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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

If you're curious, I recommend the book, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It busts a lot of myths and gives a good explanation of what abusers get out of their behavior.

One important myth is, "He can't control himself". E.g., he's not good at managing anger, so he needs classes. But it turns out a lot of abusive people are perfectly good at managing their anger except when the target is, say, a vulnerable woman. A person who is equally shitty to their boss and their coworkers? Mental illness could be an explanation. But one who's terrible only to the intern? That's just an abuser.

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> He can't control himself

I think the thing that would shock many people is that abusers have often adopted methods of harm and subjugation that they internalized and came to consider normal, justified, and correct. They're executing from a place of intent and necessity, not chaos. They witness themselves doing it from a wildly different perspective than those around them would, and they may think the worst thing they do is get "a little heavy handed" or something. They might say that perhaps they got too loud or angry, but whatever they did was close enough to in line with what was necessitated by their target's bad behaviour.

It could range from keeping a partner "in line" with passive aggressive ridicule, physical violence, abject control (denying access to car keys, no going out past 7pm, can't eat x amount of food, etc), to being so relentlessly discouraging and belittling that the partner feels helpless and trapped. No matter what it is they're doing, they whole-heartedly believe it's deserved and they're operating with as much control as anyone typically has.

When we witness their behaviour we see a monster. And yet they're going about their work as though they are the one being inconvenienced by their incompetent/immoral/stupid/whatever partner.

Many of these people would never dream of kicking their dog or something but they've completely normalized verbally and/or physically abusing people they have intimate relationships with. What would leave you absolutely mortified with yourself is simply necessary to these people.

This is often why it's best to end these relationships. Someone who has normalized abuse could change, but there is a very good chance that you shouldn't wait to find out.

Very well put, and I agree. It's usually not a difference of mental health; it's a difference of values.

One of the wild things to me, though, is the doublethink. It's true that if you ask them, they'll often say it was justified. But on the other hand, they generally know to save the worst of it until they can't be observed by outsiders. They're usually quite canny about presenting a non-abusive face to the world. So there's an important sense in which they know what they're doing is wrong.

> This is often why it's best to end these relationships. Someone who has normalized abuse could change, but there is a very good chance that you shouldn't wait to find out.

Adding to this from my own experience.

People tend to need reasons to change, and an abuser has no such reason, as their behavior gets them exactly what they want from their victims and relationships. They could change if they wanted to, but why would they do that when they're already getting what they want?

Plenty of abusers like to paint "real abuse" as the expectations of treating their partners with respect and as equals, they are fundamentally opposed to the behaviors and beliefs needed to maintain healthy relationships. It is nearly impossible to change those deeply held beliefs, let alone address the behaviors that stem from those beliefs.

I agree with your premise, but I'd replace "very good chance" with "utter certainty" that you shouldn't stick around hoping that an abuser is willing to change.

On Bancroft's site, he has a couple of interesting articles about angry men who take issue with his book.

> The most common rant goes something like this: “The way Lundy describes abuse in Why Does He Do That?, any man can be labeled an abuser. He takes normal reactions to frustration and anger and throws them in with violence and threats, as if they’re all the same. If men say anything other than ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to women, he paints them as evil. Because of ideas like Lundy’s, women in droves are labeling their partners ‘abusers’ and dumping the relationship, instead of responsibly working out issues and honoring the vows they made. And because of this children are growing up in broken homes.” (Etc., etc.)

> This tirade is super revealing, primarily for one reason: the dozens of examples of male behavior that I give in Why Does He Do That? are all severe. They illustrate men being over-the-top complete assholes. There is nothing subtle about the stories I use. I’m not discussing little nuances that, say, someone might take the wrong way; that would be a different book altogether. Mine was about severe control, degradation, destroying the woman’s relationships, making her feel like everything is her fault, and on and on and on.

> So what does it mean when a man reads those stories and considers them to be normal behaviors, ones that I’m unfairly labeling abusive? It means he considers those behaviors normal. It means he believes a woman has the responsibility to stick around for more of that kind of treatment, that she owes it to him. And it means he thinks he has the right to behave that way.

> In other words, abusiveness is driven almost entirely by a man’s belief that controlling and punishing a woman is justifiable, and that his behavior is normal and can be excused.

> And he proves it by his reactions to the stories in my books. I’m not calling him abusive because he disagrees with me; I’m doing so because of the values he reveals when he complains that my (very serious) examples are too mild to be considered abuse. [0]

0 - https://lundybancroft.com/mens-angry-messages-to-me/

1 - https://lundybancroft.com/mens-angry-messages-to-me-part-2/

I just wanted to second the reading recommendation. Recently started reading it and wow, it is good.

Thirding it. I have been near several abusive relationships in my life and it really opened my eyes to the power dynamics that were invisible from the outside.

For sure. And it's not just useful to me in a domestic context. I once got a new boss. After my second meeting with him, during which he spent most of it berating me, I thought, "That sounds familiar." So I got out my copy, turned to the chapter on abuser subtypes, and saw that he had already hit most of the checklist for the "Mr Right" abuser type.

It was very helpful to know what I was caught up in; otherwise I could have easily blamed myself or just felt at sea.

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