Men and their planning/performance in close relationships

[SpamChaudFroid]

I'm a fairly damaged individual, and have attracted the kind of creeps men who like damaged women. Men who are physically and emotionally abusive. Reading I've done since suggests that during these terrifying physical displays of anger, they do not in fact feel angry or furious, it’s performed as a tool to control/train.

I'm ashamed to say that in my earlier DV relationships, I would hit back, but I would FEEL furious, not perform it. Angry like when you are a child and just overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all.

I was reading a thread this morning where the male partner was controlling what the poor woman wore, if she wore trousers why not a skirt and heels kind of thing, but perversely, if she wore heels, why not trousers. Obviously designed to keep her in a state of upside-down and I realised these abusive men must be always forward planning, never just being in the moment with their partner.

This made me think - I can honestly say I've never planned how I'm going to treat a partner, I just dealt with them honestly and directly, (well as much as you can in a DV relationship). Does this mean that the majority of men have a plan of how they are to treat a partner? And how much acting is required? (Acting anger, remorse for eg.) The times when I've appeared angry, I am and also feel completely out of control. I would not be able to decide to "hype myself up" to be violent towards somebody as many men can.

Also I wonder how much of this controlling behaviour is conscious or unconscious. Like a man saying to a woman he's just met that he's been violent to women in the past - is this a deliberate ploy to gauge his intended victim's response and weed out the women who are disgusted by this or is it unconscious?

If this level of self control is being used to mete out the anger effectively, then surely the entire emotional self is just as carefully controlled. Happiness and tenderness doled out in careful portions for rewards when the partner has behaved well, undermining or a backhander when not. Describing that process reminds me of training my dog, (without the backhander obvs!)which first made me laff, then made me sad.

Then I began wondering if it's it just abusive men that have a script and a plan that they follow, or do all men. We know men treat us differently to other men. I think I'm right when I say it's not even been a century since women were seen as chattels along with the livestock. And I'm aware I still have a tendency to centre men, in spite of knowing what I know. Sadly I was socialised into ladyhood, (not Womanhood) which did not serve me well - I responded to those violent and abusive men and their scripts exactly as they wanted me to. I guess I did learn to perform happiness.

I was going to post this in AIBU, but I'm not sure that's the right place for it. I feel a bit dumb to be posting in FWR though, I've only been aware of all this shit for the last year or so. So many people have been dismissive, or I've been told to "stop thinking" , "don't be angry". Just ignore and let me ramble away in the corner if you like

SpamChaudFroid
if that was the case then surely men would have set up shelters for themselves to flee to, when they needed to escape their controlling and abusive partners?

Eh? I wasn't talking about abuse, you were talking specifically about planning how they're going to treat a partner.

I was wondering then, deydododatdodontdeydo how often that planning ends up in abuse? Obviously sometimes, as some women have to flee to shelters. This is phenomena that rarely, (if ever?) happens to men.

Qcng I grew up with a very dysfunctional mother, and learned to strive to people-please from a young age. She manipulated my father horribly and was quite unpredictable to live with, yet he never had to flee to a shelter because he was physically bigger than her and was the breadwinner. So I don't think it has the same consequences the other way around deydododatdodontdeydo.

Thanks Destinys, saved me a tenner there

No I don't think it has the same consequences, but that wasn;t your original question. It's drifted more onto abuse now, and I'm not going to argue it happens to men as much as women because it doesn't.

With all respect deydododatdodontdeydo, the thread didn't really drift, I said, Then I began wondering if it's it just abusive men that have a script and a plan that they follow, or do all men in my opening post.

Yes, and I answered that way back but you responded with:
I'd say it's more of a man's trait to train their partner though.
When I countered that you stated:
if that was the case then surely men would have set up shelters for themselves to flee to

I don't think all men have a script or plan how to train or treat their partners.
I think maybe psychopaths or narcissists do, both male and female, and that the male ones are more likely to lead to physical abuse than the women.
Should be pretty clear.

Then I began wondering if it's it just abusive men that have a script and a plan that they follow, or do all men.
I think your experiences have made you unduly negative. Maybe I'm lucky, but I've only ever been out with lovely men, and am married to one. Obviously, I can't know for sure, but my friends' husbands also seem nice and kind. (My mum, on the other hand, was horrendously abusive to my dad.)

I'm really surprised that people are posting, "yeah, but women do it too!" on a feminist board tbh.

I don't think it's fair to say women do it to their male partners because historically men have controlled their female partners, not the other way around.

Some of the more recent studies actually conclude otherwise, suggesting that these new findings are down to men feeling less ashamed of discussing their feelings than several decades ago.

Women are more likely than men to be aggressive and controlling towards their partner, according to a study.

The research found that women showed controlling behaviour along with serious levels of threats, intimidation and physical violence when in a relationship more often than men.

This study found that women demonstrated a desire to control their partners and were more likely to use physical aggression than men.

“It wasn’t just pushing and shoving,” said Dr Elizabeth Bates, who presented the results at a meeting of the British Psychological Society in Glasgow. "Some people were circling the boxes for things like beating up, kicking, and threatening to use a weapon."

“A contributing factor could be that in the past women have talked about it more. Now there is more support for men and more of them are feeling comfortable coming forward.”

Mark Brooks, chair of theManKind Initiative, which offers support for male victims of domestic abuse, said the research was "game changing".

"No-one can ever now say that violence against a man from a female partner should be treated less seriously than domestic violence committed against a woman," he said.

"At the charity we're not surprised at the findings, because of the type of calls we get to our helpline every day. What concerns us still is the lack of awareness and services available to support those men suffering in this way.

Women are ‘more controlling and aggressive than men’ in relationships

www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10927507/Women-are-more-controlling-and-aggressive-than-men-in-relationships.html

The research, led by Dr Alison Bacon, Lecturer in Psychology, was conducted to assess why young women with high levels of EI are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviour than young men – a conclusion drawn from her 2014 paper, ‘Sex differences in the relationship between sensation seeking, trait emotional intelligence and delinquent behaviour‘.

Young women with high emotional intelligence more likely to be manipulative

www.google.com/amp/s/www.psypost.org/2016/02/young-women-with-high-emotional-intelligence-more-likely-to-be-manipulative-40990/amp

I think my 'D'P certainly planned out his abuse. I was quite mentally unwell when we met, and had a nervous breakdown shortly after which blew my life apart, had he not been involved I could have clawed things back. He constructed an 'us against the world' narrative and I fell hook, line and sinker for it. Once I had DD he knew I was trapped, and every situation that occurred that I could have used to get out he sabotaged. I've been trying to restart my degree since having DD (so that I can earn enough money to leave) and every time he has done something that meant it isn't possible. I've left once and had to come back due to Universal Credit taking 10 weeks to come through and not having a suitable place to live with DD, my running away fund that took me years to save was not enough. His abuse is covert and his acting stellar, when I left no one believed me about how horrible he had been, my family encouraged me to return 'for DDs sake'

The only silver lining is now he has fucked our finances so badly he has to let me go back to working, so I will at least have access to a little money and will be able to squirrel my tips away.

OP "I'm really surprised that people are posting, "yeah, but women do it too!" on a feminist board tbh."

unfortunately there's wankery everywhere.

I haven't been in an abusive relationship but lost a couple of friends to them.

So I just wanted to say I hear your rant. I can't answer why men behave this way but I don't think it matters much in the end. If you are happy being single - I am and I hope you will be too - it's great and you don't have to worry about this shit, though I have had to ditch a couple of male friends when it became apparent how they viewed their partners!

life is full of weirdos. Be careful out there

I won't say I never believed it but I will say that as a kid in primary school I saw through the lie that my father's rages, terrifying explosive anger and yelling, stomping and slamming and carrying on, his nasty comments, etc directed at my mother and I, weren't just because he had a "quick temper" "bad temper", and poor thing, "can't help it".

Even as young as I was in Grade 4 (so 7-8-ish) I understood there was no way he threw such tantrums at his boss, or at anyone in his workplace. He was choosing to behave this way. And anyhow, weren't adults supposed to have grown out of tantrums?

Adults do. Controlling bastards who can see their wife and child are deeply hurt as well as in terror? Nah, they allow themselves to do whatever they feel like, so long as it also gets the results they want ie. Them in a power position, everyone else on eggshells. We now have no relationship because....why would I choose to be around that??

Some are not planning so much but just operate at that level all the time, it is like they constantly have a scam running or will always take any apparent opportunity to screw with someone. Like a terrible instinct
This, I dont think it's a conscious decision they make. It's simply how they behave all the time. Often these people cant hold down a job (a common complaint is that they are not appreciated where they are)
In the end it doesn't matter how or why they do this. What matters more is not getting caught up in these peoples lives. I wish women the world over would have the self confidence and nous to steer clear. Until that day, we need fwr and shelters that centre women only.
Men can obviously have shelters too, before I'm called a misandrist

I'm really surprised that people are posting, "yeah, but women do it too!" on a feminist board tbh.
I can kind of see where you’re coming from, but why? The purpose of a feminist board isn’t to proclaim women are sweetness and light. Women are just as capable of crappy behaviour as men

The behaviour being discussed isn't in any way acceptable, but the reason some people don't act that way at work is because they bottle up their emotions to be released at a later stage (sometimes when they get home).

My friend's fiance was like that. I lived with them for about six months whilst buying a house and she would sometimes go into screaming fits upon walking in the door from work (I remember one time being because he had left a tin of varnish by the front door whilst redecorating kitchen and she accidentally kicked it when walking in - she didn't hurt her foot or spill any but it was the catalyst for her screaming fit at her bewildered partner). She eventually got counselling and tells me she is much better nowadays.

I would recommend Lundy Bancroft"s book 'why does he do that'. Its all quite planned often. Sometimes there are subconscious values and attitudes underneath but generally its just a massive selfish sense of entitlement

I thoroughly disagree,

Me too. I know just as many women with various behavioural disorders who make their partner's lives a misery, most are very controlling. They don't tend to be very violent, but belittling and controlling and emotionally abusive? For sure.

I'm really surprised that people are posting, "yeah, but women do it too!" on a feminist board tbh.

Why? It was suggested that this sort of thinking was a male characteristic. People aren't going to agree just because of feminism, if it isn't true.

I'm really surprised that people are posting, "yeah, but women do it too!" on a feminist board tbh.

One of the first things I ever read on this board was something along the lines of: to decide if something is sexist or not is, if it happens to women but not men, or if men do it but women don't, then it's sexist. Stated as fact, simple as.
I think it's a pretty good guideline.

RushianDisney

I think it's a pretty good guideline.

Maybe more of a necessary element? Because yes, if its something that happens pretty equally to men and women it's a human thing, not a sexist thing. But some things can relate more to one sex without it being sexism, it just reflects things that are different between males and females.

Abusers do a cost benefit analysis just like everyone else. Why wouldn't they? That is why they abuse down the hierarchy rather than up.

My exh was very much of the had a terrible instinct for it. I don’t think he had the sense to plan as such. My recent exbf, I still have no idea wtf was going on there. He was lovely for years and then suddenly he was saying he was very jealous, acting tearful and upset over my (imaginary) flirting. But it was so offbase I still wonder if the whole thing was acted by him. To see how much I’d accept? To get rid of me? Im still not sure.

Women are ‘more controlling and aggressive than men’ in relationships

Murder statistics say otherwise.

Holy fuck RushianDisney, I'm sorry about your situation. Would Womens Aid be any help to you? My mother didn't believe me either, (I only told her because she rang me just after my ex had smashed a plate over my head then stood over me and spat at me while forcing me to clear it up. (Clearing up the blood/smashed stuff was always part of the punishment.) Years later she said to me "That didn't really happen did it Spam?" and I just agreed with her. Being gaslighted is shit, and I really feel for you.

To those of you saying it's not sexist if a woman can do it too - women aren't seen as equal to men, so how can it be the same? Women are the oppressed sex class, so there's an imbalance of power. Our society is male dominated.

Rosa, yeah wankery. It's ingrained in us not to centre women. Poor menz.

Murder statistics say otherwise.

I actually almost put a disclaimer 'aside from the small number of women murdered by their partners' as I knew this would be the first argument used to attempt to dismiss the above.

This isn't about the approx 0.0003% of the female population who are murdered annually (based on two a week from a population of 32m women). They are comparatively very rare instances despite being terrible things to happen.

This is about the much larger number of individuals who regularly assault, belittle, demean their partners, many (maybe the majority) of whom are women.

It certainly seems like the issue is men not being prepared to discuss their problems (I believe the above study was the female partners admitting to having been violent, so very possibly also underreported as who wants to admit to 'being the villain').

"However, the issue of under-reporting is even more pronounced amongst men," she said. "They fear appearing unmanly, shame, embarrassment, and a failure to live up to masculine ideals."

"We know that DVA against men is a seriously underreported crime, and we know that 713,000 men were reported to have been a victim of one or more types of DVA.

"It begs the question how many more men are actually out there that are suffering in silence."

The below excerpt is pretty much exactly what happened to a good friend of mine who now struggles to find work due to having a criminal record for assault. She'd regularly give him black eyes etc and when he finally pushed her out the way (causing a bruise to her arm as she fell) he ended up being charged with assault, which he didn't try and contest. She had been wielding a kitchen knife and he had to throw her out the way and run out the door as he said he honestly thought she would stab him if he released her wrist. She is now doing the same with her next partner and my friend has actually been contacted by the police for a character reference which he's declined to give.

"One time she punched me - and I pushed her off me, she ran to the telephone and called the police.

"Apparently her friend had told her 'if you want to get rid of your husband start a fight, call the police and they'll throw him out of the house'. So that's what she did."

Male domestic abuse victims 'suffering in silence'

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-wales-47252756