Johann, 29, student
It started the day before, in the evening. I was at the hairdresser's, had my hair cut, by Karin. I thought it was good, my girlfriend thought it was disastrous. She said: "You didn't go to Karin's. Me: 'Yes, I was with her.' And she kept saying: "You weren't with Karin. And I: "Yes, I was with her. And it felt like a thousand times. At some point I went into the bathroom and took the clippers, 18 mm attachment, and cut everything off completely. I looked in the mirror and looked like shit. She came in, went through my hair and said: 'Now it looks great.' I was just pissed, annoyed by the whole situation and also by the hairstyle.
The next day I wanted to do a little something for my studies. She came again, and with something she annoyed me again. A lot of things had already accumulated. And now it started again. Monitor turned off, I turned it on again. She took the mouse away. That's how it went back and forth. She said: I have my day off today. And instead of doing something with me, you sit there and gamble.
At some point I went into the kitchen and opened a beer. In the morning. There she lectured me again. Sat in front of me again. Here I am, pay attention to me. It was just all exhausting. At some point she took my beer away. I then pushed her off the table onto the chair, with unpleasant words, probably something like 'Fuck off'. I said something, she said something. This got higher and higher. Neither of us stopped. And it also became more and more hurtful. From her and from me. We had been together for months, so you know the sore spots. Things that you know which hurt.
My life before was actually going well. In principle, I could do whatever I wanted. Going out to eat with friends or partying on the weekend was all possible. That became less and less with her. I had the feeling that I had lost control of my life. She said she loved me and was really just trying to change me. She didn't like the music I listened to, she didn't like my friends. Actually, she criticized everything that made me me. The cage got a little tighter every day. That morning I could no longer express in words the frustration, the anger that was inside me. It should simply stop. Theoretically, I could have stopped too ...
I then took the physics book and pulled it over her head. She then took the book out of my hand and tore out pages. I don't remember whether there was a sweater or whether she had it around her shoulders. In any case, I took the sleeves and then pulled them tight. She was gasping. I think that's when the tears started to come. I grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her into the corner. I didn't even notice when she started crying.
Only when she sat there huddled together, I saw it. And actually it was already clear to me then what kind of shit I had done. But I was still in attack mode. At some point I went down to her to give her a hug. Which was a really stupid idea. You don't necessarily want to be comforted by the person who just hurt you physically and emotionally. She pushed me away and gave me a slap. I then punched her in the stomach. I still had a little bit of residual control. Although I was beside myself, I deliberately did not hit her in the face. Then I would have reached a point where I could no longer go back. Then I would have lost control completely.
She was shaking all over. And then at some point, with a quivering lower lip, she said: 'I'm going to call the police now.' I said: "No, you won't. And took the phone away from her. That's when I really realized that she was probably scared to death. She looked at me and said with the last of her strength and probably the last of her courage: 'Johann, you're a wife-beater!
Patz. It was as if a truck suddenly ran over you. My body completely collapsed. All the anger and aggression was gone in one fell swoop. Wife beater. I thought: nice shit you've fabricated there. Fuck. We both sat on the floor for I don't know how long. I was completely shocked at myself. In the end, I knew she was right. After that act, I was. A wife beater.
At some point we sat in the living room and started talking. I apologized a million times, but by then I knew we had to separate. There was no turning back. She had triggered things in me that were terrible. And I knew I could never undo that. It will always be there. 'Man beats his wife and children.' When I used to hear that from other people or see it on TV, I always detested it. I told myself I would never do something like that. I was so sure of that. I didn't know that from my family at all either. And suddenly it happened. In one fell swoop, my self-image was destroyed. And then comes the self-doubt. You suddenly question a lot of things.
The same day it happened in the morning, I went to men's counseling. I also honestly had in the back of my mind that she might report me. I wanted to avert the report. It took me two months to get into the group. By then we had broken up. What you get is help, but very different from what I thought. At the end comes the reconstruction of the crime. That's tough. You sit in the group and have to describe everything very precisely. It's a paradox: You try to forget the crime, but at the same time you have to remember it. Compared to the other ten, my story was honestly pretty stark. Top three, I'd say. Phew.
In therapy, the question of guilt is important. It's made clear to you that you yourself are responsible for your actions. But it was also about basic things: What are my goals? What is actually important to me in life? I learned to reflect. I haven't really done that all these years. Recognizing feelings in the body as well. Am I angry now, or am I disappointed now? The pulse races, the carotid artery pulsates, the fist tightens. When you feel that, you can still make a decision. I told my current relationship. I've thought about it a lot, blamed myself. I regret that I did it. But I live with it. It's a part of me now."
Sabri, 31, driver
My girlfriend and I met when we were both still very young. In the first three years, you're still in love, but with the first child, the difficulties started. Suddenly there was responsibility, stress. At some point, the love went away and also the respect. We often had arguments. I broke all kinds of objects in the apartment: mirrors, glass doors, tables. What was it about? For example, I told her what to wear. Just like I knew from my family. I didn't want her to go out on the street with a short skirt or a see-through top. Because, you know, I know how the boys talk. 'Look, she's got a thong underneath' and stuff like that. I just didn't want them to have such ulterior motives with my girlfriend.
In the past, she did what I said. Maybe out of fear. But at some point she started to talk back. I didn't know that. My siblings were never allowed to talk back to me. Then it was, 'Talk sense to your big brother.' Then I felt proud. That's how I was brought up. That's a tradition with us: respect for the father and for the oldest brother, the Abi. I thought, 'Why is she suddenly changing? Who is telling her this? Does she have another boyfriend? I started checking her, monitoring her cell phone.
It was her best friend. She had already been through a breakup and knew the laws. One day, it was carnival, she was wearing such tight and short clothes. I said: You're not going to wear that! She went anyway. In the evening there was a fight. I slapped her and hit her on the back. She was bleeding badly from her nose and lip. I went out and smoked a cigarette and thought: "Now you've fucked up. I apologized, but it was already too late. I think she had lost all respect for me.
The next day she waited until I went to work. And then she did everything: she packed her things, took the kids and left. To her mother. I went there immediately. And that's when she really spoke her mind. All her thoughts that had been collecting in her head for years. She told me that she was separating from me, that she didn't want to have anything to do with me anymore, that she was looking for her own apartment. And that she was reporting me for assault.
In the months that followed, I really stalked her. I wanted to know if she was with someone. I tracked her everywhere, by GPS in her car and on her cell phone. I went to her front door dozens of times. I was persistent, stubborn and aggressive. She had become very self-confident and reported me several times. Each time I had to pay 500 euros. I paid, I didn't care. I had only one thing in my mind: I can never live without her.
One day she told me she had a new boyfriend. Out. I totally crashed. I started drinking, taking drugs. I wanted to commit suicide. And that's when I got very lucky. Right at that moment, my best friend calls. He said, I need you, come here. That saved me. I woke up. I threw away all the drugs, the alcohol too. I was alive. But I was afraid of myself.
I am the oldest of eight children. In the past, if someone had offended my family, if a brother had problems outside, I handled it. It's like that in all Turkish and Arab families. It's always about pride, about honor, about strength. In our family we say: Aslan oglum. Fight like a lion. You grow up with such sayings. You must never show stress on your face. It's against honor. I think this upbringing is wrong today. Fathers are at the top in our families. But I want to have my own experience. I'm happy to listen to advice, but if I want to do it differently, I'll do it differently.
If my father interferes today, if he thinks my present wife is not dressed properly, I say, "Listen, Dad: I'm old enough now to decide for myself." My father used to say: 'Pay attention to this and pay attention to this, my son.' And interfered a lot in my life. Today, when I have a problem, I ask: 'Guys, listen, who knows about this?' It doesn't always have to be the family. I used to keep my opinions to myself. Today, I say what I think. I remain respectful, but firm. I could never have imagined that before.
At that time, I had been ordered by the judge to undergo violence counseling. 18 hours, spread over eight months. When I sat across from the counselor during the first hour, I thought: 'Where have I ended up here? What's this all about?' I was asked to fill out a questionnaire. 'What kind of violence have you committed?' I wrote in: "I have not committed any violence. That's how I still thought at that time. But slowly I realized that she wasn't angry with me. It was my best friend again who encouraged me. Go there. They are good people. You can talk to them about anything. They can help you. He had had good experiences with them himself.
After the fourth or fifth hour, I was open. The counselor, as a woman, could also understand my wife. She showed me new ways. Talking to each other. Consciously not shouting. If something happens, go outside, get some fresh air. I had lost everything, my wife, my children, my house, my car. I married my girlfriend, we just had a daughter. I can say that my life has turned 360 degrees. It takes a lot of effort to change your character, and it doesn't happen overnight. I've been at it for three years. Step by step. Sometimes I look at myself and think: I would never have thought that of myself.
My wife today also thinks it's good that I've done this, she also notices my change. I used to think: The woman is my property. Today, no one needs to talk to me about property. If someone wants to cheat on you, he'll cheat. I used to give other men the evil eye when they looked at my wife. Today, if someone compliments my wife, why not? I also have a different behavior towards my children. Only now have I understood that the children used to be afraid of me.
I used to put my son first. He was my pride, he will carry on my name. My son was allowed to do everything, I was strict with my daughter. Suddenly I asked myself: Why? Why? Just because he has a penis? Today I treat my daughter and my son the same.
Sascha, 38, early retiree
I don't remember how it came about. It must have been 2008. European Championship. Germany in the final. Against Spain. And Germany loses. I had been drinking alcohol. I must have been a bit rowdy. Why my hand slipped against my wife, I can't remember. Maybe she said something like: It's not so bad, it's just soccer.' From one moment to the next, I hit her on the back from a sitting position in such a way that she went down.
I can still see her lying there, motionless. My first thought was that I had killed her. I think I then called the ambulance. She told the paramedics she had fallen. Two days later, she was back home. That was the first time I got violent with my wife. About three years later it happened again. But I have no memory of that. Zero memory, completely gone. As if it never happened.
My problem is actually not the physical violence, but rather the psychological violence. I go from zero to 180 in a second. Even on the street with strangers. When I feel provoked, there is no end in sight verbally. It doesn't matter whether it's a man or a woman, old or young. Pure rage. That was also the problem with my wife. When we argued, I said bad things: "You retarded child. You cunt. You whore. Never at eye level. Always from the top down. I muzzled my wife. Until she was finished. Crying on the sofa, not a word spoken. Afterwards I felt satisfaction: I had won. I had the last word. I had shown that I was the boss.
I was really really angry. I used to think that was normal. I didn't even realize what I was doing. That I get angry at every shit. My father was worse. Much worse. He really hit. And his father was probably like that too. He beat my mother and my stepmother black and blue. Everybody knew that, but nobody had the courage to stand up to him. Not us children anyway. That's why my mother separated from him. Today he has Alzheimer's and thinks he was a good man ... When I used to tell my mother that we were fighting again, she would cry bitterly and say: 'You are like your father.'
I'm also the worst loser I know. My wife says she plays for fun. And I play to win. I play a lot of soccer with the Playstation. But I only have to concede one goal and I slam the thing against the wall. Sometimes the controller has been thrown into the television. Two or three TVs have been broken that way. The anger has to come out. It's like being remote-controlled, like it's not me. And then everything is as if nothing ever happened. At least for me. My wife was scared.
My wife used to put it all away. For them, too, it was all normal again afterwards. Fake or not. In the past, there was always only my opinion. When I said: We'll do it! Then we did it. I didn't even notice that it was such a one-sided thing. It was going on.
The last two years it was suddenly different. She just couldn't handle it anymore. She cried a lot. Or she had a very stony face. Once she even said that she would rather be at work than at home. She had wanted to go to marriage counseling for a long time. I always said: Come on, we'll work it out. But then one or two times it got so bad that she said: Now I'm leaving. And then I knew that if we didn't do it now, it would be over. It was me who made the appointment. And the counselor quickly realized that I had a problem. And then she recommended that I go to men's counseling. I always thought of myself: I am a bad person.
I thought you can't change, you're just the way you are. I had often resolved to do something. Starting tomorrow you'll go on a diet, starting tomorrow you'll get a job. I never did any of that.
Now, for the first time, I am trying to change something in my life. For the first time since I've known my wife, I'm really doing what I promised to do. Men's counseling once a week. Although almost every Tuesday I thought: I don't feel like it. But when you're there, you're happy. And when you hear the other stories, you think: "I'm not the only one with this problem. That encourages you to keep going. I went there for a year, longer than anyone else.
When I met my wife, I had already been in a wheelchair for two years. An accident at work on the construction site, a 600-kilo wooden panel fell on me. I haven't worked since then. But I should be working again. In the past, we always did everything in pairs. We were always just in our bubble. The other day, after nine years, I went to a good friend's house alone for the first time. That also has to do with counseling.
Our marriage has changed since I went to men's counseling. When we argue now, I make sure I don't go below the belt anymore. I think about what I'm going to say before I say it. I wait five minutes, and then it's usually gone. Of course, my wife still gets scared every time I argue. But out of ten times, I now manage nine.
I never used to respect her work, she's a housekeeper, I thought anyone could do that. Now I'm interested in what she experiences. It even happens more often now that she has the last word. She has become more self-confident. She no longer asks, "Can we do this or that?" She now says more often, "We'll do it. I never thought that would work. I still have a hard time losing, but now I just bang my hand on the table and that's the end of it."
The series was realised in cooperation with the men’s counselling centres “Kim” in Paderborn, “man o-mann” in Bielefeld and “Gewaltlos stark” in Aachen. It was published in Stern Magazine.