Looking back now, it was actually my ex-wife's mother who I saw it with first, she was very abusive towards her own husband.

When I saw it first I thought, that will never come to my home, that's their house, that's their lives, it's nothing to do with me.

Not long after we were married, strange things started to happen and realistically when we were having our first baby, things got unbearable. It was just a nightmare.

It got to the stage where it didn't matter what you said or what you did, you were wrong. You were called names. You were told, you were useless. You got a slap to the back of the head.

She actually wanted another child. Things were so bad with the first, I said no. I didn't think our marriage could last to tell you the truth.

In 2001, we were having another baby. It was bad on the first one, but this was just horrific. Absolutely horrendous. So much so, she actually had a knife up to my back then.

I went to the GP and said look, this is not normal, this is not right. 

But the doctor told me it was hormones. I only had one child before so I didn't know any better. The doctor said it was hormones, well then that's what it was.

Things got worse and worse.

I actually went back to the GP and said, look I'm sorry. I've seen my sister had children, this is not normal, this is not hormones, it's something worse.

What she would do, if she was in bad humour, she would ring the Gardaí, the Gardaí would come to my home and then when I went to speak to the Garda, to tell my side of the story, I was told to sit down, that I was a bully.

I didn't know what to do, you had no one to talk to, you had no one to believe you.

It was everything.

I wouldn't go out often, to tell you the truth but when I did get to go out, I'd like to enjoy myself. If there was a band on, I'd get up and have a dance. If there was karaoke on, I'd get up and sing a song.

If we were in company, throughout the night, it would be, ah look, isn't he great craic? He's gas and so on and so forth.

As soon as you got inside the door, you made a show of yourself, you were embarrassing.

You couldn't win.

It got to the stage where you weren't walking on eggshells, you were walking on razor blades, you just could do no right.

In 2009, she had a very bad episode and she stabbed me 15 times.

That sounds bad enough.

She warned me throughout our marriage that if I ever stood up to her, if I ever tried to stop her, she'd take our kids, she'd take the house, I'd end up sleeping in my car. She'd clear me out. That kept me firmly in my box. It was ultimate control.

After she stabbed me, I left in the back of an ambulance. She basically left with my children. At the time, my daughter was 7.

Very soon after that, I noticed something was going on. I wasn't really sure what was going on with my children. Then my daughter turned around at the age of 7 and said, mammys don't tell lies, only daddy tells lies.

She had told my children I had stabbed myself 15 times.

From that day in 2009 to today, my children don't want to know me.

It's terrible. I've spoke to many men. Unfortunately, we had one thing in common and that was domestic violence.

It's very important to speak out. Unless we speak out, people are not going to believe you. If you don't hear it, it's not true. 

Domestic violence is wrong for women and men, it's just wrong. It shouldn't be looked upon any different. It's wrong for a man or a woman. It shouldn't happen. 

Joe (not his real name) told Newstalk Lunchtime the story of his domestic abuse.

AMEN - the only organisation in Ireland specifically for male victims of domestic abuse - says it saw a 36.8% increase in contacts during 2014.

Its fifth annual report says 6,660 men made contact with them in total.

The organisation also says there was a 39% increase in helpline calls in 2014, as well as a 47% rise in one-to-one support.

This represents an 82% increase on 2012.

AMEN says 86% of helpline callers were Irish, 53% were married, and 95% of men contacting them had children.