guidelines

SUBMISSION IDEAS

Have fun, be creative, and share your wisdom and experience. Remember that a relevant story can penetrate deeply into the listener's unconscious mind, providing immediate relief and long-term recovery.

Be sure to disguise the identity of all subjects to ensure their confidentiality.

Possible Starters:

My brother is unbelievable. His girlfriend cheats on him and he keeps going out with her....

I watched my mom yell at my dad my whole life. It was ugly. Why didn't he stand up...

I had a patient once who allowed his wife to make mincemeat out of him. It went like this...

My wife has spent us into bankruptcy. I want her to stop, but I just can't...

Focus:

Truthful, professional explorations of heterosexual relationships in which the man is the casualty of continued abuse and has chosen to stay in the relationship, for whatever reason, over an extended period of time. The abuse can be active (hitting), passive (lying, cheating), verbal (name calling), physical (hitting), or emotional (belittling). The important point is the man is the victim of the abuse. We feel these stories have gone largely untold.

Ideas and Samples:

The following are sketches of what your story may look like. Your actual story should be longer with more detail to clearly illustrate the relationship and the abuse that has taken place.

Story 1

Jimmy was a musician with a college degree in music. He traveled with a band. Good looking guy, too. His girlfriend, Katie, worked part-time as a waitress in a high-end restaurant. She got involved with the drinking behavior that was endemic to that industry and she kept late hours.

During his therapy sessions, it became apparent that Jimmy was unable to say "no" to Katie. Most sessions focused on his unhappiness with Katie. She was borderline alcoholic, verbally abusive, and had no direction in life. She borrowed Jimmy's credit card, charged excessively and Jimmy said nothing. Katie occasionally accused Jimmy of cheating, especially when she was drinking.

Finally, Jimmy worked up the courage to break up with Katie. When he delivered his decision to her, Katie threw a fit. A physical fight broke out. Jimmy managed to call 911. The police came and arrested Katie. Later, Jimmy's mother called to thank me for helping Jimmy to understand he was in an abusive relationship.

Story 2

They met in college. She was a part time student, he was full time. After a relatively brief courtship, they began living together. Shortly thereafter, she dropped out of college completely, but didn't tell him. He found out about it, but said nothing. She "borrowed" his credit card, bought things for herself on the Internet. He, of course, paid the bill, and said nothing. Eventually, he worked up the courage to confront her, but only after encouragement from family.

Story 3

They were friends in high school, became lovers in college, and got married during graduate school. She became a lawyer, he an accountant. Two kids, house in the suburbs. She moved up the ladder as general counsel for a university. The politics of the workplace changed her. She began to drink wine frequently. She was sarcastic and verbally abusive to him and neglectful of the children. Sex stopped. When he asked her to stop the verbal abuse, she scoffed. She continued to deny that her drinking affected her mood. A fight broke out. She hit him on the head with a dinner plate, necessitating an urgent care clinic visit and several stitches. No charges were filed. He stayed with her.

Story 4

It started out innocently as a internet date opportunity on an inexpensive service. No personality psychological testing, just a personal profile. We hit it off and started talking by phone for three weeks.

As a single dad, I thought three weeks would be enough time to screen a possible date. I had been very careful not to involve my precious eight year old daughter in any new dating situations.

The woman, I'll call her Mary, was humorous, engaging, flirty, intelligent and seemed to be available. She was a divorced nurse out of work on a partial work disability, so she had a lot of time on her hands. She also had financial means with big alimony, disability income, and a family trust.

My job situation was high profile in the community. I could not afford to be put in a bad light publicly. So, I thought she might be worth a blind date.

We met one Wednesday evening. She was attractive as advertised and seemed smitten with me. We had drinks and a light dinner but I had not planned anything more on purpose. Take it slow, be careful. We went outside to my car and she initiated some kissing. I had no plans to escalate this but she quickly began pulling her clothes off in the front seat like a teenager.

For some men, this might have seemed like a dream date. Hot blonde, first date, clawing at me to have sex after a brief time. But, after a devastating divorce, I wanted a relationship, not a casual hookup.

I stopped her. We made plans to have dinner at my place on that Saturday. I made a great meal which she told me she had no interest in eating. She dragged me into the bedroom and proceeded to show me a level of sexual responsiveness, vocalizing and stamina I had only read about in fiction. Dawn came very quickly and we were not done.

What began with sexual fireworks did not begin on the emotional level. I felt a personal emotional resistance but enjoyed her companionship. In time, she met my daughter and I met her two kids. I heard about how her husband had gone into a mental hospital as they were divorcing and wondered why.

She seemed perfectly normal except for her voracious sexual appetite.
Slowly, she began to insinuate herself into my home. She said it would relieve my work stress if I would do "craftsy" things to decorate. She showed me places where interesting items were available. She urged me to buy things to "feather my nest."

And, she kept showing up with things we had seen, which I liked, which she had bought for me. I didn't ask. She just did it. It started small but escalated to bigger art work items.

We were dating but it started to feel smothering. She left me a card which asked if we could make our arrangements permanent in two or 3 years. Huh? We had not even committed to loving each other yet!

My birthday arrived and she wanted to do something special - again - at a restaurant. She was going to get my daughter (also a blonde) ready for the party and meet me there. To my amazement, she showed up with my daughter in a new dress and French braided hair. Mary had the identical dress and her hair was French braided too. It was creepy, not sweet. My friends rolled their eyes and muttered to themselves too.

It began to go downhill fast. We bickered. When I asked for a weekend off, she called constantly. She told me we needed to take a trip to "just relax" but I said no.

Then, one night, about 2AM I heard a knock at my bedroom door. I asked if it was my daughter and heard a little voice say "yes." I opened the door and it was Mary standing in my house with her two little kids. She had gotten in - a copied key somehow - and wanted to "just be with me."

I put her kids into my bed and Mary on the fold out bed. She immediately began trying to have sex. I turned her down for obvious reasons.

The next day she told me she was pregnant. She had been to Planned Parenthood and wanted me to pay for the abortion. I hate abortion. Abortion is sick. But, she was determined to do it so I went the next week to the office in a state of deep and utter depression. Then the news as she walked out of the doctor's office: somehow, the pregnancy had self-terminated. I was relieved, horrified, and determined to end this mess.

After two weeks of increasing strife and arguing, then making up to be nice, then arguing, I was emotionally exhausted. Mind you, the sexual stuff was continuing and she became more and more exotic in her wants. Then she gave me the next news: she was having a hysterectomy due to continual problems and pain since the miscarriage. I was skeptical.

But she had the operation. And, to the least degree possible, I went to help her. She had nobody else to walk her in recovery. By nature, I am someone who wants to help people in need. But it was very difficult.

In a week, she was relatively recovered and making new demands on "us" being together. Even though she was just healed, she was at her seductive best. She showed up with X-rated videos and sex toys. She told me the reason we were fighting is because of my job stress and offered to pay for me to go - alone - to Canada on a ski trip.

I finally drew the line but she would not believe me. She cruised my house at all hours of the night. As I was leaving to go to a wedding, she drove up and confronted me on the sidewalk. We argued about why I did not invite her to go with me. She got physical in trying to stop me and ripped my favorite dress shirt. By the time we were done, it was too late to get to the wedding and I was in no mood.

That next Monday, I came home from work to discover she had robbed my house. She took everything we had "bought together" plus many of my own personal items. All the artsy items plus my skiing clothing plus an 80 pound potted ficus tree plus pictures, you name it.

I was livid. How did she get a copy of my key? I discovered one of my spare keys was missing! I called her and said I wanted ALL my stuff back. She laughed and said NO unless I would take her back. I was in no position to file a police report and she knew it. Then it got worse.

I told her we were done and that I did not want to ever see her again. I told her I was changing the locks and she calmly said "good." It was chilling.

In the interim, I had met a wonderful woman and we had been on one date. She came over Saturday morning and we were leaving to go shopping. Mary roared up in her car and, again on the sidewalk, confronted us. She started calling this new girl obscene names and got very threatening. The neighbors came out to see the show. Mary eventually left but it was awful.

On Monday, I instructed my secretary not to put Mary through to me. Mary called constantly. After days of this, she began calling other numbers in the company, feigning a wrong number, and having them put her through to me by transfer. The harassment became mortifying.

Then it got even worse. It seems when she was at my house, she had stolen my personal finance records. She began calling reporters, shopping the records and claims of threatening physical behavior by me against her. When that did not work, she started dating (who know how?) managers IN THE COMPANY and telling her tales to them.

In a month the calls and harassment seemed to stop. I was working at an offsite location by then so she could not find me. But, one day, I was looking out the window of the top floor and who should I see on the sidewalk? Yep. Mary, pushing a baby carriage around the block outside my work location. The same Mary who had a hysterectomy. Day after day, she walked around the building. For weeks.

I never confronted her. Nobody else knew who she was so they ignored her.

But the new girlfriend soon became my wife. What were we forced to do? We obtained a confidential marriage license. We held a quiet, small ceremony. We moved from my house to an undisclosed location. And I looked over my shoulder for months and months.

Maybe I am not conveying the sense of oppression and emotional turmoil I went through. She used hyper-sexuality as a trap. She may have invented her physical problems as a trap too. She got increasingly over-emotional and swung back to increasingly expensive "gift giving" to make up for the increasingly bad behavior. She launched into a vendetta at the end, knowing I was vulnerable. She stalked me with a lot of persistence.

After 10 years, I still dread the moment when I will run into her.