would a person be abusive in all relationships all it depends on thier partner?

[complexo]

I'm just curious and wondering if for example an abusive man that is emotionally abusive to one partner would necessarily be emotionally abusive towards another or it depends on the partner's response or personality??

I think that it is possible for an abusive person to change but it's something that they will battle with for the rest of their lives (like other addicts) and that it involves lots of therapy- soul searching, being honest and making changes to their lives.

Like others say, the type of abuse might be different depending on circumstances and what the new partner was like and maybe abusers get better at hiding their actions or anticipating their partner's responses through the "practice" they have had previously.

According to bystanders, I've had "worse" abuse from the bullies in my life than previous and subsequent targets. If that's true, it will be because I was strong: more accurately, willing to hang in there and fight rather than sensibly exit. Your abuser does whatever's necessary to achieve their desired level of control. If you want to be "less" abused, roll over. This is why I never rarely advise a bullied OP to stay and work things out; you can't win, and the harder you try the more you will get hurt.

Ok thanks so much for all your replies. You know I think that relationship left me so screwed up that sometimes I even doubt myself if he was ever abusive or not...if I was the problem and blablabla. I've never discussed this issue with anyone else in RL so is that ok if I come back here when I have a bit more time and write some of the stuff that happened so maybe I could get a verdict from you amazing ladies if I was really in a EA relationship and the degree of it??

I still need to do it sometimes, and we're not alone

my ex went on to be exactly the same with every successive gf as he was with me.
when I and one of his ex's got together and compared, it was amazing how the script was so similar.

BTW he has now decided that there are no decent women left in this whole area, and he is going to go back to his country of origin and matrry a nice girl his family have chosen for him!!!

I am guessing it is because he hasnt found anyone who will put up with his shit, and also that news travels and no one will go near him with a bargepole.

I guess it also goes to show that they never think its them, it never occurs to them that they cannot hold down a relationship and that they always break up for the same reasons, and the common denominator is them. They dont/wont/cant change

yes because they choose to be abusive, they are not made to be abusive by their parters actions

how they abuse may differ in relationships but the element of needing control will still be there until they want to work at it and change before that they have to accept that they are in the wrong (which sadly not many do as there is always an excuse, she was too clever with her words, i lost control and can not remember, its becuase i love her so much i act like this)

Nettle, you and i both know that the girls in his country of origin are raised to be abused, so he'll carry on, perhaps with multiple wives...

I agree that it depends on how much and what kind of control they can (or think they can) get away with.

Only with hindsight do I now think that my exP was probably EA in his previous relationship (with his ex-wife). Prior to that I don't know, as they all left him.

When we first got together he told me he had very low self-esteem and so I guess a lot of how he behaved towards me was symptomatic of that. I often thought he was jealous of me: my close relationship with my family, my friendships, my level of education, my total lack of ties (whether financial or family), my opportunities in the future. So he made me feel shit about all of those, but in little ways that niggled but I couldn't put my finger on why.

His relationship with his ex-wife sounded pretty grim, for many reasons, but I wonder how much of her behaviour came from him being a total prick at times. He told me she was physically abusive towards him and attacked him several times, that she's bipolar and so on. He never had any counselling after their marriage broke down and he still has lots of issues from his childhood that he's never dealt with.

His trouble is that he doesn't think his behaviour is wrong. He came to pick up his stuff the other night and he turned it all on me and made out that he was the wronged party, refused to acknowledge that the things he'd done (he asked me to list them and I didn't see the point) had killed almost every bit of love I had for him.

I hope the next girl he meets sees him for what he is ASAP and tells him it's his problem, not hers. Maybe then the penny might drop and he might realise. But there's probably a greater chance of pigs flying by singing the theme from UNKLE.

A good mate of mine was in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship for three years; her boyfriend's ex tried to warn her about him shortly after they got together but she didn't listen; soon enough she realised that the ex hadn't been acting out of jealousy but out of concern for my mate. He now has another girlfriend and nobody knows if he's EA with her.

They often follow a script and there is a predictable progression from putting you on a pedestal to devaluing you that follows a pattern.

If you read Lundy Bancroft's 'Why Does he Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men' you will get an insight into this sort of man.

I've just ordered it at the library - hoping it helps me put this relationship behind me!

I don't think that there are any rules that apply to all situations.

IMO, we all have a load of different buttons and different external factors will help us to press various of those buttons. The buttons do not change, but sometimes the things that prompt us to press those buttons do change.

Yes, there will always be some people who retain he same abusive behaviour. For others, the external factors will be more relevant. I was in a marriage for 10 years to a DW who regarded me as EA. I wasn't - I just did not like her or respect her. There was all sorts of history to the relationship as to why that was the case. Out of the marriage, I see that her behaviour during the last few years of the marriage and since the marriage ended (we have 1 DC) has definitely been EA towards me.

Does that mean that she will necessarily be EA with another person? No - I tend to think of course she will. But she is a mess, not a bad person. She might find someone who can put up with her perfectly well and love her for who she is.

I have met someone with whom I have the loveliest relationship I have ever had. We press completely different buttons - we just make each other relaxed and happy.

What I do think is that if someone is EA to a particular person, then that particular relationship is unlikely to ever really change.

I agree with Bouncy above. Some people just push different buttons and the dynamic that creates means they can end up unknowlingly treating eachother in an emotionally abusive way. Personally, I don't think that generally just because one relationship ended up with emotional abuse that subsequent relationships will take the same pattern. But, as Bouncy said above, some people will always have abusive elements to their personality, usually due to very bad childhood etc.

Read Beverly Engels "The Emotionally Abusve Relationship". I recently bought it, it basically describes different types of emotionally abusive relationships, how sometimes it can be one person doing it, but often it's both people doing it to eachother, bouncing off eachother in a negative way, often without even realising they are treating eachother in such a way. It also doesn't lay blame on the abuser/s, saying that in most cases the abuse is a response to low self-esteem or a reaction to bad childhood. The book gives you exercises to follow to try and understand whether you have been EA etc.

The problem with that book, imo, is that it plays right into abusers' hands. It's meant for couples with communication problems - most likely they learnt from their parents to try manipulation instead of saying what they want, or to use cutting insults as "jokes". Engels starts from an assumption that the balance of power is fairly equal in the relationship, but both partners are fighting for it instead of negotiating.

Where the power is unevenly distributed, the abusive partner often uses accusations of abuse against their target. They do this to reinforce their strategy of keeping the target in a state of self-doubt and uncertainty. Engels's book gives the abuser 'proof' that the target is, herself, abusive.

He can then sit back and chuckle inwardly as she questions her own feelings, attempts reasonable negotiation (which he will tell her she's doing abusively) and generally goes into a tail-spin. All the while believing she's at least 50% at fault, as the book says she must be.

I think the need to "understand" others (EAs, etc) is fine and dandy and can be helpful.

But IMO better to expend that energy to loving, understanding, protecting and developing yourself, this is where the most important focus is.

YY, jane.

garlic I see what you mean about the book. I actually found reading it more confusing as it made me start to really question what emotional abuse is. I mean, if you take the book literally then I would say it would be very easy to think we are all emotionally abusive in some ways as according to that book if you "yell", "shout" "take the mickey" etc, then that can be construed as emotional abuse. Perhaps I read it wrongly, but I found myself thinking "shit, I must be emotionally abusive" as I have yelled at my partner before asking him to help me when he doesn't and I have a very ill baby and he's leaving his bloody washing up everywhere etc!!

Some EA is very obvious, but some things in that book I was thinking, well isn't that just two people misunderstanding eachother, taking their frustrations out on eachother, just being incompatible.

It's such a complicated thing and actually, as I said to my counsellor recently, life seemed more cut and dried before I started looking into all these pyshcological terms...is he/she EA?Passive aggressive? Borderline Personality Disorder?Nacisissit?......I find the labels can actually be quite damaging.

*NB - Of course, I am not talking about obvious EA here, which can obviously be appalling. Just trying to address how difficult low level abuse can be to define as "normal" couple frustations or actual EA.

Abusive men go from woman to woman. It doesn't depend on their target's response or personality. It depends on what they believe they can get away with. It may depend on women's levels of vulnerability e.g. abuse very often starts in pregnancy, because a woman is more vulnerable then

I completely agree. I had a brief relationship and longer friendship with an abusive man, who was not abusive towards me (though he was domineering and freeloading). It took me a long time to realise what he was truly like and I ended any contact. Soon after a relative of his told me I seemed to be the only ex he hadn't beaten or subjected to EA.

Why? I have a close and supportive family, particular kind of job and other close friends, including male friends, as the primary factors, that probably convinced him he would not have got away with physical abuse and that in the event of a court case I'd have much better credibility. I'm not boasting about any insight on my part (he did totally have me fooled), I just didn't have the usual vulnerabilities of the women he chose. I now think that is a large part of why he ended our romantic relationship very quickly-he wasn't getting his twisted needs met.

For me, and for loads of others, the "understanding" abusers is an essential part of understanding & rebuilding myself. Unless I could grasp the sheer lunacy of my parents' beliefs & attitudes, there was little chance of understanding mine or how I'd come to invite damage into my life. I had to comprehend what had really been happening in my adult relationships before I could even begin to address my part in it, then how I got that way and what to do about it.

I don't want to sound as though I think I'm "done" yet - just this morning, I had one of those sudden, random recollections of a moment from my past, complete with real-world perspective and the depressing shock of recognition: yet another insulting, sexist put-down that I'd taken as a compliment. But these recognitions are evidence that my process is working!

"Why Does He Do That?" could just as well have been titled "What The Fuck Happened?" But that wouldn't have called to the right audience so well!

I find that contemplating another relationship is very hard...am I in the honeymoon period with the next abuser...or about to enter a 'normal' relationship with a caring man? It's difficult to know how to behave, what to watch for and how to get a balance between protecting yourself/being totally unwilling to have a relationship with a man. I'm paranoid as hell that I'm going to give an inch and...bang...he'll change. But then again..what is there to be scared of if you know that you can get out of it? Ha...been a bit nuts with it all this week! I've googled 'red flags' and 'early signs of controlling men' etc etc but most of the sites have really obvious stuff which I'm sure I'd see, rather than the more subtle stuff that I at least am more susceptible to. A lot of this column resonates.

What the fuck happened is a great name for a book btw gf - I'd like to know the answer to that too! But maybe also add 'what the fuck not to do in future'

According to Engel's book, most abusers and their vicitms have been subjected to neglect, abuse, either physical, sexual or emotional during their childhood.
I have not experienced ANY of these, in fact my childhood was wonderful yet I've been in abusive relationships. Now, that makes me wonder why I've had abusive relationships and whether in fact I am to blame, is it my fault etc.

Unless he had lots of psychotherapy because he fully recognised that he was abusive & truly wanted to change I think he would be abusive in all relationships to a greater or lesser extent.

I think beyondconfused makes a decent point. It is possible to be abusive within a relationship, without actually being a card-carrying abuser. It's about the motivation, the determination.

Abusers work to a script that is jaw droppingly similar to one another.