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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Why are so many men jealous, possessive and controlling?

56 replies

merville · 06/02/2019 17:12

Obviously some women are too but from anecdotal evidence & life experience, significantly more men than women seem to be excessively jealous, possessive and controlling.

Why do you think this is?

Obviously insecurity is a factor but most of us, including women, can be insecure to some extent; why does it seem to manifest itself in possessive, controlling behaviour to such an extent in men?

Is it an extreme form of mate guarding? (And the fact that makes might've been more likely to secure their mating 'rights' through aggression and intimidation than females)?

Is it that many men think on a more basic, level than women (so my dp says : you can never underestimate how simple and base we can be)?

Do you think these men can ever truly overcome (if they wanted to, which they don't seem to since they think they're on the right)?

OP posts:
merville · 06/02/2019 22:55

Back on topic, why are some men (or women) like this and not others?

OP posts:
NameChangeNugget · 06/02/2019 23:46

Never experienced it from men however, some of my female friends become unrecognisable, a few months into relationships and turn slightly batshit.
Can only base my opinion from my own experiences but, I’d say it was the total opposite of the OP

Caucho · 06/02/2019 23:53

It’s partly nature. As a species people expect us to have completely abandoned such primitive stuff now we’re so intelligent but a residual element still remains. The males are supposed to scrap each other for the right to mate in most mammal groups and I used to see this quite regularly in the pubs 10 years ago

BertieBotts · 08/02/2019 20:44

Yeah fair enough. Lundy is enough.

The way I see it is it's an extension of normal human behaviour, it's simply that the abuser's perspective is skewed. Lundy Bancroft tries to explain this (very badly, IMO) in his book with the analogy about the piece of land that the man believes to be his private land but everyone keeps treating publically.

I explained it a bit differently on a thread some years ago now. It is not that a jealous and posessive and controlling man sees a woman as a dog, he sees her as a woman, but that he sees the relative roles in a relationship as being hierarchical, similar to the roles of a pet dog and its owner, or a parent and child, or an employer and employees. I stick to the dog because it is clearer and things like parenting styles don't get in the way of the analogy.

When you have a dog you love the dog very much, it is a member of your family, it brings you enormous joy and you take very good care of it. You buy it the best food and the most comfortable bed and you would be upset if it got ill or was in pain. You'd never hit the dog or leave it out in the cold. You're a good dog owner. Probably a bit indulgent, to tell the truth. Sometimes the dog even sleeps in your bed or comes up on the sofa, even though it's not really allowed. But not if it's wet - then it can stay in the kitchen. And you don't eat meals with your dog at the kitchen table. It doesn't have its own bedroom in the house, its bed is in a downstairs room. When you change working hours, you would consider the dog's needs, but not ask his opinion. Sometimes the dog misbehaves and you have to tell it off, or use treats to encourage a behaviour that you do want. And when you go out of course the dog is on a lead, for its own safety.

Now all of that makes sense, because it's a dog. It's not equal to a human and a domestic animal is dependent on its owner for survival. But a posessive and controlling man sees his partner in a similar way. He loves her, he takes care of her, he does the best for her and he genuinely believes that he's a good partner. But he also believes that she's not really capable of rational thought like a man is, so he wouldn't seek her opinion on things, not seriously. He doesn't really trust her around other men because he doesn't believe that she really understands "what men are like" and wouldn't be able to withstand any pressure. Of course, he also believes that she should bow immediately to his pressure, so it stands to reason he might be worried that she would also cave to another man's pressure tactics. He generally believes that men are women are so drastically different as though they are from "Mars and Venus" - pop culture plays sexistly into this of course. This is why you want to run a mile from anybody who buys into gendered stereotypes, even jokingly. Sometimes they are totally harmless but if you're unlucky they can absolutely lead into attitudes like this, where the control is "necessary" in the eyes of the abuser because they see this invisible hierarchy between themselves and their partner.

Sometimes this exists against/across or despite gender roles because of a person's upbringing or mental health issues or it's a deep seated need to control everything around them or they have some issues like narcissism causing an inflated sense of their own importance - but when it happens from a man towards a woman sexism plays in and reinforces it constantly.

pissedonatrain · 09/02/2019 01:39

patriarchy that is deeply ingrained in our culture.

I've had quite a few neighbours who had loud fights. The few times I rented a room and the others had been a couple, there were loud domestics and the man never did a lick of housework even though she worked more or cooked. Both men drank a lot. My bff has an adjacent granny flat she rents out. Both couples had loud domestics. Just my personal experience.

user1479305498 · 09/02/2019 12:04

I find women tend to get jealous and controlling when they have often had ‘reason’ , men , often more irrationally

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