Melbourne ~ Australia
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Sitting across from me are Bill and his wife Liz. Romantically, they hang off each other, but there is too much nervy stuff around and it feels like the calm before the storm. He is an amiable, easy going man, and one could picture him doing lots of favours for people, as long as it was not for his wife. At the pub he would be the well-loved local identity, full of wit and full of boring woe when drunk. What this young woman is doing with this man is not so clear. I figure she is a bit too much in love with love for her own good. But I imagine she would call a spade a spade if pressed, if the basis of her unqualified adoration of him was ever threatened, which it had been recently and was why they were here. They were here because the day before, when he was charged up with too much beer, he had tried to strangle his wife. And it was not the first time for these two, when 'Mr Nice Guy', the man whom they describe down at the building site and the pub as 'you couldn't get a kinder or nicer man', turned moronic and violent behind the closed doors of number ten, Life Street, Ozland.The object of this chapter is to offer a few reflections about domestic violence in order to elucidate those issues which arise in counselling those involved. The principal focus is physical violence which is perpetrated by men on women, children, family pets, personal momentos and other loved objects. A few words of bias first, from a counsellor/writer who writes this as much against himself as against the perpetrators. I view any difference between the rapist and me or the Bills of the world and me, to be marginal. To think there is a category of men who are violent in domestic relationships and therefore different in some way from other men is a distortion of the reality of male culture. For a male counsellor, if he should find this statement troublesome, then I would recommend he refrain from counselling violent men for he will do himself and his client injury. There are too many collective features of male anger which cannot immune an individual man from being affected by them. The actions of Bill are merely a more obvious reflection of a general male malaise wherein a dearth of co-operative and generative personal and masculine affections is camouflaged by an impelling array of seduction protocols and coercive power, all of which constitutes the notion of fraudulent virility.Fraudulent virility is defined here as the shadow side of 'Mr Nice Guy' in public, who in private and perhaps paradoxically, in the security of his relationship with his wife and children (in their forgivingness and powerlessness), lets loose his brutal and tyrannous nature through intimidation and violence. His lofty sentiments of love, hope and charity, delivered from whatever pulpit in his life - office desk, service club or football social club - ring hollow in his private relationships wherein the clenched fist, the erect penis and his control of money become the real assertions of his power. It is not so much a question of repudiating 'the shadow' - that makes us human - but rather it is the outstanding manner in which many men refuse to take responsibility for its integration which is at stake here. It is as if the awkward, shadowy, brutal feelings of men align with what they fear most in women - their feelings and challenge - and thus the attempted destruction of their shadow is sought in the destruction of their women.There are three major aspects to my notion of fraudulent virility. First, there are the seduction protocols of men. They are extraordinarily resilient. A seduction protocol is that which moves a man to sell himself on the basis of an appeal to something that he is not. This is not an unusual demise - our political and advertising institutions, mainly controlled by male culture, are not adverse to selling a pen by calling it a rocket. Why men find it so necessary to play 'Mr Nice Guy' must also point to a deficit in self-worth and self-articulation. I am tempted to say here that en masse men suffer from a deprivation of psychic stimulation. Whenever I hear a parent reward a boy for his ability to occupy himself or play alone I squirm, for as Gidet said, 'you can do most things in solitude, except develop your character'. Anything goes in seduction protocols - even a man's personal tragedy can become an asset, used to entice a woman's maternal sympathy and used to crank up the guilt many women collectively feel about having born those sons of the world who, despite all the best care and advice the woman could offer, turned into denigrators of women. No victim of domestic violence I have met would say they would willingly enter a violent relationship if they knew about the violence from the beginning. And so women talk about men and their true colours, colours which emerged after marriage, hitherto hidden behind the front of their seduction protocols.The second aspect is coercive power. A virility which needs coercive power to express itself is fraudulent. Central to coercive power there is a myth and a lie. The myth is the bully-as-hero spawned in every schoolyard and reinforced perpetually by images on television and the sportsground. The lie is found in the dependency needs of men. These needs are a problem to some men and rather than admit them and own their dependency needs in their relationship, they will insist on their ownership of the woman, imprison her so that she remains there for him, so he can continue his illusion of his independence and self-reliance.The third aspect is intimidatory behaviour and physical violence to women and children, which represents an actual attempt at the eradication of the woman's feeling centre, since her feelings (and his, of course) pose the greatest threat to untempered egotistical control and his patriarchal ideologies.This notion of fraudulent virility along with a critique of the oppressive aspects of patriarchal ideologies is the 'blood and bone' of my counselling strategies. The drop-out rate is quite high, for many men come to find ways of improving the 'school report' of their marriage, when really it is not what they do that concerns me, but who they are. And I am now also drawn to a certain directness in counselling - calling a spade a spade - for some violent men are extraordinarily prudish and cover up their brutal ways with a layer of sentimentality. I find this especially so in respect to sexual matters, where their presumptuous attitudes around conjugal rights need to be reinterpreted into unfeeling sexual exploitation of the woman's body. The pornographic mind needs to be exposed for what it is.If men want to work on their violence I now warn them about the journey that needs to be undertaken - I outline it quite clearly and name the areas in which there will be a serious challenge to their views, attitudes and feelings.While domestic violence per se is unacceptable, there is also a danger in stopping too short in our approach to it. The victims of domestic violence - usually women and children - are not only hurt physically, but in the deepest way betrayed. Not only do victims grow in their resentment toward men, but as well, on a generation by generation basis, children are born as if tainted by violence, persecution and fear. Among all the people I have met in counselling who either as children were violated physically or witnessed their mother being bashed, only the smallest minority did not spend the first twenty years or more of their adult life recovering from their childhood.A further point here about the global features of domestic violence is this: it is almost a commonplace now to state that women and children are probably safer on the street than in their own homes. From an 'assault' point of view this is probably true, but there is nothing to persuade me that the same strategies of seduction and coercive power as used by men against women do not infiltrate our everyday community organisations and facilities and no reason why these similar strategies are not embedded in the heads of some male counsellors. As I wish to make clear, physical violence in domestic relationships should be considered as only the expression of one part of the spectrum of coercive powers used by men. Other expressions include financial, emotional, the power of the dominance of words and so forth.Are there class differences among men in terms of which sort of expression is dominant? In my general counselling practice most of the physically violent men I see are working-class - or unemployed-class, and further, these same men will exhibit a range of other entrenched problems - alcoholism or heavy drinking, debt, a history of their own childhood abuse and a solid view about their ownership of women, and they might even acknowledge the peer support they get at the pub for 'giving her one under the ear'. With these men too it is obvious that the conspiratorial forces of their patriarchal ideologies are blatant and it behoves the counsellor to well know his footing before entering the fray of change!Overall, however, I have sat in enough case conferences to suspect that working-class men tend to 'carry the can' for the remainder of the male culture - that their physical violence is merely less well-hidden. It might also be true to say that other conditions in their lives - the alienating aspects of their workplaces, unemployment, poverty, childhood psychological deprivations and so forth - all tend to give desperation an edge which contributes to the ejaculation of their anger and coercive desires. In the following section there is a list of grievances by women against men, and interestingly enough this list, the fetid waters from which male coercion arises, knows no class boundaries. Tagging working-class men as being the main offenders of physical domestic violence may be another instance of male violence against men which immunes the male culture en masse from having to change.My first interview with Bill and Liz offers me a chance to touch their respective backgrounds. But my first responsibility is her safety, and so I need to know what happened in relation to the violence. This is tricky for two reasons - I do not want to overly pathologise or give too much emphasis to the violence - his remorse, if he has any, may further shatter his ego strengths and make him more vulnerable to the raw instincts, and she may not want to re-live an already horrendous experience. Second, the facts of the violence may press him to further violence because now he has been found out. If they have both willingly sought counselling, I will find out the facts with both present, maybe. If she has come willingly and he was dragged, I will separate the couple to find out what happened. (If in doubt, separate.)With her safety in mind, I want to know about the nature of the violence for I believe there are different dynamics at work in the nature of physical violence itself. As a very loose categorisation, there seem to be men who will violate the woman's body but not her face, men who will violate the total body and men who violate the mouth or neck, in order it seems to stop her talking or breathing. While all this might seem disgustingly clinical and morbid, it seems to me male 'domestic' violence must be laid bare and truly understood if we are to prevent further disaster. Confronted with the safety of women and children, predictions about behaviour are critical. Furthermore, I find many women are socially censored after being bashed by her husband. Why didn't you call the police they ask? Why didn't you get out? Why did you go back? All this is unhelpful unless one truly understands the dynamics involved.The man who assaults the woman's body but not her face strikes me as being the most difficult customer to deal with, and who will signify a high level of imbalance. Usually he is the man from whom the woman finds it most difficult to escape. This man harbours an outstanding, but covert, rage towards his own mother and typically became his mother's de facto husband.This is exemplified in the son becoming his mother's confidant (sometimes about her husband) and certainly there is a family system where loyalty between mother and son seems to have a greater place than that with her husband. The son becomes bound to her and she to him, in a powerfully psychological way. I want to quickly assert here that this is not another mother-blaming notion. It may be that due to the father's own fraudulent virility, the mother (his wife) is left isolated and seeks the company and support from her son. The closeness may be hazardous. Instead of being pushed out into the world to find his goddess elsewhere, he finds it in her and a process of dependency, divination and adoration sets in, but so too might a whole gamut of angry feelings around his thwarted autonomy.The adoration of the face (the divine woman personified in his mother) just does not sit squarely with these outrageous and irrational feelings. The rage within the son is thus later transferred to his wife, and he must destroy that which has always given him so much trouble - her power in just being a woman. In never being allowed to be an innocent son, his loss of autonomy and the anger over the loss, is projected on to his wife. So impelling is this projection - divine adoration mixed with rage - that the woman can be frozen into a drama from which she cannot escape. If I were seeing such a couple, I would urge immediate separation.Violence and jealousy should be mentioned here since it is part of the same dynamic. The divination of a woman by a man, gets him into the same pickle - her real body and her real life and her real needs are at odds with his idolatry. Divine women do not talk to other men, have no previous sexual relations and do not, in a word, exist. Thus the more the woman wants to be 'real', so he must violently intercede lest she becomes a whore and thus smash his divine concept of her. Or he will manufacture her whorishness with a most detailed video-fantasy of her (fictional) sexual exploits, which will justify (to him) his violent rebuke of her.The second category of violence - against the total body, is I think a rage against the feeling centre of women. Feelings constitute challenge, feeling women who challenge (the man's prerogatives, abuse, silence, etc.) will therefore constitute a threat to his power and control. Of course the violence is really between his controlling mind and his own feelings. In the broad spectrum of male culture, the powerful ego is rewarded and socially reinforced over and above the man's feeling life. Some men disagree with me here by saying that their various interests in music and art and nature gives testament to their feeling life. What I say is that there is a lot of difference between sentiment and true feelings.The ruination of the feeling centre of women through domestic violence of course has a powerful context - one cannot separate pornography and prostitution from the same sweep of violation against feeling. The sexual objectification of women really belongs in the same boat as does racism, and often when examining violence in marriage, one does find that the couple do watch their 'blue movies' before going to bed and they both wonder why he hits her the next day. As well, women's weight may enter here too - while women must be free to be the size they want to be - the violation against the feelings of women by men must bring her to at least one outstanding conclusion: small is not safe.Violence against the total body is no less serious than the first, but the outbreaks may differ in their constancy or intermittence. Most certainly, though, it will be cyclical. To warn women about the cyclical nature is sometimes hellishly difficult. He appeases, blames 'the booze', apologises, puts on his small helpless boy look, cries and crawls, and so they stay together.Of course, other matters come in here - economic dependence, nowhere to go, keeping the family together for the sake of the children, and her safety, should she leave. In the final analysis, it seems he is absolutely and unconditionally committed to personal change in a most profound and significant way - ideologically and psychologically - and to actually do something about it, she must be advised that the violence is most unlikely to cease.Bill wanted to change and they chose to stay together, but against my better judgement. In this I then soundly recommended various anger management strategies. If he drinks, he does not go home. If he begins to ejaculate anger, he leaves and if he does not leave, she does, and so forth. Anger management has its place, but it does feel like putting up a tent in the face of a gale.Bill and Liz want to stay with counselling - they are reasonably well aware as people, have a certain degree of personal insight, some psychological language, and he has agreed to embrace a solid confrontation to his various ideological views about women and to look at himself. The marriage is thus put under the microscope next. I am not convinced they (he) will like what they will see, but we advance.Bill and Liz reported a very happy two years before marriage. Gradually, Liz reported, they slowly ceased to share their feelings together and became trapped in a conspiracy of silence and separateness and she found herself sitting on a volcano of denied feeling and playing the appeasing wife role. Meanwhile Bill played 'nice guy' at the pub more and more. Bit by bit, though, the hole in the door became a kick in the dog's guts which became a foot on her throat.The following harrowing list of complaints, derived from many 'Lizs' of the world, is given here as a way of exposing dilemmas in such a relationship. If you like, a view of the shortcomings of her Bill. Domestic violence is usually about control and power, but so sweeping are these terms this list might help to tease out the 'nitty-gritty' issues. Two words of warning here - this grievance list is a focus on men in relationship and men will most certainly have theirs - as Bill put it, she won't let me put my junk on her kitchen bench, but she feels free to put her junk in my shed! Secondly, in terms of counselling a couple wherein violence exists, I would not necessarily raise these (her) grievances with both present unless I was very sure he could cope with it. If the counsellor misjudges here - these grievances could constitute a further reason why he should 'wallop' her, because the grievances might suggest she has rights! (When in doubt, separate the couple.)The grievances:Men usually react to the above list of issues with confusion. After all, if these complaints were not complaints but descriptions of how men should behave in marriage, some men would say that that is what they thought was expected of them. And outside marriage, many men would acknowledge that such behaviours were actively reinforced in their workplaces, sports and service clubs and so forth.In their confusion, men who are willing to listen to these complaints will then want to know what they can do, when really what is at issue is who they are and what they represent. And their anger, one supposes, is a reaction to the exposure of their fraudulent virility - for their behaviour in the marriage cannot be truly said to be about justice, equality and mutuality. The pain of fraudulent virility is the pain of emptiness, depression, and childhood deprivation in psychic stimulation.Bill and Liz, in counselling, moved their way through their grievance list. However, there is a great difference between a man embracing a grievance as opposed to actually changing in the depths of his soul. I remember Bill called one day from home to tell me how great things were going. Liz rang independently from work to tell me how rotten things were between them! This always brings me to the conclusion that marital therapy, as a response to domestic violence, is fraught with difficulties. Too often the counselling can be used by him in fact to perpetrate basic flaws - namely to alter his ways just for her and thus keep the relationship within the territory of his fraudulent virility. A man must change and grow for himself; only he alone can axe the tree of his own self-illusions. For this reason I prefer to work with violent men alone.Bill and Liz when last seen had their child - a boy. A year later they separated because Liz felt she could not cope with Bill's jealousy of the baby. She had moved out of town because of Bill's threats. She asked me: 'What does a mother have to do to prevent their son from repeating their father's violence?' An urgent and profound question, as is this one, which I use all the time when counselling violent men: 'What do you want to be remembered for by your children?'I asked Bill this question and he said: 'A good provider', but I will give him his due, we both heard the ring of hollowness in his answer. But now he has no children to provide for, and I can see him now at the pub telling his mates about the frumpy woman who deserted him and letting out a tirade about maintenance. And I can see his shadow wherein lies Bill's brutishness and unfeelingness, that dodgy shadow which slipped through this counsellor's fingers, that shadow of all men which must be befriended, married and integrated into one's selfhood, if the virility of one's masculinity is to express itself without threat, without coercive power and without violence.It may be helpful as a last word, to give a more graphic description of 'Mr Nice Guy' and his twin, 'Mr Shadow'. The descriptions are not exhaustive, and men may have to assemble their own portraits depending on their own idiosyncrasies.'Mr Nice Guy' is: Loving, Fair, Generous, Gentle, Giving/Self-sacrificing, Attentive/Good Listener, Hard worker, etc.
'Mr Shadow' is: Selfish, Cruel (verbally and physically), A talker over the top of people (especially women), Denies others' viewpoints, Angry and wanting to hurt, Cuts off feeling and concern, Able to dispassionately and insensitively withdraw feeling, Uses distance and coldness as punishment etc.
'Mr Nice Guy' alone and 'Mr Shadow' alone are just as much a problem as each other. The more deeply the shadow is divorced, the more potential it has to be energised and triggered. If the image of 'Mr Nice Guy' is maintained (i.e. not showing anybody any 'bad bits'), then daily amounts of anger and frustration will be siphoned into the shadow. 'Mr Shadow' does not like being trapped, if he has not been integrated. Marriage can entrap him and his true colours are revealed. 'Mr Shadow' can reveal himself at the drop of a hat. He is always lurking about. This is why alcohol does not cause domestic violence in itself, it merely provides a context for 'Mr Shadow' to emerge.The middle ground - a marriage between the two - is the ground of the real/whole self wherein lies the prevention of violence. The marriage is brought about by a very particular and vigilant consciousness about, for example, unfinished business, an awareness of when a feeling was cut, or about latent aggression which can arise when people become dependent on and expect to expect 'Mr Nice Guy'.