"She convinced me I had Alzheimer's": Experiences of intimate partner violence in older men

Whilst research has explored intimate partner violence (IPV) as a social issue across the last 50 years, it is only over the last decade there has been an increase in investigating experiences of male victims. We now understand more about their experiences of physical violence, coercive control, and the impact of this victimization on both physical and mental health, however this research has typically worked with “younger” samples and there is still a dearth of literature exploring experiences of older men. The aim of the current study was to explore the experiences of men over 60 extracted from a wider data set that explored men’s experience of IPV (see Author, 2019a). The narratives of eight men were analysed thematically (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and three master themes were extracted: their experiences of abuse behaviours, unique experiences of older men, and the impact of the abuse. Men described experiences of abuse that were comparable to that seen within younger men’s narratives, but they also described age-specific experiences related to the longevity of the relationships, manipulation of finances, and exploitation of age-related cognitive decline. The results are discussed in line with the need for further research, and also a practice-based need to ensure service responses are tailored to the victim groups they are working with and moving away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach