I am shocked by so many tales of nasty, controlling, bullying men on here...

[snowleopard]

I know it is very common. I know domestic abuse goes on in many poeple's lives and people often don't realise. But what makes men like this? We hear a lot about how women can grow up with low self-esteem and ending up in abusive relationships... but that couldn't happen if there weren't so many men out there who are prepared to hit, belittle, control and abuse.

I would really like to know what makes men like this in the first place. It's a great truism that domestic abusers can come from any background, social group and walk of life - so what do they have in common? Is there a feature of their upbringing that made them this way - or is it something we can atrribute more to society in general?

Is anyone studying this or does anyone know anything about it or have any ideas? I'm interested in discussing it, but also I have a son - how can we make sure we aren't raising these abusers?

You and your dh sound lovely, sl.
Colditz- meant to say earlier that I think your posts about gender in society are bang on too,

Yes there has always been abuse. it is reported more i am sure and maybe we all too quickly look for 'blame' resulting in procecussions and labelling.

If we all recognised in ourselves our weakness and could find and turn for help it might make a difference.

I am not saying any kind of violence or controlling behaviour is correct but that we all need to take responsiblility and not just accuse.

scummy that's nice of you... we are not without our problems like anyone - although I'm amazed at how OK I am actually after that childhood, it does manifest itself in me - especially as constant anxiety and social cluelessness.

But I am eternally grateful when I look at DP - that he is so kind and so good with DS, and that there is so much laughter in our house - I'm so glad it's not another home like what I grew up in.

I am also very interested in what you describe, about how some people can be so badly damaged and others bounce back after abuse. I think my mum, though very weak, did provide lots of love and I also remember one teacher helping me a great deal. If I can ever give a child that kind of help I will.

Sorry for name-change. Have posted about problems with dh under 'normal' name, but feel a bit disloyal doing so again, as I really do believe he is trying to change. (Go on, mock me... maybe he will, maybe he won't, but I think he's trying.)

Anyway, I think it's more complex than just being to do with who has the 'dominant' role within the home. I earn more than my dh and was the sole breadwinner for several years (he was a student), I didn't change my name when we got married, he cooks most nights and does his fair share of other chores. BUT sometimes he 'loses it' and hits me. This happens rarely (maybe about half a dozen times in a 15-year relationship) but it's scary when it does. There seems to be something about me that makes this happen (not blaming myself, trying to understand)... if I get really upset about something I can get a bit hysterical/illogical/OTT and it's that that he really can't cope with and it's as if he has to hit out to make me stop. He does also have a very forceful (borderline bullying) personality, and can be very hard on the kids (though he has never hit them... I wouldn't be with him if he had), putting them down for every little thing, that sort of thing. He can also be 'shouty' - not just with me and the kids, but in everyday life. He has a job in which he has to deal with members of the public, and sometimes the way that he says he has spoken to people makes me cringe. (Yes, oftentimes they've been rude to him first, but he is not able to 'rise above it'.)

I find it hard to understand what makes him like this. He did have an upbringing in which smacking, shouting and quite tough physical punishments were the norm. If he was naughty his dad used to kick him upstairs with his steel toe-capped boots... that sort of thing. MIL still believes that a good smack is the best way to deal with naughtiness. His dad was also very dismissive of anything dh achieved. Instead of this making him want to achieve more, it has made him give up... he's not ambitious at all and just wants a quiet life really. His dad died when he was 18, so he never really had the chance to have a 'grown up' relationship with him and maybe get over some of these issues.

Don't know if this helps at all. I've thought about it a lot, though...

I would love to stay on here all day but I have to go to work... back later.

I think it is a complex issue and a great deal (imo) to do with a mismatch between our needs as human beings (which remain the same needs as our stone age hunter gatherer ancestors) and the demands/inadequacies of our environment in the 21st century.
so for example men are "designed" (evolved) phsyically/physiologically etc to hunt/fight/go to war/run long distances (as well as nurture and provide for their families) and we are all are "designed" to live in communities where the domestic work is shared, where our emotional needs are met within the community, where we learn from each other and where our actions are policed/governed by the rules of the community.
instead we are divided up away from the environment we are designed for, we eat some crappy diet which doesn't do us any good,leading to all manner of problems,we live separately from each other without the support we need at a very fundamental level (physical and emotional). we hae this sedentary life, which makes us ill and frustrated.
we live these eternal compromises e.g.men have the urge/need to provide, and they can't always do that and that has an effect on them.
women have a need to nurture but they also have other needs to earn, to be fulfilled in the 21st century sense, and the inherent conflict there brings great unhappiness to some people on lots of levels.
also we are expected to fulfill gender roles which we (in our history) meant to be shared with our peers and we end up frustrated and resentful because the job of looking after children (who need so much more looking after because of the evolution of our species) is really very difficult to do by ourselves.
there is also a conflict between the expectations we learned as children (which have set our patterns of behviour and our thinking) and our expectations now - the world has changed hugely in thirty years. I don't imagine there is another time in history when the grandparents generation had so little in common with their children.
sorry long and rambly post.

M&J - I think you are overdoing it . I'm not about to write down a whole life story here (obviously I know a lot more about this than I am going to tell) - the point was just to say - the same upbringing can have wildly different outcomes because of biology.

A secondary insight would be - children (boys) need different upbringings to take account of their inherent biological differences. Just as one brother may be heterosexual and another homosexual, one may be gentle and another violent - and those are biological differences that parents need to take account of.

I think it is right to say that men are evolved to be aggressive, but I don't see that one can say it is "normal" for this to take place in the domestic sphere. it isn't - it is a perversion of the natural order to attack one's own family.
the enemy - yes.
the prey - yes.
but to atack one's own kind is a reflection that something somewhere has gone badly wrong with the order of things.

at the heart of it, domestic abuse is simply an abuse of power. I think to dress it up as biology is wrong headed. It is fair enough to look at the root causes, but one cannot say that a man is violent towards his wife because of testosterone or his upbringing or whatever.
Anna888 have you ever read any Oliver JAmes? he is of the opinion - based on the research and clinicalobservations - that upbringing is the paramount influence on our behaviour, with a much greater impact on us than genetics, which he considers to have only a minor influence.

Anna8888 and Snowleopard, I think you have hit the nail on the head, it is a combination of things. A persons personality has a bearing on how they react to different things, upbringing is another facet. I do think in different people the levels of nature/nuture are different because well, people are different aren't they.
As an aside I have a gay brother, and while we were brought up by the same parents, I had a hugely difficult relationship (now repaired) with my mum (and a great one with my dad), the reverse is certainly true of my brother, although he would say that that has no bearing on his homosexuality, he was born that way.

NewID, you do realise that you sound like every other abused woman I have ever spoken to? You do realise that there is nothing special about your partner that gives him special dispensation to lash out? You do understand that there is nothing so significantly dreadful about you that means you make people want to hit you?

No, I didn't think you did.

Next time he hits you (and he will, he really will) have a think about why you think you deserve less than everyone else you talk to.

Fair enough Anna888.

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In my case it was a mix. he was found (after i had left) to have a Borderline personality disorder whichis clearly a large factor.
but he also witnessed his father beat his mother, although they eventually divorced his mother has never realy shown him that the behaviour he witnessed was wrong.

his mother is still "friends" with his father. he has seen her behave in a truely immoral way and his sister has followed the same track. both have frequant one night stands (even now at her age) and whilst this alone does not mean he has the right to abuse it goes some way to explain why he feels women are worthless.

growing up his mother babied him and protected him from everything, he has never had any real independance as she even now treats him as a small child.

these are all contributing factors in why i think he has become a violant man.

Alone i do not think that any single aspect will turn a child, but instead a multituide of environmental factors cause him to think this behaviour is normal or acceptable.

and i also believe that men abuse women because they are allowed to get away with it.

NEWID you will continue to get hit for as long as you allow him to think he has teh right to do so.

lisalisa - without doubting the validity of your story (and I do not think for a minute that there is any excuse ever for physical violence in a couple), do you think that women also have a duty not to provoke men to a point where their self-control is undermined?

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'do you think that women also have a duty not to provoke men to a point where their self-control is undermined?'

Ah, the 'nagging' defence that has been used to successfully in many a court case.

I think that both men and women are adult human beings able to make choices, and either a man or a woman arguing that they hit someone because 'he/she made me do it' is absolute bullshit. Both men and women have a duty to each other and to common humanity to control themselves. And if they can't, that's not the fault of their partner.

Do women also have a duty not to wear short skirts, so that a man's passions are not inflamed by the sight of a pretty knee, and so she doesn't get raped?

lisalisa - because I am addressing the "provocation" issue...

If my son stamps his feet in the store, screams at the top of his lungs for 40 minutes straight, throws his food across a table, shouts that he hates me and he wishes i were dead, hist his sister, smashes cups and glasses.....behaves pretty much like a nightmare.

can i claim i was provoked and punch him?

no? why not? its ok for men to hit women with the excuse of provocation.

i wonder if the women that provoke their partners so much they get hit...did they lock the door first then? what is it that prevents these men just walking away?

colditz - what do you think? Do you think that human beings should be allowed to behave any way they please (even lose self-control themselves) and expect other human beings to be in complete self-control whatever the provocation?

i would expectthat if an adult feels they are being provoked to a ppoint where tehy feel they may lose their temper they should walk away.

There is NEVER an excuse to become violant