Damaged men

[OneHandFlapping]

I've just come from the thread on red flags in relationships, and there are endless, endless posts from women who have suffered EA in their relationships. Including me.

Does anyone here have any insight into why so many men behave like this?

I have nothing to offer to the discussion, but I would like to hear what other poeple have to say, if only so I can help my sons NOT become men like this.

Disclaimer: i have no idea whether my H counts as abusive, although he has been rather shitty in the last year or so and I am not happy with the way he has treated me for much of our relationship.

However, he and his 2 brothers have all had failed relationships. I think in their case they have zero respect for their mother (who is a pretty useless individual I must say) and idolised their father (who also was a crap father from what I can tell, but managed to die young before they realised that). in their life their mother had a life of drudge, putting herself second to the 4 males in her life, even down to giving them food off her plate, doing all of their chores and generally being seen as useless. it's no wonder that none of the men managed to have successful relationships and don't seem to respect women. They are all absolute workaholics like their father.

So yes, in their case, i do think that their upbringing has coloured the way they deal with women, and I do blame their mother rather alot - she is still making excuses for them, while hating their (female) partners and blaming them.

I wonder if it takes 2 to have an abusvie relationship though - in my case I was brought up by a NPD. mother and there are definite issues there with the way I deal with people. I have massive problems with her even now and it's no wonder I stuck with H and his crap behaviour for so long.

Is it ever possible to expose the lie of the abuser's reality to them then, Hotdamn?

Perhaps in some cases. There are rare cases of reformed abusers after all, and their reform had to pass by recognition of their responsibility for their own actions, and acceptance that it has actually hurt another human being.

In my own experience, though: no. Because it is just too painful for the abuser to deconstruct the false self they've built, since deep down they believe that the real person hiding behind the mask is a worthless turd.

Come to that, how do we know that it isn't our reality that's warped (as id often claimed by abusers)?

Your reality is your own, and you are entitled to it. As is the abuser. But you don't need to walk in his reality if it is not to your liking.

The reason why abusers don't want to give up their abuse is because they get a lot of benefits from it: power, a feeling of superiority, having someone deferring to you all the time, often a house servant who tends to your needs, sexual services, etc etc.

It really isn't about some hidden trauma, it's about direct privileges and benefits that abusive behaviour can provide to men.

Thanks for explaining the field thing.

I have some difficulties with the orthodoxy on this site that abusers (defined as those who behave in a particular way) are always doing it deliberately, always know what they are doing, and always have a choice. In my (thank goodness, limited) experience I have known one man who behaved like an absolutely classic abuser in terms of what he did, but I truly believe that what he felt was not a desire to do those things, but a tragic inability not to. I don't think this absolves him of resonsibility, at all. It certainly doesn't put the responsibility elsewhere. I just think that - well, say I crashed a car because I am clumsy and a shit driver and hurt someone, it is definitely my fault and I should take responsibility. It also means I have to make bloody sure I get a lot better at driving before I get into a car again. But it is not the same as getting in a car and going out and driving into people deliberately for kicks. (although maybe those exist too)

I think there are various different reasons: some people, irrespective of gender, seem to be 'wired wrong' from the beginning in that they have no empathy and no conscience. Others may be unthinkingly copying patterns from childhood - a man who grew up with his father abusing his mother and the abuse being condoned and tolerated within the wider family may well grow up thinking that it's normal and perfectly OK to abuse and control his wife because that's just how life is. Women are servants/pets/property and if you have to kick them a few times to get them to behave, well you just get on with it. I think the bulk of abusive men are starting with the viewpoint that women are inferior and a wife/partner is a man's possession that he can do anything he likes to. For some of them, the more independent, intelligent and strong the woman is at the start of the relationship, the more pleasure he takes in hurting her - as he sees it, he's restoring the correct natural order by making her submit.

I also think that what is definied as abusive behaviour is very very close to what was a borderline normal way of treating women not very long ago. There will be a lot of men walking around thinking that they are good men because they bring home the bacon and don't beat their wives, because that was all that was necessary for their fathers to be a good man.

Lundy Bancroft lists childhood abuse/trauma as one of the myths as to why men abuse.

This website quotes the passage and lists some other myths:

www.safehavenshelter.org/information/MythsAboutAbusers.html

"Myth: He was abused as a child, and needs therapy for it.
Fact: Multiple research studies have examined the question of whether men who abuse women tend to be survivors of childhood abuse, and the link has turned out to be weak. A bad childhood doesn?t cause a man to become an abuser, but it can contribute to making a man who is abusive especially dangerous. For some abusive men, the blame-the-childhood approach has an additional reason for being appealing: By focusing on what his mother did wrong, he gets to blame a woman for his mistreatment of women. This explanation can also appeal to the abused woman herself, since it makes sense out of his behavior and gives her someone safe to be angry at - since getting angry at him always seems to blow up in her face. The abuser only wants to draw attention to his terrible childhood if it's an excuse to stay the same, not if it's a reason to change. (Why Does He Do That?, by Lundy Bancroft)."

Many women seem to think that too, Vezzie.

sgb, we x-posted and I agree with you.
But I think there are a lot of men who do what you describe who would never consciously admit to this, even to themselves. And so their wives can't see them as abusers, and I think it would be helpful to reduce emphasis on the idea that abuse is always perpetrated deliberately.

''So yes, in their case, i do think that their upbringing has coloured the way they deal with women, and I do blame their mother rather alot - she is still making excuses for them, while hating their (female) partners and blaming them. ''

I don't agree at all tbh. Loads of people have shitty upbringings, very few turn in to abusers. Also, blaming the mother is just helping these men escape responsibility for their own actions. Besides, all the evidence points to the father having the biggest influence.

Why is it always mothers who are blamed?

I agree with the quote you provide, Nyac.

But poorly experienced separation =/= child abuse.

My impression on the receiving end of abuse is that that there is a very upset toddler behind my abusers' viciousness.

I'm not blaming their mothers or excusing their behaviour: those are leaps in a very different direction. I just find it interesting that these people may well still be carrying around seething resentment from the time that they were 3 years old or thereabouts. And indeed choosing, in adulthood, to act on that resentment in an inexcusably abusive fashion.

I'm with the entitlement crowd. I think some men turn out abusive because of a massive sense of entitlement. In relationships, they think it's all about them, their wants, their needs are the only important ones and must be give exclusive consideration.

I don't believe they are helpless victims of childhood trauma, they make the choice to behave the way they do. My ex made a choice to lie to me, about me. He wasn't driven to it against his will because of his relationships with his mother, it was his choice.

If you start blaming mothers/ex's, then you're just playing in to the hands of these men. You're buying their version of reality and you're pandering to their need for attention and sympathy.

SmellslikeTeenStrop, maybe my views are coloured by what I read on MN, but it appear depressingly common for women to be abused by the men in their life.

I can only use my personal experience, as friends are not going to talk freely about this, but out of 4 serious relationships in my life, 3 were with abusers.

argh it is maternal deprivation and or attachment styles all over again

red mist descending

I agree SLTS, men who choose to abuse women, are making a moral choice. They don't have to do it.

yyy, to the point about buying into their version of reality too.

The best way to stop male abusers of women is to hold them accountable for their behaviour. There have to be social consequences for men who behave like this, and at the moment there aren't.

I don't believe they are helpless victims of childhood trauma, they make the choice to behave the way they do.

I think those two factors can co-exist.

I think porn has something to do with it too. I think that men who think that women should be non-sexually at their service and feel hard done by because they aren't, are more likely to be drawn into using pornography as a way to indulge that part of them that needs to be little pampered kings, and then this spills back into the nonsexual realm in a circular effect where the fact that they are not little pampered kings starts to feel wronger and wronger to them.
To explain is not to excuse.

Agree that a causal link provides either excuse nor blame. It just is. (if indeed it is at all...)

Even as a man, it's difficult to get inside the head of these other men. I did go out with a girl who's ex-boyfriend used to hit her. When I met him he was smart, well-educated and from a decent family. From the little I knew of their relationship, it seemed that it was a complete lack of self-control. Whereas normal people can disagree and come to an impasse, with him it HAD to escalate to a point where he would lash out. As much as anything, he seemed to lack any sense of perspective in their relationship. It was over 20 years ago though, so there may be details I am forgetting.

*neither. n

"Whereas normal people can disagree and come to an impasse, with him it HAD to escalate to a point where he would lash out."

But you see that's a choice. As you observed he was prepared to use violence to assert his will on situations with his girlfirend where there was a conflict.

It's no a lack of self control, men who beat women are using controlled violence. They aren't just randomly lashing out at people, they save it for a situation where there will be no retribution for the violence and they can use it to get their point of view and their wants to prevail. His violence stemmed from a belief that he was entitled to use it against her.

Yes he did. There were two female lodgers in their home, and they had no idea about his behaviour initially. He was never threatening to them, because they could walk away, or call the police. The 'victim' (sorry, not sure which word to use here) had emotional ties to him, as well as a shared property. He lashed out at me once, but because he got it back with interest, he never tried it again. There is a large slice of cowardice with many abusers.

She and I went out together for quite a while. She was not someone who was bad, or manipulative, or violent herself. He couldn't even have used the Dennis Waterman excuse ('she knew what she was doing, she drove me to it').

Reading this thread, and the red flag one, you can really tell who has read the Lundy Bancroft book and who hasn't.

Agree Nyac, as Lundy Bancroft makes the point in his book that these men who 'lose control' will often stop short of doing major damage, and obviously killing their ex. The guy who throws things around and breaks stuff, will target his partners possessions, never his own. The guy who pulls his wife by the hair and pushes her to the ground will rarely go on to kick her as she lies defenceless. Bancroft asked men why they didn't do that and their responses indicate they knew exactly what they were doing. Things like they know it could kill her, they didn't want to do any major damage, fear of the police if he did give his wife a major injury. Doesn't really sound like somebody who has 'lost control', now does it?

Well it's useful for men to have other men like this around, because it makes women subservient and grateful for "good" men who don't use violence.

Hmm, not for me Nyac. Someone who doesn't do this isn't 'good' - they are normal.