Unmanly hurt

HE LOVED HER once. She was a nice person, caring and sensitive.

True, she was often hot-tempered during their four-year courtship, but he believed her vow to curb her anger after they wed, eight years ago.

She bent that promise until it cracked in two.

"There's a very mean part of her, especially when she's been drinking," says Michael, 53, who lives in the western suburbs. "Over the years, it only got worse."

Michael asked that I not use his last name; he's in the midst of divorce and fears backlash from his wife. But he's eager to tell the world that spousal abuse isn't perpetrated only by brutish men on vulnerable women.

"Not every abuser is a Ray Rice," Michael told me, after reading last week's stories about the disgraced former NFL running back who was suspended from the league for slugging his wife. "It can go the other way."

Michael's marriage fell apart by degrees.

First, his wife refused to work, yet ran up their credit cards. Then she refused to help with household responsibilities like shopping, cooking and cleaning. Eventually, she insisted that their assets - the house, car, investments - be put in her name only; she was so nasty about it that Michael agreed, to stop the tirades.

Michael describes himself as easygoing, and says he might have been willing, for the sake of peace, to live with the lopsidedness of power in their marriage. But it escalated to violence.

She'd smash his glasses - while they were on his face - when she was angry at him. She bashed a heavy Christmas ornament over his head, cutting him badly. She threw things at him, hit him, kicked him, belittled him, blocked him from leaving the house when he tried to avoid the confrontations she was itching to have.

The neighbors got used to calling 9-1-1.

"The cops were at our house 17 times in five years," Michael says. "I never pressed charges because I couldn't afford the legal costs" that would result from his wife's arrest.

He took to sleeping in his car - 22 times over two years - to avoid her wrath. One night, he said, a patrol officer rapped on the car window to ask what was up.

"I pointed to my house and said, 'I live there.' He said, 'Say no more; sleep well.' "

Finally, after a particularly cruel attack, it dawned on Michael that she would never change. He realized he still had good years in front of him but only if he got away from the person who had made the ones behind him such a nightmare.

First, though, Michael had to accept the fact that he had been abused. The notion humiliated him.

"I'm 6-foot-1. My wife is 5-foot-4. What kind of man gets abused by a woman - especially a woman so much smaller?" he asks. "She could hit me all she wanted. But if I were ever to raise a hand to defend myself, she could call the police and I'd be locked up. The police would never believe that I was the victim. It's a double-standard. But no man will ever talk about it."

That's why there is such under-reporting about men being domestic punching bags, says Azucena Ugarte, director of education at Philly's nonprofit Women Against Abuse.

"Men feel ashamed to say that their female partner is abusing them. The men we've spoken with say that, when they told people around them that they were being abused, they were laughed at," Ugarte says. "Many people don't realize that a woman can be as abusive on the physical part."

And there's a difference between being in a bad relationship - where, say, a couple fights viciously but equally - and an abusive one, where one party exerts all the control.

"It's the imbalance of power that makes a bad relationship abusive," says Ugarte.

And we may be living in the 21st century, but myths about gender persist: that women lash out only to defend themselves and that men can easily leave a violent relationship. The double-standards hurt both genders.

"The stereotypes are a setup," says Ugarte. "Abuse is abuse, no matter who is being abused."

Although most of the clients counseled each year by Women Against Abuse are women in heterosexual relationships, the nonprofit offers services to anyone being hurt - male, female, straight or LGBT.

Tragically, in Philly as elsewhere, the need is great. Last year, Women Against Abuse was unable to offer emergency shelter to 12,000 clients seeking help, since the city has just 200 beds for emergency escape. And there are few, if any respites, for men in need.

When they fear sleeping in their own beds, the abused deserve a better alternative than sleeping in their own cars.

Wanna help end the heartache? Go to womenagainstabuse.org and click on "take action." Because this tragedy needs to end.

Phone: 215-854-2217

On Twitter: @RonniePhilly

Blog: ph.ly/RonnieBlog

Columns: ph.ly/Ronnie