Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

by Lundy Bancroft

Abusive men are sometimes masters of the hard-luck story, and may find that accounts of childhood abuse are one of the best ways to pull heartstrings.

abusers of all varieties tend to realize the mileage they can get out of saying, “I’m abusive because the same thing was done to me.”

the typical abusive man works to maintain a positive public image,

He’s very nice to servers, cashiers etc however treats his mother completely differently behind closed doors.

Feeling sorry for your partner can be a trap, making you feel guilty for standing up to his abusiveness.

You can’t manage an abuser except for brief periods.

An abusive man expects catering, and the more positive attention he receives, the more he demands. He never reaches a point where he is satisfied, where he has been given enough. Rather, he gets used to the luxurious treatment he is receiving and soon escalates his demands.

His was never satisfied with how his ex treated him. The demands only grew

Certainly an abuser can be remorseful or ashamed after being cruel or scary to his partner, especially if any outsider has seen what he did. But those feelings are a result of his abusive behavior, not a cause. And as a relationship progresses, the abusive man tends to get more comfortable with his own behavior and the remorse dies out, suffocated under the weight of his justifications.

“boss abuses man, man abuses woman, woman abuses children, children hit dog, dog bites cat.”

The more power these men have in their jobs, the more catering and submission they expect at home.

Everyone seems to think he’s the greatest guy in the world. I wish they could see the side of him that I have to live with.

He treats people outside of his home so we’ll but he treats his mum so badly. He takes everything out on her. It’s genuinely sick and disgusting. The way he speaks to his mum he’d never speak to his friends or coworkers

Children of abusive parents know that something is wrong, but they suspect the badness is inside of them.

I feel so bad for him; he’s had a really hard life.

I’ve definitely looked at him and felt bad for him. As in he must of gone through a lot of dysfunction and trauma in his childhood to teen years to end up how he is now in his adulthood.

I’m really scared of what he may do to me some day.

Middleclass white abusers, for example, tend to have strict rules about how a woman is allowed to argue. If she talks back to him, shows anger, or doesn’t shut up when she is told to, he is likely to make her pay. My clients from Latin American cultures typically permit their partners to be more forceful and “mouthy” in a conflict than my white clients but can be highly retaliatory if their partners give any attention to another male.

Middle class white men 💀 “Rude entitled cock” Rick and Morty

He seems to see the world as a huge classroom, in which he is the teacher and you are his student. He finds little of value in your thoughts or insights, so he seeks to empty out your head and fill it up with his jewels of brilliance.

Mr. Right has difficulty speaking to his partner—or about her—without a ring of condescension in his voice. And in a conflict his arrogance gets even worse.

I remember this one time I kept telling him to stop speaking to me condescendingly yet he kept going! ✔️

Besides knowing all about the world, Mr. Right is also an expert on your life and how you should live it. He has the answers to your conflicts at work, how you should spend your time, and how you should raise your children. He is especially knowledgeable about your faults, and he likes to inventory what is wrong with you, as if tearing you down were the way to improve you.

an abusive man is often unusually good at expressing an intensity of caring early in a relationship and can make you feel so special and chosen—as if you were the only person who could ever matter so much to him.

The idyllic opening is part of almost every abusive relationship. How else would an abuser ever have a partner?

once the abuser has had time to destroy their self-image step by step.

Like any love-struck person, she runs around telling her friends and family what a terrific guy he is. After talking him up so much, she feels embarrassed to reveal his mistreatment when it begins, so she keeps it to herself for a long time.

She has a hard time letting go of her own dream, since she thought she had found a wonderful man.

So, if he isn’t laying plans to hurt her, what is going on in his mind? First, he is gazing longingly at the image he holds of the future, where the woman meets all of his needs, is beautiful and sexy at all times of the day and night, has no needs of her own, and is in awe of his brilliance and charm.

He desires a woman who will cater to him and never complain about anything he does or darken his day with frustrations or unhappiness about her own life.

Anytime I’ve come to him about an issue within the relationship he’ll bring up “I don’t have time for this.” , “not everyone has as much free time as you.” , “I work hard and I don’t want to come back home to this.” . He wants a submissive woman that’ll cater towards his needs and desires without him having to listen to her complain or bring up her feelings of unhappiness within the relationship. He said “you’re always coming here huffy and puffy.” , “you’re always talking about how unhappy you are in the relationship.” Yeah for a reason! Please grow up!

he is looking more for a personal caretaker than for a partner.

He may truly believe his own promises, because he wants to see himself as a generous and thoughtful partner, one who does not use or disrespect women.

Abuse is not his goal, but control is, and he finds himself using abuse to gain the control he feels he has a right to.

Manipulation feels clean and satisfying to this style of abuser, while degrading language and physical intimidation do not.

Yet women are often pressured by friends, family, or professionals to “give him a chance to change” and “have a little faith in people.”

An abuser learns manipulative and controlling behavior from several sources, including key male role models, peers, and pervasive cultural messages (see Chapter 13). By the time he reaches adulthood, he has integrated manipulative behavior to such a deep level that he acts largely on automatic.

The Red Pill , his father

Be cautious of the man who says that you are nothing like the other women he has been involved with, that you are the first partner to treat him well, or that earlier women in his life have not understood him.

Disrespect also can take the form of idealizing you and putting you on a pedestal as a perfect woman or goddess, perhaps treating you like a piece of fine china. The man who worships you in this way is not seeing you; he is seeing his fantasy, and when you fail to live up to that image he may turn nasty. So there may not be much difference between the man who talks down to you and the one who elevates you; both are displaying a failure to respect you as a real human being and bode ill.

I was definitely put on a pedestal in the beginning. Told I’m the most beautiful girl he’s dated. That I’m the perfect girlfriend for him only to see him start to devalue my character. He went from that to calling me demanding, entitled, claiming I had a lot of red flags. Big switch! Update: During the breakup conversation he called me “difficult” , “demanding” , “entitled” and “materialistic” . Beware of the man that starts off the relationship seeing you as perfect!

Control usually begins in subtle ways, far from anything you would call abuse. He drops comments about your clothes or your looks (too sexy or not sexy enough); is a little negative about your family or one of your good friends; starts to pressure you to spend more time with him or to quit your job or to get a better job that pays more; starts to give too much advice about how you should manage your own life and shows a hint of impatience when you resist his recommendations;

Possessiveness shows that he doesn’t love you as an independent human being but rather as a guarded treasure.

“You’re mine aren’t you?” . “Yes I am” I responded.

This style of man also tends to make promises that he doesn’t keep, coming up with a steady stream of excuses for disappointing you

Yup! Him telling me “you don’t ever have to worry about dates.” To then switching around and saying I need to start offering to split basically making me stress out and about dates. When I confronted him about it he had a list of excuses. He said “Things change.” , “priorities change.” , “I’ve got bigger fish to fry.” , “I naively said that.” . My biggest issue with this is that he said that he had no issue with breaking his own word.

Be especially careful if he pressures you to participate in substance use with him. Although substances do not cause partner abuse, they often go hand in hand.

Pressuring me to do Ket and alcohol lol

He pressures you for sex.

Pressuring me for head while I was in the bed coughing and sneezing

Not respecting your wishes or feelings regarding sex speaks of exploitativeness,

Unfortunately, many women believe just the opposite: They think, Well, he does scare me a little sometimes, but I’ll wait and see if it gets worse, and I’ll leave him if it does. But getting away from someone who has become frightening is much more complicated than most people realize, and it gets harder with each day that passes. Don’t wait around to see.

He appears to be attracted to vulnerability

He admitted he was attracted to his ex because of her vulnerability. She came to this country alone and basically had no family in the country. Making her a much easier target to control and manipulate. He may of not been consciously thinking these things at the time however it’s very clear that this is the case. He also claimed to be attracted to my self harm scars because it made me look more vulnerable.

Even without a chronological age difference, some abusive men are drawn to women who have less life experience, knowledge, or self-confidence,

I definitely have less life experience in terms of relationships with men. Perhaps that’s what drew him to me.

Be alert for the man who seems to be attracted to power imbalances.

This style of abuser appears to feel that he has caught a bigger fish if he can reel in an accomplished, self-confident woman to dominate.

He’s claimed to like my confidence however as time goes on I feel him trying to dominate me in more ways than just the bedroom.

Finally, be aware that as an abuser begins his slide into abuse, he believes that you are the one who is changing. His perceptions work this way because he feels so justified in his actions that he can’t imagine the problem might be with him. All he notices is that you don’t seem to be living up to his image of the perfect, all-giving, deferential woman.

Similarly, you may say to your partner in an argument, “Stop yelling at me, I hate being yelled at,” so he raises his voice louder and blames it on you. These are signs of abuse.

When I told him to stop being condescending and he only became even more condescending

Another way he can retaliate against you for resisting his control is to switch into the role of victim.

This is what he did when I confronted him and told him what they said about him on Reddit. I told him about how they called him an abuser and he turned things around and said “it doesn’t feel good to hear that this is what people are saying about me.” . You’re missing the point on how you acted in a particular way that was so bad to a point of where people labelled you as an abuser! Think about that! All I could think during the discussion was how he was reversing the perpetrator and victim roles.

acts as if you are oppressing him by calling him on his behavior. This is an effort to make you feel guilty for resisting his control and is the beginning of abuse.

you can tell when your partner’s behavior is designed to punish you for standing up to him, even if it doesn’t come out until a couple of days later. He doesn’t believe that you have the right to defy him, and he tries to hurt you so that next time you won’t.

discrediting your complaints of mistreatment, which is abusive. His discrediting maneuvers reveal a core attitude, which he never explicitly states and may not even be aware of consciously himself: “You have no right to object to how I treat you.” And you can’t be in a fair and healthy relationship if you can’t raise grievances.

His controlling, disrespectful, or degrading behavior is a pattern.