The attack came out of nowhere and with full force. “I had loaded the dishwasher when my girlfriend suddenly yelled at me that I was completely incompetent. She grabbed the glass sugar shaker that was on the table and rammed the metal tip into my right cheek,” says Martin Neumann (name of the Editing changed). The wound was bleeding profusely and had to be stitched up by the doctor. Neumann made up a story about how he accidentally self-inflicted the injury. How it really came about, he concealed. The girlfriend later hugged him and apologized to him, Neumann recalls – more out of a sense of duty than genuine remorse, he got the impression.
Even today, many years later, the circular scar can be seen between the stubble under the corner of Martin Neumann’s mouth. But now the 46-year-old speaks openly about his ordeal, which he endured for almost a decade. Because the attack with the sugar shaker was not the only act of violence. His girlfriend and later wife (yes – they even got married during this time!) regularly kicked his shins, pinched his face and scratched him. In addition, there were constant verbal attacks. “I parked in the wrong place, I was too stupid to drive,” he recalls. It didn’t matter whether friends or other people noticed the outbursts of anger.
He documented some injuries with his cell phone. The divorce and other legal disputes are ongoing, so some personal information is a little alienated at this point. It’s his way of looking at things, but it’s important to him that others know about it because he now knows that more men than you might think feel like this in relationships.
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