Sunday, February 21, 2021

Dealing with abused husbands and wives in the Orthodox communoty

 https://mishpacha.com/were-only-addressing-half-the-problem/

 The first assumption about abuse in the Jewish community was that the abuse ran in only one direction, and female perpetrators and male victims of domestic abuse were virtually nonexistent. Prominent Jewish writers, echoed by many others in the field, asserted that 95 percent of victims of physical abuse in a marriage are women and only 5 percent are men — a 16:1 ratio.

However, this belief turned out not to be substantiated, as study after study has shown that women are perpetrators of domestic abuse at rates comparable to men. Furthermore, the belief that patriarchal views explained most instances of domestic abuse turned out to be false. Many of the most rigorous studies suggest that other factors, such as individual personality characteristics, impulse control, and life stressors have much more to do with domestic violence than do patriarchal beliefs of men in society.

 For too long the Jewish community has denied the painful reality of male domestic abuse victims and the catastrophic outcomes — for the men as well as their children — that the abuse inflicts. Unfortunately, some men turn to alcohol or substance abuse. Some struggle with suicidality. These maladaptive responses to their anguish tend to feed negative stigmas that our society has toward men, who instead deserve compassion as victims of domestic abuse.

 The Jewish community can do better. It must do better. The effects of domestic abuse, whether the victim is a woman or a man, can be catastrophic, and ignoring this reality costs families and communities dearly. Over the past 30 years, the Jewish community has done an incredible job of addressing half of this problem. The time has come to stop ignoring the other half.

6 comments :

  1. Haaretz - back to home page


    Secular "gadol"


    Amos Oz's Daughter: He Beat, Cursed and Humiliated Me
    In new autobiographical book, Galia Oz describes the reasons she cut ties with her father, who died in 2018. Fania Oz-Salzberger: 'We knew a different father. A warm, friendly, attentive father'

    Gili Izikovich
    Gili Izikovich
    Feb. 21, 2021 11:05 AM
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    The daughter of the late Israeli author Amos Oz alleges that he was violent toward her and that “the harassment and abuse continued until the day he died.” Galia Oz makes the claims in her new autobiography “Something Disguised As Love,” which was published in Hebrew on Sunday.

    The book seemingly explains the estranged relationship between Amos Oz – one of the most famous and beloved of Israeli authors – and his middle daughter Galia, herself an award-winning children’s book author.

    Tags:
    Jewish cultureIsrael cultureAmos Oz
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  2. There's more to discuss on this subject. Off the bat you have to brace yourself for the classic dismissal used by unrepentant abusers: " Everything is called abuse nowadays". There may a kernel of truth in that, but keeping our focus we have to understand that as men, we don't require much. We are naturally selfless and want to provide for our families primarily, happy with a drop of respect and some food. In exchange for slaying dragons we are content with someone validating our experience, appreciating what we do, sharing news of the kids, encouraging us if we falter.
    When a wife refuses to show deference, to treat her husband any better than one of the children, to allow him to state an opinion without chopping it down as dubious/ wrong, and somehow ends up too tired to give him any comfort the majority of the time, she is abusing him. She is removing the items that make life worth living for a man. She may cover it up by gushing to friends about how wonderful he is, so that nobody would believe there's no action planned on her part to support her " admiration". If he goes and does something special for her and she falls asleep before she can make him supper, that's abuse. It tells him," nothing you'll ever do can impress me enough to make me want to do anything for you". Men are willing to go to great lengths to make their wife happy. But if a wife lets on that nothing can make her happy to see him, to be near him, to take care of him, to be seen with him, to push herself when she's tired because his well -being is good for her as well, that's abuse. A man redoubles his efforts to try other ideas to woo her. He works harder. He improves his appearance, his interpersonal skills. He takes more chores off her hands. He makes less crumbs in the kitchen when he eats. This is called walking on eggshells. This is the result of DEVALUATION, an extremely successful weapon to hurt men with. Men don't need lots of things, but they need to feel valued. Upon realizing that he's taken the high road, judged favorably, lowered his expectations, worked harder, kept the house cleaner, made more money, took her out for more romantic dinners and anticipated more of her needs and it still doesn't matter, he gets depressed and worries that he will never get it right; that his brain doesn't work. When she fails to notice he's become depressed and has stopped doing things that he enjoys, it makes it even sadder because he realizes she seems to not care about him at all, almost like she doesn't like him, or wants him to be sick and sad.
    The truth is there are people that go through this routine as if consulting a checklist:
    Lie to you about their goals of raising a family and being excited about everything you are into.
    Get married and tell you that they really don't care about anything you're into.
    Chip away at your self esteem by forgetting about you so often, you lose hope. They also try to provoke you by telling you there's something wrong with you, and claiming you do things that you don't do; usually bad things that they do. They're aware of the hypocrisy. Their goal is to get you to hit them. Or to kill yourself. This way they can leave you for obvious reasons: "He HIT me! He's always so ANGRY! He's such an ALCOHOLIC! He's not the same person I married. Nobody would want to stay with such a sorry soul." And out the door she'll go to find another kind, attuned, talented, energetic, well meaning, wholehearted giving soul to destroy. She has an antenna for them. And the cycle repeats itself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pretty sure there's a difference between a woman giving disrespect to a man and a man giving a broken arm or black eye to a woman.

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  4. Yes, there's a large difference. A woman never should be hit. What I'm describing here is an ongoing campaign of devaluation wherein the wife dismisses her husband's thinking as defective and wherein she makes it clear to him that she doesn't feel beholden to him even while he takes good care of her. The resulting damage to a man over time is he feels like a complete failure since he can not earn respect in his own house even though he does only good for her. I'm not surprised you haven't met this type of person, and I hope you never do. The conversation here is about a small percentage of women who do not have the ability to connect to anyone closely. They resist a man's efforts to foster closeness by pushing him away and dismissing/ undermining him; by giving everyone else their time and attention and reserving none for him. By withholding the basics that a man needs to feel accomplished in his life, she wounds him at his core.

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  5. Breaking arms or giving a black eye represent less than 1% of abuse claims. Relatively very few spouses are guilty of that. The vast majority of abuse claims are more nebulous accusations of "emotional" abuse or verbal abuse.

    ReplyDelete

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