Damaged men

There is another disturbing thread on Relationships "is this normal or does my DH just not fancy me" where the OPs dh has taken emotional abuse to a whole new level. its one of the most disturbing threads ive ever seen.

I think a lot of it is learned behaviour and presumably their dad was a total wanker too.

From reading many threads on the relationship board they all seem to follow the same script.

I have noticed that they don't lose their temper they actually use their temper.

Yes sgb I think you are right, generalised aggression seems to be more amenable to change and self-control through work and therapy.

I think most abusers of women are swamped by a number of emotions, namely resentment, fear of what they see as women's power ,fear of female sexual power/rejection, and anger towards a person who they may not want but do need.

I had one man who in a counselling session, suddenly exploded with a real, deep hatred of all women. It was genuinely shocking to listen to, and the atmosphere in the room (just him and me) became almost evil.

He ranted about what he did to women , how he led them on ,flattered them, how easy it was to seduce and con them. He verbally abused them after sex, I wont detail it, but it was just evil stuff, and his face contorted with rage. He stormed out of the building, never returned to any sessions. We informally alerted local police who were very interested. The man was well known locally, an entrepreneur who liked to sell himself as a saviour of businesses and with lots of civic activities.

I dread to think what he continued to get away with, I wanted to fly-poster the town with warnings...

Well some men who are abusive to their partners are abusive to a lot of other people as well. These are the ones who don't have much, if any, control over themselves, the ones who can't hold down a job because they regularly flip out and punch the boss or break up the workplace, the ones who are in and out of prison for fighting, etc. Funnily enough I think I heard somewhere that the universally abusive are actually the ones it's easier to cure because they don't have the specific mindset that women are not people but something between domestic appliance and pet.

That really rings a bell, ohdobuckup. I knew someone like that. He was aggressive in everyday interactions, including occasionally physically aggressive and (as I found out after I crossed him off the Christmas card list) seriously abusive to his girlfriends. He simply would not acknowledge that he had control over his actions, and was responsible for them. Complete denial/disconnect. If anyone persisted in challenging him the whining about his terrible upbringing started.

I agree with the control ideas, already mentioned on this thread, that many of these abusive men know exactly how to target their specific victims and stop short of inflicting abuse in ways that would make it more difficult for them to escape punishment.

Where do the men who do murder or inflict more obvious signs of abuse fit in? Are they on the extreme end of some kind of spectrum or is it a different thing entirely?

As a mental health nurse/addictions counsellor, doing a lot of work with people in abusive relationships, it really got to me after a while how many of these men claimed they had no control over their actions. They seemed to revel in a warped sense of their ''dangerousness'', and how much power they could wield just by threatening to really lose it...and then of course claim they could not remember their actions once the ''red mist'' had cleared.

They were almost universally total wankers, and if ever seriously confronted about their behaviour would react with the other almost universal attribute of these guys, total self-pity. It wasn't their fault, they had had it tough from childhood, also frequently claimed to have been abused as children, as if that was their get out of jail card..which it often was.

As my tolerance for this bullshit evaporated over time and I could sense my career was coming to an end , I did start to confront this stuff very directly, didn't do any good as protocols and theories were there to reinforce the supposed after effects of childhood abuse and trauma, giving some allowance to abusive behaviour.

Many of these abusers embraced victim culture, and if they ever ended up in any kind of counselling group had many defences to their behaviour, except the obviously unsaid one: ''It's fun and gives me enormous pleasure to terrify by words or deed someone I really resent for needing in my life''

Will condition the above by saying there is a lot of good work done in some prisons with abusive men, and people can and do change for the better with the right interventions.

A lot of people lead by the example they have been shown. I think especially with dysfunctional people looking back can be very eye opening.

Alot of Abusive men probably saw male role models degrade women in their family on a daily basis and went on to see this as normal that goes from having no respect right to DV.

So in some respects mothers/women are not totally blameless to accept disrespect is also to condone the behaviour.

"I also think that what is definied as abusive behaviour is very very close to what was a borderline normal way of treating women not very long ago. There will be a lot of men walking around thinking that they are good men because they bring home the bacon and don't beat their wives, because that was all that was necessary for their fathers to be a good man."

Yes absolutely. I still see women on here saying, 'Well, my DH isn't great but at least he's never been violent."

To see how ridiculous this is, let's change the context: 'My boss is not great, but at least he's never been violent.' If anyone said this, everyone would be WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, because using violence in the workplace is so far beyond the pale it's almost inconceivable. Yet, one would hope that women could expect to be treated better by their husband than by their employer...

Hmm, not for me Nyac. Someone who doesn't do this isn't 'good' - they are normal.

Well it's useful for men to have other men like this around, because it makes women subservient and grateful for "good" men who don't use violence.

Reading this thread, and the red flag one, you can really tell who has read the Lundy Bancroft book and who hasn't.

Agree Nyac, as Lundy Bancroft makes the point in his book that these men who 'lose control' will often stop short of doing major damage, and obviously killing their ex. The guy who throws things around and breaks stuff, will target his partners possessions, never his own. The guy who pulls his wife by the hair and pushes her to the ground will rarely go on to kick her as she lies defenceless. Bancroft asked men why they didn't do that and their responses indicate they knew exactly what they were doing. Things like they know it could kill her, they didn't want to do any major damage, fear of the police if he did give his wife a major injury. Doesn't really sound like somebody who has 'lost control', now does it?

Yes he did. There were two female lodgers in their home, and they had no idea about his behaviour initially. He was never threatening to them, because they could walk away, or call the police. The 'victim' (sorry, not sure which word to use here) had emotional ties to him, as well as a shared property. He lashed out at me once, but because he got it back with interest, he never tried it again. There is a large slice of cowardice with many abusers.

She and I went out together for quite a while. She was not someone who was bad, or manipulative, or violent herself. He couldn't even have used the Dennis Waterman excuse ('she knew what she was doing, she drove me to it').

"Whereas normal people can disagree and come to an impasse, with him it HAD to escalate to a point where he would lash out."

But you see that's a choice. As you observed he was prepared to use violence to assert his will on situations with his girlfirend where there was a conflict.

It's no a lack of self control, men who beat women are using controlled violence. They aren't just randomly lashing out at people, they save it for a situation where there will be no retribution for the violence and they can use it to get their point of view and their wants to prevail. His violence stemmed from a belief that he was entitled to use it against her.

*neither. n

Even as a man, it's difficult to get inside the head of these other men. I did go out with a girl who's ex-boyfriend used to hit her. When I met him he was smart, well-educated and from a decent family. From the little I knew of their relationship, it seemed that it was a complete lack of self-control. Whereas normal people can disagree and come to an impasse, with him it HAD to escalate to a point where he would lash out. As much as anything, he seemed to lack any sense of perspective in their relationship. It was over 20 years ago though, so there may be details I am forgetting.

Agree that a causal link provides either excuse nor blame. It just is. (if indeed it is at all...)

I think porn has something to do with it too. I think that men who think that women should be non-sexually at their service and feel hard done by because they aren't, are more likely to be drawn into using pornography as a way to indulge that part of them that needs to be little pampered kings, and then this spills back into the nonsexual realm in a circular effect where the fact that they are not little pampered kings starts to feel wronger and wronger to them.
To explain is not to excuse.

I don't believe they are helpless victims of childhood trauma, they make the choice to behave the way they do.

I think those two factors can co-exist.

I agree SLTS, men who choose to abuse women, are making a moral choice. They don't have to do it.

yyy, to the point about buying into their version of reality too.

The best way to stop male abusers of women is to hold them accountable for their behaviour. There have to be social consequences for men who behave like this, and at the moment there aren't.

argh it is maternal deprivation and or attachment styles all over again

red mist descending

I'm with the entitlement crowd. I think some men turn out abusive because of a massive sense of entitlement. In relationships, they think it's all about them, their wants, their needs are the only important ones and must be give exclusive consideration.

I don't believe they are helpless victims of childhood trauma, they make the choice to behave the way they do. My ex made a choice to lie to me, about me. He wasn't driven to it against his will because of his relationships with his mother, it was his choice.

If you start blaming mothers/ex's, then you're just playing in to the hands of these men. You're buying their version of reality and you're pandering to their need for attention and sympathy.

I agree with the quote you provide, Nyac.

But poorly experienced separation =/= child abuse.

My impression on the receiving end of abuse is that that there is a very upset toddler behind my abusers' viciousness.

I'm not blaming their mothers or excusing their behaviour: those are leaps in a very different direction. I just find it interesting that these people may well still be carrying around seething resentment from the time that they were 3 years old or thereabouts. And indeed choosing, in adulthood, to act on that resentment in an inexcusably abusive fashion.

''So yes, in their case, i do think that their upbringing has coloured the way they deal with women, and I do blame their mother rather alot - she is still making excuses for them, while hating their (female) partners and blaming them. ''

I don't agree at all tbh. Loads of people have shitty upbringings, very few turn in to abusers. Also, blaming the mother is just helping these men escape responsibility for their own actions. Besides, all the evidence points to the father having the biggest influence.

Why is it always mothers who are blamed?