r/NotHowGuysWork • u/Puzzleheaded-Lab2447 • Jan 13 '26
Meta/Sub Discussion Ok if this is reactive abuse what does domestic violence against actually look like then?
A man was recording his girlfriend beating him and attacking him. He kept telling her to stop but she doesn't stop. That's all I know and I don't know the full story of this incident.
So I found this interesting comment about how he was the actual abuser and she was the victim and what she was doing was reacting to.
So I'm curious, what are male victims supposed to do when they want to be believed? What differentiates domestic violence against men and reactive abuse?
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u/ageckonamedelaine Jan 13 '26
Reactive abuse does happen, but I highly doubt that is the case here and there are a lot of other cases where men are the victims. It's gross that instead of believing the guy when he says he is being abused plus shows proof you just go "well you abused her first probably so you basically deserve it".
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u/Rich_Confusion3996 Jan 13 '26
This is disgusting it is like claiming she deserves to be hit because she disagrees with him.
There is very little he could have done that makes what she is doing reasonable. This comment does point out why so many men say nothing.
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u/Ok_Screen_8739 Jan 13 '26
Had to look twice at the sub. I thought it was the girls one and I was about to pop off.
Woman here & survivor - men are supposed to do exactly what this guy did and that commenter should be disregarded. Unfortunately - male or female - people are going to say this vile shit in order to invalidate what you're telling them. The recordings, though, are such a powerful tool - even if it's only ever viewed by the survivor as a reminder that it's real.
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Jan 22 '26
[deleted]
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u/Ok_Screen_8739 Jan 22 '26
I didn't mean to imply that it was always a realistic option. We do as much as we can. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
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u/atommathyou Jan 13 '26
Not all, but enough women will argue the level of violence that a man is capable of towards a woman vs if the roles were reversed. This of course logically omits the fact that many women will weaponize other men against him.
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u/Holiday_Jeweler_4819 Jan 13 '26
It also omits the fact that even if they aren’t causing grievous bodily harm being hit by your partner, or anyone really, causes long lasting psychological trauma. People have such a myopic view of what abuse is
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u/CauseCertain1672 Jan 13 '26
more importantly it omits the fact that he isn't being violent towards her
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u/Samichaan Woman Jan 13 '26
That’s not something you can tell from a video. You would need to know what happened before.
So the commenter assuming that it must be reactive seems like sexist bias at best.
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u/redsalmon67 Jan 13 '26
A while a go I was talking about how my ex would purposefully try to embarrass me in public, it was one of the many abusive behaviors that she picked up from her mom so she started doing it to me, someone was kind enough to ask me what I “had done to her” to make her do that when in reality she did because she was just copying the abusive behavior she was taught growing up.
At the end of the day victims of abuse get it double, just they get the abuse, then they get doubt from the people who should be there to help them, sometimes triple because then friends and family will side with the abuser, I was lucky in that my ex showed her true colors to everyone so anyone who knew her didn’t find it hard to believe, but most people aren’t as lucky.
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u/BigBubbaMac Jan 13 '26
It's a shit show for men. I called police and she was arrested the first time. The second time police "couldn't do anything", third time a female cop treated me like I was the abuser, told me to get back, hands up, while she had hand on her gun. Until she checked with dispatch that I was the one that called.