I don’t sympathize with or even believe Marius here, but it’s perfectly possible for women to be not only physically but emotionally abusive to men, and sexist discounting of that only makes men in troubled relationships more reluctant to speak out, do anything, or get help.
I don’t like flipped gender violence, either.
It is certainly possible for women to be abusive. In particular emotionally and verbally and to a lesser degree physically. And that too can be very hurtful for the victim, in this case men.
However, in regards to Marius, I don't buy it.
I don't because it does not fit the pattern of how Marius behave, see himself and what evidence there is for his behavior.
There are physical evidence of him thrashing an apartment of his latest girlfriend, and there is physical evidence of violence committed to her as well. And there are reports of him thrashing his own home at Skaugum.
To that come the audio evidence of him being verbally dismissive of "minor violence" like pushing as well as death threats against a named person.
When you combine that with the image Marius has portrayed himself, i.e. as a macho man, a gangsta, and holding a pistol (which I now doubt very much was a prop) then Marius does not strike me as a meek person, who would accept verbal abuse from Juliane Snekkestad, or even a perceived slight or sign of disrespect without responding and responding very firmly. Nor do I think that he would accept a slap on the cheek from a girlfriend, without striking back.
And finally, he is being accused of being abusive by
three ex-girlfriends. Had it only been one of the three ex-girlfriends, there would have been reason for doubt. And had he otherwise been widely described as having a very good-natured, kind and restrained character, he would have been even more believable.
As it is, I simply do not believe Marius claim about him being a victim of abuse.
An interesting question is of course whether he was, so to speak, born with this violent trait, whether he learned it from his criminal friends, who are no doubt ready to (and also respect the) use violence at a much lower threshold than the average man or whether is has come about and perhaps been reinforced by his abuse of drugs and alcohol. It is IMO probably a combination of the three.
It may very well be that he and Juliane had a tumultuous relationship, perhaps especially towards the end, and that that included various forms of name calling and what not. Perhaps even that he got a slap - which I'm certain he returned in kind if that was the case.
It may also be that Marius simply made it up, or blew something out of proportion. I.e. a kind of childish response akin to: yeah, I hit him on the head with a shovel, but he took my lollipop.
Because the longer this spectacle continues the more and more convinced I become of there being sheep on mountain slopes in Iceland who have a better chance of becoming members of Mensa than Marius has. So I also doubt this is a part of some sort of subtle plan to try and counter-incrimininate, so to speak, Juliane Snekkestad or this being a part of a mind-game.
