The Village Family Services

One day my wife told me to get out. It was a life devastating moment. In the blink of an eye I lost everything, my home, my wife, my daughter, my world. One of the issues she had was that I got angry a lot. I was never violent… but I was angry. We had lost all of our real estate when the bubble burst in 2007, and that constituted millions of dollars that I came into the marriage with (my wife had nothing but debt when we married), so I WAS angry… because much of our loss was due to her credit card purchases that ruined my good credit so I could not save us. Yes, I was angry.
When she told me to leave it was only temporary (at the time), dependent on my getting help not to be so mad. So Within 3 days of my expulsion I enrolled in an anger management class at Village Family Services. It was a voluntary enrollment so I only had to go for 12 weeks. The other men in the group were all there by court order (many for over 40 weeks), and they had to fill out paperwork every session and turn it into the court for credit. But the entire experience was very sobering. There was only one other person in the class that had not gone to prison for violence. And everyone had a story of woe that was far greater than mine.
What was surprising was that most of the men in the class (no women), were still with their spouses or significant others, even though they were imprisoned for doing bodily harm to them. I felt instantly like a fish out of water. But I hung with the class and I learned to love the guys and to respect the teacher.
In the end I got a lot out of simply being in a talk group with a bunch of other men (most of my world is filled with women, not men, and there is a big difference). There was a comradeship that was empowering in it all.
The way it works at Village Family is this… if you can prove financial hardship they will reduce your fee to $ 10 per session. If not, it is $ 20. There is not full coverage insurance available here. You sign in every night once a week and then fill the room. There are handouts, questions from the facilitator, and even videos to watch. Once we had a pizza party.
The best part of the experience was when one of the other guys finished their round of sessions and was leaving. It was a celebration of success. My departure was not so glorified because I was an anomaly… not quite the model abuser, and maybe even the victim of abuse myself as it turned out.
But I miss the comradeship. And I recommend to anyone who went through what I went thorough to think about) oining a talk group like I did,)ust to see that you are not alone.