By Peter Olszewski

Even now, long after the relationship ended, I still have trouble uttering that simple, painful acknowledgment: "I was a battered man." Saying it makes me cringe makes me feel like a coward or a wimp. At first I would switch off whenever I saw a newspaper article or TV report about domestic violence because I knew I was about to be subjected to yet another pungent vilification of men and their propensity to beat women, before muttering to myself. "Hey, what about guys like me?"

Let's get one thing straight - in no way am I denying the problem of battered women or trying to downplay their grief. Violence in a relationship is reprehensible, but the mistake that's made is that the violence is seen as exclusively male in origin. In fact, there's significant evidence to suggest that women are just as capable of committing domestic violence.

As a 'victim' I even began to identify with females portrayed on TV, with their downcast, shamed eyes and their cuts, bruises and puffy swellings and smiled wryly to myself when the reporter would inevitable ask: "If you were being beaten so regularly, why didn't you simply leave?"

I know the answer to that one. First of all you live in the hope that your truly beloved will come to her senses and do something about her violence. And then, of course, there's the problem of what happens when you do try to leave. In my case, it caused a final flurry of totally-out-of-control violence, a string of court appearances, the loss of most of my possessions, the constant redirecting of money to solicitors and the cold, harsh reality of virtually having to restart my life from scratch. But I came through, I made it - I'm a survivor.

Possibly, the event that helped me on the road to recovery most was speaking personally about battered men on a nationwide radio program. For almost two weeks after appearing on that program I received phone calls from all over Australia, from battered guys who'd been through the wringer, felt the shame and had nobody they could talk to until they heard this bloke on the radio - me.

While time consuming, this was also very beneficial for me because I went from being a victim to a survivor, dispensing guidance, wisdom and advice to my fellow sufferers. By speaking out, I also became part of a trend.

Suddenly violence by women against men was being taken seriously and figures started to emerge that backed this up. For example, three US surveys taken by. family-violence counsellors in 1980, 1985, and 1995 showed that violence of the same degree was committed by an almost equal number of men and women.

The reports were condemned by feminists - who argued that this sort of data was simply used to devalue female victims - but the research stood up to scrutiny. A Canberra academic who suggested that domestic assaults against men were almost as prevalent as assaults against women, was ridiculed and a Brisbane men's organisation that expressed similar sentiments was promptly labelled as right wing.

In the US, Steve Easton, homeless and unemployed after enduring years of domestic violence, started an organisation in 1993 called The Easton Alliance, which counsels up to 400 men a year. Like most battered men, Easton's domestic situation was a casebook study of classic female violence - the violence simply escalated and he was overwhelmed by it to the point that it almost ruined his life. Easton observed that many women, angered over failed relationships with men, start assaulting their current male partners and the violence slowly escalates from there. And, like violent male behaviour, alcohol was usually a contributing factor with female violence.

Easton's case interested me particularly because he admitted making thesame mistake that I did. Many of his problems stemmed from one simple, natural response - he chose to retaliate.

Perhaps at this stage, it would be appropriate for me to tell my story, for no particular reason other than it's a text-book example of female domestic violence in all its pure, unpredictable fury.

I discovered my lover was violent the first night we moved into a house together. I figured it was a one-off thing, stress induced by the move and for a while it seemed so. Then, on two separate occasions, after returning home from eating out, I was king-hit on the side of the head. The reason for the first blow turned out to be because we'd been to a restaurant she used to visit with her ex. The second was that we'd consumed, at her insistence, red wine and oysters, apparently a favourite dish of her ex.

Casebook studies claim that violence escalates rapidly from this point and it certainly did. I would be punched if I mentioned her business rivals and she'd strike out if I had the TV on too loudly or ate too loudly, like her father. And suggesting she do something about her violent behaviour only triggered more of the same.

Finally, she cracked and attacked me with a tennis racquet and her stilettos and systematically destroyed my possessions. I snapped and hurled an ashtray through a window. This turned out to be a major mistake.

She calmed down and coolly phoned the police. When they arrived I confessed to smashing the window and - ignoring my cuts and abrasions and version of events - they ordered me to collect some clothes and get out immediately. I wound up in a domestic-violence court and before I knew what happened, had a domestic-violence order slapped on me. And my partner immediately qualified as yet another female victim of violence in the home.

After a year and many entreaties and promises from her, we got back together. The violence restarted almost immediately, but with a new element - control - which I was to discover is also classic behaviour. In addition to being hit for doing something she didn't like, I was now alsobeing attacked if I didn't do what she wanted. When I resisted, she adopted a new tactic, using other men to get at me if I didn't obey her.

I was now planning my escape because violence had become the order of the day. I moved some things out discreetly and observed that a man she was having an affair with had his house and car trashed when he apparently didn't do her bidding. He reported the violence, creating a track record that would later back me up in court. Meanwhile I was ducking projectiles - like lumps of concrete - and began to realise that this could end up killing me. After a long discussion we agreed to separate. But that night, before I could leave, she went berserk again, attacking me and demolishing the house. I fled.

I returned at dawn. Usually she would wake up contrite - and sober. But not that day. She poured a bottle of wine and a cup of hot coffee over me, threw books and then started laying into me. In pure desperation, I eventually gave her a sharp jab in the stomach.

This snapped her out of it. She became very cool again and rang thepolice, stating that I had a rifle and was threatening to shoot her and then calmly left for work. I waited for a SWAT team or the equivalent to arrive, but nothing happened, so I finally went to the police station myself.

For the first time, I received some help. The policeman took one look at my bruised and bloodied state and immediately initiated domestic-violence proceedings against her. Over a year of messy court hearings followed before I was finally free to go my own way, albeit broke and bewildered.

I've had relationships since then but the instant I detect the potential for violence or hear confessions of violent acts against previous lovers, I'm out of there. And that's about the only way to deal with violent women. Of course, if you're deeply in love and enmeshed in family and financial commitments, you naturally hope you'll be able to sort it out. Then one day someone will look at you in disbelief and say: "If it was that violent, why didn't you simply leave?"

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