White Crane Centre
Goju ryu, Kyusho jitsu, Krav Maga, Kobudo.
What is The abuser?
The abuser
You can read about the abuser's reactions and behavior during a separation here
It is not possible to figure out who an abuser is by observing him at work or in social life. The environment is often surprised if they find out what the abuser has done to his partner. He is often a "good guy". He can be successful, intelligent, charismatic, kind, pleasant and helpful to those around him. He can have any type of profession, look any way and belong to any social group. He can be kind to children and be part of a voluntary organization in his spare time. He may even call himself a feminist.
There is a great point for the abuser to appear outwardly spotless, normal and pleasant. If the woman were to tell someone about how he is at home, it is not certain that those around him would believe her immediately, since she has a "top man". The abuser reserves his aggressive, hostile, critical, abusive and condescending side to his partner when they are alone. Something that creates confusion in the woman and makes her perhaps start looking for fault in himself - "he is so nice to others, and everyone thinks he is fantastic, so there must be something wrong with me because he treats me differently".
It is also worth mentioning that the abuser often acquires allies. He hangs out with other men who have the same attitudes about women and who share his values that he has the right to do what he does. He can hang out with men who look up to him and who may not be as successful in things that he feels are important. He can also have relationships with others that are about him helping them with various things and that others are in a voluntary position of dependence on him. The abuser can use his allies to isolate the woman and to break her down. He can get them to take his side, he can lie things about the woman, and so on. For the environment, it can be difficult to see the situation clearly - the abuser appears sympathetic, good and helpful while his partner becomes increasingly quiet, depressed, irritable and "strange" over time.
At the beginning of the relationship, the abuser is charming, courting and kind to the woman. No woman would consciously enter into a relationship with someone who treated her badly already on the first date. Over time, the abuser's controlling, abusive side emerges, and the verbal abuse begins, often insidiously subtle. It is of great importance for all women to be aware of the warning signs, which often appear already during the "honeymoon phase" (see Early Warning Signs). It is possible to recognize an abuser, if you only know what to look for. Therefore, it is of great importance that as many people as possible acquire knowledge about the warning signs, including men. We all have a responsibility to help each other avoid falling into this type of situation.
The abuser is driven by a great need to have power and control. He can control quarrels, discussions and decision-making, he can choose to control the woman's personal freedom or he can control the joint parenting if the couple has children.
There are two types of power: personal power (to decide over oneself and the right to live one's life as one wishes) and power over another. The abuser wants power over someone else, ie the one he says he loves. In the reality of the abuser, one has either power or not. An argument is a war for the abuser. Either you win, or you lose, and he wants to win. He can do anything to win, to be the one in power. That is why he can start using physical violence if he feels that the woman is not giving in. The abuser does not live in a reality where everyone has their own personal power, but in a reality where one always has power over the other, where one is superior and the other inferior. This view can be expressed in his choice of profession (he may have chosen a profession where he has power over other people in different ways), in his personal humor (in the form of "jokes" that are actually insults or contain a condescending attitude), in his way of looking at the world ("successful" and "failed" people, for example), in his anecdotes from his own life (where he often offends others, triumphs over others or puts women in place).
The abuser's behavior is driven by attitudes and values, not emotions. He considers himself to have rights and privileges that his partner does not have. He is driven by the attitude: "You owe me". He considers himself superior to his partner, and he does not respect her. Abuse and respect can never coexist. Nor abuse and love. A relationship that contains abuse in some form is never a love affair, regardless of whether certain periods are free from abuse and calm and "romantic".
The abuser has no problem controlling his own anger and aggression. He would never abuse his boss, his friends, parents or co-workers, no matter how angry he got. He is always able to stop criticizing, insulting or hitting his partner as soon as the doorbell rings. He can raise his partner to the skies at Saturday night's party, only to offend her verbally and physically when they return home from the party. He knows exactly when he is in a position to abuse and when he is not, and he controls his own behavior after that.
The abuser rather has problems with the woman's anger and aggression. He does not manage to get angry at him, stand up to him, speak out against him or show signs of independence, independence and authenticity. An abuser often has a double standard; he may generally think that it is wrong to abuse women, but if his partner should provoke him, he considers himself entitled to "give back" / "put her in place" / "defend herself" and so on.
A right that the abuser takes away from the woman is thus the right to get angry at him when he treats her badly. If she gets angry, he will give back, and he will probably benefit from the fact that she gets upset as a "proof" that she is crazy, sick, crazy or irrational. Should it be needed, he can use this evidence in front of the environment, which strengthens his own spotless image and gives the woman less credibility if she were to tell what is happening in the relationship.
An abuser often turns things upside down. He later distorts what the woman has said and what he himself has done. Some abusers like to play the role of victim. If the woman tries to defend herself against him, he takes it as an attack on him, and makes her pay for it in one way or another.
The abuser's behavior always worsens over time. This is because the woman in his interior is depersonalized and made more of an object than a human being. In this way, the abuse can be aggravated, verbal abuse can increase and possibly turn into physical violence, without the abuser's conscience suffering significantly. He can eventually abuse without even feeling guilty, because the partner before him has become an object more than a human being. Her feelings no longer count for him. Had he recognized her as the person she is, the abuse could not have been carried out in the same way.
The abuse goes in cycles. It starts with an inner tension building up within the abuser. He can secretly collect various "mistakes" he experiences that the woman makes or is, and he can fantasize about abusing her verbally or physically. During this period, the abuser begins to justify to himself the fact that the woman deserves to be abused, due to the mistakes and shortcomings he feels she has. In the end, the inner tension gets its outlet in abuse. After the assault, the abuser may apologize and promise that it will never happen again. He can behave remorsefully and try to make up for his behavior in different ways. He can court the woman, say nice things, clean the house, take care of the children and do everything he knows she appreciates. Thereafter, the inner tension within him begins to increase again, and a new moment of abuse will occur.
After an assault, the abuser can behave completely normally. He may be calm, pleasant and may seem relaxed, as he has released some of his inner tension. By abusing, he gets an advantage over the partner, who thus ends up at a disadvantage. He temporarily feels that he has power and control, and that makes him feel good, because he is actually a person who experiences powerlessness and lack of control. While the abuser is calm again, the woman feels very bad at the same time. She may be upset, angry, sad, scared and feel powerlessness, anger and lack of control. She may experience it as if "the carpet has been ripped off under her feet", as if she has been upset out of balance. She may experience confusion about what has just happened. She can question herself, her person and her observations and blame herself for the abuse. In the face of the environment, the abuser may seem normal and pleasant, while the woman may give the impression of being quiet, unbalanced and antisocial. The environment does not understand what is really going on, and the abuser may appear to be the "nice" of the two.
The abuser creates confusion about what he is doing by never acknowledging what he is doing. He can lie and say that the assault never occurred. He manipulates the victim to put the blame on himself for the assault. He can change his mood so that the partner never knows where she has him or what will happen; the abuser is always erratic.
The abuser is aware of his abusive behavior. What he is doing is not a random or uncontrolled behavior. He knows what he's doing. But the underlying thinking that drives his behavior is not conscious. The abuser is a person who has a need to have power and to control. This is because he does not feel in himself power and control. He must therefore exercise it over his partner, to feel powerful and to feel that he is in control. An abuser rarely wants to give up his behavior, because it gives him gains and benefits. Many abusers are not prone to change. The abusers who go into therapy sometimes learn tricks in the therapy which they then use in a continued verbal abuse of their partner. It is not worth hoping that you as a partner will be able to change the abuser. If he wants to change, that decision can only come from himself.
Lundy Bancroft is a man in the United States who has worked with group therapy for abusers for over fifteen years. I sin bok "Why does he do that?" Bancroft writes about different types of abusers. There are abusers who are dominant and give orders, and there are abusers who growl and shout and get outbursts of rage. At the same time, there are abusers who never raise their voices against their partner, but who break her down through crazymaking (see Forms of verbal abuse) and an icy and constant criticism. There are abusers who are "macho" and want to be served at home, but there are also abusers who are all the more equal, soft and weak in the way. These men can control their partner by breaking her down mentally in a form of constant analysis of her; they go into the partner's head and tell her what she is thinking and feeling and what her motives are for her behavior. Some abusers like to play on guilt and assume a victim role - they can accuse their partner of doing to them what they are actually doing. A group of abusers can be of the teaching type; they must constantly teach their partner the most trivial things and they always see themselves as right in all situations, while they see their partner as less intelligent. There are also abusers who are controlling and jealous and persecute their partner daily, or abusers who are constantly unfaithful to their partner and have several women at the same time. There are addicts who drink or take drugs, but also many addicts who do not have any kind of addiction problem at all. Often, an abuser can be a mix of some of these behaviors.
It is also important to remember that an abuser does not have to live up to the image of a controlling, jealous and dominant person to be an abuser. And an abuser never needs to have raised his hand against his partner to abuse her. He can abuse her verbally and emotionally, which has the same destructive effect as physical violence.
