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

by Lundy Bancroft

An angry and controlling man can be like a vacuum cleaner that sucks up a woman’s mind and life, but there are ways to get your life back.

He’ll get friends and relatives to feel sorry for him and pressure her to give him another chance. He’ll get severely depressed, causing her to worry whether he’ll be all right.

By focusing on what his mother did wrong, he gets to blame a woman for his mistreatment of women.

In the most common version of this story, the man recounts how his ex-partner broke his heart by cheating on him, perhaps with several different men.

you may observe that your partner follows a pattern where he becomes increasingly withdrawn, says less and less, seems to be bubbling gradually from a simmer to a boil, and then erupts in a geyser of yelling, put-downs, and ugliness.

He’ll just start grabbing whatever is around and throwing it. He heaves stuff everywhere, against the walls, on the floor—it’s just a mess. And he smashes stuff, important things sometimes. Then it’s like the storm just passes; he calms down; and he leaves for a while. Later he seems kind of ashamed of himself.”

The moment police pull up in front of the house, for example, he usually calms down immediately, and when the officers enter, he speaks to them in a friendly and reasonable tone.

Is it a form of explosiveness when your partner pressures you into dropping your friendships and spending less time with your siblings?

Abusers don’t like to be medicated because they tend to be too selfish to put up with the side effects,

I find that my clients’ view that their partners should cater to their needs and are not worthy of being taken seriously does indeed carry over into how they view other females, including their own daughters.

some don’t show any obvious signs of problems with women at all until they are in a serious relationship.

An abused woman tends to pour precious energy into supporting her abusive partner and massaging his ego, hoping against hope that if he is kept well stroked his next explosion might be averted.

He pursued her avidly, seemed to like everything about her, and couldn’t get enough.

This pattern is common in abusive relationships; 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?

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.

When he does start to tear her down or frighten her later, he will blame it on her, probably thinking of her as a “bitch” for not allowing him to lie and manipulate his way through life. And he doesn’t consider manipulation abusive.

He has to adhere tightly to his excuses and rationalizations, develop a disturbing ability to insulate himself from the pain he is causing, and learn to enjoy power and control over his female partners.

He speaks disrespectfully about his former partners.

Be alert if he says that his previous wife or girlfriend falsely accused him of being abusive; the great majority of reports of abuse are accurate.

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.

Alan succeeded in getting Tory to feel sorry for him, thereby driving a wedge between her and her family that endured for years until she saw through Alan’s manipulation.

Control usually begins in subtle ways, far from anything you would call abuse.

is a little negative about your family

begins to act bothered that you don’t share all of his opinions about politics, personal relationships, music, or other tastes.

keeping track of what you are doing all the time or insist on spending every evening with you.

But if he indicates that he expects you to give up your freedom to accommodate his jealousy, control is creeping up.

Your social life shouldn’t have to change because of his insecurities.

After a while, you will feel suffocated by his constant vigilance.

Nothing is ever his fault.

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 or behaving irresponsibly, and perhaps taking serious economic advantage of you in the process.

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

It also is a sign of seeing women as sex objects rather than human beings. If he says you need to have sex with him to prove that you truly love and care for him,

He gets too close to you when he’s angry, puts a finger in your face, pokes you, pushes you, blocks your way, or restrains you.

He tells you that he is “just trying to make you listen.”

He raises a fist, towers over you, shouts you down, or behaves in any other way that makes...

He makes vaguely threatening comments, such as, “You don’t want to see me mad” or “You don’t kn...

He drives recklessly or speeds up when he’s angry. He punches walls or kicks doors. He throws things arou...

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 treats you differently around other people.

I have had quite a number of clients over the years who are attracted to women who are vulnerable because of recent traumatic experiences in their lives, including many who have started relationships by helping a woman break away from an abusive partner and then start to control or abuse her themselves.

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.

Finally, be aware that as an abuser begins his slide into abuse, he believes that you are the one who is changing.

Thus the defining point of abuse is when the man starts to exercise power over the woman in a way that causes harm to her and creates a privileged status for him.

And some men ridicule the woman when she complains of mistreatment, openly laughing at her or mimicking her.

He tells you that your objections to his mistreatment are your own problem.

When a woman attempts to set limits on controlling or insensitive behavior, an abuser wants her to doubt her perceptions, so he says things such as:

“You’re too sensitive; every little thing bothers you. It shouldn’t be any big deal.” “Not everyone is all nicey-nice when they’re angry like you want them to be.” “Don’t start talking to me like I’m abusive just because your ex-boyfriend (...

(He also considers it his prerogative to insist that she accept his version of reality, no matter how much it collides with everything she sees and hears; in this sense, he apparently sees her mind as part of what he has the right to control.)

he becomes upset and accusatory when his partner exhibits the predictable effects of chronic mistreatment, and then he adds insult to injury by ridiculing her for feeling hurt by him.