Gerard stands in his own kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil.
He’s not afraid of strangers.
He is afraid of the person he lives with.
He will still go to work today. He’ll smile. He’ll answer emails.
He’ll talk about the match and the state of the M50 and the rain.
Nobody will ask why he flinches when his phone pings.
Nobody will question when the bruise on his arm is explained away as a football injury.
He has never called the Gardaí.
He has never told a friend.
And he will never describe himself as a victim of domestic abuse.
Because Gerard is a man, and the abuser is a woman.
As a society, we have finally begun to confront the reality of domestic abuse. Women’s voices, for generations silenced, are now rightly heard.
Services exist because brave women spoke and were believed. That progress must never be diminished or reversed.
But acknowledging one truth shouldn’t mean we ignore another.
Some victims simply don’t fit the picture we instinctively imagine. They’re men who feel ashamed to admit they are afraid in their own homes. And the shame is not accidental. It is cultural.
From childhood, boys are taught resilience, stoicism, endurance. Those qualities can be strengths, but inside an abusive relationship they become a prison.
Many men don’t even recognise coercive control when it happens to them. Others recognise it, but fear ridicule, disbelief or worse; they’ll be accused of being the aggressor.
So, they say nothing.
Over 80% of male victims do not report domestic abuse or seek formal help.
At least 1 in 7 men in Ireland will experience domestic violence during their lifetime, but only 5% of men report that violence to An Garda Síochána.
Domestic abuse is not defined by physical strength. It is defined by power and control. It can be psychological, financial, emotional or physical. Phones monitored. Movements tracked. Access to money restricted. Constant threats that nobody will believe them or that they will lose access to their children if they speak.
And too often, they believe that too.
But the silence does not end when a man decides to leave.
In many cases, that is when the system stops understanding him entirely.
I have spoken with organisations supporting male victims who describe fathers arriving with children and having nowhere safe to go. Unlike female victims, there are almost no refuge spaces available to them. When they present as homeless, they are often asked a question that reveals the depth of the societal assumption: why would a man leave his own home and make himself homeless?
The answer is the same reason any victim leaves because ‘home’ is no longer safe.
Yet without recognition of that reality, practical help becomes extraordinarily difficult. Accessing emergency accommodation, getting onto housing lists, even being believed at the first point of contact can become another barrier. The abuse may have ended, but the isolation continues in a different way.
Ireland does have support. I have worked alongside organisations like Men’s Aid. They provide an essential lifeline to men in crisis. But crisis does not keep office hours.
Their helpline is currently Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
It can take weeks or months for a man to talk; the moment someone decides to seek help is often late at night, when the house is quiet and courage momentarily outweighs humiliation.
At that moment, there must be someone to answer.
A 2024 Men’s Aid report, produced in collaboration with Trinity College, indicates that of the 6,470 total engagements recorded, 2,943 were calls to the service.
These findings underscore the need for a 24 hour helpline and the funding necessary to support it.
Calling for a fully funded, properly staffed 24 hour helpline for male victims is not about diverting resources from women. It is about completing the system we have built. Protection shouldn’t depend on gender. If we accept that abuse is about control, then anyone living under that control deserves immediate support and somewhere safe to go.
We should be able to hold two truths at once: women remain disproportionately affected by domestic abuse, and some men suffer it in silence because they believe nobody will take them seriously and sometimes, experience tells them they are right.
Compassion is not a limited resource.
For years, we told boys and men to be strong. But strength is not silent suffering. Strength is asking for help and knowing that help exists when you do.
Until a man in danger at three in the morning can pick up a phone and hear a calm voice say, “you’re not weak and you’re not alone”, and know there is somewhere safe for him and his children, our response to domestic abuse is incomplete.
Domestic abuse begins with isolation.
Ending it begins with being willing to see every victim, whatever their gender.
END