In the realm of spousal abuse, female bullying is likely far more pervasive than male physical violence. Yet is is hardly mentioned at all and would fail as a defense should a male react physically to years of abuse.
Or to put it another way that I have heard: She has the [kittycat], she makes the rules.
The “female bullying” you refer to is almost always accompanied by PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. Read my earlier post upthread.
But no one ever talks about it. Men are afraid of being ridiculed. And they are afraid to defend themselves because all she has to do is to show one little bruise on her wrists (where he held her to stop her from continually punching him in her rage), and HE is the one arrested.
Females are responsible for at least half the marital violence. Its just that the men keep quiet (and being bigger, and able to absorb a punch, the effects are not nearly as obvious the next day as they are if a man slugs a woman).
But the psychological impact is the same. A man living under this sort of reign of terror suffers the exact same psychological harm as his female counterpart who is suffering under a violent man.
Except he has no support groups, and lives in fear of being ridiculed.
To those of you to whom this is completely outside of your reality, a short explanation:
This sort of thing doesn’t “just happen”. Victims in these relationship (male and female) are “programmed” by ther family of origin (usually because they were raised by an abusive parent of the opposite sex) to seek out this type of partner as adults - without realizing it.
This background also predisposes them to accept the abuse and to internalize it as being their own fault. If you don’t have this sort of family background, you are not likely to wind up in this sort of situation.
If you do have this sort of family background, you are almost certain to experience it, at least once, as an adult.
Whether you are male or female is irrelevant. Both men and women can be the victims, and both men and women can be the abusers in these types of relationships.