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Domestic abuse campaigners are calling for greater recognition of the number of male victims.

An estimated 450,000 men suffer from domestic abuse every year in the UK - a third of total cases.

But the real figure could be much higher, with men less likely than women to talk about their experiences.

Sky's north of England correspondent, Katerina Vittozzi, talked to one survivor who spoke on condition of anonymity.

This is his story.

Some things my wife would do sound so trivial when you say them out loud, but when it goes on and on these things add up.

She said that I slept too much.

So she'd stop me going to sleep when I wanted to, and then she'd wake me up in the night claiming that I had stopped breathing.

If I went back to bed, she would pull the bed covers off me. If I didn't respond, she would call me "Mr Angry".

It got to a point where I was so tired I couldn't even complete a sentence.

Eventually, a nurse diagnosed me with acute sleep deprivation.

If we were driving, and we were stopped at a traffic light, she'd tell me drive through the red light. If I didn't react to what she said, she'd seethe.

I was 44 when we married and I realised there was a problem just a few months after getting married.

It began with my wife complaining about my relatives, particularly my foster daughter who was now grown-up.

She'd call my daughter "feral" to my face, say that she was spending too much time with men, that she was after every man she could get.

As far as she was concerned, my daughter just didn't have appropriate behaviour.

She would tell people that my contact with my daughter was "most unusual". And it did make me isolated from her.

But worst of all, my wife persuaded me to not give my daughter away at her wedding. I still feel so bad about that.

But it extended beyond my daughter, to other people that my wife didn't want me to have contact with. These were key people in my life.

There was a point at which I thought the problem actually was to do with other women.

'CCTV caught my boyfriend torturing me for three hours and preparing a noose'

So, I thought, maybe we could meet friends together.

But again that wasn't acceptable.

So over time, I was isolated from family, from the people that mattered most to me.

My confidence went down and down. I just doubted myself more and more.

It resulted in me not only doubting myself when I was talking to my wife, but doubting myself in other situations as well, thinking "have I got it all wrong? Have I been a bad judge of friends?"

All sorts of crazy things went on. Her aim was to create arguments.

We would arrange to eat a particular meal. My wife would cook, which was lovely, but she would serve up something very different to what we'd discussed 30 minutes earlier and she'd then try to provoke me to complain about it, to start an argument.

And these arguments could never just end.

Sometimes, I would go out of the house to try to get away from the rows.

But she started saying she feared for my state of mind when I was outside.

Eventually, she persuaded me not to leave the house.

It meant I couldn't ever get away from an argument, so I had to plan my escape route.

If there was an argument, I'd grab my laptop, run up the stairs and barricade myself in a room, with a chair against the door handle.

She'd be outside the door taunting me, telling me to come out.

But in those moments, I was trying to piece together what was going on.

I couldn't understand it. I was very confused about it.

I felt I was going mad.

I knew there was a problem, but I was denying it.

I was thinking "I ought to able to handle this situation, I ought to be able to sort this situation out, I ought to be able to make the marriage work."

I eventually decided to go and see a friend, who my wife had been very keen for me not to see.

My friend suggested that I contact the ManKind Initiative.

The real recognition came from when I was looking at their website.

They had the definitions of domestic abuse on it, just the standard ones that are recognised everywhere.

I was overwhelmed by what I saw. I wept and wailed. I'd never done that before.

Suddenly, I was recognising what had been happening to me.

I did contact the police about my experience. But it was like they weren't even interested.

When I made a complaint about my wife, I was laughed at by the officer that came around.

I think men are more reticent to come forward because they won't be believed.

But I was also worried that the police would label me as the abuser because I had been shouting back at my wife.

So I didn't come forward. I wish I had done something.

There is a stigma to it for men. They think they've got be strong, they think they've got to cope.

I'd say to any man, from my own experience, get advice from people who can help you, who specialise in this field.

As for me, seven years on, my wife and I are now divorced.

I'm still recovering.

Male Victims of Domestic Abuse - For Confidential Help, please call 01823 334244 or visit the ManKind Initiative at .