Content note: This article discusses domestic abuse, coercive control, and violence
It was a Friday afternoon. A man in his early twenties had arranged for a relative to park her car and wait for him around the corner, because he was afraid that what he was about to do might not go well. He entered the house and told his partner of three years what he had rehearsed so many times. Then he was kicked in the stomach and punched in the head, and his t-shirt was half torn off his body. He managed to get the front door open and ran to the waiting car. This man spent the rest of that day in a hospital being examined and x-rayed. Nothing was broken.
That man was my friend.
This all started two weeks earlier, when he, carefully at first, told his partner he didn’t think things were working for them. From that moment, something in his partner changed. His voice got louder. He started pushing my friend around the apartment.
In just a few weeks, a man who had never lifted a hand became someone my friend needed a witness parked outside for.
This partner had the gift of the gab and knew how to please the people around him. Everyone who met him thought he was a good guy. The relationship, however, was not good, but the damage wasn’t the kind that shows up on a body.
Instead, my friend stopped being himself. It felt like he was being micromanaged. He started losing interest in things he loved to do, only because they didn’t tick the boxes for his partner.
None of this was visible to people on the outside.
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When exiting becomes a safety hazard
What my friend went through is a well-documented pattern in literature about intimate partner violence (IPV). It’s called Separation Assault: the period when someone tries to leave a partner, and the increased risk of serious violence.
Because the abusive partner’s sense of control is being threatened, exiting a relationship can be especially dangerous. A man can get punched in the stomach because he wanted to move out. Another pushed into a kitchen cupboard. Or slapped across the face by a partner who had been drinking, and who woke up the following morning acting as if nothing happened the night before - which is its own particular kind of abuse.
As friends of gay men who are being abused in a relationship, we unintentionally can play a part in this form of abuse.
“Just leave him.” “Why are you still living there?” “If it were me I’d have left him months ago.”
Well-intended bad advice.
Failing to first ask about their safety and moving too fast can be dangerous. It pushes a vulnerable man to do something when he is at most risk, with no plan, or someone parked around the corner, and no sense of what he is about to do.
The period that follows the exit of a relationship requires safety planning because an abuser’s behavior becomes unpredictable when they realize that their traditional coercive control no longer works.
What awaits men who escape
Domestic abuse services were built around a straight woman in a relationship with a straight man, and understandably so, since that is where the volume of abuse and fatalities takes place. But that framework doesn’t quite work for everyone else.
Often, when a gay man calls a helpline, he ends up talking to someone who has never dealt with a case like his. And if the police arrive at a house where two men are standing with a wrecked living room behind them, the situation gets read as a fight rather than an assault.
Data from the USA highlight that 26% to 37% of gay men experience IPV. In Europe, that number goes up to 40%. That’s two in five gay men. We are also more likely to experience physical IPV compared to heterosexual men. European data also indicates that over 85% of physical IPV against gay men is committed by male partners or former male partners.
And yet despite these high prevalence rates, male victims only represent 4% to 5% of people (worldwide) who get support from domestic violence shelters and support providers because male-inclusive resources are few and far between.
While my focus is on physical violence as the main issue, there is a second layer of assault that exists, especially for gay men. I have heard of men threatening to out their partners at their work or telling their family. Some have been threatened that their HIV status would be disclosed. It highlights how an abuser often holds a key to a door someone has spent his life keeping closed.
Why he doesn’t call it “abuse”
Someone once told me that people in abusive relationships tend to have low self-esteem. I find this standard explanation too simplistic. Many people who have low self-esteem are in healthy romantic relationships. On the flip side, many confident men get pushed against walls and cupboards.
Self-esteem alone does not explain who gets hit.
Growing up, gay kids can have parents who comment on how they sit or walk. In primary school, kids use unkind words to other gay boys. By high school, verbal bullying often turns into the physical kind. And there’s the harsher form of abuse that some gay men experienced in childhood that often doesn’t get spoken about. (A topic for another piece.)
Now, put a man with that history in a relationship where his partner belittles him in front of friends, grabs his arm aggressively in the car park, or pushes him when they argue.
To that gay man, it’s a pattern too close to home.
He’s already been spoken to scornfully by someone who supposedly loved him. Experience has taught him to absorb and minimize assault because safety was priority number one growing up. Getting home in one piece took priority over standing up for himself.
That is why the adaptation gay boys develop to stay safe is what keeps gay men from calling out the abuse. Instead, they frame it as bad temper, a rough day, or a few drinks too many.
What people see and can do
Noticing if someone we care about is in danger doesn’t require an exposé. Notice the bruise that gets explained by a wall he walked into. The scratch that the cat caused. The phone that goes face down on the table when a message arrives. The friend who cancels the weekly coffee, three times in a row. The man who answers a question that was addressed to his partner. The cousin you haven’t seen for four weeks because he’s been too busy.
I am not going to tell you to stage an intervention or to give a speech about how the gay man in your life deserves better. These may feel useful, but they can leave him feeling more exposed.
Instead, ask him a question with no advice attached. Say you have noticed his absence for a while or a new bruise. Say it again in a fortnight.
What most men in this position lose first is a relationship where they are not being managed. Simply being asked a question without a “right” answer can be a meaningful thing to give back.
My friend got out. He had a relative in a car around the corner, and was taken to a hospital. I wish I had sat with more men who also had someone parked outside.
If you have been in an abusive relationship, please remember you did nothing wrong. And if you did try to reach out for help and no one believed you, I’m sorry that happened.
If there is one thing I know for sure, we are all human. That means that anyone can find themselves in a situation like the one my friend did. Abuse of any kind does not discriminate. Survivors should be met with empathy, belief, and no judgment.
As for abusers, being accountable matters. Abusing someone is a choice and has no excuse. Taking responsibility, seeking professional support, and committing to never repeating harmful patterns is an important path to healing.
Thanks for being here, and remember, you’re not broken, and you’re not alone.
Gino x
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All examples in this piece are composites drawn from patterns observed across therapeutic work with gay men. Details have been altered to protect confidentiality. No single story represents an individual person.
This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not replace therapy, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of any condition.
I had never personally been scared like this in a relationship, and reading this makes me realize just how blessed I was to have spent 22 years in a great relationship.
What struck me most about this piece is that abuse does not always begin with a punch. Sometimes it begins with control. Slowly changing who someone sees, what they do, where they go, and eventually who they are.
From the outside, everything can look perfectly normal.
The line that really stayed with me was essentially this: before telling someone to “just leave,” ask whether they can leave safely.
I had never thought about leaving an abusive relationship as potentially being the most dangerous moment. That changed my perspective.
As gay men, many of us grew up learning how to hide things, absorb things and keep moving. Maybe that is also why some men have such a difficult time saying, “I am being abused.”
Men can be victims. Strong men can be victims. Successful men can be victims. Gay men can be victims. There should be absolutely no shame attached to saying, “I need help.”
I was fortunate. I knew what it was like to spend 22 years with someone I loved without ever fearing that person. Reading this makes me appreciate that gift even more.
Thank you, Gino, for writing about something that probably happens behind far more closed doors than any of us realize. And especially for reminding us that sometimes helping someone does not begin with advice.
Sometimes it simply begins with asking, “Are you safe?”