To think every woman should read Why Does He Do That?

[crunchymint]

Every woman should read Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft. He describes how to recognise abuse, explodes myths around abusive partners, and advises how to get out of an abusive relationship. So a few examples -

So no, men who abuse partners are not more likely to have have had an abusive childhood than men who do not abuse partners.

Men who are controlling and critical and excuse this by saying it is because how their ex partner treated/abused them, are showing that they are abusive men.

You can read it for free here.
unityandstruggle.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf

Really important book. I wish I'd read it 25 years ago. I have been free for nearly two years now but still am far from free, there's stuff I haven't discussed with anyone, I will do at some point. This book helped me though, and helped me see that it wasn't me and my sanity going down the drain. I'm not sure I'll ever be completely free, over 20 years of 'training' is a bloody long time, even the police noted that I apologised for my very existence! However, I'm better than I was at the beginning so there is a chance. I will be doing The Freedom Programme this year. I have done one similar as has dd, which helped, but I know I need to disclose other stuff to move on properly and I'm not sure if I can.
We'll see. The most important thing is that we're safe now. It just make take us a bit longer to feel it!

Gilead, know exactly what you mean. When I remarried dh asked me why I kept apologising for everything! It's a hard pattern to break, but I've done it.

I wish there was a similar resource for teens.

0live: over-react much? Yeah, thought so.

Excellent book. It really opened my eyes, because before that I'd assumed that ex-H didn't want to go into rages, and that somehow it would be a joint project to create a healthier dynamic between us.

The scales dropped when I read the book, and he was quite happy with the situation and had no intention of dealing with. He go to offload all his negative feelings plus he got his own way in everything because the price of opposing him was too high. He was "using his temper, not losing his temper".

The book stopped me from being trapped in trying to fix the situation.

(FWIW, I have loving parents, a non-traumatic childhood, multiple postgraduate degrees, have travelled the world on my own, good job, am known to be pretty forthright and bolshy. Because I'm used to being treated well and had never experienced anything like it before, I didn't recognise the abuse for a long time).

I think it is an excellent book and an excellent thread.

I have gone from one abusive relationship to another and this book really helped me to make sense of a lot of what I went through.

"using his temper, not losing it" is such an important point.
The key point between a healthy and unhealthy relationship, is that in a healthy relationship, your partner wants you to be happy and tries to do things that help you be happy. In an unhealthy relationship, your partner only cares about their own desires. It is about making them happy.

I agree, crunchy, it was a complete revelation.

Thanks for that recommendation ChiaraRimini I hadn’t heard of that book.

I do think that some of the main points of abusive relationships should be taught in school. And how to spot the signs.

I read the stories on there and look at my decisions when I was younger and I think there but for the grace of god. I had such a narrow escape with an ex.

I was very much of the mindset that it could never happen to me, obviously I’m strong minded, bolshy, well educated blah blah etc. Yeah, right. My much cleverer, much bolshier, better educated friend has just escaped an abusive areshole who had blighted her adult life.

I could weep for who she was, and who she is now, she’s now a shadow of her former self. It’s terrifying, we,never saw the red flags, and it happened too easily.

Yes cos it is more fum for the abuser to take down a woman who tries to fight her corner.

Obviously that woman should just WALK AWAY BECAUSE SHE IS MASSIVELY TURNED OFF but abusers seem to like the feistiest woman that isnt immediately turned off iyswim. Door mats - no fun. Women with v v healthy self esteems, they just walk instantly. It is the normal women who have a chink in their self esteem who are juicy meat to an abusive man

Agree that it should be taught in schools. To teens of both sexes.

I think there is something in that, User. My ex saw everything in terms of a power game. As I had a certain amount of "power" (a previous poster mentioned social capital, which might be a better description), he thought that if he "conquered" me, he somehow acquired that power. I'm not saying he thought this at a conscious level, more that it's to do with the unconscious underpinnings of attraction.

I agree user and biblio, there was a definite power game whereby he'd choose someone he regarded as having a similar/superior intellect and tear them down. He hated the idea of anyone being more academically intellectual than him. He was (is) extraordinarily bright, he's never managed to get past the first year of uni though, despite trying more than once. Something always gets in the way, be it me, or his previous partners. We somehow mess it up for him. Truth is, if his firsts (and he does get them) aren't high enough he considers the tutor to be wrong and challenges, or when someone is getting higher marks than him. When he doesn't get his own way he becomes 'too ill' to continue. It's a shame really, he is bright and talented and could have been so much more than the abusive, selfish, self serving arse that he is.

Or is it only men who are abusers?

What're the statistics of men abused by women compared with those of men abused by men? And women abused by men?

It is women being killed by men in the main. And women being financially abused and sexually abused.

Illustriously I wonder about statistics. My ex is being looked after by a mh team. They are giving him help for his cPTSD, for an event that didn't actually happen, although I think he honestly believes it did (long before he met me). He is also getting help for the abuse he suffered at my hands. The non existent abuse, but hey, they don't have anyone to put them right and his arrest was due to a pack of lies he claims I told.
Obviously I'm aware that this works both ways.

I read some research into men who had reported abuse to the police. A significant percentage admitted they were hitting their female partner when she retaliated or hit them in self defence.