New York Times commentary on men who abuse

I went to my first class in early January. When I walked in, there were seven men sitting around the room. One man, Jake, then 40, who I would come to know, said he had tried to kill his partner; some said they’d been charged with disorderly conduct. Almost everyone in attendance was there because a court ordered it: Each man entered the room on the first day in denial about his need to attend the classes. Each blamed his partner, minimized his behavior and compared himself favorably with other abusers.

Over the course of the program — 24 classes in total — the men completed various exercises. They wrote letters to show that they understood their partner’s perspective, then read them out loud. They did trust walks, in which they were blindfolded and guided around by two other men. They talked about privilege, masculinity and their own childhoods. Dominick, 27, talked about his abusive mom and how he related to his girlfriend’s feeling of embarrassment after he’d spit on her. Teddy, 21, asked for examples of ways he could respond that were healthy instead of hitting his girlfriend, saying it was the only thing he knew. During his time in the program, Teddy was arrested again, that time for third-degree sexual assault. “What do you think about guys who hit women?” he asked me, on multiple occasions.

The class involved a lot of talk about children. Jake had noticed that his son, who was 2 years old at the time, had started calling his mom a bitch because he had heard Jake use that word.

Attending the courses was challenging. I would go in after a hard day at the shelter spent listening to terrifying stories of survival, hear these men’s minimization and denials, and feel hopeless and angry. Other times, I’d see them admit responsibility and talk about their own actions instead of what she did wrong or how she provoked them. I’d see breakthroughs: Victor, 35, would work to pull the class’s attention back to domestic violence when the conversation veered off course; Tyler, 26, would tell newcomers how his attitude toward the class had shifted over time, from dismissive to appreciative. I would see men who had been in the classes for longer calling out new arrivals for using curse words or inappropriate language to talk about their partners.

Seven men in total agreed to be photographed and interviewed. (I’m not using their full names here to protect the privacy of their victims.) Most who agreed said they did so because they wanted their words to reach younger men. Rodney, 51, said he would be receptive to hearing advice only from someone who had been through the experience himself. His message? “If you’re in that kind of relationship, man, you’ve got to get out. Out immediately, out before something bad happens — you know, you kill somebody.”

At least two of them, at the time of our interviews, implied they were afraid of being in a relationship because they were afraid of being abusive again. “If I get mean again, can I control my tongue?” Tyler wondered. He was initially accused of strangulation and battery, but maintained that he had only ever been verbally abusive, and his charges were dismissed. Last summer, however, he again faced abuse-related charges — involving a different partner — and this time, he pleaded no contest.

Domestic abuse is a choice. Every time these men called their partners names, hit them, or used intimidation, they were making a choice to do so. And yet some of them feared they wouldn’t be able to stop making those choices.

I had to make a conscious effort to be open to these men’s experiences while also maintaining a grasp on what their partners experienced; in my interviews and photographs, I wanted to understand them, but not valorize them. Working at the shelter was a counterbalance to the class. It was hard to carry both truths: This man, typically, experienced violence at home as a child; he has created violence at home as an adult, and one does not excuse the other. The counselor who worked with the men, Kerry Jung, herself an abuse survivor, told me that she’d had to work through hard assumptions before she began to understand that working with an abusive man meant she was also helping his partner. “I’m helping an entire family, and then another generation after that if I can stop the children — the boys from being abusive and the girls from entering into relationships where they become victims,” she said.

The effectiveness of these sorts of programs can be complex to evaluate, said Dr. Ed Gondolf, a longtime researcher on batterer intervention efforts. Men sometimes drop out partway through or fall out of contact with researchers seeking follow-up interviews. His own research has indicated that about 49 percent of men who had participated in one of these programs — though not necessarily completed them — had reassaulted after four years. But the same research showed that a high proportion of those assaults had taken place within the first six months, perhaps before the interventions had had time to take effect. At the four-year follow-up mark, around 90 percent had not physically abused their partner in the previous year.

Over the course of reporting this story, I heard conflicting perspectives: Jake’s partner, who re-entered the relationship after a few years apart, said Jake has never downplayed what he did to her. She sees a difference in the way he carries himself today. “You can tell that he was taught a different way on how to handle himself through that class: ‘Here’s the tools of how to not get there, and if you do, here’s what you do,’” she said. But another woman, who is no longer in her relationship, said that she hadn’t seen a positive change, that her partner remained both abusive and manipulative after completing the class.

One thing seems to be consistent among those researching and facilitating these programs: They are still working as advocates because they have seen men make progress and believe change is possible. They have heard victims say they feel safer. They have heard men express empathy. It can be harmful to think this will be the case for every man; there are some who do not have it in them to change. The advocates agree, however, that there is a need for a space to teach healthy behaviors and develop a sense of accountability. What would happen if men were encouraged to challenge their belief systems about women and relationships, power and control before they were forced to by a 911 call?