Well, having been a male in a violent relationship, where she came at me with everything from fists to six inch butcher knives, I can give you personal experience of what its like for a man to be abused, and not know how to deal with it. My ex-wife is from a foreign land, where we lived. Trust me, their courts would have laughed their ass off if I had reported this kind of thing. Hell, the Police would have busted up in my face.
Sadly, in order to protect myself, I had to fight back. I never hurt her seriously, but I was stronger than she, and usually she got the worst end of it, once I had managed to hurt her enough to get the fucking butcher knife away from her. Don't think this isn't something that I don't live with every day, because it is. I was not raised to hit women, ever. The fact that I had to is still a very painful thing for me to accept. But trust me, sometimes, it is necessary.