to download - Voice Male Magazine

Encouraging Men to Change
The Long Road Back from Abuse
By Rob Okun
• Voice Male
M
ake no mistake. There
is no excuse, ever,
for anyone—male
or female—to abuse
another human being.
It’s also true that most men don’t act
abusively. Still, too many men do, and
their behavior has a ripple effect—violence
in the home is directly connected
to violence in the world. That understanding
guides the work of a growing
number of men’s centers and initiatives
around the U.S. and the world, including
Voice Male’s publisher, the Men’s
Resource Center for Change (MRC).
It explains why this growing coalition
believes domestic abuse is a men’s issue,
a fathers’ issue, a coaches’ and teachers’
issue. Men have a lot to gain from taking
the issue on.
Every week in pockets around the U.S.,
programs like the MRC’s Moving Forward
run groups for men who’ve acted abusively.
These groups, often co-led by a
man and a woman, teach practical strategies
the men can employ as an alternative
to lashing out. Participants come mandated
by the court or “voluntarily”—some
of the latter have been urged to enroll by
an at-her-wits’-end partner, a therapist, a
relative or friend.
It is demanding work, and progress is
slow. How could it be otherwise—undoing
30 or 40 years of ingrained behaviors in 30
or 40 weeks? But the rewards are priceless.
I remember a man in one of the groups
I led I’ll call “Jimmy” who, besides being
emotionally abusive to his wife, was also
physically abusing his teenage son. One
night, in the group, Jimmy had a memory
come back to him, strong and clear.
“I was seven and a bigger kid would
terrorize me after school, choking me,”
he shared. “My dad used to pick me up
but usually he’d arrive after the bully had
left. I was too ashamed to tell him what
“My dad yelled to me—and I’ll never forget it—‘Push his
face in the ground. Make him eat dirt!’ That was what I was
taught. That’s why I think it’s okay to beat the crap out of my
son. Why did it take 37 years before I realized how screwed
up my thinking has been?”
was happening, afraid of what he’d say.
One day he came early and witnessed
the bully grabbing me around the neck.
When he let me go, instead of comforting
me, my father glared and said, ‘Go
back and hit him! Knock him down. Let
him have it!’ Even though he was bigger,
I was full of adrenaline and fear, so I
knocked the bully down and got on top
of him and whaled away. My dad yelled
to me—and I’ll never forget it—‘Push his
face in the ground. Make him eat dirt!’”
At that moment, Jimmy began to shake
and the tears came. All eyes in the group
were on him. When his sobbing had
subsided, he looked up and said, “That
was what I was taught. That’s why I
think it’s okay to beat the crap out of
my son.” And then he said quietly, “Why
did it take 37 years before I realized how
screwed up my thinking has been?”
Of the hundreds of men who have
come through our program, most do
stop their physical violence. Some come
to understand the damage their emotional
and verbal abuse causes and learn
to curb it. Sadly, some take little away
from the tool kit of strategies we offer.
Over the years, former members have
written us letters of appreciation. Some
have been ordered back or have voluntarily
returned to the program. In a few
instances, they have written stories for
Voice Male.
In the Spring 2005 issue, Jake Asbin,
a man serving a 12-month jail sentence
on a domestic assault and battery charge,
wrote remorsefully about abusing his
wife of 12 years and his “stupidity” in
throwing “away a comfortable…happy
lifestyle.” He asked: “How could I resort
to being violent instead of knowing how
to communicate my anger? How did I
allow my anger to consume me? Why
did I hurt the one person who mattered
so much to me?”
“I guess I’m seeking redemption,” he
continued. “I hope so—I have quite a
lot to atone for…I have learned and
appreciated the [Moving Forward group]
the most…I guess every man dreams of
a second chance. I hope I will get that
chance someday, when I finally forgive
myself. Until that happens, however, I
must always take full responsibility for
what I did.”
In November, hundreds of people who
work with men acting abusively in programs
around the United States and abroad
will convene in Detroit for a major batterers’
intervention conference. What they
have come to understand is that the road
back from abuse and toward accountability
is arduous, long and winding. But those
who have walked it for decades now know
that it’s a journey worth taking. VM
Rob Okun is executive director of the Men’s
Resource Center for Change and the editor
of Voice Male. A version of this column
originally appeared in the September issue
of The Women’s Times.
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