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

by Lundy Bancroft

His hostility toward the human race may sprout from cruelty in his upbringing, but he abuses women because he has an abuse problem. The two problems are related but distinct.

IF IT IS AN EXCUSE FOR MISTREATING YOU, IT’S A DISTORTION.

If a man’s problem were that he had an “aggressive personality,” he wouldn’t be able to reserve that side of himself just for you.

An abuser almost never does anything that he himself considers morally unacceptable. He may hide what he does because he thinks other people would disagree with it, but he feels justified inside. I can’t remember a client ever having said to me: “There’s no way I can defend what I did. It was just totally wrong.” He invariably has a reason that he considers good enough. In short, an abuser’s core problem is that he has a distorted sense of right and wrong.

In other words, the abuser’s problem lies above all in his belief that controlling or abusing his female partner is justifiable.

Police almost never find a fight in progress by the time they get in the door.

Abusers carry attitudes that produce fury.

Everybody gets angry. In fact, most people have at least occasional times when they are too angry, out of proportion to the actual event or beyond what is good for their health. Some give themselves ulcers and heart attacks and hypertension. But they don’t necessarily abuse their partners.