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

by Lundy Bancroft

A full description of all the abuse that your partner has admitted to while in the program, including psychological a...

Any steps toward change that he has failed to make (see the box ear...

There are various signs you can watch for that indicate an abuser pr...

At the same time, keep your own life moving forward, focusing on your own healing process, not on the man’s process of change. Waiting around for him to get serious about developing respect for you could be a long stall in your own growth and development. Don’t sell yourself short.

CREATING A CONTEXT FOR CHANGE

Because of his self-focus, combined with the many rewards he gets from controlling you, an abuser changes only when he feels he has to, so the most important element in creating a context for change in an abuser is placing him in a situation where he has no other choice. Otherwise, it is highly unlikely that he will ever change his abusive behavior.

But the initial impetus is always external. Either his partner demands change and threatens to leave him or a court demands change and threatens to jail him.

The abuser who truly enters counseling voluntarily, with no one holding anything over his head, quits within a few sessions, unless he finds a counselor he can manipulate.

Creating a context for change also involves these elements:

Establishing consequences for him for continued abusiveness. You may be able to use the legal system to impose sanctions if your partner’s style of abuse is physically violent or threatening, or involves sexual assaults. Leaving him is another good consequence for him, perhaps even better than legal intervention, depending on who he is and how well the police and courts work where you live. To get an abuser to change, you have to either prepare to leave him—if you can do so safely—or use the police and courts, or both.

Making clear to him what your expectations are for his treatment of you, including specifically what you are willing ...

Focusing on your own healing and strength, so that he senses that he if he doesn’t change...

You cannot, I am sorry to say, get an abuser to work on himself by pleading, soothing, gently leading, getting friends to persuade him, or us...

The way you can help him change is to demand that he do so, and set...

It is also impossible to persuade an abusive man to change by convincing him that he would benefit, because he perceives the benefits of controlling his...

There is another reason why appealing to his self-interest doesn’t work: The abusive man’s belief that his own needs should come ahead of his partner’s is at the core of his problem.

You can’t simultaneously contribute to a problem and solve it.

Those abusive men who make lasting changes are the ones who do so because they realize how badly they are hurting their partners and children—in other words, because they learn to care about what is good for others in the family and develop empathy, instead of caring only about themselves.

LEAVING AN ABUSER AS A WAY TO PROMOTE CHANGE

If you are separating with the hope that you might get back together in the future, consider the following suggestions:

Be very clear about what kind of contact you want to have with your partner during the separation, if any. It is generally best to have none at all. If you keep talking to him or seeing him from time to time, you will find it much harder to keep your own thinking clear, because you will tend to miss him even more intensely, feel sorry for him, and get drawn in by his promises and his charm. Occasional contact is bad for him, too, not just for you; it feeds his denial of his problem, encouraging him to assume that he can use his usual manipulations to avoid dealing with himself. If you feel that you do want to permit some contact, consider the specifics. Can he call you, or do you want to be the only one to initiate contact? Can he send letters? If you are going to see each other in person, where, when, and how often?

Once you make up your mind about the above questions, be explicit with your partner about your wishes for contact and let him know that you expect your wishes to be respected. Tell him that if he is serious about changing, the first way he can demo...

Stay away from him for as long as you can stand it. Get support during this period from friends, relatives, your religious community, or anyone else you can trust to help you stay strong. Attend counseling or a support group at a program for abused women if there is one in your area, even if your partner has never been violent. Give yourself as much time as possible to heal emotionally and to clear your mind. The separation needs to be long enough to make him really uncomfortable—enough to motivate him to change. Part of what creates discomfort for him is the dawning realization that maybe you really could live without him. A separation that is too short, on the other hand, will serve in his mind as proof that you can’t stand to be on your own, so he will think he can get away with anything. Try to prepare yourself for the possibility that he will start to date s...

If you decide to get back together with him, be clear with yourself and with him about what the rules are for his behavior. The first time he violates one of those rules—and it is likely that he will—it is of critical importance to take another period of separation. Your partner does not believe that you will go through with setting limits on his conduct. You need to prove him wrong. He may test you the first day you ...

The next separation should be longer than the first in order to give your partner a clear message and to motivate him to change. If during the first break you spoke to him occasionally, this time permit no contact at all for a few months. As always, focus on making yourself stronger. Pursue new friendships, get exercise, do artwork, or engage in whatever activity you love the most and that helps you feel that your life is moving forward. If you are drinking too much or have developed other problems, seek out the help you need and deserve. The more space you get from abuse, the less willing you will be to endure it and the harder it will be for your (ex-)partner to con you. Have you ever noticed that people sometimes quit a job soon after returning from a vacation? We all have a higher tolerance for frustrating or unhealthy situations in our lives when they are constant, but when we get a little time away and then come back, that taste of freedom changes our perspective. What had been a dull ache turns into a sharp pain and becomes unbearable. The same can happen to an abused...

If he doesn’t get serious about stopping his mistreatment of you, you will come to a day when you feel ready to end the relationship for good. This may seem inconceivable to you now, however, so just keep moving forward with your life. Focus on yourself as much as possible, pursuing your own goals and filling your life with the activities you enjoy and find satisfying. Trying too hard to get your partner to change is a dead-end street. To do so keeps you wrapped up in the dynamics of abuse, because an abuser wants you to be preoccupied wit...

The only time an abusive man will deal with his issues enough to become someone you can live with is when you prove to him, and to yourself, that you are capable of living without him.

****!!!!!*****

And once you succeed in doing so, you may very well decide that living without him is what you would rather do.

Keep an open mind, and make sure you are not clipping your own wings on top of the clippi...

have noticed some recurring themes among those abusers whose changes go the deepest and last the longest, however:

His close friends and relatives recognize that he is abusive and tell him that he needs to deal with it. They support the abused woman instead of supporting him.

have a much more difficult time with the abuser whose friends and family back up his excuses and encourag...

He is lower than others on the scale of sel...

He tends to show signs early on of having more empathy than other clients do for the pain he has caused his partner, and his empathy s...

The highly self-referential, arrogant abuser, on the other hand, believes that he is above criticism and considers his own opinions and insights to be the last word on the planet. So who is going to be a...

His partner gets the most unreserved, unequivocal support from her friends and relatives, her religious community, and fro...

The more consistently she receives the message that the abuse is in no way her fault and that her community intends to stand behind her 100 percent, the stronger and safer she feels to settle for nothing less than ...

He joins a high-quality abuser program and stays for a long t...

But, even in cases where all of these conditions are met, his progress still depends on whether or not he decides to carefully and serio...

You can’t make or even help an abusive man change. All you can do is create the context for change, and the rest is up to him. You are the best judge of whether or not he is truly developing respect for you and for your rights. Don’t put anyone else’s opinions ahead of your own. Change in an abusive man is not vague; it is highly specific. Use the information in this chapter to measure for yourself whether he is getting down to the real work of change or whether he is trying to fly by with the usual nods and winks. An abusive man won’t change by “working on his anger,” unless he also does the more difficult work of changing his entitled attitudes. Make your own recovery, and that of your children, your top priority. Abusiveness is like poison ivy, with its extensive and entrenched root system. You can’t eradicate it by lopping off the superficial signs. It has to come out by the roots, which are the man’s attitudes and beliefs regarding partner relationships.

Get support for yourself no matter how. Find someone somewhere who can understand what you are going through, who can be trusted with confidences, and who can help you hold on to your sense of reality. Reach out.

Keep a journal to document your experience, so that when your partner is making you crazy with mind games or with sudden “good” behavior, you can look back through your writings and remember who you really are and what he really does.

Stay away from people who aren’t good for you, who don’t understand, who say things that pus...

Do anything you can think of that’s good for you, that nurtures your soul. Even women who have extraordinarily controlling partners often can find some ruse that will free them long enough to work out, take a cl...

Keep your abusive partner out of your head as much as you can. Use this book to help you understand what he is doing; naming and understanding is power. If you can understand how he thinks, you can avoid absorbing his think...

Don’t blame yourself when you don’t reach your goals right away, when, for instance, you break down and get back together with him. Just pull yourself together and try again. You will succeed...

If you would like to make a significant difference in the life of an abused woman you care about, keep the following principle fresh in your mind: Your goal is to be the complete opposite of what the abuser is.

THE ABUSER: Pressures her severely SO YOU SHOULD: Be patient. Remember that it takes time for an abused woman to sort out her confusion and figure out how to handle her situation. It is not helpful for her to try to follow your timetable for when she should stand up to her partner, leave him, call the police, or whatever step you want her to take. You need to respect her judgment regarding when she is ready to take action—something the abuser never does.

THE ABUSER: Talks down to her SO YOU SHOULD: Address her as an equal. Avoid all traces of condescension or superior knowledge in your voice. This caution applies just as much or more to professionals. If you speak to an abused woman as if you are smarter or wiser than she is, or as if she is going through something that could never happen to you, then you inadvertently confirm exactly what the abuser ha...