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

by Lundy Bancroft

remember that even if your partner’s behavior doesn’t fit the definition of abuse, it may still have a serious effect on you. Any coercion or disrespect by a relationship partner is an important problem.

Controlling men fall on a spectrum of behaviors, from those who exhibit only a few of the tactics I describe in this book to those who use almost all of them. Similarly, these men run a gamut in their attitudes, from those who are willing to accept confrontation about their behaviors and strive to change them, to those who won’t listen to the woman’s perspective at all, feel completely justified, and become highly retaliatory if she attempts to stand up for herself.

Counseling abusive men is difficult work. They are usually very reluctant to face up to the damage that they have been causing women, and often children as well, and hold on tightly to their excuses and victim blaming.

One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don’t seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of a relationship. An abuser’s friends may think the world of him. He may have a successful work life and have no problems with drugs or alcohol. He may simply not fit anyone’s image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser.

Abusive men do not grasp how ugly they appear when acting cruel.

CLEAR SIGNS OF AN ABUSER WHO ISN’T CHANGING Your partner can make several statements or behave in several ways that clearly indicate he isn’t making progress: He says he can change only if you change too. He says he can change only if you “help” him change, by giving him emotional support, reassurance, and forgiveness, and by spending a lot of time with him. This often means that he wants you to abandon any plans you had to take a break from seeing him. He criticizes you for not realizing how much he has changed. He criticizes you for not trusting that his change will last. He criticizes you for considering him capable of behaving abusively even though he in fact has done so in the past (or has threatened to) as if you should know that he “would never do something like that,” even though he has. He reminds you about the bad things he would have done in the past but isn’t doing anymore, which amounts to a subtle threat. He tells you that you are taking too long to make up your mind, that he can’t “wait forever,” as a way to pressure you not to take the time you need to collect yourself and to assess how much he’s really willing to change. He says, “I’m changing, I’m changing,” but you don’t feel it.

I 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. I have a much more difficult time with the abuser whose friends and family back up his excuses and encourage his disrespect for the woman. He is lower than others on the scale of self-centeredness. 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 seems more genuine and less theatrical. 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 able to persuade him that he has been cruel and selfish? His partner gets the most unreserved, unequivocal support from her friends and relatives, her religious community, and from the legal system if she needs it. 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 fully respectful treatment from her partner or ex-partner. He joins a high-quality abuser program and stays for a long time—about two years.