Summary of: Part I, Section Three (first half), “The Abusive Mentality”
From: “Why Does He Do That?” by Lundy Bancroft
Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Living in an emotionally abusive relationship is exhausting and confusing. Plus, it’s often harder to determine whether or not you’re being emotionally abused, as it’s not as obvious as physical or sexual abuse. Abusive partners are master manipulators and can make you question your perception of reality and make you feel like you’re going crazy. So, the first step to getting to a healthier place is being able to recognize the emotional abuse for what it is. Here are 10 “realities” about an abusive partner’s attitudes, values, and behavior, which might provide some clarity. Abusive partners can be of any gender, but since the vast majority are male, male pronouns are used.
REALITY #1: He is controlling (p. 49)
He thinks he knows what is best for you and your kids. He feels entitled to have the final say and for you to obey. “A large part of his abusiveness comes in the form of punishments used to retaliate against you for resisting his control. This is one of the single most important concepts to grasp about an abusive man” (p. 54).
The Spheres of Control: (p. 51)
- Arguments and decision-making – he feels entitled to win arguments and to veto your decisions.
An abusive partner’s attitudes in arguments (p. 52):
- “An argument should only last as long as my patience does. Once I’ve had enough, the discussion is over and it’s time for you to shut up.”
- “If the issue we’re struggling over is important to me, I should get what I want. If you don’t back off, you’re wronging me.”
- “I know what is best for you and for our relationship. If you continue disagreeing with me after I’ve made it clear which path is the right one, you’re acting stupid.”
- Personal freedom – he thinks he knows best how you should spend your time, when you should be home, what you should wear, and with whom you should have relationships. If you try to exercise your autonomy in these areas, you will somehow pay a price for it. “He sees himself as a reasonably permissive parent—toward his adult partner—and he does not want to meet with a lot of resistance on the occasions when he believes that he needs to put his foot down” (p.52).
- Parenting – he believes he is the final authority on how the children should be parented and he feels justified in undermining your parenting if it doesn’t suit him. The fact that he does little or none of the day-to-day care of the children is irrelevant to him. “His arrogance about the superiority of his parenting judgment may be matched only by how little he truly understands, or pays attention to, the children’s needs” (p.53).
REALITY #2: He feels entitled (p. 54)
“Entitlement is the abuser’s belief that he has a special status and that it provides him with exclusive rights and privileges that do not apply to his partner. The attitudes that drive abuse can largely be summarized by this one word” (p. 54).
Abusers feel entitle to:
- Physical caretaking – making the meals, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, caring for the children
- Emotional caretaking – spending sufficient time with him, keeping him happy, avoiding his anger, dropping everything to make him feel better when he’s upset
- Sexual caretaking – providing sexual contact according to his preferences and desired frequency; “even her pleasure exists for his benefit.”
- Deference – treating his opinions and preferences as inviolable truth, not questioning his ideas, and yielding to him in arguments, decision-making, or when it’s clear he’s getting upset
- Freedom from accountability – he applies different standards to himself than to everyone else. He believes he has the right to do as he pleases and no one else has the right to question him about his behavior.
“The abuser’s unfair and unrealistic expectations ensure that his partner can never follow all of his rules or meet all of his demands. The result is that he is frequently angry or enraged” (p. 60). Yet, it would be a mistake to assume that the abusive partner has an anger management problem. Research shows that abusive partners have a good deal of control of their anger when they choose to. The problem is that they feel entitled to unleash on their partners when their partners displease them. So, “he isn’t abusive because he is angry; he’s angry because he’s abusive” (p. 60).
This leaves the abused partner in a no-win situation. “One of the basic human rights he takes away from you is the right to be angry with him. No matter how badly he treats you, he believes that your voice shouldn’t rise and your blood shouldn’t boil. The privilege of rage is reserved for him alone. When your anger does jump out of you—as will happen to any abused woman from time to time—he is likely to try to jam it back down your throat as quickly as he can. Then he uses your anger against you to prove what an irrational person you are” (p. 59).
REALITY #3: He twists things into their opposites (p. 61)
He might even say that you are the one abusing him. “The abusers highly entitled perceptual system causes him to mentally reverse aggression and self-defense” (p. 61). In this way, anytime an abuser’s partner displeases him, hurts his feelings, or doesn’t meet his expectations, he feels that HE was the one who was wronged. Then, in turn, he sees his own abusive behavior as self-defense against an aggressor.
REALITY #4: He disrespects his partner and considers himself superior to her (p. 62)
His entitlement leads naturally to superiority and disrespect. This is the reason we say that power corrupts. His entitlement, in turn, leads to the abuser objectifying his partner. “Objectification is a critical reason why an abuser tends to get worse over time. As his conscience adapts to one level of cruelty—or violence—he builds to the next” (p. 63).
REALITY #5: He confuses love and abuse (p. 64)
Most abusers would say that they love their partners and think they mean it. But, “when an abusive man feels the powerful stirring inside that other people call love, he is probably largely feeling:
- The desire to have you devote your life to keeping him happy with no outside interference
- The desire to have sexual access
- The desire to impress others by having you be his partner
- The desire to possess and control you
These desires are important aspects of what romantic love means to him” (p. 64).
If this article clarified some things for you, then watch for the follow-up article, “Identifying Emotional Abuse in Relationships – Part II” – which will discuss 5 more “realities” about how abusive partners function in relationships.
If you think you might be experiencing abuse in a relationship, please call the “National Domestic Violence Hotline for the United States and Canada: 1-800-799-SAFE. Call this number to receive a referral to the closest hotline in your area for abused women. The use of this number is not restricted to women who have experienced physical violence: Women and teens are welcome to call with any issue regarding verbal abuse or control in a relationship, or just because something is happening in their relationship that is making them uncomfortable” (p 391).
