting:
“I have been pretending that everything is okay.”
And perhaps the strongest thing a man can do is refuse to pass his pain down to the next generation.
Dear Humanity,
The next time a man tells you that someone at home is hurting him, don't measure his pain against his muscles.
Don't measure his credibility against your assumptions about gender.
Don't measure his courage by how long he managed to endure.
Listen to the person standing in front of you.
He may have spent years trying to convince himself that what is happening isn't really abuse.
He may have spent months wondering whether anyone would believe him.
He may have rehearsed those words a hundred times before finally saying them aloud.
So when they finally come:
“I'm being hurt.”
Please don't laugh.
Please don't dismiss him.
Please don't tell him to simply be a man.
Tell him something better.
Tell him:
“You don't have to suffer in silence.”
Because perhaps humanity becomes a little more humane every time we make room for someone else's pain.
And perhaps the day we stop asking “How can a man be a victim?” and start asking “How can we help?” will be the day we finally understand what equality was supposed to mean in the first place.
With hope,
A fellow human
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