Healing Wounded Relationships With Men in the Aftermath of Violence and Abuse

[Persephone tries to escape the clutches of Hades]

"I don't remember where I first heard this simple description of one dramatic contrast between the genders, but it is strikingly accurate: At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them." -- Gavin DeBecker, The Gift of Fear, pg. 77

"There is no difference between being raped
and going head first through a windshield
except that afterwards you are afraid
not of cars
but half the human race."
-- Marge Piercy, Missoula Raape Poem

Most women who've survived rape, CSA, and domestic violence have experienced this: fear of men. Most of us want that broken thread to be mended, we want to be well and whole in that area. We want to have a boyfriend, a husband, male friends. We want to be able to look at/speak to a man without being afraid, and wondering what he wants with us. We want to love them, we want them to hold us, and for us to believe them when they say we are safe with them. In this section of As Waters Passing By, women survivors share the extent of the fear that rose up in them, and, if they have been able to begin to heal, how that healing has begun to come about.

"Well, my abuse happened by my boyfriend. He raped me. After that happened I threw myself at guys, because I thought that was all I was good for. Then I started to go talk to a therapist, and then that's when everything started to come out in the open. I begun to fear men, and everything about them. I could not be in a relationship with a man, I was to scared, I thought that it would happen again. Having male friends was tough also, but not as tough as having a relationship with a man.

I went to therapy for about 2 years, and we really worked hard, and I met a great man. It took me awhile, but I am not afraid of him, and I am begining to trust him. My recovery started when my ex my perp was put in jail. It made me feel better knowing that he would be in jail and not out hurting me or anyone else. Then I started very intensive therapy, and I began to find myself. He controlled me. I found out who I was, and who I wanted to be with.

It was a really hard 2 years, but I am doing a lot better, and I am actually happy." -- Sam

"Fear of men is something I struggled with, and in some cases still struggle with. My rapes and molestation built that fear in me. Repated abuse, basically. I wanted, wanted, wanted, so bad to trust men and boys growing up. There was one boy that I felt safe with in high school, but otherwise it was a no go.

By college I had an invisible circle around me, and if someone crossed it, I got scared. My first semester in college someone did that, not knowing what he was in for. I was the leading student in my history class at that time, and he walked up to the table I was sitting at (all alone...and on purpose I should add) and started firing away questions about the class. Oh my did I get scared and unnerved. I know it showed in my eyes, and probably my posture, and everything else. A couple seconds later I look into his eyes and answer his questions. The look on his face told me he knew something was wrong, and that he knew he'd scared me. I felt so much guilt...the whole, shouldn't I be over this already?! Look how bad you made him feel! And it would be like that for a long time.

My relations with men would not begin to heal until I got saved, and started going to church. For the first time in my life, my askew view of men, who they were, and what they wanted with me, began to change as the men of the church embraced me like a little sister, and I saw positive relationships between couples. I'd never seen that before! Most couples I'd seen fought viciously and the men were causing real harm to their wives and children.

I still have a lot of work to do in healing my broken relationships with men, but I'm getting there!" -- Annaleigh

"Men in general are not the enemy." - Bishop T.D. Jakes

T.D. Jakes included those words amongst a very, very compassionate chapter on healing from rape in his book Woman, Thou Art Loosed. I found it very important to realize that men also suffer from the fear that rape, CSA, and domestic violence cause in women. And that most men oppose these abuses of women. The following are some quotes from members of UC Davis' campus organization Men Acting Against Rape.

“The existence of sexual assault means that there will always be women that will not trust me because I am a man. I wonder how much better things would be if men and women could have friendlier relationships. Recent experiences have taught me that any woman can be assaulted, and the fact that many are assaulted by those they should have been able to trust makes it hard for them to trust men like me. I also wonder how much better things would be if men were more proactive in dealing with the other men around them who commit such crimes. Men really need to be the ones who prevent rape. Men who rape need to be regulated by men who don't. Perhaps if there were more of this going on, more women would find it easier to trust men like me.”

One man whose girlfriend was raped, says:
"I see so much evil. I can now see the fear in women’s eyes and it hurts me. I feel like they are afraid of me when I mean no harm. It scares me to know that people can have so much power of destruction. Women interact with me differently because of such things. Sometimes I can see the effects in the way my girlfriend acts every day. Sometimes it feels like she is afraid of accepting my love. She is confused and that affects me as well as her."

“Sexual assault and rape are together in a category of filth, disgust and cowardice. Any person who perpetrates these acts is not a man, but a degenerate piece of shit. As a man, I feel that it is my duty to stand up for, protect and have knowledge about the safety of our world's most prized jewel: women. As a man, I will not tolerate these actions and stand, from this point foreword, against any person who tries to perpetrate them. I will use whatever force necessary including the power of knowledge to stop.”

Some links to men's groups who oppose violence against women:

Men Can Stop Rape
Men Against Domestic Violence
Men Ending Rape
The Defenders
Walk A Mile In Her Shoes (I LOVE these guys!)
Founding Fathers

[If you would like to share your thoughts on this issues as a woman survivor, or share your thoughts about violence against women, as a man, you may email me and I will probably add it!]

As Waters Passing By > Healing Wounded Relationships w/ Men