When you tell your partner that his yelling frightens you, for example, and he responds that he has every right to yell “because you’re not listening to me,” that’s abuse. The abuser uses your behavior as an excuse for his own. He therefore refuses to commit unconditionally to stop using a degrading or intimidating behavior. Instead, he insists on setting up a quid pro quo, where he says he’ll stop some form of abuse if you agree to give up something that bothers him, which often will be something that you have every right to do.
