Support for male victims of family violence
"Falling isn't failure - Standing again is your strength"
Mission Statement
Stand Again is a dedicated resource for men who have experienced family violence — emotionally, psychologically, financially, or legally.
We break the silence by naming the abuse, supporting recovery, and helping men find strength to thrive in their story.
This isn’t just about surviving abuse — it’s about standing again, with clarity, courage, and purpose.
Every Story is Different
This site is built from the lived experience of the Stand Again team and is not a substitute for legal or psychological support. [Disclaimer here]
Abuse doesn’t look the same for everyone. While many of the patterns and tactics may feel familiar, you don’t have to experience every single one to recognise that what you’re going through is abuse.
If you or your children are in immediate danger, please contact 000 or a relevant crisis service.
Quick Links
Australian Crisis Support Centres
If you're a man experiencing domestic or family violence, you're not alone. There are national services that offer support tailored to men, including counselling, safety planning, and referrals
Survival Tools
When you are trapped in an abusive relationship, it can feel like every word or action you take can lead to abuse. Thankfully there are tools you can use to fortify yourself.
Find Legal Support
Finding the right legal support can make all the difference — especially if you’re navigating custody, parenting orders, or defending against false allegations.
Why Stand Again Exists
Tactic. Trigger. Impact - The Anatomy of Abuse
The Four Stages of Healing
TTI - The Anatomy of Abuse
Abuse doesn’t just happen. It follows a pattern. A predictable sequence that — once understood — can be interrupted, healed, and eventually left behind.
At its core, abuse is a psychological chain reaction
It starts with a tactic that activates a trigger, and produces an impact.
Understanding this chain — how each part functions — is the first step toward healing. Because if you can see how abuse works, you can start to loosen its grip.
Tactic — The External Behaviour
Not all tactics operate the same way. Some strike once. Others repeat. Some train you without you realising it. And others arrive in carefully timed clusters.
That’s why, as you move through the Blueprint — the resource that lays out all the tactics you see in family violence against men — understanding how these tactics show up can be important to avoid being overwhelmed by them.
Tactics are used in five distinct pattern types:
- One-Off Incidents – sudden harm that still violates trust
- Conditioning – slow erosion over time to wear down resistance
- Reactive Training – emotionally trained to react in certain ways — think Pavlov’s dog
- Stacked Combination Attacks – multiple tactics in a predictable sequence (DARVO is the most famous example of this)
- Switched Attack Patterns – rapid pivoting of tactics until one lands, or as a way to overwhelm the target
Trigger — The Internal Vulnerability
This is where the abuse lands. It’s the internal vulnerability the tactic touches. And it’s deeply personal.
It’s the reason the abuse works. Not because you’re weak — but because you’re human. Triggers can come from:
- Emotional wounds — unresolved childhood trauma, fear of rejection, shame
- Conditioned behaviours — fawning, caretaking, silence to avoid conflict
- Cultural or societal narratives — like “real men don’t complain” or “a good father sacrifices everything”
- False beliefs and identity wounds — e.g., “I’m only lovable when I serve” or “If I push back, I’m failing as a man”
Impact — The Outcome
This is what the abuser achieves — and what you’re left holding.
Sometimes it’s immediate: you back down. You change your plans. You go quiet. Other times, it builds over months or years: you lose your confidence, your clarity, your sense of self.
There are four main impacts:
- Direct compliance – You change your behaviour to avoid their reaction.
- Emotional compliance – You shape yourself to meet their moods. You self-silence, appease, apologise.
- Psychological destabilisation – You start to doubt your memory, your instincts, your sanity.
- Cognitive: “Maybe I’m misremembering.”
- Emotional: “Maybe I’m overreacting.”
- Supply – Your actions feed their control, superiority, or distorted narrative.
Most abuse delivers more than one of these at a time. And the longer it goes on, the more you internalise it. You don’t just experience the abuse — you start to live by the rules it taught you.
Why it requires Four Stages of Healing
Because you can’t fix this all at once — you can’t just snap your fingers and be healed. Healing takes stages — not because you’re slow, but because the abuse was deep.
You’re not just healing from what was done to you. You’re unlearning the things that made the abuse work in you.
Each stage in Stand Again is designed to interrupt one part of the abuse cycle:
- Stage 1: Educate — See the tactic
- Stage 2: Survive — Blunt the trigger
- Stage 3: Recover — Heal the trigger and repair the impact
- Stage 4: Thrive — Replace TTI with a healthy alternative (EGO) - Live beyond the abuse
The 4 Stages of Healing
Healing from family violence often follows a non linear path. At Stand Again, we’ve organised this journey into four stages to help you make sense of what’s happened, understand where you are now, and take steps toward the life you want.
Whether you’re still in it, freshly separated, or beginning to rebuild, these stages are here to guide you.
Stage 1: Educate
Start by understanding what happened to you. Learn how control, manipulation, and emotional abuse work — especially as they show up in relationships where men are the victims. This stage helps name the tactics, validate your experience, and begin reclaiming your truth.
Stage 2: Survive
If you’re still in the relationship or navigating legal conflict, this section provides immediate tools to stay safe, stay grounded, and protect your rights. From documentation strategies to emotional detachment techniques, this stage helps you stay afloat when the waves hit hardest.
Stage 3: Recover
Once the immediate danger has passed, the deeper work begins. This section explores therapy, rebuilding confidence, reconnecting with your children, and processing the trauma — so you can begin to feel like yourself again.
Stage 4: Thrive
This is where you start writing your next chapter — with strength, agency, and new meaning. Discover how to parent with purpose, build healthy relationships, find joy again, and even turn your experience into advocacy, leadership, or simply peace.
How This Comes Together
You can’t fix this all at once - you can’t just snap your fingers and be healed. This is the power of TTI when you put it into the four stages of healing from complex trauma - you end up with a pretty powerful tool. Because it starts to reduce the “Complex” in complex trauma.
Healing therefore doesn’t mean just avoiding abuse. It means replacing the old psychological chain — Tactic, Trigger, Impact — with a new one. Chains that’s rooted not in trauma, but in safety, connection, and choice.
That’s what EGO stands for: Event → Glimmer → Outcome.
- An Event happens. But instead of a tactic being used against you, it’s just a moment — something neutral or even nourishing. A conversation. A gesture. A shared experience.
- A Glimmer follows — that subtle nervous system cue of safety, recognition, or peace. Not a threat. Not a warning bell. Just the quiet knowing: I’m okay.
- And then, an Outcome arises. You respond from your authentic self — not from fear, not from a trauma reaction, but from who you actually are when you feel safe and seen.
This isn’t just a concept. It’s the goal of recovery. And it’s possible. But you can’t build EGO until you dismantle TTI. If you only change the impact — like forcing yourself not to fawn — but don’t heal the trigger that caused it, then the pain just goes underground. You might stop reacting outwardly, but inwardly, the shame still festers.
Real healing requires full repair — tactic, trigger, and impact. Only then can you begin to build a different nervous system pattern. One where you don’t just survive. You respond. You choose. You live.
That’s the shift from trauma story to healing story. That’s the power of replacing TTI with EGO.
Disclaimer ┃Terms of Use ┃Privacy Policy
© Copyright. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer: This website offers peer-informed education and resources. It is not a substitute for legal or clinical advice. If you are in danger or experiencing a crisis, please seek immediate professional help.
We need your consent to load the translations
We use a third-party service to translate the website content that may collect data about your activity. Please review the details in the privacy policy and accept the service to view the translations.