He's The Player from Lundy Bancroft's 'Why does he do that?'
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accusing you of being too suspicious. But even if he's telling the truth—which he probably isn't—his constant flirtatious behavior can be as damaging as actual affairs. Either way, he will damage your other relationships, because you will start to perceive any woman as a potential threat to you. If he has a history of hitting on women who are close to you, such as your sister or best friend, you can end up isolated from the women you care about most, because you're afraid he will have affairs with them unless you keep them away.
Chronic infidelity is abusive in itself, but the Player doesn't stop there. He is irresponsible, callous in dealing with his partner's feelings, and periodically verbally abusive. As the relationship progresses, he may start to go for long periods giving his partner next to no attention and barely speaking to her, so she feels shelved. He probably refuses to take responsibility for safe sex (such as using a condom), and he may have fathered children who he is not supporting. His abusiveness can escalate abruptly if he is confronted or caught in his infidelities, and he may turn physically frightening at this point. In a strange but dangerous twist, the Player sometimes hits his partner for catching him cheating rather than the reverse.
The Player's constant flirting and cheating help him to get away with other forms of mistreatment. His partner is likely to focus on her hurt feelings about his infidelities and pour effort into stopping him from straying and, in the process, lose sight of his pattern of abuse. When she asks me whether I think her partner will ever settle down and be faithful to her—if they get married, for example—I answer, He may some day, but what you will have then is a faithful abuser. His promiscuity is a symptom of a deeper problem: He is incapable of taking women seriously as human beings rather than as playthings. With that mind-set, he'll be a destructive partner whether he cheats or not.
The Players I have worked with sometimes claim to suffer from sex addiction, and join Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (which they may discover is a good place to pick up women). But sex addiction doesn't cause dishonesty, verbal abusiveness, or intimidating behavior. The Player is not a sex addict at all. If he is addicted to anything, it's to the thrill of using women without regard for the effects on them.
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The central attitudes driving the Player are:
• Women were put on this earth to have sex with men—especially me.
• Women who want sex are too loose, and women who refuse sex are too uptight. (!)
• It's not my fault that women find me irresistible. (This is a word-for-word quotation from a number of my clients.) It's not fair to expect me to refuse temptation when it's all around me; women seduce me sometimes, and I can't help it.
• If you act like you need anything from me, I am going to ignore you. I'm in this relationship when it's convenient for me and when I feel like it.
• Women who want the nonsexual aspects of themselves appreciated are bitches.
• If you could meet my sexual needs, I wouldn't have to turn to other women.