Do you think abusers know they are being abusive?

[DeeDossed]

I was in a 'relationship' with a man who was in his 40s when I was 16. I have since learnt that I was probably groomed and he would use abusive 'tactics' like gaslighting. I'd never heard of the word at the time, this was 20 years ago, but he would basically lie about small things to make me think I was going mad.
Now, this is quite a manipulative and calculating thing to do, but I can't believe he was clever enough to premeditate this. He was thick. How do abusers think, right it must be about time to start dripping in the lies today then next week I'll ramp it up a bit more? Who teaches them how this is done?

It wasn't just gaslighting, he would threaten to kill himself, threaten to tell everyone about us, isolate me from my friends, rewrite my own beliefs, and so on.
I'm not sure what my question is, I think im just trying to work out how this idiot managed to learn all these techniques before I'd ever even heard of them? Is there a secret school for abusive pricks or something?

Absolutely they do. It is always a choice they make.

See the work of Dr Jessica Taylor for more evidence of this.

Nonsense.
Women are the most common victims of abuse and violence and yet women do not go on to become just like them.

I actually think it's the same with physical abuse though. It's a misconception that physically abusive men just lose control and have anger issues and snap in the heat of the moment. They're very much in control, and just like with emotional abuse, they feel it's justified. Many abusive men have admitted that they think it would be justified to kill their partners if she cheated or if she leaves him. It's scary but even in that circumstance they genuinely see themselves as the real victims.

My ex was always very careful not to do anything that would leave a mark or a bruise, but he was physically violent. This illustrates the control they have over it. They were all instances where I wasn't just putting up and shutting up, so he genuinely felt I was the one in the wrong for not being a good submissive girlfriend.

Ultimately abuse stems from deeply internalised views and values. It is never caused by stress, alcohol, mental health issues etc. These things may be instigators but they're not the real cause. Abusive men hate women and see their only purpose as serving men. They believe they have a right to use control, manipulation, and any tactics they deem necessary in order to keep women in their place. So everything they do is justified, and they reject notions of abuse because that would imply they're bad men which they truly feel they are not. So in short, they know what they're doing and they're in control of their behaviour, but they don't know it as "abuse".

@Aozora13 I've experienced this with my wife and it's actually insane when you see it happen. Like, not just saying something didn't happen to avoid blame but a full rewrite of their own past and timeline to fit around this new story or narrative they have created. You can even show examples, proof and others who were present that say otherwise. It still doesn't matter, the rewrite has been done.

Not dismissing the fact there are abusive men but there are also abusive women. From what I have experienced it's the same characteristics, abusive behaviors and patterns just swapped around, it's weird I can relate to what women are describing from experience with male abusers.

It feels like you're going insane whilst it's going on.

My exh was the absolute master at making me think that I was gaslighting him and that I was the abusive one!

They know exactly what their doing and they enjoy it.

As a pp said, they don't do it to people more powerful to them or who are likely to thump them.

@JibbaJab it's wild, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it happen. And we have screenshots of messages, signed legal docs, views of objective professionals etc but even those are no obstacle! I’m sorry you experienced that in your relationship and yes this is absolutely something both women and men do - my BIL learnt from his mother who also was an awful awful person.

I’m no expert, but I’ve experienced it. I think abusers can learn it as a result of experiencing it themselves as children. I think other abusers just work it out over time. They are obviously very messed up people, and I do believe that self esteem problems are part of it. They put you down to build themselves up.

I have often wondered what it is that makes one person who has experienced an abusive childhood go down this path of being an abusive gaslighter, yet another person who has experienced a similar childhood can grow to be an empathetic & kind person. (I do think the second type of person can be more vulnerable to further abuse in adulthood). I.e. that these similar childhoods can produce people who are abusers, or people who are vulnerable to abuse.

Of course, not everyone that finds themselves in a relationship with an abusive gaslighter had a bad childhood.

@CatsSnore Yeah, I had just over a decade of it including abuse and it did actually drive me insane and I got really sick too. Like physical aside emotional and psychological is extremely damaging. Everything twisted around, things that happened in one way changed to another or didn't happen at all and it wasn't them, it was you. Even tone of voice, your facial expressions used in some way.

@Aozora13 It really is and quite scary actually when you witness some of it. Mine did it often but with it came personality switches at the same time, totally different person. I actually got discarded in the end through another rewrite and personality switch, it was violent and I had to leave. Now, totally different person completely to the point she has taken our children from me, never had a dad was always a lone parent.

@Cloudflare The only thing I can think of is something linked to empathy in terms of when you develop that age wise. In my case there was no empathy and anything that was shown was more surface level or mimicking if that makes sense, very much like a child would.

Didn't care about others feelings, how their behavior affected others, very blunt with no filter and also didn't understand humor at all, except for child like humor in children's films.

I think it depends, I think it’s probably a spectrum of behaviours and also of self awareness. I guess it can be difficult to separate out right/wrong behaviours if they are modelled from a young age and entrenched. Especially if they are cultural.

There is a famous book called ‘why does he do that’ by Lundy Bancroft. He’s worked with abusers for years and says they are generally aware of their behaviour.

I don’t know if it’s always premeditated. I sort of accidentally gaslighted a friend many years ago when in my late teens. We were travelling together, I was in a very bad place mentally at the time and I was feeling very overwhelmed with decision making, she was wanting to make decisions equally and share control but I wanted her to take charge. I didn’t feel able to express this and so I started to play dumb, for example she was looking for a tour guide operator and she couldn’t remember the exact location where we’d seen one advertised, I said I didn’t remember ever seeing the sign or where she was talking about. On another occasion she referred to some things I’d said I wanted to do on the holiday back when we were in the UK, I said I didn’t know what she was talking about and didn’t remember saying that and didn’t care what we did. There was other stuff too but I think it would be outing to go into detail.

However whilst in hindsight I probably was gaslighting her it wasn’t specifically to hurt her, I was trying to put all of the control in her hands and wasn’t at all trying to make her feel like she was losing her mind but obviously to her it felt like she had to question all her memories and conversations with me when I kept saying I didn’t remember things she or I had said or done. In reality I wasn’t looking at it from her point of view at all, I was just thinking ‘I want her to take charge, I don’t want to have to make any decisions’ and so was doing everything I could to be passive or not have to be involved in anything, I knew I was lying about things and that objectively lying was wrong, but I genuinely wasn’t able to see at the time how it might be making her feel or impact on her. It was very selfish and arguably maybe abusive but genuinely not intentionally so. We are still friends, we have spoken about it since and I can understand her point of view more now but it has taken a number of diagnosises (BPD, cptsd, adhd, autism, GAD, depression, ocd) and therapy for me to be able to begin to understand and reflect on my behaviour and how it impacted others (this wasn’t the only instance where I behaved in ways which were arguably abusive, selfish or manipulative, just one I’m comfortable sharing) and to change. I’m not the same person I was in my teens are early twenties and the person I was wasn’t good, but I genuinely wasn’t trying to hurt anybody when I did lie or manipulate situations, it usually came from something selfish and a wish to protect myself in some way but never from a want to hurt the other person, even though it often did.