WHEN Mr Henry Tan's wife threatened to walk out on him, unable to take his frequent slaps and slurs, the bad-tempered sales executive vowed to set their home on fire.

But the talk of divorce rattled him - and he turned up at the Centre for Promoting Alternatives to Violence (Pave) to seek help for his habit of drinking and assaulting his homemaker wife.

In a trend that has held steady in the past couple of years, more wife-beaters are seeking help voluntarily. In the last financial year, more than half of the nearly 200 male perpetrators who sought help for the first time at Pave did so of their own accord, up from only 13 per cent in 2002.

Like many of the men, Mr Tan, 45, says his motive was simple: he wanted to save his 20-year-old marriage. Frustrations at work, coupled with his wife's eagerness to go out frequently, caused him to erupt in violent rages.

'It's really hard for a man to find the courage to walk into a counselling centre to seek help,' said the father of three. 'But bottling it up can never make the problem go away.'

After nearly a year of fortnightly counselling sessions, things are on the mend with his wife.

Other couples too have been able to salvage their marriage after the husband voluntarily sought help at Pave. Customer service manager Belinda Lee, 36, first came to Pave after her husband sought help there.

The 38-year-old engineer learnt about Pave through an Internet search shortly after he banged his wife's head against a window grille one evening in 2007. She required six stitches to her head.

She said their biggest disagreements were over minor things. For example, he preferred sleeping with the windows shut, but she liked them open.

He would get violent, pushing her or hitting her with a newspaper.

After counselling and group therapy, the couple have reconciled their differences and are expecting their first child soon.

'I was lucky that my husband realised he needed help early enough,' Ms Lee said.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.