<p>
	A male domestic abuse survivor said no one would believe his wife had stabbed him 15 times.</p>
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	And as he recovered in hospital, his wife secured a protection order and the man lost any relationship he had with his two children.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;My daughter made her Confirmation but I was the criminal at the back of the church. I didn&rsquo;t get a photograph with my daughter. I didn&rsquo;t get anything. I was like a scumbag and it&rsquo;s wrong. It&rsquo;s very, very wrong,&rdquo; he said.</p>
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	The man, who used the pseudonym &lsquo;Paul&rsquo;, was interviewed on TV3&rsquo;s Ireland AM with his face turned away from the camera and his voice heavily disguised.</p>
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	He had met his wife in the mid-90s. They were engaged within four months and married after six.</p>
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	During their honeymoon, he said an alcohol-fuelled argument over him discovering her sitting with her arms around another man turned ugly.</p>
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	&ldquo;We left the bar and when we got around into an alley way, I got the bejaysus kicked out of me,&rdquo; he claimed. Even though he was, as he put it, &ldquo;a big bloke&rdquo; he did not retaliate. He put it down to drinking too much and never mentioned the incident again.</p>
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	The man insisted his wife continued to physically abuse him but he put up with it. &ldquo;I just wanted an easy life; I didn&rsquo;t care.&rdquo;</p>
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	Her abusive behaviour worsened when she became pregnant with their first child.</p>
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	&ldquo;But, like, who did you tell? What do you do? Go down to the pub and say: &lsquo;Look what the missus did to me last night&rsquo;. You don&rsquo;t do it.&rdquo;</p>
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	He felt he could not leave because there was no refuge centre for men in Ireland.</p>
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	One morning, he was stabbed 15 times with a kitchen knife and taken to hospital. While being treated, he discovered his wife was spinning her version of what had happened.</p>
<p>
	Two garda&iacute; came to see him in hospital. He showed them his wounds but he knew they did not believe him. &ldquo;The guard says to me: &lsquo;Well, I wouldn&rsquo;t really call them stab wounds&rsquo;. So how do I win?&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	He said his wife, who walked out of their home with their children, had claimed he had stabbed himself.</p>
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	&ldquo;My kids don&rsquo;t want to know me now. They don&rsquo;t have a daddy. Mammies don&rsquo;t tell lies, only daddies tell lies,&rdquo; he said, becoming tearful.</p>
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	&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like a bereavement. My father died. I go to his grave and say my prayers. I can go there but I have nothing.&rdquo;</p>
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	A turning point, he said, was making contact with Amen &mdash; a support group for male victims of domestic abuse.</p>
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	&ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t matter what you told them; it didn&rsquo;t matter. They listened to you. They believed you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Amen manager Niamh Farrell, who also appeared on the show, said 800 men in a similar situation to Paul&rsquo;s made initial contact with the support service last year.</p>
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	www.amen.ie</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/man-stabbed-15-times-by-his-wife-but-no-one-believed-him-275051.html">http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/man-stabbed-15-times-by-his-wife-but-no-one-believed-him-275051.html</a></p>
