Damaged men

sgb, we x-posted and I agree with you.
But I think there are a lot of men who do what you describe who would never consciously admit to this, even to themselves. And so their wives can't see them as abusers, and I think it would be helpful to reduce emphasis on the idea that abuse is always perpetrated deliberately.

Lundy Bancroft lists childhood abuse/trauma as one of the myths as to why men abuse.

This website quotes the passage and lists some other myths:

www.safehavenshelter.org/information/MythsAboutAbusers.html

"Myth: He was abused as a child, and needs therapy for it.
Fact: Multiple research studies have examined the question of whether men who abuse women tend to be survivors of childhood abuse, and the link has turned out to be weak. A bad childhood doesn?t cause a man to become an abuser, but it can contribute to making a man who is abusive especially dangerous. For some abusive men, the blame-the-childhood approach has an additional reason for being appealing: By focusing on what his mother did wrong, he gets to blame a woman for his mistreatment of women. This explanation can also appeal to the abused woman herself, since it makes sense out of his behavior and gives her someone safe to be angry at - since getting angry at him always seems to blow up in her face. The abuser only wants to draw attention to his terrible childhood if it's an excuse to stay the same, not if it's a reason to change. (Why Does He Do That?, by Lundy Bancroft)."

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.

I think there are various different reasons: some people, irrespective of gender, seem to be 'wired wrong' from the beginning in that they have no empathy and no conscience. Others may be unthinkingly copying patterns from childhood - a man who grew up with his father abusing his mother and the abuse being condoned and tolerated within the wider family may well grow up thinking that it's normal and perfectly OK to abuse and control his wife because that's just how life is. Women are servants/pets/property and if you have to kick them a few times to get them to behave, well you just get on with it. I think the bulk of abusive men are starting with the viewpoint that women are inferior and a wife/partner is a man's possession that he can do anything he likes to. For some of them, the more independent, intelligent and strong the woman is at the start of the relationship, the more pleasure he takes in hurting her - as he sees it, he's restoring the correct natural order by making her submit.

Thanks for explaining the field thing.

I have some difficulties with the orthodoxy on this site that abusers (defined as those who behave in a particular way) are always doing it deliberately, always know what they are doing, and always have a choice. In my (thank goodness, limited) experience I have known one man who behaved like an absolutely classic abuser in terms of what he did, but I truly believe that what he felt was not a desire to do those things, but a tragic inability not to. I don't think this absolves him of resonsibility, at all. It certainly doesn't put the responsibility elsewhere. I just think that - well, say I crashed a car because I am clumsy and a shit driver and hurt someone, it is definitely my fault and I should take responsibility. It also means I have to make bloody sure I get a lot better at driving before I get into a car again. But it is not the same as getting in a car and going out and driving into people deliberately for kicks. (although maybe those exist too)

The reason why abusers don't want to give up their abuse is because they get a lot of benefits from it: power, a feeling of superiority, having someone deferring to you all the time, often a house servant who tends to your needs, sexual services, etc etc.

It really isn't about some hidden trauma, it's about direct privileges and benefits that abusive behaviour can provide to men.

Is it ever possible to expose the lie of the abuser's reality to them then, Hotdamn?

Perhaps in some cases. There are rare cases of reformed abusers after all, and their reform had to pass by recognition of their responsibility for their own actions, and acceptance that it has actually hurt another human being.

In my own experience, though: no. Because it is just too painful for the abuser to deconstruct the false self they've built, since deep down they believe that the real person hiding behind the mask is a worthless turd.

Come to that, how do we know that it isn't our reality that's warped (as id often claimed by abusers)?

Your reality is your own, and you are entitled to it. As is the abuser. But you don't need to walk in his reality if it is not to your liking.

Disclaimer: i have no idea whether my H counts as abusive, although he has been rather shitty in the last year or so and I am not happy with the way he has treated me for much of our relationship.

However, he and his 2 brothers have all had failed relationships. I think in their case they have zero respect for their mother (who is a pretty useless individual I must say) and idolised their father (who also was a crap father from what I can tell, but managed to die young before they realised that). in their life their mother had a life of drudge, putting herself second to the 4 males in her life, even down to giving them food off her plate, doing all of their chores and generally being seen as useless. it's no wonder that none of the men managed to have successful relationships and don't seem to respect women. They are all absolute workaholics like their father.

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 wonder if it takes 2 to have an abusvie relationship though - in my case I was brought up by a NPD. mother and there are definite issues there with the way I deal with people. I have massive problems with her even now and it's no wonder I stuck with H and his crap behaviour for so long.

I do agree with Nyac though, it would in most cases be wrong and unfair to blame the mother for the child growing into an abuser - and I don't suppose you did mean to blame them as such - though of course there are a few dreadful ones (see Stately Homes thread in Relationships!). Quite often, in the examples we've seen on MN, when the mother is horrible the son grows up as an appeaser rather than an abuser.

YY

"Blame" is entirely the wrong word. Causal link is not blame.

Partly of course it's just because they can. In my parents' young days drink-driving was absolutely par for the course - their passengers might moan a bit, or feel secretly frightened, but that didn't stop people (mostly men, from all accounts...) doing it. Now drink-driving is seen as totally unacceptable and as a result is significantly rarer.

Similarly, if male abusive behaviour was consistently seen as unacceptable by people of both sexes, and women talking about their horrible experiences were really listened to, and abusive men were quietly shunned by non-abusive men, I'm sure it would become less common.

I see what you're saying, Nyac. But I truly believe that abusers feel very real pain, because in the "reality" that they choose to inhabit, they are being victimised.

The fact that that "reality" is a big fat lie is where the problem lies. But so long as they hang on to it, they are, in their view, truly being "wronged" by their victim.

Or maybe it's a glimpse of the fact that their reality is a big fat lie that is the thing that causes them so much pain. Probably more likely, in fact.

But I see them as definitely very, very hurt. Damaged, as OP put in her thread title.

This is no excuse for poor behaviour. But it is a cause.

... my response was to your 12:01:36 post, of course.

I do agree with Nyac though, it would in most cases be wrong and unfair to blame the mother for the child growing into an abuser - and I don't suppose you did mean to blame them as such - though of course there are a few dreadful ones (see Stately Homes thread in Relationships!). Quite often, in the examples we've seen on MN, when the mother is horrible the son grows up as an appeaser rather than an abuser. It is other kinds of separation, such as the psychological separation caused by seeing your father treat your mother as a lesser being unworthy of a close bond with you, that would be likely to cause the kind of damage we're talking about.

The above is not excusing anything, by the way-any adult with enough brain to walk and talk will know the wrongness of that position. It is just so easy for men to keep abusing regardless.

I think so many men have an upbringing in which (in both big and small ways) they are not expected to have empathy or even a great deal of morality, both of which are things women are always expected to have. Men like that are free to follow their own desires without thought for the consequences for others, and are likely to believe (i) that's the natural order of things; and (ii) anyone, especially any woman, not meekly going along with that is wrong and unfair.

Claiming to feel like a victim, and actually feeling like a victim are two different things though. Abusers use these tactics to throw people off the scent, not because they are true. What they want to do is disguise the fact that there is a real victim - the woman they are abusing - but if they can get people to focus on something else e.g. supposed childhood abuse, then it stops people from challenging their behaviour.

Male abusers of women do it because they can and because they want to. It's a choice.

The abuse victim, IME, also experienced similar childhood trauma. Except that s/he internalised it as being his/her just desserts somehow.

That's it in a nutshell, HotDAMN. And even when he had it proved to him the land was not and never had been his, his relatives kept encouraging him to believe it was. The boy in the story gradually accepted the truth and acknowledged the wrongness of his behaviour, but IRL too few men do, because it hurts.

Or, you know, some people are just arseholes. We, as adults, choose how we behave. I think there can be a danger of explaining someone out of responsibility.

men like this damage women.

Indeed they do. And yet, they feel so hard done by. Abusers really think they are the victims of their partner's refusal to be/do what the abuser wants her to be/do.

I think there is a lot going on in the abuser's feelings of victimhood. Quite possibly childhood trauma, in my view.

Totally agree about male culture. It is a noxious message that reinforces abusers' views (when the abusers are male).

I don't think that this kind of behaviour can be blamed on damage or trauma, particularly damage through abusers' relationship with their mothers. That's actually a reversal of what happens, which is that men like this damage women.

Rather it comes from a sense of entitlement and from misogyny, as per the allegory of a man who grows up believing a field will belong to him. Men actually did reward themselves the right of ownership of women in the past, and in some countries they still have it e.g. Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. Society has been set up by men to justify this kind of behaviour towards women and these attitudes.

Also agree that these attitudes and beliefs are passed down father to son, and through male culture.

Why do girls not grow up thinking the field is theirs?

Because they don't have the same social messages boys do that when they get married they will acquire a nice tame domestic appliance to service their needs.

And, as I said in my first post, as women themselves they may have more easily gotten over the fact that they don't have a right to an always-available source of comfort and nurture.

it stems from poorly experienced maternal separation but not just that: often such abuse is modelled for them by fathers or other men in their lives, and is minimised or condoned if not endorsed by men and women in the family.

And I think very often, because mothers are frequently expected to supress any sense of self and identify completely with their children, especially their male children, and to forgive them everything, a pattern develops where the extent of passivity and forgiveness a woman shows is representative of how much she loves the man in question. So getting your woman to forgive whatever you do to her is an important indicator or test of how much she loves you. it can be a boundary that keeps getting pushed so the man can keep getting reassurance (and power trips).

Men and fathers aren't expected to operate like that, which is why I suspect many men who are routinely incredibly abusive to women can have quite ordinary and functional relationships with other men.