For men experiencing domestic abuse, social perceptions and the lack of specialist support can make it harder to get the help they need.
Survivor Darryl writes about his experience, and the need for more services to recognise and understand how to support men going through what he did.
I’m 6ft3. For half of my fourteen-year relationship, I was being beaten, spat at, called every name imaginable, and starved of contact with everyone who loved me.
People struggle to picture that. A man my size, on the receiving end. Add that I’m gay, and the picture gets even harder for people to hold – because where does a gay man go when the person hurting him is the one person who’s supposed to understand him best?
I wasn’t allowed to travel for work without a fight. I was stopped from seeing friends until I had none left. Even my own family were turned against me. Silences could last six weeks. I ate whatever was piled onto my plate – or it was thrown at me – until I reached 22 stone, disappearing inside my own body the way I’d already disappeared from everyone else’s life.
Here’s the part that’s specific to being gay: when you’re isolated from your straight friends and your family, the community you’d hope to turn to is often the same community you share with your abuser. Same friendship groups. Same spaces. Leaving doesn’t just mean leaving a relationship – it can mean leaving your entire social existence.
By the time I finally left, I had nothing left that was recognisably mine – not my confidence, not my health, not my sense of what I was worth. That’s what coercive control does. It doesn’t leave marks people can see, but it leaves you a stranger to yourself.
I didn’t tell anyone the full story until sixteen years later, through a workplace counselling service. I am one of the fortunate ones because I had somewhere to finally say it out loud.
Typical domestic abuse services are still largely built around a template: a female victim, a male perpetrator, a heterosexual relationship. Where LGBTQ+ abuse is discussed at all, it’s usually framed as a hate crime – a stranger in the street. What gets missed entirely is exactly what happened to me. Coercive control, financial entrapment, and isolation within a same-sex relationship, where the perpetrator isn’t a stranger and the victim isn’t a woman.
I’d like to see specialist LGBTQ+-inclusive training built into mainstream domestic abuse services – not a separate, siloed offer that’s easy to overlook. All services must be equipped to recognise and respond when a gay or bisexual man discloses abuse, without defaulting to disbelief or a script that doesn’t fit.
Getting the response right for men like me also means training within policing, probation and health services, so that wherever a man reaches out to they’re met with an open door and a path to getting help.
I don’t have a neat ending for you. The impact doesn’t disappear, but it slowly evaporates, a little more each year. Naming it, finally, out loud, is what let that evaporation begin for me.
If you’re a man reading this and something in it sounds familiar, you are not alone. There is somewhere to start. Please ask for help. It’s there.
If Darryl’s experience resonated with you and you need help, you can contact the following specialist organisations:
- The National LGBT Domestic Abuse helpline (run by Galop)
- The Men’s Advice Line (run by Respect)
- The ManKind Initiative
For details of other support organisations, visit our help page.