I still struggle with the fact I have been a victim of domestic abuse from women. It is so ingrained in me that DV is only perpetrated by men, and after reporting several instances to police and friends, I am well aware of the laughingstock view society takes towards male victims.

I have a few stories, I hope they may help.

The first was over ten years ago. Classic bunny-boiler. She was nuts. I wasn't really into her, but she was keen and we started dating. I thought ‘why not, let's see where things go.’

A very short 3 month relationship that I ended, afterwards had 100's of threats, phone calls, ‘how dare you's’, physical threats from family members and when I called her back after 25 calls in one night and left a message on her answering machine saying ‘LEAVE ME THE F*** ALONE!’ I witnessed for the first time the process of having an AVO placed against you.

I was petrified, had never been a violent person and never been in trouble with the law. I found a lawyer who proposed I file an AVO against her after hearing my case, which I did. I wish I didn't. I was ridiculed not only for filing an AVO against a woman ('What, can't you handle yourself mate?'), I was also accused of doing it out of spite. Her AVO was thrown out, my AVO against hers stood for 2 years and was renewed twice after she kept sending cousins around to heavy me. I had to leave my house and move out of town to get away from this psychopath.

The second, was much more subtle. 7 year relationship. Nice girl, in comparison to the previous one. Moved in together fairly quickly. Thought she was great. Family and friends all spoke about how nice she was. The emotional abuse however, wasn't. She'd frequently do the silent treatment, withhold affection, even abandon me in the middle of nowhere and storm off. Then she started getting physical. Would hit me in the middle of the night. Constantly ridicule me for anything she could find. I thought that was her culture (from a land where gameshows are particularly cruel), but it went beyond the casual belittling in front of her friends. She started to get particularly violent, and harass, manipulate and abuse me at any opportunity. It descended into damaging my personal property, waking me up at all hours, especially when I had a new job or important meeting, and I went through 8 jobs in 7 years as a result. Finally after she permanently scarred my arm I managed to get the balls to turf her, but she still stalks and harasses me from time to time.

Police? No point getting them involved. I've been to the ‘victims room’ in court as a victim and turfed out, told it was for ‘women only’. Courts simply do not recognise the fact that men can be victims too. They're more concerned that a woman in the victims room will have a ‘trigger’ or ‘flashback’ from seeing a man than actually protecting a man who has had threats levelled against him if he shows up to a court hearing. Waste of time and a terrible injustice against men.

The third, was obvious from the start. Only a short relationship, but by this stage I could identify the traits from the start. She had a ‘history’ of tens if not hundreds of ex's that she told me about from the very beginning. All of them painted in a terrible light. Alarm bells. She was negative about every other person in her life and painted them in a terrible light when talking to me. Alarm bells. But for the first time, this got really serious. She repeatedly punched me while I was asleep. Yelled and screamed abuse at me. Then in the morning, was all sugar and roses. She'd talk about how much of a ‘victim’ she was while abusing the crap out of me. Would constantly demand I drop everything, friends, social life and charity work to see her instead, only to belittle me or use me as an emotional punching bag to offload her crap about how terrible her day was.

And the good news? Finally, I saw it. I saw it for what it was. And I called it. I called her on it. And she ran.

The lesson here for me, is recognise abuse in its early stage. And get the hell out. It's much easier to do.

There are horrible human beings out there, and some of them happen to be beautiful looking women. Don't do it. Don't do it to yourself. You deserve better and they'll end up horribly alone and lonely, whinging, abusing and projecting their negative image of men onto everyone they meet.

Don't do it.

Get out.

Now.

Brotherly love to all you guys going through this.