why does everyone minimise 'abusive' behaviour?

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I've been married for 20 years, but the last 3.5 of those I've been living separately - left the marital home, sep finances, kids with me.

both kids have asd so dont want to leave their home and go back to visit exH (50 miles away) so he comes to see them here.
I suspect he is on the spectrum too but he is ALSO a really unpleasant man - passive-aggressive at best and outright aggressive when 'pushed'. He is also a huge 'taker' - he will take anything he can from me and kids and contributes nothing.

Clearly I need to simply tell him he can't come any more and if the kids dont want to visit / go out for the day then tough cookies.

But what's holding me back from this is if I talk to others about it they minimise - oh, perhaps he's had a bad day / its not his fault if he's asd / he's a man what do you expect?

Are they right and I am wrong?

Because nobody wants to admit how common being a genuinely shitty person is.

And because 'bad/unempathetic' is a deviation from the presumed norm of 'good/empathetic'. People see it as a rare exception to the assumed norm-and deviation from the social norm is scary. So we generally want to explain it as something else.

However, just to note, I wouldn't be so quick to suggest he us autistic. That really isn't fair on autistic people. And claiming a mental health issue such as autism/depression/bipolar ect...is another way in which we deny the reality that some people are just BAD. So you too are doing it. Assuming he is different/there is an 'excuse' in a way for how he is - rather than he is just rotten.

But uf you wantbto give a name to it, have a Google of cluster b personality disorders. Narcissists for example, are takers. They are not mentally ill
Just dickheads.

Lots of people don't understand abuse. They think it's just being hit. So they don't look at the pattern of behaviour and zoom in on one incident to dismiss. And/or they don't realise abuse is about control, and don't understand how coercion works, so can't recognise it even if you lay the whole pattern out for them.

People also feel safer if they convince themselves abuse is rare and only perpetrated by obvious monsters.

Some people are malicious or abusive themselves. But mostly it's ignorance supplemented by self preservation.

Because it makes life easier for them OP and they can continue with the pretence that they are good people who would call abusersout/have nothing to do with them.

But it's shit for the person on the receiving end.

Lots of different reasons

Many people have been lucky and have no direct experience of abuse so just don't get it.

Others are the type to take a positive spin first if that's an option.

Some may be approaching it from a perspective of normal and expected is no abuse and would hear hooves and see horses (a bad day) rather than an exceptional zebra (abuse). Not to say abuse is rare but that good treatment is the expected norm and abuse is not.

Others may just want to put their head in the sand becaue grappling with the thought that your son, brother, best friend, good neighbour is an abuser is something they don't want to face.

No one size fits all here.

How do you know where the boundary is between being
a bit imperfect
a bit selfish
quite selfish
a very selfish person
a horrible selfish person
a deliberate abuser

I'm not saying what OP's situation is. I'm saying that is that being a bad person is a spectrum (and anyone honest knows they are on it). Many folk don't know if they are just as bad as their partner. Worse, you can get used a situation getting worse & worse until 'normal' becomes something that would have seemed astoundingly out of order at the beginning. Then you've lost all perspective.

Pinkbonbon

Both my kids are ASD NHS dx. exH has taken a number of online assessments and all have scored very highly. He wont approach the GP as 'he'd lose his job if he was 'one of them' (oh, yes...) I suspect his Father is asd too - I'm a MH prof myself (not able to dx but I do know the traits well).

So, I've had others say: oh, but he's clearly ASD, you need to cut him some slack'. Yes, but when you have kids who won't eat breakfast because its sausages and they were expecting bacon (for eg) you realise that rigidity is part of ASD and transitioning to different expectations / sensory experiences is part of it and you cut slack.

But when your exH who is 53 does it (twice today - two meals - one as I'd given the kids the bacon first and there was none left for him and now because I've 'been mean to him and made him feel unwelcome') then you have less tolerance, ASD or not.
He asked for my DS' expensive new boots (ds not sure if he likes them - exH 'needs new boots') and has asked to 'use my phone as you dont like it much and mine doesnt work well any more') - he even asked for my car if I buy a new one. All he does is take.
He's now refusing dinner, refusing to come to the planned family carol service and 'considering whether to attend for Christmas' - all in front of the kids. Idiot!!! I'm done trying to make it okay for the kids :(

But I genuinely don't understand why family / friends make excuses and so wonder if it really IS 'just me' like he says.

thank you for the other replies too btw, genuinely helpful. x

I realise the egs I've listed above are not abusive just him being shitty but other things he has done clearly are

Because nobody wants to admit how common being a genuinely shitty person is.

It seems quite common for counsellors/psychologists/psychiatrists to tell this to people - as in they're not bad people, just have inappropriate interactions et.

Copied from an old message from my friend who is a psychotherapist:
... but, even so, there is still a worrying unwillingness to accept that nice, “respectable” people (i.e. people like us) could possibly do things “like that” - because accepting that makes the world a very scary and dangerous place, so far better to hold to the idea of nasty low-lives (who will never mix in our circles and so don’t need to concern us).

Yeah it’s massively minimised
They are wrong , and you are right