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

“Abusive men are masters of excuse making. In this respect they are like substance abusers, who believe that everyone and everything except them is responsible for their actions.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“abuse is the opposite of love. The more a man abuses you, the more he is demonstrating that he cares only about himself. He may feel a powerful desire to receive your love and caretaking, but he only wants to give love when it’s convenient.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Why does Wendell think that Aysha is the one who has been doing all the yelling and complaining? Because in his mind she’s supposed to be listening, not talking. If she expresses herself at all, that’s too much.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“you cannot make things better by changing your own behavior or by attempting to manage your partner better. Abuse is a problem that lies entirely within the abuser.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“One of the biggest mistakes made by people who wish to help an abused woman is to measure success by whether or not she leaves her abusive partner. If the woman feels unable or unready to end her relationship, or if she does separate for a period but then goes back to him, people who have attempted to help tend to feel that their effort failed and often channel this frustration into blaming the abused woman. A better measure of success for the person helping is how well you have respected the woman’s right to run her own life—which the abusive man does not do—and how well you have helped her to think of strategies to increase her safety. If you stay focused on these goals you will feel less frustrated as a helper and will be a more valuable resource for the woman.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Oppressive systems stay in existence because the people in power enjoy the luxury of their position and become unwilling to give up the privileges they win through taking advantage of other people and keeping them down. In short, the abusive mentality is the mentality of oppression.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Abusiveness can be thought of as a recipe that involves a consistent set of ingredients: control, entitlement, disrespect, excuses, and justifications (including victim blaming)—elements that are always present, often accompanied by physical intimidation or violence.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“A home where a woman is abused is a small-scale model of much larger oppressive systems that work in remarkably similar ways. Many of the excuses an abusive man uses for verbally tearing his partner to shreds are the same ones that a power-mad boss uses for humiliating his or her employees. The abusive man’s ability to convince himself that his domination of you is for your own good is paralleled by the dictator who says, “People in this country are too primitive for democracy.” The divide-and-conquer strategies used by abusers are reminiscent of a corporate head who tries to break the labor union by giving certain groups of workers favored treatment. The making of an abuser is thus not necessarily restricted to the specific values his society teaches him about men’s relationships with women; without realizing it he may also apply attitudes and tactics from other forms of oppression that he has been exposed to as a boy or as a young adult and that he has learned to justify or even admire.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Children do best when parents are neither overly strict nor overly permissive, providing firm structure but also allowing for dialogue, respectful conflict, and compromise.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“When [an abusive man] tells me that he became abusive because he lost control of himself, I ask him why he didn’t do something even worse. For example, I might say, “You called her a fucking whore, you grabbed the phone out of her hand and whipped it across the room, and then you gave her a shove and she fell down. There she was at your feet where it would have been easy to kick her in the head. Now, you have just finished telling me that you were ‘totally out of control’ at that time, but you didn’t kick her. What stopped you?” And the client can always give me a reason. Here are some common explanations:

“I wouldn’t want to cause her a serious injury.”
“I realized one of the children was watching.”
“I was afraid someone would call the police.”
“I could kill her if I did that.”
“The fight was getting loud, and I was afraid the neighbors would hear.”

And the most frequent response of all:

“Jesus, I wouldn’t do that. I would never do something like that to her.”

The response that I almost never heard – I remember hearing it twice in the fifteen years – was: “I don’t know.”

These ready answers strip the cover off of my clients’ loss of control excuse.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“I have sometimes said to a client: “If you are so in touch with your feelings from your abusive childhood, then you should know what abuse feels like. You should be able to remember how miserable it was to be cut down to nothing, to be put in fear, to be told that the abuse is your own fault. You should be less likely to abuse a woman, not more so, from having been through it.” Once I make this point, he generally stops mentioning his terrible childhood; he only wants to draw attention to it if it’s an excuse to stay the same, not if it’s a reason to change.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“And you are not “enabling” your partner to mistreat you; he is entirely responsible for his own actions.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“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.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“If you are aware of chronic or severe mistreatment and do not speak out against it, your silence communicates implicitly that you see nothing unacceptable taking place.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Abusiveness is not a product of a man’s emotional injuries or of deficits in his skills. In reality, abuse springs from a man’s early cultural training, his key male role models, and his peer influences.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Each human being deals with hurt or resentment in a unique way. When you feel insulted or bullied, you may reach for a chocolate bar. In the same circumstance, I might burst into tears. Another person may put his or her feelings quickly into words, confronting the mistreatment directly. Although our feelings can influence how we wish to act, our choices of how to behave are ultimately determined more by our attitudes and our habits. We respond to our emotional wounds based on what we believe about ourselves, how we think about the person who has hurt us, and how we perceive the world. Only in people who are severely traumatized or who have major mental illnesses is behavior governed by feelings. And only a tiny percentage of abusive men have these kinds of severe psychological problems.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“When we hear these kinds of excuses from a drunk, we assume they are exactly that—excuses. We don’t consider an active alcoholic a reliable source of insight. So why should we let an angry and controlling man be the authority on partner abuse?”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Alcohol cannot create an abuser, and sobriety cannot cure one. The only way a man can overcome his abusiveness is by dealing with his abusiveness. And you are not “enabling” your partner to mistreat you; he is entirely responsible for his own actions.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Some people feel threatened by the concept that abuse is a solvable problem, because if it is, there’s no excuse for not solving it.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Abuse is not caused by bad relationship dynamics.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“-He drives recklessly or speeds up when he’s angry.
-He punches walls or kicks doors.
-He throws things around, even if they don’t hit you.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“In reality, to remain neutral is to collude with the abusive man, whether or not that is your goal. If you are aware of chronic or severe mistreatment and do not speak out against it, your silence communicates implicitly that you see nothing unacceptable taking place.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“He often has difficulty conceiving of her as a human being. This tendency in abusers is known as objectification or depersonalization.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“The abusive man has another reason to exaggerate and ridicule his partner’s statements (and mine): He wants to avoid having to think seriously about what she is saying and struggle to digest it.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Our society should not buy into the abusive man's claim that holding him accountable is an act of cruelty.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“He knows he used to be able to control you with charm, affection and promises. He also remembers how well intimidation or aggression worked at other times. Now both of these tools are losing their effectiveness, so he tries to increase the voltages. He may switch erratically back and forth between the two like a doctor who cycles a patient through a range of antibiotics, trying to find the one that will get the infection under control. And the analogy is an apt one, because an abuser sees his (ex-) partner's growing strength and independence as a sickness rather than as the harbinger of health that it actually is.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Although our feelings can influence how we wish to act, our choices of how to behave are ultimately determined more by our attitudes and our habits. We respond to our emotional wounds based on what we believe about ourselves, how we think about the person who has hurt us, and how we perceive the world. Only in people who are severely traumatized or who have major mental illnesses is behavior governed by feelings. And only a tiny percentage of abusive men have these kinds of severe psychological problems. There”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“You do not respect someone whom you abuse, and you do not abuse someone whom you respect.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“Genuine love means respecting the humanity of the other person, wanting what is best for him or her, and supporting the other person’s self-esteem and independence. This kind of love is incompatible with abuse and coercion.”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

“When an abusive man feels the powerful stirring inside that other people call love, he is probably largely feeling: The desire to have you devote your life to keeping him happy with no outside interference The desire to have sexual access The desire to impress others by having you be his partner The desire to possess and control you”
― Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men