Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men (16 page)

“T
HE
G
ARDEN OF
E
DEN”
—that’s what I call the beginning of a relationship with an abuser. For the first few weeks or months, or longer, the woman is walking on air. Remember Kristen and Maury, whom we met in Chapter 1? Maury was dazzling—entertaining, interesting, energetic—and Kristen was smitten. One of the things she liked most about him was how crazy he was about
her.
He pursued her avidly, seemed to like everything about her, and couldn’t get enough. She felt as though she had stepped into a top-40 love song, the kind where “Everything Is Perfect Now That I’ve Met You.” 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.

Not every abusive man falls head over heels so quickly the way Maury did. Fran, whom we also got to know in Chapter 1, was quiet and withdrawn early on, and Barbara was the pursuer. She was drawn powerfully to him because of his sweetness and sensitivity and for the challenge of drawing him out. What a triumph it was when she finally got him to open up and then won him over! Sadness and mistrust were gnawing at his heart, she could see that, but she saw herself healing him, like a tender nurse. She was excited by her confident belief that she could bring out the person he was capable of being.

The idyllic opening is part of almost every abusive relationship. How else would an abuser ever have a partner? Women aren’t stupid. If you go out to a restaurant on a giddy first date and over dessert the man calls you a “selfish bitch” and sends your water glass flying across the room, you don’t say: “Hey, are you free again next weekend?” There has to be a hook. Very few women hate themselves so thoroughly that they will get involved with a man who is rotten from the very start—although they may feel terrible about themselves
later,
once the abuser has had time to destroy their self-image step by step.

T
HE
P
OWER OF
T
HOSE
W
ONDERFUL
E
ARLY
M
ONTHS

The partners of my clients have described to me the many ways in which the glowing beginning of a relationship with an abusive man can serve to entrap a woman, including:

• Like any love-struck person, she runs around telling her friends and family what a terrific guy he is. After talking him up so much, she feels embarrassed to reveal his mistreatment when it begins, so she keeps it to herself for a long time.
  
• She assumes that his abusiveness comes from something that has gone wrong inside of him—what else is she to conclude, given how wonderful he was at first?—so she pours herself into figuring out what happened.
  
• She has a hard time letting go of her own dream, since she thought she had found a wonderful man.
  
• She can’t help wondering if she did something wrong or has some great personal deficit that knocked down their castle in the sky, so she tries to find the key to the problem inside of herself.
  

One of the questions about abuse that I am asked most frequently is: When an abusive man is being charming at the beginning of a relationship, is he already thinking ahead to abusing the woman? Does he have it all planned out? Is he deliberately hooking her emotionally so he can be cruel to her later? The answer is usually no. The abuser doesn’t picture himself yelling, degrading her, or hurling objects at her. As he falls in love, he dreams of a happy future of conjugal bliss, just as the woman does.

So, if he isn’t laying plans to hurt her, what
is
going on in his mind? First, he is gazing longingly at the image he holds of the future, where the woman meets all of his needs, is beautiful and sexy at all times of the day and night, has no needs of her own, and is in awe of his brilliance and charm. He desires a woman who will cater to him and never complain about anything he does or darken his day with frustrations or unhappiness about her own life.

The abusive man doesn’t expose these self-focused fantasies to his new partner. In fact, he is largely unaware of them himself. So she has no way of knowing that he is looking more for a personal caretaker than for a partner. In fact, abusers tend to use the language of mutuality during the dating period:

He may truly believe his own promises, because he wants to see himself as a generous and thoughtful partner, one who does not use or disrespect women. Later, when he begins to control the woman and take advantage of her, he will find ways to convince himself that it’s not happening or that it is her fault. 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.

On the other hand, a certain number of my clients are consciously manipulative from the outset. A man of this style smiles knowingly at me, assuming that every man uses the same ploys, and says, “Of course you have to charm the ladies and listen to them blabber on and on, they like that. You talk the nice talk a little, you take them dancing. You know how it is.” But even this man is generally not calculating to abuse the woman later. He creates the kind of relationship he wants through charm and dishonesty and expects to continue in that mode for good. Manipulation feels clean and satisfying to this style of abuser, while degrading language and physical intimidation do not. 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.

A
N
A
BUSER
I
S
N
EITHER A
M
ONSTER
N
OR A
V
ICTIM

We arrive now at two of the most important concepts regarding abusive men. First:

A
N ABUSER IS A HUMAN BEING, NOT AN EVIL MONSTER, BUT HE HAS A PROFOUNDLY COMPLEX AND DESTRUCTIVE PROBLEM THAT SHOULD NOT BE UNDERESTIMATED.

The common view of abusive men as evil, calculating brutes can make it difficult for a woman to recognize her partner’s problem. She tends to think:
My partner really cares about me and has a good side to him. He has feelings; he’s not a sadist. He couldn’t be an abuser.
She doesn’t realize that he can have all these positive qualities and still have an abuse problem.

At the other end of the spectrum we find an equally common—and equally misleading—view of abusers: the abuser as a man whose gentle humanity is just barely hidden under his abusive surface and who can be transformed by love, compassion, and insight. One morning he will wake up to realize how hurtful he has been and will renounce his cruelty, particularly if he has the love of a good woman. This outlook is portrayed and supported in popular songs, movies, romantic novels, and soap operas. The painful reality is that bringing about change in abusers is difficult. An abusive man has to bury his compassion in a deep hole in order to escape the profound inherent aversion that human beings have to seeing others suffer. 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. It is unrealistic to expect such a complex structure, one that takes fifteen or twenty years to form, to vanish like steam. Yet women are often pressured by friends, family, or professionals to “give him a chance to change” and “have a little faith in people.”

The second critical understanding is:

A
N ABUSER’S BEHAVIOR IS PRIMARILY CONSCIOUS—HE ACTS DELIBERATELY RATHER THAN BY ACCIDENT OR BY LOSING CONTROL OF HIMSELF—BUT THE UNDERLYING THINKING THAT DRIVES HIS BEHAVIOR IS LARGELY NOT CONSCIOUS.

An abuser learns manipulative and controlling behavior from several sources, including key male role models, peers, and pervasive cultural messages (see Chapter 13). By the time he reaches adulthood, he has integrated manipulative behavior to such a deep level that he acts largely on automatic. He knows what he is doing but not necessarily why. Consider the following call I received from Kelsea, the partner of a client:

Where was Lance’s stream of put-downs coming from? Was he really concerned that Kelsea was letting herself down? No. A man doesn’t tear down his partner’s self-esteem out of a desire to help her. The real issue concerned what Lance wanted for himself: He wanted Kelsea to keep him company for the weekend because he didn’t feel like going skiing alone. He resented her choice to make her friendships central in her life—a common theme with abusive men—and believed that it was her duty to be by his side and focus on him. He was hammering her with whatever put-downs he could think of in order to bully her into going (and was having some success in getting her to doubt herself). When some members of his abuser group challenged him about his behaviors at his next session, his real motives and attitudes became apparent; much of my work as a counselor involves helping abusive men to become conscious of, and face up to, their real reasons for choosing to behave as they do.

E
ARLY
W
ARNING
S
IGNS

When women hear how charming abusers can be—or when they experience it directly—they feel at a loss. They ask, “Does this mean there is no way to avoid an abusive relationship? How can I tell whether I should worry about my new partner?” Fortunately, most abusers put out warning signals before their abuse goes into full gear. The signs to watch for should be part of every girl’s education before she starts dating.

The following warning flags mean that abuse could be down the road, and perhaps not far:

•
He speaks disrespectfully about his former partners.

A certain amount of anger and resentment toward an ex-partner is normal, but beware of the man who is very focused on his bitterness or who tells you about it inappropriately early on in your dating. Be especially cautious of the man who talks about women from his past in degrading or condescending ways or who characterizes himself as a victim of abuse by women. 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. When you hear that another woman considers him abusive,
always
find a way to get her side of the story. Even if you end up not believing her, you will at least know the behaviors to watch out for in him, just in case. Be cautious also of the man who admits to abusing a former partner but claims that the circumstances were exceptional, blames it on her, or blames it on alcohol or immaturity.

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. You will be tempted to work doubly hard to prove that you aren’t like those other women, and one foot will already be in the trap. It won’t be long before he is telling you that you are “just like the rest of them.” His perceptual system ensures that no woman can be a good woman while she is involved with him.

A few men have the opposite approach, which is to glorify and elevate their former partners so that you feel like you can never quite compete. If he starts to lament the fact that you aren’t as sexy, athletic, domestic, or successful as the women who went before you, I can assure you that you won’t measure up any better later, no matter how hard you try. He wants to feel one up on you so that he can have the upper hand.

Notice whether he seems to accept any responsibility for what went wrong in his previous relationships. If everything was always the women’s fault, you will soon be to blame for all difficulties in this new relationship.

•
He is disrespectful toward you.

Disrespect is the soil in which abuse grows. If a man puts you down or sneers at your opinions, if he is rude to you in front of other people, if he is cutting or sarcastic, he is communicating a lack of respect. If these kinds of behaviors are a recurring problem, or if he defends them when you complain about how they affect you, control and abuse are likely to be in the offing. Disrespect also can take the form of idealizing you and putting you on a pedestal as a perfect woman or goddess, perhaps treating you like a piece of fine china. The man who worships you in this way is not seeing
you
; he is seeing his fantasy, and when you fail to live up to that image he may turn nasty. So there may not be much difference between the man who talks down to you and the one who elevates you; both are displaying a failure to respect you as a real human being and bode ill.