Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Why does a person turn abusive in different relationships?

48 replies

ohwowwwwwww · 06/09/2020 17:55

I was with someone for years and he was lazy, a leech, and a cheat. Of course he started off all lovely and I was insecure and stayed with him knowing that this relationship wasn’t healthy and I was unhappy. But he was never violent with me or sexually/verbally abusive. He broke up with me and moved onto another woman within two weeks and they were together for a year. In conversation with a friend I’d heard the pair split up and me being nosey took a look on her Instagram account, where I saw lots about how he physically abused her, pressured her into sex, made her cry most days, and how he’s still abusing her online now that she’s left. I 100% believe her, this isn’t a post to question whether she’s lying.

But it just makes me question - Why her? He wasn’t a great person but it was more his characteristics and laziness than anything (and the cheating, which I didn’t find out until a lot later). But I could never picture him being violently/sexually abusive. Again, I DO believe her and am not question it.

I’m just wondering - can a person turn into an abuser in new relationships - and if so, why?, or have they always been an abuser?

OP posts:

Original poster

ohwowwwwwww · 06/09/2020 17:59

I feel like I haven’t worded it right - I’m not trying to victim blame or anything like that with the ‘why her?’ I just genuinely can’t understand how he could just turn into that, or why?

OP posts:

omg35 · 06/09/2020 18:03

This kind of behaviour escalates. Sounds like he was utterly vile to you but you got off lightly in the grand scheme of how bad he has become if that makes sense?

IncandescentSilver · 06/09/2020 18:04

Because some sociopaths become progressively worse through life as they "learn their trade?

Original poster

ohwowwwwwww · 06/09/2020 18:08

Yes agree @omg35. I ask on here because I searched on Google and everything that came up was about being in an abusive relationship and them leaving you for a new girl and being nice. I couldn’t find anything like this. He left me in debt and with emotional scars and confidence issues, but I know I got off lightly in the long-run.

OP posts:

Original poster

ohwowwwwwww · 06/09/2020 18:09

The most bizarre thing is that, as all of this was going on, within the first year he emailed me a few times about a phone contract i was still paying of his, and about settling of bills etc from the place we rented together. He was always overly nice to me... which always made me feel odd.

OP posts:

tornadoalley · 06/09/2020 18:36

It could also be that she challenged him more than you did, and he escalated things to control her more. I suspect he controlled you more easily as you were younger.

itsgettingweird · 06/09/2020 18:41

It never came off as victim blaming.

Sounds more like you have similar to survivors guilt.

You know he was abusive in ways to you but never as badly as he got. You escaped worse.

But I agree it's likely he got braver, it can be because her personality was different (and that's not assigning blame it's human nature).

If you really struggling with this I'd seek a helpline to support you. It's a lot to process knowing what you avoided but could have experienced.

GenevaL · 06/09/2020 18:42

I’m also not victim blaming here - my ex was emotionally abusive and I believe he was capable of physical abuse which is why I left him - but I think sometimes abusers can test what they can get away with, a little at a time, which is why for many victims it happens slowly. It can often start with ‘jokes’ designed to chip away at confidence, then get nastier and escalate from there. If they find themselves in relationships with women who are perhaps a bit more vulnerable or with lower self esteem, it’s not hard to imagine how a shitbag can quite quickly get nastier and nastier if they aren’t immediately being told to get their stuff and get out.

OhioOhioOhio · 06/09/2020 18:44

Yeah. They do learn their trade. It's poisonous.

GenevaL · 06/09/2020 18:47

I wanted to add that I totally know that strong women can end up with shit men - Mel B is one example of a woman nicknamed ‘Scary’ who still suffered terribly, so please don’t think I’m saying weak women are the problem. I just think that in the situations you are describing, sometimes the reason these men might behave awfully with certain women but not all is because they find themselves with women who are more vulnerable and who tolerate more.

curiouslypacific · 06/09/2020 18:52

I think they figure out what does and doesn't work to get what they want in each relationship. In retrospect ex tried to gaslight me a couple of times, but failed so badly he gave up with that.

IME they also escalate over time - 4 years in I would have said ex was a lazy, stroppy manchild, but not violent. By the time I'd left he'd dragged me down stairs, broken my wrist and tried to strangle me (in seperate incidents).

Perhaps the escalation occurs because their initial approach stops working so well as the victim gets used to it. Or maybe their level of entitlement increases so the abuse escalates to acheive their desired outcome. For the most part abuse isn't about sadism, but about a sense of entitlement and lack of empathy. They'll behave in a way that gets the best results for them, for least effort, regardless of the impact on the other person. It may be that you were more amenable than the next gf so he got what he felt entitled to with less effort/abuse. Or maybe his level of entitlement had increased, or both.

At the end of the day, any man that leaves you damaged, physically, emotionally or financially is an abuser, it's just this one changed his tactics.

FuckOffYourself · 06/09/2020 18:55

It can often start with ‘jokes’ designed to chip away at confidence, then get nastier and escalate from there. If they find themselves in relationships with women who are perhaps a bit more vulnerable or with lower self esteem, it’s not hard to imagine how a shitbag can quite quickly get nastier and nastier if they aren’t immediately being told to get their stuff and get out.

If you call him out on his behaviour, he'll twist it so that you are the one with the problem.

If that doesn't work, he gets violent.

trogladite · 06/09/2020 18:57

tornadoally

It could also be that she challenged him more than you did, and he escalated things to control her more. I suspect he controlled you more easily as you were younger.

Oh. My. God. My abusive h left after cheating for another woman in march, it took me a while to come to terms with how abusive hed been as he was more overt with the control in the beginning and as i got older, wiser and stood up for myself he got more underhand and nastier, now we've split im completely fair game to him and hes being a total cunt. This is why - the more i challenge or dont give in the more he escalates, why didnt i see that?! Thank you for this post!

WellIWasInTheNeighbourhoo · 06/09/2020 19:00

Depends on how each victim takes the abuse they met out. If you fight back, point out the inconsistencies and lies, insist on them paying their way, doing their fair share, refuse to do what they want when they want it etc it may well get nastier quicker.

FuckOffYourself · 06/09/2020 19:12

In my case, I was too laid back. I was lovebombed and it was so sweet to have someone be so adoring. He wasn't perfect.
All the little jokes were quirky in-jokes but he was testing for what he could get away with.
Then his behaviour got worse and if I walked away he'd come running back. When I caught him cheating he got violent.

FuckOffYourself · 06/09/2020 19:12

Needless to say, he told every one I was a psycho.

bibliomania · 06/09/2020 19:45

Agree with you completely, curiously.

MikeUniformMike · 06/09/2020 21:01

Oh@curiouslypacific, that's awful. What you say is true though.

pushkinsinsanity · 06/09/2020 21:06

What about when they are abusive with one person and then not the next ?

MikeUniformMike · 07/09/2020 15:19

Does that happen, @pushkinsinsanity?

JosephineDeBeauharnais · 07/09/2020 15:28

@pushkinsinsanity

What about when they are abusive with one person and then not the next ?

Yes, this. XH was abusive to me but luckily I had the wherewithal to get out within a reasonable timeframe. He went on to remarry and there hasn’t been even a hint of abuse there almost 30 years on. I wonder if it’s actually because his second wife doesn’t characterise his behaviour as abusive or whether it’s because she’s naturally more “compliant” and so he doesn’t feel the same need to control?

PurplePansy05 · 07/09/2020 15:44

This is an interesting thread. I must agree with Tornadoally - I had an abusive ex in my early/mid 20s, he was similar age to me. Fast forward to about 3 years ago, he accidentally becomes a dad after a one night stand, he stays with the mother of his baby and she seems utterly besotted with him. We have friends in common to this day, so everything is plastered all over social media. I can't help but look at this and wonder when he's going to show his true colours to her. She no longer posts lovely stuff about him, but who knows, maybe it's just a passage of time like in most relationships. Maybe he's acting differently because of their child. Or maybe he has shown who he really is but she wouldn't say anything publicly.

She seems to be more ambitious and driven than him, he's a lazy, nasty piece of work and a leech thinking he's IT. Seems like he'd get on splendidly with your ex. Now, I don't know her in person, but she comes across as more cute and understanding as me, I just wouldn't put up with his shit for long and told him straight what he needs to work on. He didn't like that at all, he's just lazy and took it as nagging, whereas I was doing it in hope he'd get his arse in gear and utilise his potential. He's smart, but painfully lazy.

My suspicion is that I uncovered who he truly was very quickly which led to escalation of abuse, whereas she perhaps might be more tolerant or puts up with him for the sake of the baby. Or he abused her so much that she's completely lost her self esteem and she just puts up and shuts up. I do think that sometimes certain behaviours can be bigger triggers to abusers than others and they lose control and things escalate easier.

ChesterDrawsDoesntExist · 07/09/2020 15:45

It's what they can get away with I'm afraid. Abuse is rarely the woman's fault but there are women out there like my mum who immediately cower to men and go for nasty men over decent ones. My dad was abusive with her, emotionally and physically. His next wife would have cut his balls off for it so he never acted that way with her at all.
Mum's next husband was emotionally abusive towards her too. She would immediately apologise for things that had nothing to do with her and DSis and I felt that she almost encouraged his behaviour.
DSis and I would simply tell him to fuck off trying to blame us so he never tried. Well, he tried, and mum would snarl through her teeth at us that we were trying to ruin her relationship and life by not cowering before him but we still didn't and he treated us far better than mum after that.

It's shit and not the way for everyone but I do think abusers are often like that because they can get away with it.

pushkinsinsanity · 07/09/2020 18:33

@MikeUniformMike

Does that happen, *@pushkinsinsanity*?

Yes.

MikeUniformMike · 07/09/2020 19:41

Don't they go for a certain type, and repeat the behaviour?
Wouldn't they have anger management issues?

Flip

1 2

Swipe left for the next trending thread