The Mind of the Intimate Male Abuser: How He Gets into Her Head: The Mind of the Male Intimate Abuser

by Don Hennessy

We have been looking for explanations in the wrong place. The main reason why any woman becomes trapped in an abusive relationship is because a skilled offender decided to target her.

had also established that as his job involved talking to and listening to people during the day, he needed a partner who gave him peace and quiet at night.

He is self-absorbed to such an extent that the idea that an intimate relationship should benefit both partners does not occur to him.

The desire of abusive men to deny their partners access to these essential snippets of information is based on a fear of intimacy. This fear is present from the first day they meet.

Yet even greater damage is done to the man who is unable, to a large extent, to absorb the love that is being offered to him. These men lead emotionally lonely lives. In wanting to be liked, these men are afraid to reveal themselves and instead devote their energy to presenting themselves as likable in whatever way will work.

I have never met a group of people more adept at acting the victim than the skilled abusers who are about to be found out.

The women who survive in abusive relationships were probably socially primed to accept this inadequacy in men and can easily buy into their abuser’s reasoning.

She gradually loses faith in her own perspective and begins to accept his reading of events. The abuser can only do this because he listens to her as she explains her own understanding of events. This skill can only be developed in the context of a relationship where the woman speaks her mind. Far from being the hesitant and confused people we meet in our support settings, most violated women were articulate and clear thinking when they first met their abusers.

With careful but persistent challenging the skilled offender will erode the very fundamental beliefs that the woman has about her world and her place in it.

She will gradually lose her sense of right and wrong and begin to believe that her judgement is faulty. She will begin to accept that almost any behaviour can be excused.

also has the effect of getting her to look in the wrong place for an explanation as to why she is unhappy. Instead of clearly examining the behaviour of her abuser against her own sense of right and wrong, she begins to review her own behaviour and her inability to be good enough.

One of the long-term effects of this tactic is that the target woman begins to quieten the voice of her own instinct. She becomes unclear about her definition of events and behaviours. She will think thoughts which will undermine her view of what is right and wrong.

His ability to do both is founded on his skill in presenting himself as caring while intimidating his partner in a way which she cannot identify.

We can have huge difficulty in believing that any woman could love a man who would treat her in a threatening and abusive manner. We legitimately ask what is wrong with her. We can say that we would not put up with that kind of behaviour from our partner. I have heard women say that if they were in that kind of relationship they would leave. Sadly this line of thinking is of little value. What might be of greater help would be if we could uncover the skill and the process used by the offender. If we can identify how it is that a man can appear to love someone while secretly intimidating and terrorising them,

When something happens between the client and her abuser and she wishes to discuss it later she is told that there is no need to talk about what happened as he has already recovered from the event.

As she is by nature a kind person (the reason she was targeted) she will be worried that she might turn into a self-centred woman. She will also become afraid that if she begins to reveal the reality of her relationship then the listener will also see her as unforgiving and vindictive. Many of our clients will struggle with this perceived change in their personality.

This fear and terror keep her in a constant state of anxiety. It is the root cause that leads her to eventually being able to describe her behaviour as walking on eggshells.

The offender will convince her little by little that the fear she describes is unfounded or that the source of her fear is her own inadequacy or sensitivity. Once she begins to see her fear as something to do with her and not him then the skilled offender will challenge her to calm herself.

After a period of time a target woman will lose her ability to trust her own thoughts.

She will begin to qualify any new

thought she has with the analysis of what her abuser might think of that idea. She will develop an internal conversation which will invite her to imagine what would happen if she shared this thought with her abuser. She may pla...

It shows the extraordinary power of the skilled offender that he could infiltrate the mind of this kind and capable woman without her even knowing it.

he will only measure the consequences of his behaviour in terms of how it impacts on his life.

Regrettably, the skilled offender almost always means what he says. He is so aware of the terror he can generate that he is always aiming his remarks at aspects of her life that cause her anxiety.

Yet at every level of western society we find genderbased anomalies which guarantee that women as a class will always be treated as inferior. This guarantee is essential for the skilled offender as it reassures him that, even if he is occasionally challenged, the likelihood of him being sanctioned is remote. It further reassures him that even if he is sanctioned, he can renew his abuse either with his current or a new partner.

One of the basic human needs of all of us is that we would be treated with some respect. A very fundamental aspect of that respect is that our ideas and opinions are acknowledged. Even the most silly idea or uninformed opinion is a revelation of a person’s own internal world.

A skilled offender will constantly deride any idea or opinion that the woman may express.

The sense of male priority that permeates all of our national institutions is the breeding ground for much of the male entitlement that emerges in an abusive intimate relationship.

Sexual equality is the right of every woman in an intimate relationship. If we ignore or dismiss this right we ignore the soul of that woman.

But they continually admit that they are unable to survive any further erosion of their mental and emotional health. They also acknowledge that they are no longer able to think for themselves. Because they can no longer think for themselves they are unable to recognise the true impact of their experience.

as there is little evidence that women are capable of invading the man’s mind to the extent of usurping his thoughts.

She is usually no longer in touch with her own instinct. Her ability to distinguish between right and wrong behaviour has been dulled when it is applied to her own world. She seems unable to read the validity of a given statement. So when she is told ‘you made me do it’ she finds it difficult to resist taking responsibility.

This kind and generous woman is also a woman of commitment. She has given her word and her overwhelming desire is to do whatever is in her power to make her relationship work.

The efficiency and longevity of repeated intimate grooming is such that she is convinced of her inadequacy, full of her own guilt and shame, and very aware of being emotionally ill without even knowing what has happened to her.

Part of what keeps them going is their willingness to forgive. Every target woman who survives in a long-term relationship will tell us that they have forgiven thousands of times.

They see nothing harmful in this level of forgiveness. They see it as part of the initial commitment that they made to the relationship and this commitment is another reason why women stay in or return to the relationship.

The capacity of the target woman to be kind is also demonstrated by her anxiety not to betray her abuser. While beginning to reveal a little of her experience, she will repeatedly remind me that I also need to hear his side of the story. She does not want me to judge or condemn him but almost wants to apologise for him even before I meet him. Her loyalty to him and her commitment to the relationship are expressed in her cry for help.

Many of my clients describe their abuser as a big child who throws a tantrum if he does not get his way. This encourages the target woman to try and help her partner to grow up. They continually take the parental position of trying to access and develop the adult side of their abuser. The woman is convinced that if she tries hard enough she will succeed in turning her abuser into a man of principle.

Her instincts would have originally told her that the behaviour and attitude of her abuser are wrong. She would have known as a young woman that what she is experiencing is inappropriate in the context of love.

Her requests for change are based on her belief that if she explains to him the pain he is causing he will take some responsibility for that pain. Instead the abuser stores that information and knows that he can recreate that pain at will. This

One of the slow and difficult learning experiences for me has been the subtlety of intimate abuse and control when it doesn’t include overt physical violence.

Jones (2000) says that ‘battered women are to sexism what the poor are to capitalism – always with us’ (page 206).

We are tolerant of male intimate abuse and violence because of our tendency to minimise this behaviour and to apportion blame. This ambivalence and tolerance is built on the evil position that some men have established over the ages. This position is founded on gender inequality. The existence of this inequality is the underlying support which gives male offenders the arrogance to repeat abuse without fear from their target. It also gives them the arrogance to believe that they need not fear our intervention. They have a long list of tactics that will allow them to maintain this arrogance.

There is a danger that, as my colleague Dr Colm O’Connor (2010) says, ‘when it comes to the essential questions about our existence, psychology dumps humanity on the doorstep of theology’ (page 42).

What they have that distinguishes them from non-abusive males is an inflated sense of their own importance.

The psychephile is a man who gains control of the mind of the target woman so that he can dictate the level of intimacy and sexual activity in the relationship.

Becker (2005) suggests that evil is a result of weakness, of narrow, inflexible, frightened, clumsy, ineffective lifestyles. The skilled offender may know this at a subconscious level but his sense of entitlement and his instinctive development will demand that he hides this reality from his partner and the rest of society.

Psychephiles want to feel significant in their own world. Skilled offenders are heavily invested in the promotion of their own importance.

They use the access they have gained to the mind of their partner to convince her of their significance. Sadly, they set out to achieve this by convincing the woman of her relative insignificance.

Having a woman who sees him as of more worth than herself is the foundation of a life which allows him to fanta...