Are abusive men abusive with all partners?

[Gorgonzolacherry]

Im 3 months out of exiting an abusive relationship which went on for about 10 months It took me a while to figure out what the hell was going on. Had I done something? Was he just unhappy? Conclusion: fuck that, he's an abusive psychopath and any future is more rosy without him in it. Depressing!

Anyway, I was wondering, do you think that abusive men are like that more or less with all their partners? I actually asked him at one point whether he had behaved the way he did with me in his last LTR. He looked astonished and said no and then blamed my behaviour. Yes probably classic abusive behaviour there too.

The abuse in my situatio was emotional not physical and also trying to be sexually controlling (withholding sex.... Intimating he didn't find me attractive enough).

Finally what kind of fathers do these men become. I mean some of them have or go on to have children. What if those children are girls. Are they like that with them too? So awful

Also, thank FUCK for mumsnet. I trawled and trawled these threads for ages. And they gave me that lightbulb moment that what I was experiencing was wrong. I feel strangely über proud of myself for making the right decision quickly and not looking back. So thank you x

Anyway, I was wondering, do you think that abusive men are like that more or less with all their partners?

Generally, yes. And the wisest approach is to assume the answer is always yes.

There are exceptions but they are like hen's teeth. Notably where there is a huge motivation for keeping the relationship going. A classic example is where an abusive man hooks up with an extremely wealthy woman. In that sort of situation, they may very well still have lots of extra marital affairs etc, but they are likely to tone down the abuse to maintain the cash cow relationship. Unless that itself is with a woman who is vulnerable - Washington Square style.

Also when they "decide" they need to appear normal and have a family life so want to settle down. Typically with narcissist/psycopath types this will be much older than average - ie.when they realise their looks/youth/charm/appeal are about to wain and they have limited window to hook up with anyone of any worthwhile status (as they see it) or attractiveness.

I would love to know, my ex was verbally sometimes physically abusive to me throughout our 4 year relationship.

After he moved out he very quickly got into a new relationship. This woman is richer than him so I wonder if this will keep his temper at bay. To this day he doesn't believe he did anything wrong in our marriage, that I deserved everything I got due to my behaviour.

I still have to see the bastard because we have a child together and he still has control, he has my number blocked so he decides when he wants to call me or reply to my emails about our daughter.

I would also love to know..

This is something I've wondered for ages!

Was with my abusive ex for 18 years, 2 dc together.
I fled 3 years ago, he's with the most stunning girl who's 20 years younger than him. They are getting married, trying for a baby

He's recently started having contact with dc and they make both make out that I'm some unstable/crazy ex!

He seems to have no concept of what he did to me, despite going to prison for his last assault.....

Wondering if he's the normal loving partner that she portrays??

Abuse can be a version of self-loathing: they project all the things they hate and can't accept about themselves onto their partner.

I remember my father screaming at me and my siblings when we displayed signs of weakness and not fitting in with other kids: of course it was his own childhood self he was hating

Or hating my mother for being odd and angry and not the woman he thought he "deserved": but not accepting this was the family he had made by being in it.

So I suppose he could partner up with someone who was short-term more emotionally sorted than him. he would think "great, I've re-invented myself with the new woman new start".

but I suspect long term his self-control issues would come out, and she would be reduced to the same weird angry social position as him so then he could hate her for that?

Abusers aren't wired up to "do the right thing" so anyone who partners up with them who displays even a brief period of vulnerability is putting themselves at risk.

I agree abusers are cowards, so if they were with a very stable, supportive "take no shit" family or as you say someone in a stronger economic position then their rage might never surface within the marriage.

I think the rage and self-loathing and emotional volatility and hatred of women has to go somewhere, even if not into the marriage: my ex husband was very angry. He re-married to a woman who was uber-religious and very subservient.

I think he takes his rage out on other things though? (you know that guy who writes raging reviews on tripadvisor of pretty young female receptionists to "punish" them? That's him)

My ex is emotionally and physically abusive.

He used to say things like 'I once forced (exgf) to eat her food off the floor... Does that make me abusive?'
He had accounts of abuse with them all but described them all as vile sociopaths who were horrible to him.

When I left hi, after he strangled me, I became one of those vile sociopaths.

Regarding fatherhood, he has a 10 year old girl. He is emotionally abusive and treats her like a mini wife.

He's totally different with our son.

He's abusive and violent towards his mother too.

It might be helpful to read why does he do that by Lundy Bancroft.

I wonder this. I think he could keep up the Mr nice guy pretence for a while but his anger, sulking and arrogance would come out somehow.

My ex has a disdain for women but treats his male friends very differently.

I think, yes, they are abusing to a greater or lesser degree. I was with an EA for four years on and off and lived with him for a very short while too. Once I had copped on to what was happening, in lighter moments when he was taking about an ex (which he did all the time) I would ask, 'What went wrong there then', or somesuch and he would come up with some really unfeasible reason why they split. He was with a (fairly well known) radio and TV personality for a while and he showed me the letters she wrote him (which was abusive in it's own right looking back) and she obviously really liked him but when he described how they came to break up it sounded like a 'straw that broke the camels back' type scenario rather than a good reason IYSWIM. I also had a conversation with the bro of one of his exes and he described some hair raising moments of abuse. I think it is part and parcel. They can put on a good act for a while in order to get their way or get control but it eventually bubbles up again. They are masters of minimising problems. That is the main thing to remember with abusers. They know they are doing it but by not acknowledging it, it isn't a thing and therefore not up for discussion.

I look at my ex and wonder the same thing sometimes. There are things that I do know he still does like lie outright and lie by omission to his wife. There are some things that are different too he plays a more active role in child care with their ds than he ever has with our dc. But I think the biggest difference is that she isn't a very nice person either she makes snidey comments bitchy remarks so I tink they are possibly a match made in heaven. I'm not sure if she realises what a liar he is or if she blindly believes everything he says but even if she does in a lot of ways she enabled his abuse of me to continue after the split because she sucked up all the shite about me being a psycho that stopped him seeing his children, something she still believes several years later despite the outwards appearance of us all getting on famously. I watchy back and suck it up for the kids.

I don't know. In some ways I hope my ex doesn't treat the OW in the same way, but in other ways I am terrified he will abuse her and the DC too. I did try and warn her what he was like and she told me he had never done it to her and I was a nutter and it was all my fault. There are no winners are there. These men walk through people's lives with their hobnail boots on with no regard for the destruction they cause.

Don't wonder. Of course they all do it to the next person. People just don't change when their abusive seeds were sown into them during childhood.

Yes they are always abusive.

All the women who post here thank your lucky stars you got away from it.

Yeah it might look like he's having a good time but after a few years the cracks will appear. They always do.

I think men and women who are abusive look for people they can abuse so if they started a relationship with someone who took none of there crap then they would be unlikely to stay in the relationship as it doesn't give them the power trip.

I'd say the potential is always there for abusers to behave abusively, but I guess it's like any relationship in that the personalities of the people involved determine how the relationship plays out. For example my DH's ex would give you a list as long as her arm regarding DH's failings yet I perceive him as a wonderful partner to me even though he's still the same man with the same attitude to relationships that he always had.

Obviously I'm not implying it's ever the abused person's fault for 'making' the abuser act that way, more that the abuse might appear to be less pronounced in previous or subsequent relationships simply because dynamic between the people involved is different.

I think your question is slightly dangerous, since there is an "Is it me?" implied.

I also wondered if I had "made" my ex abuse me by being too soft, and if I had been tougher and taken no shit, would he have toned down his attempts at control?

In fact, I think that he would have ramped up the abuse if I had been tougher: any instance of me having boundaries at all was an affront to him, and a justification to trample on me.

So I believe that he will be more or less abusive in any relationship, according to how easily or not easily he gets his own way. Which makes him a bully in any relationship.

The answer to the question is yes, unless they undergo therapy, e.g. CBT, which is deemed to be successful. Even then I think it only enables them to control themselves better.

It's dangerous to say too that the victim makes it possible. Anyone can be a victim in an abusive relationship. Anyone.

No. He only ever did it to me.

I think the short answer is yes, because that's who they are.

The idea that a woman can stop a man being abusive by behaving in a certain way is a dangerous one, because it's putting responsibility on to the victim of abuse and not the abuser. It also feeds into the deeply sexist notion that women are responsible for managing men's behaviour.

Hmm, I've pondered this too. And looking back, xh was fine as long as I always agreed with him, never expressed a negative emotion, and his needs and desires were put above all else.

I think if he got together with someone who shared his hobbies and aspirations and they never had dcs, that there's a chance he could not be abusive to her. Obviously she would have to be utterly complient and not have views that differ to his, ever.

I think in the short term this could be possible, in the early days when she is trying to please him and he's trying to impress her. But I can't see the halcyon days lasting forever, and whilst he may tone down the abuse, I'm certain it will come out in some way.

So that is what I have pondered.

No matter what, I am a thousand times happier, safer and less anxious than I ever was with that man.

I had a mentally and phyically abusive ex and have seen his name in the local paper twice over the years for assault on ex girl friends.

I think they can. My FIL (who I detest) was a totally abusive cunt to my MIL. He and his 2nd wife (she was the OW btw) seem as happy as larry and have been together over 15 years.

I don't know, it's a hard one. I suspect most do the same behaviours over and over again.

But then I've had two relationships I would call abusive. Wheher or not the women they are with now experience them in the same way, I don't know. Neither of the men are abusive bastards types, just their behaviours at times crossed the line.

One man - was partly personality, and partly untreated mental illness which is now treated. His wife has been with him many years and they seem happy enough.

The other - yes his behaviour was abusive to me. He wanted a traditional woman-does-everything relationship, he cheated as he is a coward who has to have his next relationship lined up before he leaves and has done that before (I was never OW) and that involved obviously a lot of abusive behaviour such as lying, gaslighting and so on. But the woman he left me for loves 'looking after her man' and comes from the same culture as him, where women are subserviant to men. So that isn't abusive I guess to her. So he'll probably decide to stay with her and not cheat. Abusive relationship to me, probably not to her.