The following are stories of domestic violence against men as told by real victims.

A Battered Man's Story

I'm your basic middle class male who was raised to respect women and never hit them. I consider myself a good provider and who has had some success after my hard work has paid off with my authoring 2 best selling books and having sold a self-started company. I work hard and am a decent man. I am also one of those in total disbelief this would ever happen to me.

I hate the term battered man, I'm a DV survivor. And I can say the system (judicial, police, legal, local and state government agencies) does virtually nothing to help a man survive when they're on the receiving end of a female sociopath's attacks. In fact, the system has, in some ways, injured me more than my ex wife ever could.

My wife slapped me hard after I said no to her wanting to get donor sperm in order to get pregnant. Keep in mind her fertility doctor said there were NO physical problems with either of us to prevent her from getting pregnant. Keep in mind we'd only been trying for 4 months, but she felt entitled and was willing to beat anyone down who got in the way.

After I confronted her about her having no right to lay a hand on me and my fear of what she would do to our future children, she replied, "if you're going to get your tiny feelings in a bunch over a little slap, you need to keep going to therapy TO WORK ON YOUR PROBLEMS."

I packed and left immediately. Ironically, the day she slapped me for not allowing her to become pregnant using other men's sperm, was Mother's Day.

 I later intercepted a written letter where my wife agreed with her friend's idea to "have a child and then dump me". The letter also detailed how to catch my sperm in a condom for insemination without my knowledge.  

When I confronted her with the note, she just shrugged like, "there's nothing you can do about it, pal." I keep the letter to remind me why I'm divorcing my wife.

Later, my wife body slammed my 67 year old, 4'11" mother into a mirrored closet door bruising my mother's knee. Subsequent x-rays revealed my mom also suffered a nearly fractured finger as my wife ripped my mom's camera from her hands. We were taking pictures at my house to prevent my wife from destroying more of my personal property. Is this how your mother should be treated by your wife?

As we both left my own house being pushed, shoved, and attacked, my father in law arrived and started to push and goad me into punching him.

We left without touching anyone and called the police when we were safe in my car. The police arrived and did not call an ambulance for my mom, did not recommend any of the numerous government and legal resources available ( i.e. restraining orders, etc) and downgraded the event to a "property dispute."

Further, the police threatened me by saying, "if you return, sir, we will arrest you for trespassing." Keep in mind, this is my own house where I'm on the deed. Four counts of assault and battery/DV with pictures, doctor's reports, and witnesses, but no arrests or convictions.

Do you think there's a problem with the system if you're male and subject to domestic violence from your wife?

No? - Imagine if the situation was reversed: the husband slapped his healthy wife for not having a child after 4 months of trying, shrugged off a written letter found by his wife where the husband agreed with his buddy about dumping his wife after tricking her to get pregnant, beat his wife's mother badly enough to require x-rays, and called his father to assault his young wife on the front lawn for the neighborhood to see.

Do you really believe the police and the courts would have treated that case in the same way?

Not a chance. The husband and his father would be in jail while paying for damages, and the wife and mother would be celebrated as domestic violence survivors on Oprah.

If you're like me, who's trying to protect your rights and your family by blood from a crazy wife, and an even crazier system, take heart. You are not alone.

Tell your story, and do what you can to take care of what's important. Things will change.

P.S. To those that may not believe me, I can understand. You probably haven't experienced anything like this in your life. I probably wouldn't have believed it fully until I heard my mother scream in pain from my wife's attacks, saw the hard evidence of pictures and medical reports, and felt the pain in my gut of doing the right thing by asking the system for help, and having the system turn right around and try to prosecute the innocent victims for crimes they did not commit.

It does happen, and the system does not work.

Richard's Story

Although the following story took place in Canada, it could have happened anywhere.

Let's call him Len. In October, 1996, Len is charged with assault with a weapon against his wife, accused of striking her in the face and stabbing her hand with a pen. In court, charges are withdrawn in exchange for a peace bond.

Three months later, Len is again charged with assaulting his spouse. Those charges are dropped in exchange for Len pleading guilty to uttering threats against his teenage daughter in the same incident. He receives 18 months probation and is ordered to stay away from the family.

Two months later, Len is charged with breaching his probation for failing to stay away from his spouse and daughters, and receives concurrent probation, meaning the existing sentence serves as punishment.

Clearly there is a pattern of domestic violence. One can imagine a judge admonishing Len that if he "goes near this woman or if she so much as catches a glimpse of you, I will put you in jail for such a long time you will forget what she looks like."

That was precisely how one judge had addressed a Hamilton man in a different case last January, before slapping him with a 90-day jail term and three years probation.

Yet Len is free to go where he pleases these days. Three charges against him for breaching probation have not been prosecuted. The Hamilton Crown attorney's office explains the move by saying there was a poor chance for conviction.

Police further decide that allegations Len is harassing his spouse and claims of physical and verbal abuse against two of their children lack sufficient evidence to press charges. They point to a myriad of allegations in the dispute from all sides of the family and a pattern of charges and countercharges between Len and his spouse.

Now consider this: Len's real name is Lana. The spouse's name is Richard. Instantly, we've gone from a standard wife-as-victim case to husband-as-victim case, suitable subject matter for Oprah.

"It's all been swept under the rug, for no other reason I can see than I'm a man and she's a woman."

That's the view of Richard Nattress, 49, a former corporate vice-president with National Trust and small business owner who feels the justice system discriminates against men who claim abuse and harassment at the hands of their wives and who says his life has been destroyed because of it.

Proof of the bias, he says, is what he feels is a muted reaction by police and courts to his pleas for help when he accused his wife of slapping and scratching him, stalking him while she was on parole and driving her car at him while he was jogging.

Lana Nattress is his ex-wife and Richard Nattress has mounted a tireless campaign to have her thrown in jail, reap several million dollars in financial compensation for alleged lost employment and publicize his belief that the system hurts men.

This includes lobbying police and the Crown attorney to have the charges against his ex-wife revived and preparing a civil lawsuit against the Hamilton-Wentworth police service.

Nattress became a minority the second he called police about Lana in 1996. That call led Halton police to charge her with slapping him and stabbing his hand with pen. The charges were later withdrawn in exchange for a peace bond.

On Jan. 26, 1997, Richard Nattress called police again, claiming he had been assaulted by his wife, who was still living in their Stoney Creek home.

In an official complaint filed with Hamilton-Wentworth police, Nattress says an officer showed up, remarked that Lana was out of control and promptly left.

Nattress and his children left the house for his mother's apartment and phoned police again. Several hours later, Lana was charged with threatening, assault and assault with a weapon, for allegedly attacking her husband with a set of keys, slapping him and scratching his face with her fingernails.

"I told (police) this is unacceptable," Nattress says. "If a woman had called to complain, they wouldn't sit around and interview her, they would pick up the guy who did it."

His daughter Jessica says police officers were laughing at Lana's behavior: "They're like, 'Wow, she's crazy.'"

The charges were dropped in court when Lana pleaded guilty to another charge of threatening another daughter in the same incident. Lana received a suspended sentence and was placed on probation.

Two of Nattress' three daughters, Katie and Jessica, now 19 and 22 years old, were interviewed for this story. The third daughter did not respond to a request for an interview.

Jessica went to the police in person last summer to charge her mother with breaching probation and harassment, claiming Lana had shown up at her workplace and at a community festival where she was working.

She says an officer told her there were no grounds for action, so she didn't pursue the matter.

Nattress' two daughters, his mother and his girlfriend believe he is a blameless victim.

Or is he obsessive and annoying? That's how some may view the man who has spoken to anyone who will or will not listen, yelled at them, written letters and filed official complaints against police.

The bottom line is that Nattress believes the system is unbalanced. And most everyone in the system agrees with him.

According to Statistics, 89 per cent of spousal assaults reported to police were against women.

"There's a male code that you don't report your wife or girlfriend for assault because you'll look like a wimp," says Dan Beckett, family violence coordinator for the John Howard Society of Waterloo-Wellington. These statistics help account for a commonly held belief that domestic violence against men is extremely rare. But other research belies such certainty.

A 1996 computer-assisted, self-interviewing study in the United Kingdom showed equal percentages of women and men had been physically assaulted by a current or former partner the previous year.

It's common sense that for the most part, women are more likely to be injured in a domestic fight with men.

But some studies show that women are also more likely to use a weapon in a domestic fight.

"Obviously not all cases involve women using a weapon," says Iain Murray, a senior analyst with the Washington-based statistical assessment service. "But then, not all cases involve stronger men. A lot of men out there are weaker than their partners."

However, the prevailing societal belief is that women are overwhelmingly the lone victims in domestic violence and this drives government policy, police and the courts.

Richard Nattress has filed complaints against police for how they have handled his case. Those complaints represent the basis of a civil lawsuit he plans to file against the Hamilton-Wentworth force.

Police spokesperson Dennis Waddell declined comment, citing confidentiality of public complaints.

Lana Nattress, when asked about allegations of mistreating her daughters, replied sarcastically: "Yes, I was the only disciplinarian in the house."

She declined further comment, directing questions to Frank Lanza, her lawyer. Lanza says Richard Nattress was treated fairly and says he hopes the charges and countercharges between the couple are now finished.

Karen Shea, a Hamilton-Wentworth assistant Crown attorney who has dealt with Nattress, believes he received fair treatment and that significant resources from police and the Crown's office were spent on his case.

In her work on the Crown's domestic initiative team, which evolved in October, 1997, Shea says she has screened cases in which men claim abuse only to get charges laid in retaliation for having been charged themselves.

But if Richard Nattress' allegations are true, police treated the case with less seriousness than a wife-assault case.

Given Ontario's current policy on domestic assault, it would be difficult to fault police for holding such a bias when responding to a call.

For the last five years, police in Canada have followed a provincial policy on domestic violence called Police Response To Wife Assault. In the 19-page document, there is no mention of assault against a husband and only a brief mention of child and elder abuse.

This is destined to change,  according to the solicitor-general's ministry in Canada. A spokesperson says a new policy that will include men is in the early stages. It will be called the Domestic Occurrence Standard and will feature specific protocols on handling violent situations involving women, men, children, the elderly and same-sex couples.

The policy should be in effect by January, 2001.

But for now, the province says police "shall lay charges in all incidents of wife assault where there are reasonable grounds to do so." This differs from the federal Criminal Code, which appears more discretionary. It says police "may" lay charges in these incidents, not "shall."

Shea, the assistant crown attorney, admits there is a difference in the way the legal system treats domestic abuse against men and women.

"Let's face it, women are coming from a different perspective as far as the judges are concerned," she says.

"Abuse and control issues seem to concern the judges on sentencing men charged with domestic violence. You don't normally see women in a power imbalance being the ones in power. Yes, there is a difference, because historically women have not been the ones empowered. So there has to be a difference." This is essentially where the issue of gender bias in domestic violence sits today. Most within the system agree it is biased and believe it is justified.